Kingdom Hearts Review: A tale of highs and lows

Kingdom Hearts, a beloved title that intertwines Disney's whimsical charm with the intricate worlds of Final Fantasy, offers a gaming experience as unique as its premise. For those venturing into this crossover realm, the journey is a curious blend of highs and lows. Now, without further ado, I, Brighton Nelson of RPG Ranked will detail the strengths and weaknesses of this game in today's article: a Kingdom Hearts Review: A tale of highs and lows.

Combat - 8

Kingdom Hearts is a very odd game when it comes to combat. Initially, for the first couple of hours of the game, this game had some of the clunkiest and most underwhelming combat of all time. Every enemy encounter in the first two worlds (save the Cerberus and Clayton boss fights) is boring, if not downright awful. I almost quit the game; the combat was so bad! However, as I continued to push through and give the game a second chance, I grew a newfound appreciation and love for the combat. Once you have a diverse array of spells and skills that provide Sora a wholly unique set of combos and abilities, as well as the ability to high-jump and glide, the combat in this game is entertaining and fluid. The late game also has an array of incredible boss fights, with my absolute favorite being the boss fight against Xemnas in the Hollow Bastion world. This game certainly takes time to appreciate its combat, but once it clicks, it is truly an incredibly extraordinary experience.

Story - 3

While I love the merger of properties and the traversal of iconic Disney worlds, the actual narrative here is severely lacking. The writing is laughably bad, and I couldn't care less about saving Kairi and progressing the plot. While this game has good world-building, the actual substance of the plot is really subpar.

Characters - 3

On paper, every Kingdom Hearts game should score a perfect score in this category. Every Disney movie represented here has excellent characters, and with many fantastic Final Fantasy characters thrown into the mix, this should've been a game full of character chemistry and magical moments that could have never been imaginable before the game was released. However, the writing in this game reduces each character into a bland caricature with not a grain of personality. The only characters that weren't done dirty were Goofy and Donald, who are a couple of pretty shallow Disney characters, to begin with; they mostly are just humorous spice characters, so getting them right isn't exactly the most challenging task. Ultimately, this game is full of unforgettable characters, but almost every single one does nothing interesting.

Music - 9

Anything composed by Yoko Shimamura is a masterpiece, and this soundtrack is no exception. Not only does the soundtrack feature her brilliance, but it also features Hikaru Utada, one of my absolute favorite singers! While this isn't Shimamura's magnum opus, it is one of her strongest and a superb soundtrack as a whole.

Sidequests - 7.5

Kingdom Hearts wasn't a game I initially expected to have good side content, but I definitely was pretty blown away by how much fun I had doing random crap in this game—revisiting worlds with new abilities to open new treasure boxes and activating new trinities, fighting in the Olympus Coliseum, crafting every alchemy item, defeating every optional boss, and more! This game isn't going to win any awards for its side content, but it is still an above-average game in terms of side content.

Customization System - 5

This game's customization consists of equipping skills and equipment equipment. That is the textbook definition of a very average customization system that doesn't stand out at all compared to most RPGs. While the skills and equipment do get fun to equip in the last few hours, it is too little too late. This game is just far too simple to be interesting.

Art & Graphics - 7

This game has a perfect 3D art style that fits right in with the premise of the game, with perfect Disney-like visuals. That's not the issue here. The issue is the outrageous eye torture that is the game's UI. Every font and every graphic is beyond ugly, and while cutesy UI would work for this game, this MS Paint crapulous mass of crud is not it. If the UI weren't one of the worst things ever put in a game, I'd give this a higher score, but here we are.

Locations - 9

This game is full of fun and iconic areas to explore! With fantastic Disney worlds and a couple of original areas, this game is full of fun places to explore! While some of the worlds suck (looking at you, Deep Jungle and Hundred Acre Wood), most are pretty magical and fun to explore! This aspect was definitely the game's biggest strength! While the best worlds are backloaded and take some time to reach, I assure you, it is worth the wait to explore them.

Quality of Life - 7.5

Kingdom Hearts is a very well-optimized game in terms of balancing, fast travel, crafting, and all that jazz. However, I have two significant issues with this game: 1) until you get the High Jump and Glide skills, platforming is a clunky chore, and 2) the stupidly modern common cliche crap that is having only three party members in a game where four party members are available is extraordinarily inexcusable—and locking Trinities behind just the original three party members? Seriously, Square Enix, stop doing this in your games! Just balance the game with four party members in mind, for heaven's sake!

The Verdict

Fun Factor: 8.5
Overall Score: 68%
Letter Rating: B

Kingdom Hearts is an entertaining game, but it is also rather shallow and full of flaws. With high highs and low lows, this is a great foundation for the series and a solid enough game. As long as you can get past the goofy story, rough beginning, bad UI, and lack of depth (which is a lot to get past, to be fair), I'm sure you will find something to really love about this game.

Primary Version: Kingdom Hearts (PS3)