Hold on to your seats boys and girls because this is gonna be a long one. Out of all of the series I have ever played in my lifetime I'd have to say that Kingdom Hearts is definitely my favorite. I know most people hate this game because "the disney characters are stupid" or "all the characters are just from final fantasy" but that stuff doesn't matter to me.
I feel like I pretty much grew up with Kingdom Hearts. I remember getting the original game like it was yesterday. I remember seeing advertisements on tv for it and begging my mother to buy it for me. When I was in second grade I remember opening my presents Christmas morning and when I found the one with this game in it I completely ignored all my other presents. I was so excited to play this game and so was my dad. So I put it in my PS2 and made it through most of the tutorial. Then I got to the Darkside boss, and being only 7 years old at the time, I got scared. I chucked the controller at my dad and ran out of the room crying. It took me about a year to gain the courage to finally beat that boss. I think I only got as far as Deep Jungle before Chain of Memories came out for the GBA. Then a year later Kingdom Hearts 2 came out and had the honor of being my first preordered game. I remember being extremely upset because the shipment didn't come in to gamestop on time and I had to wait an extra day to get the game. Kingdom Hearts 2 was the first game in the series that I had actually played all the way through and beaten at this point. I continued preordering all of the games in the series as they came out but I never played any of them all the way through. That changed last summer when the release date for Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance was announced.
I made it my goal to conquer every Kingdom Hearts game in the series before I played the latest addition. I actually had just finished Birth By Sleep so I was already off to a good start. I continued through each and every game, putting all of my other games on hold until I could start Dream Drop Distance.
Then the day finally came. I remember waltzing into my local gamestop with only one thing on my mind, Kingdom Hearts. Normally it takes a lot of courage for me to enter a gamestop due to the fact that I am a girl and I don't want to be hit on by the workers there, but today was a different story. I successfully made my purchase and excitedly rushed home so I could play with my new pride and joy. I popped the cartridge into my 3DS and sat amazed as I watched the opening credits even though I had already watched it 100 times on youtube. That was when I became hooked.
At first I was a little confused with the flowmotion controls but after a while I ended up being dependent on them for most battles. They also made it a lot easier to get to certain areas on the map. The dive modes gave me a bit of a hard time especially the boss ones. I feel like the controls were hard to get the hang of and that was usually why I ended up dying.
The spirits were also a fun little addition. I felt like they were they "nintendogs" of kingdom hearts but I liked that their traits and disposition changed depending on how you interacted with them. I wasn't too big on collecting every type of dream eater in the game so I liked being able to fully develop mine. I pretty much had the same team throughout the entire game. The little mini games to train your spirits were also quite amusing and were a nice break from the regular gameplay. I also liked how it incorporated the 3DS camera when you viewed your spirits. I never really did anything with the flick rush games. Those I found to be extremely confusing so I just kinda pushed them aside.
I felt like the story got a little slow towards the middle but at the end it hits you like a brick! I know a lot of people don't like that about Kingdom Hearts but I feel that's what makes the games better. I feel like it makes you appreciate the epic endings more, like its the prize at the end. I didn't unlock the secret ending or the secret message. (I did however watch them on youtube xD!) I'm not really a completionist and I just like playing games mostly for the story, and boy does Kingdom Hearts have a doozy of a story.
Honestly, trying to explain the story behind Kingdom Hearts to someone who has never played the game is like trying to teach calculus to a three-year-old, IT JUST CAN'T BE DONE! I feel like thats the reason why a lot of people hate on Kingdom Hearts. They lack the ability overlook the disney characters and get frustrated with the story because they haven't played the games enough to understand it.
Kingdom Hearts is my favorite game series of all time! Every time a new game comes out it does a wonderful job of impressing me and outdoing the previous installments of the series. This is the reason why I absolutely cannot wait for news about Kingdom Hearts 3. I feel like its definitely going to be worth the wait, even if it takes another 10 years to do so!
