It's not anywhere near Final Fantasy, but Kingdom Hearts is an endless pit of originality and decent fun.
The Good: Deep Combat; Great Story; Nice Graphics and Sound...
The Bad: It doesn’t live up to Final Fantasy; Some worlds aren’t very fun; The Gummi Ship...
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Main Idea: Mix Final Fantasy and Disney into an action packed adventure
Visuals: It’s much more ‘cartoony’ than FF10, but the quality is even.
Music & Sound: The voices are top notch, and nearly every tune is memorable.
Gameplay: The fighting can get very frustrating and difficult, but that doesn’t make it bad.
Satisfaction: Very fun, but the potential remains somewhat untapped.
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Kingdom Hearts follows the story of Sora, a boy who wants to leave his home in search of new lands. He spends his days on Destiny Island with his friends Riku and Kairi; whom share his dream to broaden their horizons. And so they do, as an evil force arrives and sends Sora to Traverse Town where he finds himself chosen by the legendary Keyblade, joined by Donald and Goofy, and in a battle against evil disney characters, corruption, and his own feelings. Kingdom Hearts controls like an RPG/Fighting game, with a dash of Platforming sprinkled into the gameplay. Sora will Earn EXP. as he defeats enemies called ‘Heartless,’ thus leading to a huge selection of skills and melee moves to perfect his performance in battle. While some battles are a breeze, others are so difficult and frustrating that you’ll want to crush your controller with a hammer. The button mashing room before the final confrontation is particularly notorious for this. The Platforming aspect would have been better off being omitted from this game. I found several tasks extremely awkward, and nothing was more frustrating than falling down to a lower area after climbing so high in certain levels. Speaking of the levels, a lot of them are very fun, but others can get boring very quickly. I was not a huge fan of Monstro, or the beyond arbitrary Alice in Wonderland Level.
The Gummi Ship is another thing that I hated with a passion. The customization is cool, but the mandatory flights between each level were beyond boring. I’ve never thought that shooting in a space ship could be so bad. It’s slow, there’s very few enemies, and I always found myself targeting blocks out of groundless hope that I could come across a tough enemy or fun, for that matter. The fighting is cool, but I couldn’t help but miss the old FF formula while I played this game. There was nothing particularly compelling about the new system that warranted a change. The FF series is STILL doing turn based combat, hello!
The visuals are cartoony, but they are just as clean as in FF10. I loved the character models and every nook and cranny of the game was brimming with life. Sure, the Gummi Ship areas were nasty, but those segments deserve ZERO recognition. The sound quality is second to none and the voices employed some of the finest actors around. I have to admit; hearing Kairi’s voice makes it much easier to ‘feel’ her relation towards Sora. Riku’s voice always reflected the ambitions and emotions in his troubled heart. Donald and Goofy need voices to portray their Disney Heritage. I was once a fan of no voices so I could name my characters, but those days ended when I played Grandia 2, and I accepted voices as a necessity when I played this game.
There’s a lot of good things to be had in this 20-25 hour long main quest, but it’s eternal connection to Final Fantasy holds it back from being perfect. The platforming, Gummi Ship, and a somewhat inferior story prevent KH from being what it deserves to be - A true classic.