Warning: light spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 3 and Kingdom Hearts overall.
-
Kingdom Hearts is an amazing video game series with a wild story to boot, but it doesn’t make any sense - yet, that’s what makes it great. Around 10 hours into Kingdom Hearts 3, player character Sora is running around the Toy Story-themed world of the Toy Box. It’s a joyous time, with Sora, Donald, and Goofy given new toy forms to fit in with their new friends from the Pixar property. There are fun jokes about Sora coming from a video game, wonderful set pieces within an imaginatively-crafted toy store, and moments of brilliant, childish ingenuity.
Five minutes later, Buzz Lightyear is aiming his now-deadly wrist lazer at Woody’s head, having succumbed to the forces of darkness that threaten to destroy everything beautiful in the world. In this light-hearted nod to one of Disney-Pixar’s most well-loved properties, the stakes are not only literally the universe at large, but also those of long-lasting friendships that people have witnessed across film and video game for decades. In the eyes of Kingdom Hearts, these two factors are permanently intertwined.
This is the essence of Kingdom Hearts as a whole. At face value, the games appear to be a gateway drug to the realm of JRPGs, with what can be complex gameplay systems masked by characters like Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh, but this isn’t entirely the case. Although there is a veneer of Disney charm across the entire franchise, it has its own, individual tone, and the plot at large is much more of a complex, winding path than even some of the more traditional Square Enix titles.
- This Page: Kingdom Hearts Is A Weird Franchise Next Page: Kingdom Hearts’ Story Doesn’t Make Sense - But It’s Still Great
Kingdom Hearts Is A Weird Franchise
On paper, Kingdom Hearts should never work. The joie de vivre of its Disney (and now Pixar) worlds is stitched onto melodrama of epic proportions, throwing caution to the wind by both placing previously safe characters into a plot far beyond their comfort zone and reforming others into valiant monster killers. In Kingdom Hearts, Mickey Mouse is a dimension-hopping royal wielding powerful weapons, Donald Duck is a master magician, and Goofy is a loyal knight whose apparent death leads to calls for vengeance from Mickey.
It’s a far cry from what these stalwarts are known for, yet for fans of Kingdom Hearts it makes for one of the most gripping video game series ever released. Those unfamiliar with the franchise as a whole may find the “death” of Goofy as an absurd twist, or possibly even hilarious in its otherness. For fans, it proves that Kingdom Hearts goes places that no-one would expect, and it’s very hard to argue with that analysis.
Of course, Goofy isn’t permanently bumped off in Kingdom Hearts 2, and reappears relatively soon after his apparent death, but in a way that doesn’t matter. It showcases the way in which Kingdom Hearts plays fast and loose with Disney in a fantastic crossover that is, above all else, extremely entertaining. And within that, there’s a seriously convoluted overall plot that perhaps makes the story less comprehensible rather than bringing things together.
Page 2 of 2: Kingdom Hearts Makes No Sense - But That’s Why It’s Great
Kingdom Hearts’ Story Doesn’t Really Work
Concisely explaining the plot of Kingdom Hearts is a challenge, even for veterans to the series. While the first game’s arc is relatively straightforward, following that well-trod journey laid out by The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the later games stray further and further from that template. Whether it’s the creation of Earthsea-esque dark halves called Nobodies and the complexities that come with that theme, or the long-running history of the Keyblade Wars and its related prophecies, it’s an awful lot to take in.
What makes it more difficult is the way it is spread across games. Kingdom Hearts 3 is not the third game in the series, as there are thirteen games available with most providing integral information for the overall Kingdom Hearts lore. It’s not just a series that crosses multiple gaming generations, but also has a great variance when it comes to platform, hopping from Sony to Nintendo before a most recent release that also finally delivered that much anticipated Kingdom Hearts release for Microsoft’s Xbox One.
In a way, this adds to the overall mystery of Kingdom Hearts. There’s a nebulous nature to the series from those who haven’t perhaps picked up any games since Kingdom Hearts 2, or those who have only remained loyal to Sony devices. Remastered editions have been released that provide a solid place to catch up, but even then Kingdom Hearts maintains something of an inscrutable nature.
Kingdom Hearts Makes No Sense - But That’s Why It’s Great
Kingdom Hearts probably could have received a more straightforward story; a metanarrative about someone hopping between Disney stories akin to Last Action Hero would have been an easy solution, but also a dull one. Instead, fans have this melting pot of strange ideas, a set of myths and legends as much based around the individual properties of the Disney movies themselves as it is around its own hulking lore. Better yet, Kingdom Hearts beginners will then be left scratching their heads as to why powerful attacks based on theme park attractions are a thing here – are Disney resorts canon in Kingdom Hearts too? That seems to be the only logical solution.
Some might see this as a bad thing – a word salad of grand themes and RPG tropes – but in a way it truly adds to the overall appeal of the series. Kingdom Hearts gives a lot of flexibility to players in terms of exactly how much they want to put into it, and this continues into Kingdom Hearts 3. In short, enjoyment of the game is not dependent on understanding every intricacy of the plot, with instead players able to pick up and delve into whatever parts of the series they find interesting. Just remember that friendship and family is very important, and you’ll get along just fine.
This leaves Kingdom Hearts, including this most recent game, with something of a rare feeling when it comes to video games. A lack of cohesion makes it seem as though the Kingdom Hearts universe is a child’s playtime brought to life, a bunch of Disney characters imagined in an unreal place where they all fit into one overarching story. All in all, the entire story feels as though it’s a few minutes away from being called downstairs for dinner.
Kingdom Hearts is the overactive imagination of those who grew up with Disney and Final Fantasy side by side. It’s a toy box of old Disney figures thrown onto a colorful carpet at playtime, blended into a story befitting of the heyday of turn-based RPGs, and left to simmer and morph without restraint. Is it the most impactful of video game stories? Of course not. But, it’s still something that is incredibly enjoyable, a dichotomy of magic weaponry and the Magic Kingdom that never quite gels and is one hell of a ride because of it.
