Trying to Articulate My Problems with Kingdom Hearts

I’m a fan of Square-Enix. I’m a fan of Disney. That should make me a fan of Kingdom Hearts right? I mean the series was pitched as a chocolate and peanut butter combination of Square’s RPG design and aesthetic with Disney’s treasure trove of IP, along with some connective story tissue to tie everything together. Unfortunately, that game never existed. In the finished products the connective tissue made up of Sora, the Heartless, Riku, and Kairi has clashed with much of the Disney charm. The JRPG-ness of the central story has spread throughout the games like cancer and added bloat and confusion to what could have been a straight forward design. Instead of emphasizing the Disney worlds and Square crossovers, the Kingdom hearts series has become mired in nonsense proper nouns like Heartless, Nobodies, and Ansem. Furthermore, the main story doesn’t really tread new ground using its many story conceits. Kingdom Hearts games rely upon the same topics like the power of friendship, the nature of the human heart, and not knowing where you belong for half a dozen games. These storytelling clichés might work in a game targeted at kids, but the downright confusing number of named characters, enemy types, journal entries, Ansem Reports, and shadow organizations make a simple plot very difficult to follow. Even worse, the games don’t even give the original story the time to shine because each game is beholden to retelling Disney movies for much of their moment-to-moment gameplay. As a result, the story feels schizophrenic: the main story takes a backseat to Disney for half the game and then eclipses the Disney stuff for the rest. All of the work and care put into the Kingdom Hearts games ultimately is in service to a main story that says a lot that means very little and a bunch of Disney sections that feel like Spark Notes versions of Disney movies with fan fiction scribbled in.

Those are my central issues with the game and I could definitely go into more detail if I had to, but I figured I would see what other people thought. The series is incredibly polarizing and I have only played the main line games so maybe the DS game and the PSP game fix the storytelling problems I see in KH1 and 2. I like individual moments in the KH games, but man does it feel like the game is much less than the sum of its parts.