To some, Disney is a magical kingdom filled with much loved characters and timeless stories. To me, Disney is a hateful place full of annoying animated mice and songs that make me want to murder kittens, so quite why I love the Kingdom Hearts series so much is a bit of a mystery.
Haley Joel Osment
Kingdom Hearts and its sequel, the imaginatively titled Kingdom Hearts II, were released on the PlayStation 2 to critical acclaim. Series producer Tetsuya Nomura took the cheery House Of Mouse and mashed it up with Final Fantasy; a mix that should not work but somehow does.
It’s like playing Where’s Wally after swallowing peyote.The main character in Kingdom Hearts, Sora, is joined on a quest by Donald Duck and Goofy. The gameplay is much like that of Final Fantasy, party members can excel in magic or combat, unleash special moves and can gain experience. The quest takes the fearsome trio through thirteen worlds, ten of which are based on Disney movies.
The cast for the series is huge and every major Disney character makes an appearence alongside Cloud, Cid, Wakka, Yuffie, Sephiroth, Squall Leonheart, Tiddus, Auron and even Moogles from the Final Fantasy series.
Square Enix and Disney lavished the games with some the best cut scenes you will ever see, helped by an impressive voice cast with many characters retaining their orginal actors. Billy Zane, David Boreanaz, Mandy Moore, Haley Joel Osment, Hayden Panettiere, Ming Na, James Woods, Mena Suvari and Zach Braff all appear.
I think I have enjoyed the series so much because it’s a little naughty’ with the Disney characters. In this day and age violence is frowned upon by the entertainment giant, so getting Donald Duck to beat someone up is subversive fun. I also enjoy the rather surreal nature of the game. How can you not love a series that, rather than summoning a vengeful god as your special move, allows you to call upon the awesome powers of Simba, the cute cub from the Lion King.
In the Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Ultimania guide book, Nomura announced the third game, but production has yet to start as the team a busy working on Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Little has been seen on this mythical game and a release date has yet to be set.
Assuming a three year development for Kingdom Hearts III, even if Final Fantasy Versus XIII arrives in 2012 there is a very good chance that the PS3 and Xbox 360 may never see a Kingdom Hearts game.
Dig out your PS2 (or backwards compatible launch PS3) or pick up a bargain price PSP and Birth By Sleep. If you’ve never played a Kingdom Hearts game you are missing out.
I’d like to try this, in a sense to try and remove the dislike I have for both Final Fantasy and Disney. I think it will take quite some time to though 
bought these in my recent ps2 game buying frenzy, havnt played them yet but they are near the top of my list. they where some of the most expensive ps2 games to get hold of as well, especially if you want non plat versions
Nice write-up Tuffcub, I had actually forgotten how much I loved these games. I blame that on the huge time since they released one on console, the handheld iterations are of no interest to me.
We shouldn’t discount the possibility of Squeenix doing a HD re-release. They would have to be incredibly stupid not to do this for both KH and Final Fantasy, they have so many studios I’m sure they can find one with nothing better to do.
I’d love HD remakes of these games. Never really gave them any attention even though I’m a huge Square Enix / Final Fantasy fan. My girlfriend loves Disney so this would be a perfect game for us to play together.
It works so well, it’s almost unbelivable and i bet that it didn’t sold more units just because people wouldn’t give it a try!(Disney chars and all ). Sure a few charactes can be annoying and such but it’s got a great story and the gameplay is sick
I was huge fan of the first 2 games and birth by sleep, never got round to playing the Ds and Gba versions but a Kingdom hearts 3 would be great, Just wish it would come out soon.
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