Kingdom Hearts
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Kingdom Hearts is the story of Sora, a 14 year-old boy whose world is shattered when a violent storm hits his island-paradise home, and is seperated from his two closest friends, Riku, a 15 year-old boy, and Kairi, a 14 year-old girl. The storm scatters the three to different and unknown worlds. At the same time, there's turmoil in Disney Castle. King Mickey is missing, and Court Wizard Donald and Captain Goofy set out to find him. On their travels they meet Sora, on his own search for his lost friends. The three are told of ominous creatures known as the Heartless - beings without hearts derived from an unknown dimension and, as it turns out, the ones responsible for the devastating storm. The Disney villians, enticed by the power of darkness, manipulate the Heartless to help them gather the princesses of heart, who are needed to open a mysterious final door. Upon discovering the link between the Heartless, the storm and the disappearance of King Mickey, Sora, Donald, and Goofy join forces and help familiar Disney heroes to save their worlds from the Heartless. |
FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions in the game. Screenshots - Featuring in game screenshots. Wallpapers - The fans who love Kingdom Hearts submitted lots of nice wallpapers. Forum - Discussion for Kingdom Hearts. Ask questions or talk about the game with other fans there. |
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When I heard the announcement of a game resulting from the collaboration between Square and Disney, I nearly fell of my chair. I was bewildered, uninterested and turned off like no one. However, once I downloaded the trailer, my opinion of the upcoming masterpiece changed greatly. The trailer presented some awesome music, impressive graphics and a high level of style. But could the game also offer charming characters, entertaining battles and most of all, an intriguing plot? When I popped the disc into my PS2, I already had my answer. While everything seems peaceful and joyful on Destiny Island, home of the protagonist Sora and his two best friends, Kairi and Riku, something of unimaginable power lurks beyond the secret door hidden within a cave. On a stormy night, Sora wakes up in a daze as darkness itself has engulfed his island. Battling in vain with the overwhelming power restraining him, Sora is cast away into a different world, leaving Kairi and Riku behind. Meanwhile, castle knight Goofy and court wizard Donald set off on a journey of their own to retrieve king Mickey and the wielder of the Keyblade, the only possible hope of survival against the ever growing force known as the Heartless. What will happen to Sora from that point on is a voyage across many different worlds, rescuing the hearts of others, and finding the meaning and purpose of his own. Accompanied by two computer controlled and highly skilled companions, Goofy and Donald, Sora will face the Heartless with all his might, using physical attacks, magic spells in hundreds of fast paced and completely opened battles. As soon as enemies appear, the command menu turns red, and your key must start swinging. Pressing R1 locks-on the camera and Sora into a single enemy which will soon face a flurry of devastating key combos. By tapping triangle once an enemy has been locked on you can command both of your buddies to also concentrate their attacks on that particular enemy. If not, they will just attack whatever is in sight. You use L2 and R2 to rotate the camera or to switch between targets. Eight magic spells and several special skills will become part of your arsenal in time, as well as a few items which you have previously equipped. The L1 button prompts a quick spell menu to which you can assign three spells, a must for boss battles where a quick Cura or Aerora spell can save your hide. To cycle between the Attack, Magic, Item and Special Moves command you must use either the D-pad or the right analog stick. Using the analog stick is much more appropriate during battles as you can move away from danger more easily while you get to that Hi-Potion. Free-flowing and highly challenging battles steal the show. Your two companions will act independently, although you may assign items to them as you see fit and customize their personality to better suit the style of combat you prefer. Their innate personality seems to be much more offensive than defensive though, and they will take quite a bit of punishment during boss fights and the later encounters as their sense of evading and counterattacking isn't the keenest of all. Characters can equip one weapon and several accessories along with a variety of passive and active abilities. Each character has a set amount of AP (ability point) which you use to equip the various abilities they have learned. Those abilities range from special attacks, to MP restoring skills, to the more useful dodge and guard abilities for Sora. You may also summon various Disney characters who have their distinct attack or support abilities. Summoning requires MP and casts your two other pals away until the summon's MP gauge runs out. WBattles are often no more than a button mashing contest, although later on the ability to successfully analyze an enemy's attack pattern combined with well-timed evades and guards will be your only chance of salvation. You'll also need to use your head during boss battles which are very entertaining, much diversified, but also astonishingly challenging. At the beginning of the game, you are given the option between playing on normal or expert difficulty. I brushed my arrogance aside and opted for the normal setting, and I had more than my share of cold sweats. I hadn't died that many times in a very long while. Gameplay-wise, Kingdom is above anything you could expect, mixing action, strategy and fun into a nearly flawless formula Moving the cursor along that command menu may prove to be a bit frustrating at times, especially in those tough boss fights when you absolutely need a lift. The lock-on ability is very easy to use, though somewhat clunky at times. For instance, the lock-on message which appears at the top right corner when a target is selected isn't always easy to see. Also, instead of automatically selecting another target once you kill one off, the lock-on option turns itself off completely, forcing you to press L1 again. Overall though, everything from shopping, to jumping from vine to vine, to navigating your Gummi ship is done with commendable ease. To travel to the many worlds, your crew will have to make use of their "Gummi" ship, a space vessel made out of "Gummi" blocks. You can customize your vessels by adding more defensive protection, more destructive lasers or broader wings. You acquire blueprints of other ships from the many characters in Traverse Town, and parts can be obtained either in treasure chests, during interstellar trips or in Cid Highwind's shop. The trips you'll have to make do not pose much of a threat however, and most blueprints are either too big or to exhaustive in "Gummi" blocks to build. That aspect could have been more polished, though there may be side-quests which I'm unaware of that might require a stronger vessel. Have you ever tried battling Cloud with a key? Yoko Shimomura, the acclaimed composer of soundtracks such as Super Mario RPG and Legend of Mana, accepted the difficult task which Kingdom Hearts presented. Mixing both new tracks with classic Disney compositions surely was not an easy feat, but Shimomura-san accomplished that task superbly, blending familiar songs with her own style into a whimsical ensemble of tracks. From the opening dance remix of the excellent song "Hikari" (Simple and Clean in English), to the soothing Traverse Town theme, from the eerie Halloween Town composition to the quirky and cheerful Little Mermaid music, everything is catchy, pleasing, and overall excellent. The vocal song was much more meaningful and catchy in Japanese however, since the English lyrics were chosen mostly to follow the music's flow. That is why you get more moaning and more "baby" as filler, but the song is still far superior to "Melodies of Life" from FFIX or the dreadful "Eyes on Me" from FFVIII. Overall, it's a delight to listen to, and standing still simply to hear a track once again will be a common occurrence. |
