Not for everyone
I had heard about Kingdom Hearts from many of my friends and how great it was, but this game passed me by at first. It wasn't until a few months ago I saw it at my used game store and decided to give it a whirl.
It was a decision I regret almost as much as getting a Nokia N-Gage.
It's not that I hate Final Fantasy or Disney, I like some of the Final Fantasy games and I generally like Disney, my problem is however that the game decides that not only have you played every single Final Fantasy game, but you've played it and have memorized each and every characters background, social network and favorite color scheme. The scene where Cloud comes into the Colosseum pops especially into mind. Where he's presented as a bad ass from hell, but we are given no reason as to why he is, other than what we have witnessed in Final Fantasy VII.
I am not though some hoydy-toydy snob who says that every game must be art and has to have some deep philosophical metaphors in it's story. What I do need though, is to have a good time while playing a game, be it for reasons of: Gameplay, Story, the Hedonistic feeling we get when we rip through our opponents like so much paper maché. Any reason to have fun.
Kingdom Hearts however, held no fun times for me. Instead I got horrible platforming which could be described as trying to thread a needle using only your eyelids and tongue, especially the Tarzan world. Oh how I loathed the Tarzan world...
Bad platforming can be forgiven if the combat is fun though, which leads me to what I hated most about the game. The combat. Which is basically Ratchet and Clank style combat mixed with elements of turned based combat, without the turn based aspect of it. Which is like chess with the added rule of not thinking before you make your move, then you have to pilot your ship between worlds, which is about as amusing as playing Galaga at 1/8 the speed.
The games biggest offense however is it's use of Donald and Goofy who in this game are mere shadows of their former glorious selves. Due to the fact that they are not at all funny. These are not the Goofy and Donald from the classic Walt Disney shorts, instead we have the painfully unfunny Goof Troop and Quack pack versions of them respectively.
The single star I award this game is because it is playable, it has no glaring glitches or bugs and just for the premise that Square and Disney belong in the same universe.
p.s. I am not saying that my views reign supreme over the massive hoards of KH fans, I am simply stating that it is not for me, and thus it is not for everyone.