For the first 11 months of 2024, the only video game I had bought and played was Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which was quite possibly the most disappointing game I've ever played in my life (and my expectations!!! They were so tempered!!!!)

I say this as a preface because after 6 months of stewing in betrayal I saw KH 1.5 in a bargain bin for $5 and decided it was a good idea to give Nomura the keys to my heart once again.

There is a lot of complaining on this page. I swear I do actually like Kingdom Hearts.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

I enjoyed it though! Kind of like having Kingdom Hearts directly injected into my veins.

Roxas was my favorite growing up; I'd always been intensely interested in this game. It was nice to see his friendship with Axel fleshed out.

My favorite part of their exchanges was the way Axel repeatedly gaslights Roxas about having feelings. It just completely recontextualizes Roxas's "no one would miss me" line from KH2. Like, "We don't have feelings. You don't have feelings. You said so yourself, right? You can't miss me." There's an obvious intent there. It feels laser-targetted to cause harm.

Budddddyyyyyyy

I normally dislike that KH games force English dubs without other options, but I really liked Xion's voice actor. She always sounds like she's on the cusp of tears, even when she's happy. It's good.

I enjoyed Xion's character more than I was expecting. I fricking loved the way her appearance changes depending on how the other people in the conversation view her. The way she and Roxas collected seashells for each other when they were both respectively in comas was really sweet. But also why is KH only good at writing girls when they're tragic Kairi-faces doomed by the narrative.

I understand that Roxas was never gonna get to be a Bad Boy in a Disney game where he's the playable character, but he goes from the human equivalent of a marshmallow, to edgelord pretty rapidly about 95% through the story and it was jarring. I would have liked something more gradual.

Actually the end part of the game's insistence on lining up perfectly with the beginning of KH2 is probably its biggest weakness for me. I was a little sad about how Xion feels more committed to railroading the plot than supporting her friend's freedom and agency. This isn't even a critique of her character!!! The issue is that it doesn't feel in-character!!! In an ideal world I would have loved if Xion gave in to becoming a part of Sora again, but then saw Roxas struggling and went, "YEAH!!! GO FOR IT!!! SCREW THE GREATER GOOD!"

I had this song on repeat for nearly a month straight (I'm now probably going to have it on repeat for the next month now that I've listened to it again).

I even drew some fanart!!! And finished it!!!!

One final thing I almost forgot to mention was I hated Axel/Roxas as a kid and going into this I was like, "...I wonder if I'll be able to see shippers' points of view now." But I came out of this crafting Axel/Saix essays in my head instead.

Kingdom Hearts Re:CoM

This game is an oddity to me. It gets rid of CoM's biggest charms (the colorful pixel art), while keeping its most contentious feature (the card battle system). And the card battling...it is so much harder in a 3D space. I have a distinct memory as a kid of over-relying on 0 cards and I actually ended up doubling down on this strategy for Re:Com lmao.....CAN'T PAY ME TO MEMORIZE SLEIGHTS....I WILL CANCEL OUT EVERYONE'S ATTACKS INSTEAD....WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS ISN'T A VIABLE STRATEGY IN RIKU'S ROUTE....OH NOooo.....

It was (usually) charming getting to see more body language from characters. I really liked Axel in this (of course I did). The voice acting made me realize I've been pronouncing Marluxia's name wrong for literally fucking 20 years oops...oops..............

I will say though that the scene after Repliku breaks where Donald & Goofy are ribbing on Sora and all of them start laughing meanwhile Repliku is sitting IN FRAME in the background like THIS was SUCH A CHOICE?????

I'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND; WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA

I made it through Sora's route and enjoyed it well enough. Riku's route....feels a lot different with voice acting. I guess without it, I can imagine these conversations about Riku's inner darkness being a lot more nuanced. But with the voicing it's very, ergh... corny is not the right word? I don't know how else to put it though. I think hearing Mickey Fucking Mouse outloud probably didn't help.

My main issues with his route are actually #1) how narratively barren it is, and #2) how meatheaded his battle systems are.

Like, for #1, I get it. This is a little extra route. I should be happy it is there at all. It is just a little bit sad how lacking in introspection Riku is as he climbs the castle and visits places. I'm not wishing for hours of extra content. Would have just been nice to have him go, "oh...this is where I found out Sora had new friends and got Really Insecure," every once in a while. Oh well.

The battle system though I am genuinely a little bit cheesed over. I think it was easier in CoM. The fact that I can't even organize his deck!!!! The fact that the darkness mode DEMANDS split second reflexes (I completely gave up on doing it!) I was playing on BEGINNER mode. I got stuck on a Repliku fight, spent half an hour levelling up, tried again and failed even worse, then went, "well I guess that's it." I looked up the rest on youtube but I am weirdly blanking on how it ended. Did I...not finish it??? I think I must not have finished it.

Kingdom Hearts Union Cross

I watched a summary of this and remember the overall storybeats but because I experienced this in such a condensed way it's a bit difficult to talk about here. (I don't remember a lot of the characters names, but could point and go, "YEAH I LIKE THAT GUY.") I'm honestly a little bit sad that I missed out on actually playing this.

Kingdom Hearts 1

I still did not actually feel like replaying this (getting stuck at Ursula or Riku @ Hallow Bastion...basically guaranteed). But I listened to a streamer play it, which was enjoyable. KH1 is not my favorite Kingdom Hearts, but I do still think it is the series at its best. The Disney villains are actually treated with some level of gravitas. Sora & Riku's tensions are probably my favorite part. "Light" and "Darkness" actually feel like something in this game, rather than the nebulous Star Warsy shit it eventually turns into. Light is loving and trusting your friends; Riku falls to darkness out of insecurity and self-isolation. He loses the ability to trust Sora. He can't see the LIGHT.

I said all those nice things but I can't get through a KH game without complaining at least once. The end of the game where Kairi wants to go to the final world with Sora and Sora is just like, "You'd only get in my way :P"... Tolerable 20 years ago perhaps, but given the general (lack of) trajectory with Kairi's character it's kind of downright insulting now. THANKS NOMURA.

It was at this point I started realizing how deeply influenced by Ikuhara's works Nomura is. Like Ansem/Xehanort/whoever just feels an Akio-clone to me now. Marluxia is Mikage. The final place they go to in KH is literally called THE END OF THE WORLD. I could go off on a tangent about Sephiroth probably being a Kunzite (Sailor Moon) OC but I won't.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory

Another game I watched a stream of rather than play. I looked at the youtube comments and was like, "Wow, I shouldn't watch this." But then I did anyway. KH: MoM, more like KH: DDDNE (Dead Dove Do Not Eat).

Getting to listen to the soundtracks was nice, I guess. The cover art is pretty. Genuinely wish I could think of something else nice to put here. Moving on.

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep

This game tries to gently push you towards playing as Terra on a first playthrough and I ignored it because I wanted to play as We-Have-Roxas-at-Home. So I guess some of my grief towards this game is on me. (I do not think Ventus should have had his own route. It is so empty-feeling).

Birth By Sleep makes the extremely bold choice of violating show-don't-tell constantly. The BBS trio are friends because KH said so! Actual scenes of them bonding??? Talking to each other??? That's not what videogames are for!! You're here to have fun whacking things. Stop thinking about it!

There was a flashback where for a moment I actually thought they were going to do SOMETHING of narrative substance, but then it just ends up being a montage of them laughing without dialogue. I laughed outloud for having expectations.

I was about 4 hours in before I actually encountered enjoyable dialogue (to the point that I NOTICED it was the first moment I enjoyed myself), and it was a scene with fucking Scrooge McDuck of all characters.

I really have no idea if this is just because Ventus's route really is an afterthought. Is the meat and potatoes in the other two routes?????? Or are they all like this.

I did really like the Olympus storyline. If they were all on-par with this one I'd have nothing but nice things to say about the game. I was very excited to see Stitch in this game. Honestly part of the reason I want to continue playing is to see what his story is in the other two routes.

I played the game on beginner mode and....there's is something distinctly odd about how levelling works in this game. Like exp does not scale for difficulty at all. I am allergic to grinding (does not matter how fun the gameplay is if it makes my hands hurt), I noticed gradually that enemies were getting harder and harder and yet I was barely levelling up. It eventually reached the point where I was spending miserable amounts of time trying to clear normal mobs (which just made me want to grind even less). I eventually hit a standstill in the Peter Pan world and googling recommended levels has suggested to me that I probably need to go back and spend 2-3 hours grinding. Which I do not want to do. So I'm currently stuck on this game.

Final Thought For Now: