I've been replaying Kingdom Hearts lately. The first one. The original--not Final Mix.

I have nothing against Final Mix. I own it in the ps4 collection. But sometimes I'm just looking at all of my PS2 games and want to pop a disc in. For nostalgia's sake.

Also, they recolored all of the heartless, and I'll never forgive them for this. Luckily, now that you can play on PC, the original colors have been modded back in, but also I'm not buying all of Kingdom Hearts again on PC.

But I didn't bring you here just to hear my unpopular opinions about Final Mix. I brought you here to hear my unpopular opinions about KH1 in general, so let's get started!

Vibes.

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Kingdom Hearts, as a series, is a strange beast. I'm not sure about the rest of the internet, but most people I know generally regard 2 as the best game in the series (and they're right), and also there seems to be a consensus that 1 is nearly unplayable garbage. And like... you're not... wrong... kind of. KH1 is janky. The time it takes Sora to swing his stupid little key is honestly criminal. A lot of the harder bosses will mercilessly take cheap shots at you literally before you have time to input your first command after a battle starts. They react faster to you swinging your keyblade than you can to them doing a huge sweeping swing.

Replaying it now for probably the 10th time, I'm convinced that the worlds are just big stupid mazes. Each one is designed as a series of rooms with doors that interconnect in seemingly random ways. It's genuinely poor level design that's really unfun to interact with especially when you slap the bad platforming controls on top.

The gummi ship sections are mostly banal. Boring even. They start out unchallenging and graduate quickly to being a chore. Most of them barely require any input from the player. Even upgrading your ship doesn't really make them more fun.

But what Kingdom Hearts lacks in... good design... it makes up in heart... or vibes, if you will.

Okay hear me out. So everyone has kind of just accepted that this series is pretty bonkers. It's got the mother of all convoluted plots. Dream Drop Distance and 3 are for sure the worst offenders on this front. Like... they're tracking Sora through time and space and dreams because he's wearing an X on him... and X which is not just the Roman letter X but also the Greek letter χ (or chi, pronounced "kee" like key) which is also what the ultimate keyblade, the χ-blade is named after because it's an X shaped blade meant to be wielded by two people OR IS IT??? Also all of the member of organization XIII have X's in their names because they serve the same purpose and-- We don't have time for this.

But you see what I mean right? This series is nuts. I only remember this much because I've played through the whole series 3 times (yes, that's every game, excluding the mobile games, which I've only played/watched once each), and I probably still got some of that wrong.

Kingdom Hearts 1 though? Simple and clean. It has the most straightforward plot of all of the games. It's just about a kid and his two best friends leaving the island they grew up on and getting pulled into a war between light and darkness. It's not super "deep" or anything. It's not intellectual. There's no crazy subplot to untangle (though reading the Ansem reports adds a nice little layer on top of everything else).

It's just a simple, emotional story. It's what I like to call "the perfect preteen story." Show Kingdom Hearts to your nearest preteen today to ruin their life forever. I can't say this story is "tight" or even "well-structured" but it does have vibes, and the vibes are mostly good.

...Or so I thought.

I decided to sit down and deconstruct the game on a world-by-world basis purely on vibes. How hype was I playing the world? What sort of aftertaste does it leave? Would I recommend it to a friend? (The answer to that one, I think, is overwhelmingly no,)

Let's jump right in:

Does it pass the vibe check?

Dive to the Heart:

I forgot to take a screenshot for this one so this is from the HD collection. >_> Has any other game made such an iconic tutorial? Sora drops straight in here from the opening cutscene. The stained glass platforms floating in an atmospheric void. The mysterious voice that speaks directly to your heart. The giant shadow that acts as your tutorial boss.

Destiny Islands:

The Destiny Islands is the starting area. The music of this area evokes exactly the feeling of running through the surf on a tropical beach. At this point, it's not really clear where the game is going, but the music--the visuals--the vibes--they're there.

Disney Castle:

You never actually go here in this game, only see it from afar. This inherently lends it a sort of mystique afforded to those places in video games that you can only gain limited glimpses of.

Traverse Town:

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I like Traverse Town in this game (not nearly as much as Twilight Town in 2, but I still think it's a rather comforting hub). It's the only world that you have to return to multiple times in order to progress the plot, and every time, you're able to unlock something new or go somewhere you couldn't before. It just feels like a decent measure of your progress.

Wonderland:

I'll say that every world in the first ring connected to Traverse Town is like the Inner Solar System. Now, I think it is mostly agreed that everything in the Inner Solar System sucks. Wonderland is the first of these awful little worlds that you travel to and it is only merciful in how short it is. You can skip some hours of completing chores for flowers and running around in circles by just half-assing the first mission and then almost immediately skipping to the big boss. I can't believe I never thought to do it before, but I decided to do somewhat of a fast walk (not quite a speed run, but just an efficient casual playthrough) this recent time playing the game and it saved me so much headache.

Tarzan World:

This beautiful, lush lagoon fills me with such a seething rage. I'm gonna be honest, it took me longer than I'd like to admit to remember that this world is actually called "Deep Jungle" and we'll just leave it at that. This is where the platforming reaches peak frustration for me. (I'm sure I won't write this very sentence again later in this post.) I'm not gonna lie, though, the area with the heart of the jungle is beautiful. It doesn't make up for the rest of the world, but it's just a nice little gift to receive for my trouble.

Olympus Colosseum:

If I never have to fight in another tournament in a Kingdom Hearts game, it'll be too soon. Also, I will most certainly have to fight in another one. They love tournaments. Please, stop making tournaments. (Luckily, this world is mostly optional.)

Agrabah:

We've escaped the inner solar system finally. That being said... Who decided that you should have to solve a maze while platforming? If half of your map is just 4 box shaped rooms with 4 exits each at different elevations, I think you've messed up somehow. I usually hate this world, but I somehow came out of it unscathed this time.

Monstro:

Normally, this is the part where I would be saying "This is where the platforming reaches peak frustration for me," however... If you empty your mind and don't try to get any of the extra treasure or items or fight anything, Monstro really isn't so bad. BUT!!!!! On a return trip when I realized I missed one of the Torn Pages, it did take me like, 40 minutes to find my way in because I had to fight everything in a room before I could open each treasure chest, and then another 20 minutes because I became incurably lost trying to leave the way I came.

Atlantica:

How thoughtful of them to put giant arrows over the entire map telling you where to go. They don't help after about the halfway point through this world, but it's the thought that counts.

Halloween Town:

YEAH! YEAH! YES!!! YEAH! Also jesus christ this is where the platforming reaches peak frustration for me. Okay, it's objectively not as bad as Tarzan world, but there are so many little things. Like those platforms you have to light on fire before they rise but then you have to wait a full cycle for it to come back down so you can grab onto it. Also everything in Oogie Boogie's mansion.

100 Acre Wood:

Having now retrieved every Torn Page, I booked it back to Merlin's Study to hang out with Pooh. I cannot tell you guys how much I love 100 Acre Woods. Every time I play through it, I'm living my best life. There's something so sweet and sentimental about hanging out with Pooh bear and friends. Maybe just because I grew up watching the original Winnie the Pooh... movie? Collection? It was like a bunch of shorts strung together on one VHS. But anyways, I loved it, and Sora is honestly a great audience surrogate. He's not quite as dry as Christopher Robin, and in moments like these, I think the fact that Sora is still just a goofy kid really shines through. The 100 Acre Woods sections are steeped in so much care and nostalgia... my heart is full every time I play it, and I always cry when I have to leave. Anyways, it's my least favorite world. 0/10 (this is a joke.)

Neverland:

I'm not gonna lie, I remember viscerally everything that happens in Neverland, but somehow I always forget that Neverland is a world I have to go to. I hate this stupid boat, but once again, it's mercifully short. If you're underleveled, the shadow sora fight is actually hard. I died to him like 3 times when he was down to half a health bar because he did most of my health in one hit. TT-TT

Hollow Bastion:

What a cool world. From the second you set foot in there, the plot is rolling. The backwards flowing waterfalls are cool as heck. The beast is there! Idk man. A lot of people I know cite it as the only good world in KH1 and... okay, they're wrong. There are at least two other good worlds. But it's probably the best. The environment is completely unique. It's a lot harder to get lost here than in some of the other more maze-like levels despite its size. Also, the plot happens! 90% of this game is just Sora showing up somewhere being like, "ayo! you seen kairi? no? dang..." but the plot finally starts to feel like it's ramping up after Monstro, and Hollow Bastion by itself really encompasses most of the actual plot of this game. Also, gotta love a game where you briefly get to play as a little creature.

(remember when there were only two? ah, simpler times....)

End of the World:

I cannot lie... I hate this place. To be perfectly honest, I don't much care for combat in KH1 (unless I'm fighting a boss), and fighting endless mobs of enemies is really unfun to me. A lot of the worlds in the second half of this game rely on you fighting large mobs just so you can interact with something in order to progress, and I could honestly care less. The End of the World is really where this reaches a crescendo. Multiple areas lock you into battles that you must fight in order to progress, and there's soooo many enemies and it just feels like they're trying to pad out your time in this place because they only designed 4 environments before you get to the final boss. Oh, also Chernabog is here. That's cool I guess.

Ansem:

I'm giving him his own section since you do technically leave the End of the World for this bit. Honestly, great to see Destiny Islands all messed up. You left home only to return to it in such a state. Every time Sora says, "I know now... without a doubt... that Kingdom Hearts... IS LIGHT!!" I simply wonder to myself... "why do you know this, Sora. Do we even know what kingdom hearts is?" But you know. It's the end of the game. Time to wrap everything up. It'd be no fun if we couldn't directly refute Ansem's thesis that the core of the world is darkness or whatever.

In conclusion:

Does Kingdom Hearts pass the vibe check? It honestly depends on how high your tolerance is for "this game is kinda ass." Like, I think it works on me because it does the compliment sandwich of
Top Bread (good): Dive to the Heart, Destiny Islands, Traverse Town
Bad: Wonderland, Tarzan, Olympus Colosseum
Fine: Agrabah
Bad: Monstro, Atlantica
Good: 100 Acre Wood + Halloween Town (I'm not gonna pretend this is anything but nostalgia)
Bad: Neverland
Good: Hollow Bastion
Bad: End of the World
Bottom Bread (hype): Ansem

It's a quadruple-decker compliment sandwich. If you can tolerate some of the really frustrating stuff, I think it's honestly worth it, but this game really does feel its age. The way the camera works and the janky way that you navigate menus really hearkens back to game design of ages past. The platforming is clunky. The combat is unappealing for most of the game (though a little less so if you choose the high magic route). It's kind of interesting to me though. I revisit Kingdom Hearts as a series probably once every 5 years. It's a nostalgic series that is really cozy to me. A lot of people kind of overlook the first one now, and I honestly can't fault them for it. It's an objectively worse game than 2 in so many ways, but, there's something nice about the simplicity of the plot and the themes that I can appreciate separately from the rest of the series. I quite like it.

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Thanks for sticking with me for that whole thing, haha. (Even if you skipped straight to the end, that's okay.) This has apparently actually been sitting in my drafts for 2 months (along with uh... more posts than I care to admit). I just got really caught up in game dev for a while there. Writing up long posts like this really takes quite a bit of time, and I don't usually have a lot of spare time around work and life to work on extra-curricular stuff like this, so it's often a choice of what I want to do this week.

Hopefully, I'll get back to writing more regular blog posts again, because I really do enjoy it. Everything I love is just a giant time suck... is this what it means to be an adult? TT-TT Anyways, thanks for reading!

Stay fresh!
Drew this while I was playing Kingdom Hearts.