Ever since Sora came to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in 2021, I’ve been interested in the Kingdom Hearts series. A crossover between Disney and Square Enix just seemed so… strange. Donald Duck is a mage, Goofy is a knight, and together with Sora they explore Disney worlds complete with Final Fantasy characters?! 

I finally took the time to try the series out via the collections on Steam, and am starting with Kingdom Hearts Final Mix. This is a special version of the original action-RPG that started it all, complete with a few bits of extra content and upscaled graphics.   

Story

Sora, a boy from the Destiny Islands, is living peacefully with his friends Kairi and Riku until one night dark forces known as the heartless (beings without hearts) begin to take over their home. Kairi is lost while Riku embraces the darkness. Sora resists it, and in doing so finds himself chosen by a mysterious weapon known as the Keyblade to be its bearer. 

Meanwhile, at Disney Castle, King Mickey has disappeared and instructed Donald and Goofy to follow the Keybearer. The two meet up with Sora, and the three travel together between worlds (mostly from Disney series) to stop the heartless from taking over everything – but are resisted by many, including several iconic Disney villains who get in their way. 

I won’t elaborate further to avoid spoilers, but know that things get somewhat in-depth without ever getting too confusing. Nowadays the Kingdom Hearts series is known for its incredibly complicated and confusing lore, but this was before things got out of hand. I really appreciate how things get a bit darker than usual for Disney.

There’s also good character development and a handful of mysteries to ponder, although every so often a character will deliver very strange and awkward lines. I don’t know if this is because of translation issues or just 2000’s writing, but it did sometimes break the immersion. 

Gameplay 

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix’s gameplay is a mashup of action and RPG elements. You have a command menu at all times, allowing you to attack, use magic spells or items, and summon characters. However, all battles take place in real time, so you’ll be running around as you use these moves. Attacking is pretty straightforward; simply press A to attack with the Keyblade. By default you’ll perform three-hit combo attacks, but these can be upgraded to last longer or have special effects via abilities you learn by level-up.

Many of these upgrades can be used automatically, without requiring you to learn a bunch of new command inputs to pull them off. For example, the sliding dash ability will allow Sora to quickly close the distance between himself and a far away enemy if you just press A while locked on to them. There are also special moves you can learn that cost MP to use, and are triggered by pressing Y.

Using magic, items, and summons are a bit more tedious, unfortunately. While you can map up to 3 different spells to shortcuts (LB + Y/X/A), you’ll often end up navigating (and fumbling with) the command menu in the middle of battle. For instance, I often took damage while trying to cast the defense spell “Aero”, as I would have to move my left thumb to the D-pad, scroll down to magic, press A, then scroll down to Aero, press A, select a target, and press A again. This is something I feel could have been largely solved with more customization options or the presence of a radial menu. Overall though, the combat system is a ton of fun, even while leaving lots of room for improvement. 

Unfortunately, an overabundance of cutscenes and shaky level design means things don’t always progress as smoothly as I would like. Many cutscenes are just unnecessarily long. There’s over 4 hours total! Level design is generally pretty good, but some of the early worlds are just a drag. 

Destiny Islands, where the introduction takes place, was especially painful. I’d go as far as to say the first 3 hours of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix are just straight up bad, and genuinely made me second-guess my decision to play this game. One of the early levels, Deep Jungle, also has some serious navigation issues. Fortunately, things only get better the further you go on, so I’m glad I stuck it through.

Music

The soundtrack is definitely the least dated aspect of this game. It’s just absolutely incredible. I knew I would like it after hearing the tracks in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but I daresay it was even better than expected. There’s a ton of great battle music (my favorite kind of game music) that fits perfectly to each individual world. Add in some classic Disney tracks as well as my favorite Final Fantasy theme and you’ve got something truly legendary. After beating the game I made a playlist of my favorite tracks, and it turned out over an hour long.

Faith Perspective (some spoilers)

One of the concurrent storylines of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix is Riku’s descent into darkness. At first he intends to use it as a tool, claiming that his own heart is strong enough to resist the heartless. However, as the story progresses, and despite warnings, he becomes less and less of himself, until eventually he is completely overtaken by Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. By permitting even some darkness to enter his heart and remain, he eventually loses himself entirely. 

A similar phenomenon will happen to us if we are not consistently resisting even venial sin. If we permit it to remain in our life without trying to fight it, it will grow and surely lead into mortal sin, and we will lose ourselves by separation from our Creator if we don’t repent. As this game demonstrates, evil is not something that can be tolerated in small amounts, but must be resisted wholeheartedly. 

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