Kingdom Hearts seems to be coming out of the darkness. On Oct. 14, new gameplay footage from Kingdom Hearts III was released. What's more, fans also received news that Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix has been announced, which includes a graphically-updated Kingdom Hearts II, PSP-title Birth by Sleep and cutscenes from Re:coded.
A whimsical action-roleplaying game, Kingdom Hearts was a critical and commercial hit back in 2002. Sequel Kingdom Hearts II received similar acclaim, but a third main installment never emerged. That is, until production was announced at this year's E3. Coming off the heels of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix’s release (who is in charge of these titles?), Kingdom Hearts is set for a comeback.
As if. The Kingdom Hearts franchise has some made some serious mistakes that have alienated and frustrated fans. The next installment in the game may be called Kingdom Hearts III, but good luck if you think that you can jump from II to III so quickly. It's been eight years since the last Kingdom Hearts game for consoles, but various mobile releases have bloated the story.
Mobile spinoff games are nothing new, but these games aren’t spinoffs – some of them are essential to the plot. It gets worse. If you want to play these games, you need to own different handheld consoles, like the Nintendo 3DS and the PlayStation PSP.
That’s insanity. Mobile gaming is dying. The rise of smartphones has rendered consoles like the PSP redundant, while the DS and 3DS are staying afloat because of, arguably, Pokémon. The funny/sad reality is that the plot isn’t even worth it. It’s a hero’s quest starring the spiky-haired Sora and Disney’s Donald Duck and Goofy. Sora can wield a weapon called a Keyblade that can open peoples' hearts, somehow. The main objectives are generally rescuing friends and stopping evil forces.
While it sounds like a pretty standard good versus evil story, don’t be fooled. It’s a convoluted mess of boring characters, endless MacGuffins, unclear motivations and skull-fuckingly bad dialogue. It screws with narrative structure like a deranged disciple of Quentin Tarantino. What's worse is that the plot is everywhere in the game so you can't ignore it.
So why play at all? If the plot is so bad and the games are all spread out, why bother with Kingdom Hearts?
Easy: The games have more imagination than a thousand Call of Duty titles.
Kingdom Hearts’ lore and story may be terrible, but, fittingly, the game’s heart is in the right place. These games are, for the most part, great examples of the action-roleplaying game.
The levels are trips down memory lane, for almost every level is a Disney movie. From Wonderland to Neverland, the games successfully integrate the heroes into these Disney stories. It’s not always perfect, for Sora sometimes comes off as an intruder rather than a hero, but the nostalgic power of the Disney classics overpowers most knit picking.
The fact that the Disney levels work is impressive given how insane the games' premise is: Disney meets Final Fantasy, the video games of hilariously inconsistent quality. Any sane person would immediately write it off, but not Tetsuya Nomura. The creative center of Kingdom Hearts, Nomura brought this insanity to the public and it paid off. No matter what I think, I can’t deny the creative boldness of Nomura’s ideas or the balls it took to commit to them. Salud.
It helps Nomura's case that the games are fun as hell. The combat is swift and intuitive. Sora may be a bland hero, but he can sword fight like a boss. There is a plethora of abilities to develop, from shooting fireballs to throwing your keyblade like a boomerang. Even better is the wide variety of enemies, which makes every level a fresh experience.
Still, even with great gameplay and being awesomely-bonkers, Kingdom Hearts is crippled by its reliance on mobile games. Are there alternatives? Sort of. The HD remixes allow console gamers to play some of the games, but only years after their original release. Also, you can download emulators to play the games, but there isn't one for the 3DS (yet), so you can’t play the essential Dream Drop Distance (again with these titles).
But fans shouldn’t have to wait for re-releases or circumvent buying the games. Kingdom Hearts has plenty of great things going for it, but it needs to ditch the soap-opera plotting and mobile games. Then it can get on with what fans love: beating up bad guys with your favorite Disney characters.
Luckily, if the gameplay trailer is any indication, it looks like Kingdom Hearts III is doing just that.