Ah, Kingdom Hearts…Anyone who knows Disney (No real explanation needed) or Square Enix (the company responsible for Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and the entirety of Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy) knows of this series. It combines both the lightheartedness of Disney (for the most part) and the story driven coolness and gameplay that is Final Fantasy into one juggernaut of a game. And as of Today, Kingdom Hearts 3 came out (took them about 6 years…but it’s finally out!). Why not take a stroll through the games and what they added…as well as get a glimpse at probably one of the most confusing storylines this side of Metal Gear.
Kingdom Hearts: Where it all began.
One day, Tetsuya Nomura (the man responsible for character design for Final Fantasy 7-9, Director for 15, and the World Ends with You.) overheard two high ranking employees at Square Enix talking about making a game with movement much like Super Mario 64 and lamenting that the only characters who could really rival Mario in terms of popularity…were Disney characters. Nomura volunteered to direct the project and the two higher ups decided to produce it…Especially when one of them pitched the idea to a Disney Exec after a chance meeting in an Elevator.
Disney decided they liked this and gave them the go-ahead under certain conditions. The story for the Disney worlds would not be altered beyond recognition (and most of the interactions there would stay in universe)…and they wanted their big star, Mickey, to be the main character. That last one was tough because the team at Square wanted Donald to be the Main character. Nomura took a third choice by having both be important parts of the story…but having an original character altogether: Sora.
Now that we’ve got the starting details out of the way…onto the game.
Sora is an ordinary kid living in the Destiny Islands with his friends Riku and Kairi…and a few familiar faces from Final Fantasy, Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie. It’s almost endless play there, however, nobody knows where Kairi came from and Sora and Riku want to help her find out by making a raft and exploring the sea.
Meanwhile…In Disney Castle, King Mickey has vanished, Donald and Goofy have no idea where he is, and a cryptic note assigning them to find “the Key” sends them off who knows where so they can get some answers.
Several trippy dreams later…and one storm…Sora’s island is demolished by bizarre creatures of darkness called Heartless and Sora is sent to a makeshift sanctuary called Traverse Town where he meets fellow refugees from Final Fantasy…and Donald and Goofy.
From there, Sora journeys from Disney world to Disney world trying to find Kairi and Riku while interfering with Disney Villains lead by Maleficent and getting wind of a plan to flood the worlds with darkness. After tracking him down to the End of the World to save Riku…and listening to him wax on about darkness being the state of the heart in true final fantasy villain fashion, the mysterious villain behind the villains, a scientist by the name of Ansem, gets obliterated by Kingdom Hearts…which is shown to be made of light. Riku goes on the other side of the door to Kingdom Hearts to seal it shut so the heartless can’t consume it and is trapped on the other side with King Mickey (who appears for all of about 15 seconds in game). With that, Sora, Donald and Goofy journey to find them and bring them home safely…and therein is the end of the beginning.
Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories
Black coats and Memories
Following right where they left off, Sora, Goofy and Donald make their way along a scenic path to try finding Riku and the King. Stopping at a fork in the middle of the road, they decide to take a nap and figure out the right way to proceed…only to be met by an ominous figure in a pretty nifty black coat. After some cryptic words about finding the one they want at a high price, they decide to follow him to a rather cryptic, but pretty cool castle.
One step in, and they find the figure who tells them that upon entering…they just lost all their memories. After all…”To lose is to find in Castle Oblivion”. Donald, being the short tempered mage he is, demonstrates by trying to zap the figure into oblivion. It doesn’t work…and the rest of his spells don’t either! The figure spells it out for Donald and the others and then, kindly informs them of the way things work in Castle Oblivion.
The Gimmick in this game? A card system. Cards dictate your actions, where you go, and what you can and can’t do. All of the worlds in this game? Cards made from Sora’s memories as he goes further into Castle Oblivion…and those guys in the black coats keep observing him. Things go to a head when Riku…somehow shows up much more antagonistic than usual and Sora remembers someone named Namine…who never appeared in the plot of the last game. On top of that, the guys in coats have been going on about memories (and one was even killed right in front of Sora!). Things begin to make less and less sense for them, regardless of memory loss until Namine decides she has had enough of seeing the trio stumble around and reveals everything.
Castle Oblivion makes people forget everything the further they go in. The Organization 13, the black coated guys, had planned to memory wipe Sora using Namine…and use him as a pawn for a coup. The two leaders of the coup, Marluxia and Larxene, find themselves outmatched by a spy sent from the higher ups and are disposed of by a very outraged Sora. With that out of the way, Namine apologizes to Sora for her part in the plan and volunteers to restore his memory…a process that will take a long time of rest in a pod.
Meanwhile…in the basement, Riku finds himself in a strange place with the powers of darkness he succumbed to in the last game trying to take over him. King Mickey helps him out at first…and then he meets an enigmatic figure named DiZ who volunteers to help him with his darkness. Compounding Riku’s situation are the two loyalists to the Organization 13 who were stationed in the basement and know something is up with the people up top…but not what exactly. Their idea? Try using Riku to help out.
It goes as well as you could expect. Lexaeus, the big guy, gets overpowered by darkness and Zexion gets his life siphoned out quite brutally…and this is where things start to get dark in these games! Riku eventually makes it out and resolves to face the darkness in his heart.
Both these games set up even bigger things in store as the real meat of the storyline gets explored in Kingdom Hearts 2 and the many, many interquel games that came out between it and 3.
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