Hey there folks and welcome to another episode of the Keyblade Chronicles, a weekly blog series documenting and deconstructing my attempts to play the entire Kingdom Hearts franchise in a bid to get all caught up in time for Kingdom Hearts III's January 2019 release. If you're new to this series then I'd recommend starting from the very first blog here, and then working your way through the episodes in order - this is going to be confusing enough without trying to pick up the story halfway through. If you're one episode behind then there's a link to the previous episode above, while the introductory blog also hosts an episode list for each game in the series. If you're all up to date and ready to continue the adventures of Sora and company, keep scrolling past the title card:

In today's episode we'll be taking an in-depth look at Kingdom Hearts' opening worlds. We'll be starting off in the original hub-world of Traverse Town, before setting off on our Gummi Ship to the first two Disney-inspired worlds - Wonderland (from Alice in Wonderland), and Olympus Coliseum (from Hercules). Along the way we'll be learning a whole lot more about the tide of darkness spreading across the worlds, the mysterious Keyblade that Sora has acquired, and start to put some of these many disparate pieces together.

When we last left Sora, he had been swallowed up by an enormous ball of darkness, along with his friends Riku and Kairi, and their entire homeworld of Destiny Islands. What awaits him on the other side of the void? Read on to find out...

Part 06 - A Whole New World

I know what some of you are thinking - shouldn't I have saved this subtitle for when I get to Agrabah? I thought about it, but honestly, I think it's more fitting here. With Sora swallowed in darkness, our perspective shifts back to Donald and Goofy, who have ditched their respective mage and knight outfits in favour of ones slightly closer to their traditional Disney garb (albeit adorned with the requisite Tetsuya Nomura belts and zippers). They're walking through the streets of a town when they look up to witness a star going out, just like King Mickey said they were in his letter. I'm almost positive the assumption to be made here is that the star being extinguished is actually the Destiny Islands, given the timing of events. Unsure which way to go, Goofy's suggestion to follow Pluto is overridden by Donald, delivering one of my favourite lines of the whole game - "Ah, what do you know, you big palooka?". I can't explain why, but something about the way that line is delivered makes me chuckle every time I hear it. The pair of Disney characters set off in a different direction, while it's revealed that had they followed Pluto, they would have run straight into... Sora!

Pluto wakes Sora by pouncing on him before running off and leaving him to explore this strange new town on his own. His first port of call is the nearby Accessory Shop, where he runs into none other than Cid Highwind. As a kid whose introduction to the Japanese RPG genre came in the form of Final Fantasy VII, seeing him rendered in gorgeous 3D blew me away when I played this game for the first time. In a brief conversation in which Sora and Cid both manage to insult each other, Cid reveals that Sora is now in Traverse Town, a refuge for those whose worlds have been lost to darkness. Sora resolves to start looking for Riku and Kairi, and leaves the shop to explore the town further. As he moves from the First District into the Second, he witnesses one of the townspeople collapse and turn into a shadowy creature similar to the ones that attacked his island. Maybe this safe haven isn't so safe after all.

While this is the only scene to trigger that's mandatory for moving the story along, there are some benefits to exploring the Second and Third Districts a little more thoroughly. One of these is that it gets the player used to the pacing of how Kingdom Hearts mixes its exploration and combat - up until now the game has focused on providing either one experience or the other, with combat opportunities being pre-defined and almost all exploration being risk-free. Moving through Traverse Town, on the other hand, attunes players to the mindset that enemies can literally pop out of nowhere to interrupt the flow of exploring. Players also start to intuit things like enemy spawn points and safe zones through this process. Another reason for wanting to get into every nook and cranny of Traverse Town is that doing so will treat you to a number of humorous "near-miss" moments when Sora leaves an area through one door, only for Donald and Goofy to arrive through another. It's a small thing, and quite silly, but I still appreciate it for what it's trying to do. Finally, there's the classic RPG incentive of experience gain - a quick lap of Traverse Town will earn Sora a decent amount of experience and even some Munny (the game's main currency) for his trouble.

After exhausting all open avenues, I head back to Cid at the Accessory Shop. This is a necessary stop to move the story along, although it's not telegraphed especially well by the game. In fact, story telegraphing through level design and character dialogue is one of the most hit-and-miss things about Kingdom Hearts as a whole, as I'll explain further in future parts and episodes. Back outside, Sora is approached by a man wearing black, who warns him that the shadows will keep coming after him as long as he carries the Keyblade, and tries to relieve him of his burden. The camera works hard to deliver some well-choreographed fan-service here, showing parts of the man's outfit like his lion-shaped necklace and the red wings on the back of his black jacket, to tease knowledgeable Final Fantasy fans as to his identity. It's only when Sora refuses to hand over his weapon that the camera pans up far enough to reveal the scarred face of Final Fantasy VIII's protagonist, Squall Leonhart.

Mini-Boss - Leon - Leon is without a doubt the toughest enemy up to this point. He's fast, he's got a mix of short- and long-range attacks thanks to his gunblade and Fire magic, it's difficult to read when it's safe to attack him, and comparatively, Sora just doesn't have a wide enough moveset to effectively counter him at this early stage in the game. I honestly don't think I ever beat him when playing the original version of Kingdom Hearts on PS2. My saving grace here is Stun Impact, an ability that was added as part of the Final Mix content. Stun Impact carries a 30% chance of finishing any combo with a special attack that inflicts the Stun status on enemies, locking them in place and rendering them unable to attack until either they are attacked again or it wears off. With RNG on my side, I'm able to Stun Leon a number of times, giving me extra windows of time to land additional attacks. As with Darkside previously, losing to Leon in this fight won't result in a Game Over, but you will forgo some experience.

However the fight ends, whether through defeat or exhaustion, Sora wipes out and collapses. We're treated to another Final Fantasy cameo as Yuffie Kisaragi, the cocky ninja from Final Fantasy VII, arrives on the scene. Squall, who's going by the name Leon in this canon, says to her that things are a lot worse than they thought, which is the first inkling the player gets that someone other than King Mickey has been expecting Sora to show up. While our protagonist is in recovery, some more exposition takes place. In the first scene, Donald and Goofy are walking through a deserted part of Traverse Town when someone places a hand on Donald's shoulder and asks if the King sent them. In yet another piece of Final Fantasy fan-service (how my twelve-year-old mind didn't explode from all this excitement, I'll never know), the hand belongs to Aerith Gainsborough, another character from Final Fantasy VII. The second scene, new and exclusive to the Final Mix version, depicts Riku waking up in a strange new world - one which we'll eventually be visiting, although not for some time. He calls for Kairi and Sora and gets no answer, but as the camera pans away from him, it reveals the hem of a dark cloak, belonging to someone looking down at him. The inclusion of this scene feels both unnecessary and jarring, since it retcons an event that didn't really need explaining, and due to the time elapsed between the original game and the English Final Mix version, it features no voice-acting, only subtitles.

When Sora awakens in a room in the Traverse Town hotel, he's met with what he thinks is a familiar face - Kairi. Unfortunately the excitement is short-lived - he's hallucinating, and the girl standing in front of him is actually Yuffie. What follows is a lengthy story exposition scene that cuts back and forth between Sora, Leon and Yuffie in one room, and Donald, Goofy and Aerith in the room next door. While this plot dump is relatively tame by the standards the franchise has become known for, there's still a lot of ground covered in a short space of time, so I'll do my very best to summarise here. Sora has been chosen by the Keyblade, a weapon with the power to defeat the Heartless. The Heartless, incidentally, are the shadowy figures Sora has been fighting up to now - they're born from, and hunger for, the darkness in people's hearts. The Heartless fear the Keyblade, but desire the heart of its Bearer, which is what's causing them to spawn and attack Sora so relentlessly. We also learn that before coming to Traverse Town, all of these Final Fantasy characters used to live together under the rule of a wise fellow named Ansem. He was researching the Heartless and the powers of darkness, but all of his research was lost and scattered when their world was consumed by darkness several years ago. Donald and Goofy surmise that King Mickey may be looking for Ansem's Report, hoping it will contain information on how to stop the Heartless from destroying all worlds, a view that Aerith shares.

Sora's history lesson is cut short by a Heartless spawning within the hotel room. Leon and Sora send it crashing through the window and follow it down into the street below. Meanwhile, Yuffie escapes through the door into the next room, where Aerith, Donald and Goofy have been chatting. Poor Donald can't get out of the way in time and gets trapped behind the door as Yuffie bursts through, resulting in another humorous visual gag as he's flattened cartoon-style behind the door. Back in control of Sora, I do as Leon says and avoid getting too bogged down battling the minion Heartless. My destination is the Third District, where Sora finally meets up with Donald and Goofy after a spell backfires and causes them to crash down on top of him. I really admire Kingdom Hearts' dedication to these moments of light-hearted visual comedy. The pacing doesn't always land quite as it should, perhaps as a result of the translation process, but the fact the game puts so much heart and effort into trying to amuse the player goes a long way towards winning me over.

Before anyone can introduce themselves, our newly established trio are thrown headlong into an arena-style battle against a wave of Heartless. Alongside the bog-standard Shadow enemies are slightly stronger and more aggressive Soldiers, whose spinning kick attacks catch me unawares a couple of times before I start to read their tells and react accordingly. There's a lot that I could say about having Donald and Goofy joining Sora in combat, and I'm sure over the course of this series I'll get most of it out there, but for now I just want to focus on the basics. For a start, their presence helps because it gives enemies other targets to focus on, reducing enemy attention on Sora and giving the player a bit more time to think and plan ahead in fights. They're also pretty reliable in terms of doing chip-damage to enemies in the process. Sadly, that's about as far as the positives go at this stage. They're terrible resource guzzlers, using their held items far too liberally even on the lowest manual setting. The last two times I played the game in 2015, I would only give them items to hold immediately before boss battles, because I found that doing otherwise was draining my stock of Potions and Ethers far too quickly, and I suspect this playthrough will be no different. They also have very little sense of self-preservation - while they can and do heal themselves with items and spells, they lack the AI required to distance themselves from danger when it's overwhelming them. Donald and Goofy certainly have their uses, and I'll get to those later on at the appropriate time, but right now, that's all I can say about them.

No sooner do the trio dispatch this wave of smaller enemies than their leader chooses to reveal his disembodied floating head. With a series of metallic clangs as its parts fall from the sky, Sora, Donald and Goofy come face to face with:

BOSS - Guard Armor - Guard Armor is definitely a step up from Darkside. His limbless body is comprised of five distinct targets - two hands, two feet, and a head and torso which share an HP pool (the extremities all have their own health bars). Each body part moves independently, has its own attack patterns, and can detach from the core unit to zero in on its chosen target. This means the player has to try and keep track of what each part is doing at all times, look for tells and evade accordingly, attacking only when it's safe to do so. My tried and tested strategy involves clearing the hands first - given these have the least HP, they're the quickest targets to eliminate, and the less targets on the field means the less individual components there are to try and attack Sora and crew. The hands can spin and also drive down into the ground, but these attacks can be parried with a well-timed attack, inflicting Stun and buying some valuable time to wail on the downed appendage. Once the hands are gone, it becomes easier to focus on the feet. These also have two distinct attacks - a forward march which can be parried, and a shockwave-emitting stomp that must be dodged. Each time a hand or foot is defeated, it will drop HP balls, giving the player an opportunity to heal up before attacking the next body part. When only the torso and head are left, they will begin using a deadly tornado-style spin attack - again, this can be parried with a well-timed attack. When the torso's HP reserves are depleted, the battle is over.

With Guard Armor defeated, Sora, Donald and Goofy finally introduce themselves to each other. Donald and Goofy explain that they're on an interstellar mission to find the Key Bearer on the instructions of their King. They invite Sora to join them on their journey, travelling to different worlds to try and pick up the King's trail. While Sora initially seems reluctant, some gentle encouragement from Leon - reminding him that getting out there is the best way to try and find his missing friends - convinces him to go along. It's here that one of Kingdom Hearts' most memorable scenes plays out - the "happy faces" scene. "You can't come along looking like that, understand?" Donald says to Sora. "No frowning, no sad face. This boat runs on happy faces!" And what's Sora's response to this? Well:

This is one of the few situations where I think I like something in Kingdom Hearts more now than I did as a kid. Back when I was twelve I just thought this scene was stupid and out of place, something that got drastically lost in translation from the original Japanese script. Now, with over fifteen years of distance from that first playthrough, I actually think it's one of my favourite moments in the game. Sora's lack of inhibition in this moment goes a long way towards breaking the ice between the three characters. It also serves to distinguish him from the stereotypical brooding, moody protagonists that had come to define the Japanese RPG genre at the time of its release, and to establish Kingdom Hearts as a game where, just like Square-Enix and Disney, the serious and light-hearted can co-exist.

Sora still looks dumb, though. No getting around that.

With our trinity formed, the action shifts perspectives once more, this time to a round table in a very dark room which, for the purposes of avoiding story spoilers, I'm just going to call 'Villain HQ' for now. As ominous music plays, a number of characters with familiar, sinister voices are gathered round the table discussing Sora and his Keyblade. Some seem quite concerned by his meddling, while others question what threat a young boy could pose. Their bickering is halted by a black-cloaked female figure who through a camera pan is revealed to be Maleficent, the antagonist from Sleeping Beauty and apparent leader of this troupe of ne'er-do-wells. She poses the question - will he conquer the darkness, or be swallowed by it? Time will tell, I suppose.

With Sora in tow, Donald and Goofy say their goodbyes and prepare to board their ship. As a going away present, the Final Fantasy characters gift our newly-formed party with a handful of Munny to spend on items, weapons and accessories in Traverse Town's shops. As a welcome present, Donald teaches Sora his first magic spell - Fire, a modest offensive spell allowing him to shoot a ball of flame from the tip of his Keyblade. Fire has decent range, homing properties and deals reasonable damage at this early stage in the game, making for a good introduction to Kingdom Hearts' magic system. The default magic menu can be quite cumbersome to navigate as it requires the player to use the D-pad instead of the left analog stick, stopping Sora from moving and making him a sitting duck while spells and targets are selected. Thankfully, there's a customisable shortcut menu implemented, allowing the player to rattle off a quick spell with the touch of a face button while holding down L1.

Goofy's welcome present for Sora is the Dodge Roll ability. Kingdom Hearts' ability system is one of the most important components of its gameplay, since it allows the player to customise Sora's combat loadout to fit their playing style. There are many different kinds of abilities in Kingdom Hearts, from active combat abilities that trigger special attacks, to passive abilities that affect what spoils enemies drop after a battle, and everything between. These abilities need to be equipped in order to be used or activated, but there's a limit to what can be equipped. Each ability has a corresponding point value from 1 to 5, indicating how many ability points (or AP) it will cost to equip, and a character can't equip more abilities than their current total AP will allow. More AP can be earned by levelling up, equipping certain accessories, or using certain items. Dodge Roll, as its name suggests, maps an evasive roll manoeuvre to the Square button - a welcome addition to Sora's battle repertoire, and a steal with an equip cost of only 1AP. I equip it immediately, knowing that I'll be making liberal use of it in the worlds to come.

Before we hop onto the Gummi Ship, there are a few more things I want to do in Traverse Town before leaving. The first is to use the Munny I've accrued to pick up some slightly better weapons for Donald and Goofy. Given I'm planning to keep them in line with their combat roles of mage and defender respectively, I decide to opt for the magic-boosting Morning Star for Donald, and the larger Stout Shield for Goofy. One thing that bears mentioning here is that the shop prices have been drastically increased in the Final Mix version of the game, with these weapons costing almost double what they did in the original PS2 release. I assume this was done for balance reasons, but it's still pretty frustrating for my Munny not to go as far as it used to. That's inflation for you, I guess.

Also worth mentioning here are Trinity marks. These are coloured symbols resembling three hearts linked by a circle, and can be triggered when Sora, Donald and Goofy are all together. Each colour corresponds to a different ability, with more being unlocked as the game progresses. Right now we can only activate blue Trinity marks, corresponding to the Trinity Jump ability, but it's worth doing to access some extra items and Munny before moving on. Finally, I feel obliged to mention the 99 Puppies side quest. Anyone who's seen 101 Dalmatians will be familiar with Pongo and Perdita, whose family have made it into Kingdom Hearts as glorified collectibles. The story justification for this is that their ninety-nine puppies were lost and scattered across the worlds when their own world was consumed by darkness. Since Sora, Donald and Goofy are world-hopping anyway, Pongo and Perdy request that they return any puppies they find on their travels, back to their new home in Traverse Town's Second District.

This section has already gone on a lot longer than I anticipated, so let's move on from Traverse Town to pastures new. The team finally leave through the big town gates, and out into the unknown...

Part 07 - Gummis for Dummies

The unknown, as it turns out, is Kingdom Hearts' World Select menu, a screen showing the game's various worlds and the routes that connect them. Or at least, it will once it's been fleshed out. Right now it depicts two worlds - our current location of Traverse Town, and the unreachable Disney Castle - and two branching paths leading to unknown destinations. Helpfully, the game assigns each world a 'battle level' - a star rating out of ten, indicating its combat difficulty. This is visible even if the world isn't, so while there's a degree of flexibility to the order in which you approach worlds, there's also a helping hand built into the game to tell you where to go next if you're not sure or can't decide. A smart decision for a game that can, at times, be very obtuse about directing the player. For the purposes of this blog series, I'll be tackling worlds in the order recommended by their battle level.

There are a couple of things that are worth noting here, even though I can't really dive too deeply into them until later in the series. The first is the Gummi Garage, a separate menu interface where you can build Gummi Ships, either using pre-designed blueprints or from scratch in the Gummi block editor. Since we only have one blueprint and hardly any Gummi blocks, I'll come back to explain this one in more detail later. For now, just know that it's there. I also quickly take this opportunity to customise my Gummi Ship controls so the main cannons are on the L1 button, because as anyone who's ever played Cuphead will tell you, firing should never be on a face button.

Also worth mentioning are the Gummi Ship missions. These weren't present in the original release of Kingdom Hearts, but were added later in the Final Mix version of the game, I believe as a response to journalistic criticism. They give the player scores to beat and tasks to accomplish while flying between worlds, adding an extra layer of depth and purpose to what is, as I'll eventually explain, a pretty mundane portion of the overall gameplay. Each world has three missions associated with it, with later missions unlocking once earlier ones have been completed and the requisite flight paths have been opened and travelled at least once. As with the Gummi Garage, it's not something we can engage with right now, but I think it's worth acknowledging at least.

Out of the two available paths, I select the one leading to the world with a battle level of one star, and set off. These flight sections between worlds play like Star Fox (or at least, how I imagine Star Fox plays as someone who's never played it themselves but has seen plenty of gameplay footage over the years). It's a semi-on-rails shooting sequence where your ship travels constantly forwards, while you have the freedom to move around the screen in two dimensions to avoid obstacles and enemy attacks, and launching your own attacks using on-board weapons like cannons and lasers.

Although it's light on extra features, the default 'Kingdom' Gummi Ship is a pretty good ship for getting to grips with the controls and mechanics of these flight sections. It's light and manoeuvres round the screen reasonably well, and it also has a cannon for taking down any enemy ships, which are apparently piloted by Heartless - a fact that poses some conundrums I may bring up later, if I can recall it when it becomes relevant. Damn it, there's a lot of stuff I need to try and remember to revisit later on. Destroying these ships leaves behind goodies to pick up - usually Gummi blocks, sometimes blueprints, all of which get added to your Gummi Garage for future use.

One criticism I will level at the Gummi Ship sequences, even at this early stage, is the fact that you have to move the Gummi Ship to move the weapon crosshair. This means that trying to line up shots on enemies or obstacles will move your ship, potentially into the path of other oncoming hazards. While it's not a deal-breaker on this route, I can already foresee the problems it's going to cause me down the line, both on busier routes and should I attempt any of those aforementioned missions. Independent control of both the Ship and crosshair using an industry-standard two-stick control system would have worked much better. Some might say I should give the game a pass considering its release predates a lot of modern control standards, but it's hard to feel that way knowing that they made quality-of-life improvements to other aspects of the game's controls without addressing this one.

The path to the first world is pretty unremarkable, not really a surprise given it's the first time a player will have piloted a Gummi Ship. None of the enemy ships have weapons attached, so there aren't any projectiles to dodge, and most of the obstacles can easily be avoided or destroyed with some well-placed cannon fire. After a couple of minutes of relatively uneventful travel, Sora, Donald and Goofy arrive on the edge of a brand new world and prepare to disembark.

Part 08 - When Wonder Ain't So Wonderful

If you weren't able to work it out from the title of this section, our first port of call in our search for Riku, Kairi and King Mickey is Wonderland, the nonsense realm from Disney's 1951 animated classic, Alice in Wonderland. While that film took great liberties with its source material, Kingdom Hearts' fidelity to the Disney interpretation is impressive, at least initially. It begins almost exactly as the film does, with Sora, Donald and Goofy falling down the Rabbit Hole into Wonderland. Not wanting to miss a prime opportunity for slapstick comedy, we see Sora and Donald land gently on their feet, before Goofy is dropped from a few feet onto his stomach. Meanwhile, a White Rabbit runs by, prompting the team to give chase.

I must say that in preparation for this blog, I rewatched the Disney films that these worlds are taken from, and in the case of Wonderland, I was pleasantly surprised by how faithful this opening environment is to its cinematic counterpart. The colours and surreal proportions of the rabbit hole and the objects within it go a long way towards making me feel like I've genuinely stepped into the world of the film. They even have the multiple doors in ever-decreasing sizes that lead into the next room. Unfortunately the same can't be said of the Bizarre Room itself. While the film's iconic Doorknob character is present, along with the table and the bottles on it marked 'Drink Me', the rest of the room is filled with furnishings - a far cry from its near-empty state in the film. It almost feels like at one stage the developers might have had two separate scenes planned - one in the Bizarre Room, and one in the White Rabbit's house - but decided to cut the latter and move some of its contents into the former. That's purely speculation on my part, though.

To progress from here, I need to solve a... Well, I've written the word 'puzzle' in my notes, but that seems generous in retrospect. Since the Doorknob goes to sleep and won't grant Sora passage, I need to push a bed into the wall while fully sized, revealing a small exit that I can get through after using the bottle to shrink down to size. Simple I know, but I promise things get a little more involved down the line. From here, their next destination is the Queen of Hearts' Castle. While those words might summon up images of grandeur, the reality is quite disappointing - a single square room, with distant landscapes painted on the surface of each wall to try and give the illusion of open space. Which would be fine, were it not for the fact you can run directly up to these walls and shatter the already-cracked facade the game is putting on. Honestly, I know it's still early days, but I think the Queen's Castle might be my most disappointing zone from any world in the whole game.

Sora, Donald and Goofy arrive to find the Queen of Hearts presiding over a trial, in which a young girl named Alice is accused of trying to steal her heart. Donald and Goofy remind Sora that it's not appropriate to meddle in the affairs of other worlds, but that doesn't stop Sora's friendly side getting the better of him, and he rushes in to help. Naturally the Queen doesn't take too kindly to this interruption and places Alice in custody, demanding that the trio bring her evidence of Alice's innocence before she will set her free. That means - yep, you guessed it - another fetch quest! It seems like this game just can't get enough of them in its first few hours.

Our next destination is the Lotus Forest, a natural environment that takes most of its visual cues from the scenes in the film involving the Caterpillar, although he's sadly nowhere to be seen. Instead we're greeted by the Cheshire Cat, who speaks to us in poorly-written riddles that suggest there are four pieces of evidence to be found in Wonderland - Footprints, Antenna, Stench, and Claw Marks. Two of these are here in the Lotus Forest, while the other two are back in the Bizarre Room, although they must be reached by using specific exits from the Lotus Forest to access previously unreachable areas. You only need to find one box to take back to the Queen to trigger the next story beat, but finding all four comes with its own reward - early access to the Blizzard spell. Another piece of offensive magic, Blizzard emits from the Keyblade in a wave rather than a single projectile, giving it a wider spread but shorter range than Fire. It's particularly useful in close quarters against groups of enemies, and is very effective against the new enemy types in Wonderland - taking out the Fire-casting Red Nocturnes using Blizzard will earn Sora extra 'tech' experience points.

With all four pieces of evidence in hand, I return to the Queen to present them. Not particularly satisfied with the results of my treasure hunt, she presents a box of her own evidence and shuffles them all before asking Sora to pick a box at random, upon which she will base her judgement. Your chances of success here will depend directly on how many pieces of evidence you collected, but even at best, there's a twenty percent chance of picking the wrong box. Doing so will incriminate Donald and Goofy, while picking one of your own pieces of evidence will make the Heartless the prime suspects. Either way, the end result is the same - the Queen will lose her temper, hoist Alice out of reach, and set her card guards on you.

Mini-Boss - Guard Tower - This fight can start in one of two ways. If you presented evidence suggesting the Heartless were to blame, you'll have Donald and Goofy by your side. However, if you pick the Queen's evidence and implicate your buddies in the crime, they'll be detained in makeshift cages and Sora will be on his own. This is easily remedied - just attack their cages to release them and they'll join you in combat. The target here isn't actually an enemy but a stationary guard tower used by the guards to hoist Alice's cage off the ground. That's not to say there aren't enemies to deal with, mind - the Queen's card guards are on the offensive, and will try to stop you from taking down the tower with attacks of their own. This is where it pays to have Donald and Goofy along for the ride, since they can draw the attention of the card guards and leave Sora relatively unimpeded as he slaps the tower with his Keyblade. Should your buddies faint and the guards turn their attention to you, Blizzard can be useful (if you've unlocked it) for its crowd control properties. Like the Guard Armor, destroying parts of the tower will release HP orbs, providing a mid-battle healing opportunity. Make the most of this, as it won't be long before the game stops being this generous.

Once the tower is fully destroyed, the battle is over. Alice's cage returns to the ground and swings open to reveal - nothing! It appears Alice was kidnapped by someone (or something) while everyone was busy duking it out. The Queen, apparently quick to forgive, tasks Sora, Donald and Goofy with finding her - there can be no trial without a defendant, after all. Heading back to the Lotus Forest, the Cheshire Cat appears once again to riddle us towards our next destination - in order to reveal the shadows, we need to "light the lamps in the upside-down room". It's here that the Bizarre Room starts truly living up to its name, as entering it from different angles will cause the perspective to shift, allowing Sora to walk on the walls and even the ceiling. It's this last option we need, accessible through a newly-opened exit in the Lotus Forest that leads through the Tea Party Garden. This is another of my big disappointments within this world - the fact that the film's iconic tea party scene, bursting with creative potential for the developers to exploit, is reduced to nothing more than a cameo environmental appearance.

Once on the ceiling of the Bizarre Room, we can light the lamps as per the Cheshire Cat's instruction. These lights are guarded by several Heartless including a new type called Large Bodies. These huge round Heartless introduce another element of strategy to combat since they can't be damaged from the front by physical attacks - Sora must either employ magic, or get around behind them to hit their exposed backs. Very few regular enemies demand this level of planning and strategy in Kingdom Hearts, so I commend the Large Bodies and their kin (who we'll meet in future episodes) for mixing things up a bit. Once the enemies are wiped out, Sora can light the lamps with a tap of the Triangle button. It's slightly disappointing for the game not to make use of the Fire spell here, but I can understand why - making them magically flammable could cause them to be lit during combat, which I guess could cause scripting issues for the next cutscene.

With the lamps lit, the Cheshire Cat tells Sora that the enemies will appear here, but also in another place - a not-so-subtle hint to return to the Bizarre Room with a different orientation. Specifically, we're looking to re-enter the right way up. A quick bit of backtracking is all that's required here, and when Sora joins the Cheshire Cat on the big glass table, Alice's kidnapper finally reveals itself.

BOSS - Trickmaster - The Trickmaster is another step up in the boss fight department. Unlike previous bosses, it only has one strikeable target, that being its weird, multi-faced head. Given the enemy's stature, this target is out of reach of Sora's regular attacks, forcing the player to use the chair and table in the middle of the Bizarre Room to gain some height and ensure their attacks find their mark. Landing a few hits on the head in this way will cause the Trickmaster to slump, bringing its weak point within range of ground-based attacks for a short time and releasing a smattering of health-restoring HP balls in the process.

If this sounds more straightforward than the fight with Guard Armor, it's because I haven't talked about Trickmaster's skill-set yet. It carries a pair of batons which it can twirl and swing to prevent you from reaching its weak point by knocking you out of the air. These batons are also flammable, making it inadvisable to use Fire magic against Trickmaster (although successfully casting Blizzard on a lit baton will put it out and earn you some 'tech' experience). It can also sing to make the table spin, making it even more difficult to line up a jump towards its weak point, and can even slam the table and chair down into the ground for a time, temporarily removing your only way to meet it on its own level.

When Trickmaster's health drops below a certain point it will change tactics, heading over to the corner of the Bizarre Room and using the stove to light its batons. It will now use its lit batons to shoot homing fire balls at Sora, which are incredibly fast and difficult to evade even with Dodge Roll. I found the best tactic at this point was to put the table and chair between Sora and the Trickmaster, causing its attacks to fizzle out when they hit the glass, then leap up onto the table and resume my aerial attack strategy once the barrage of fireballs had ceased. Eventually the Trickmaster's HP bar will deplete and earn you the victory. Additionally, if you didn't earn it while collecting evidence before, defeating the Trickmaster will reward you with the Blizzard spell. It's certainly more a battle of attrition than anything else up to now, and I appreciate its attempts to introduce more verticality into the game's combat system. All in all, it's a solid boss fight.

The ruckus from the fight causes the Doorknob to wake up. He yawns, revealing a mysterious Keyhole deep within his own lock-shaped mouth. Sora's Keyblade reacts with this Keyhole, emitting a beam of light that seals it and releases a strangely-shaped Gummi block. As with a great many other things, the significance of this action won't be revealed until a little later on, so for now I'll just ask you to pop it in your memory bank, alongside all the other things that aren't relevant just yet, but will be soon. Unfortunately, although they beat the Trickmaster, they're too late to save Alice - the Cheshire Cat tells them that she's been taken away by the shadows into darkness. Sora is disappointed, but Donald remains optimistic that they'll find Alice on one of the other worlds they travel to. While the game glosses over this pretty quickly, I feel like it's worth pointing out that Sora's first grand mission to another world is actually a pretty consummate failure. For all his bravado, he is unable to clear Alice's name in the eyes of the Queen of Hearts, and is then unable to save her when she's kidnapped by the Heartless. All of this feeds into a narrative that Kingdom Hearts has been weaving since its opening - Sora is not a natural hero. He's a kid with a huge burden placed unexpectedly on his shoulders, and he's doing the best he can with what little experience he's got. Since, once again, this is something that's going to link up with future story events, I'll try to remember to tie up this thread when we reach the other end of it.

With nothing left to do in Wonderland right now, Sora, Donald and Goofy return to their Gummi Ship and set off in search of other worlds.

WONDERLAND Thoughts - Given I've prepped for this series by re-watching the Disney films that these worlds are based on, I felt it might be worth adding some final thoughts about each world as I play it, and how successful I think Kingdom Hearts is at replicating the experience of the film. In Wonderland's case, I've always thought it was very out-of-place compared with other worlds in the Kingdom Hearts universe. It's a weird choice as the first world since its nonsensical inspiration lends itself to mechanics that never appear again in any other part of the game - namely the puzzles around size manipulation and reorientation of the Bizarre Room. Introduced later in the game these might be better received for what they are - world-inspired gimmicks. But to put them in the very first world that our heroes travel to creates a certain sense of expectation within the player that the rest of the game then doesn't meet. I don't think it's intentionally misleading, but that doesn't make it forgivable.

Aesthetically I think the world does a great job of creating a sense of place, although I'm left feeling a little bit disappointed that it didn't try to do more. Rewatching Alice in Wonderland, I was struck by how the film is composed of a number of episodic vignettes rather than a continuous narrative. Alice visits a wide variety of places on her trip through Wonderland, and it's a shame that we don't get to see a wider variety of them re-created in 3D. I feel the same about the characters chosen to feature within the world, too. When the film's cast features such iconic characters as the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, Tweedles Dee and Dum and the Caterpillar, it feels like wasted potential to then only meet the White Rabbit, the Doorknob, the Queen of Hearts and the Cheshire Cat. Of course, I realise I'm being vastly unfair to the game here - since Wonderland is itself merely a single episode in the wider context of Kingdom Hearts, it makes sense for the developers to pick one of those vignettes from the film and develop the world around that, rather than trying to cram in everything but the kitchen sink. I just feel like some of those iconic characters would have made very welcome additions to the world's cast.

One area I'm less willing to concede ground to the developers is in the design of the Heartless for this world. Wonderland is full of weird and wondrous creatures, perhaps best driven home by the film's Tulgey Wood scene - the glasses on legs, the mirror-faced and shovel-beaked birds, the horn-like ducks, and who could forget the dog with brushes for its face and tail that sweeps away the path beneath Alice's feet? All of these could have made exciting and interesting base designs from which to build some world-specific Heartless. Instead we get a batch of generic humanoids - Shadows, Soldiers and Large Bodies - and the mage-inspired Red Nocturnes. In defence of the game, however, I do like the Trickmaster's chaotic design and feel that it's a good fit for this world.

Part 09 - We Could Be Heroes

Our next destination is the unknown world with a battle level of two stars, situated on the other side of Traverse Town. That means I have to fly my Gummi Ship back to Traverse Town, completing the previous flight route in reverse before setting out in the opposite direction. It's pretty similar to the route to Wonderland, as none of the enemy ships have weapons. There are significantly more obstacles on this route, however, including a few walls of Gummi blocks which must be shot in order to pass through. Successfully reaching the end of this route puts Sora, Donald and Goofy in front of their next destination - Olympus Coliseum.

Immediately upon arrival, the aesthetics of Olympus Coliseum do a great job of transporting you to the world of Disney's Hercules. The light colours, the juxtaposition of swirls and straight lines in the architecture, and that sweeping score with its blaring horns, evoking shades of the movie's theme, Go the Distance. It's the perfect introduction to this new world and sets an appropriate tone for the story we're about to experience. Passing through the Coliseum doors into the lobby, the team meet Philoctetes for the first time. While the game's budget clearly didn't extend to hiring Danny DeVito, stand-in Robert Costanzo (who voiced the character in the TV series and straight-to-DVD prequel) does a fine job of aping his style, even if his New York drawl does go on a little too long as he declares he's "preparin' for the gaaammeesss".

I realise I haven't spoken about Kingdom Hearts' voice acting before now, despite there having been quite a lot of it so far. I guess the reason for that is that for the most part, it's serviceable, but unremarkable. The original characters have appropriate child-actor voices - Sora is voiced by Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence), Kairi by Hayden Panettiere (Heroes and Nashville), and Riku by David Gallagher (whose credits are less impressive, but include 2007's The Picture of Dorian Gray). With the exception of one notable character, all the Final Fantasy VII characters with spoken dialogue are voiced by the actors who would go on to portray them in the Advent Children movie. On investigation, several big-name actors actually reprised their roles for the Disney characters in this game. Although we haven't yet encountered him, Hades carries the unmistakable charismatic fast-talk of James Woods. Perhaps even more shockingly, Alice was voiced by the same Kathryn Beaumont who provided her voice in the original movie, some fifty years apart. It's therefore all the more surprising that given the level of talent involved, so many of the Disney characters' lines sound so throwaway. I'm not sure what specifically is at fault here, whether it's sub-par voice direction, or a lack of recording time, but a lot of the lines sound like first takes that were deemed "good enough". In light of the talent involved, these serviceable performances actually end up feeling a little disappointing.

Sora is keen to enter the games but Phil's not having any of it. Instead he sets Sora a couple of time-trial barrel-busting challenges to prove himself. These two challenges are unlike anything else in the game up to this point, combining combat mechanics with physics-based puzzle-solving as you try to launch stacks of barrels into other stacks of barrels to chain your destruction and shave valuable seconds off your time. It's not exactly difficult, but the process of working things out is rewarding enough, especially on the tougher second course. Unless you're like me and use the Ripple Drive ability to destroy the stacks of barrels in no time at all, removing the strategic element altogether. Phil is impressed by Sora's performance, but still doesn't think he's "hero enough" to compete in the gaaammeesss. While he's not prepared to hand over an Entry Pass, he does teach Sora how to use the Thunder spell. Like Fire and Blizzard, this is an offensive spell, but instead of being emitted from the tip of the Keyblade, it originates above an enemy before striking down on them and their surrounding area. It's useful for dealing with groups of enemies at range, and because Sora doesn't need to be facing a locked-on target to use it, it's very useful when trying to move away from enemies and keep them at a distance. However, it consumes more MP than Fire or Blizzard, and doesn't seem to do as much damage.

While trying to leave Olympus Coliseum, Sora and friends are intercepted by a new character - the lord of the Underworld, Hades. It just so happens he's carrying a spare Entry Pass for the games, and wants Sora to take it. There's definitely more going on here than meets the eye, but Sora's oblivious to this and happy purely to have a route into the Coliseum. He runs back to Phil and presents him with the pass, who reluctantly grants him access to participate.

What follows are a sequence of battles pitting Sora, Donald and Goofy against groups of Heartless, restricted to a featureless square arena. Defeating each group of Heartless earns passage to the next round of the tournament, and every other round is punctuated by a story-progressing cutscene. There's nothing remarkable about the fights themselves - they're all against familiar enemies with the exception of the new Blue Rhapsody, another mage-type Heartless who uses Blizzard magic. After two rounds, Phil calls the guys over for a pep talk. He tells them that if they keep it up, they might end up fighting against a real hero, like his own protegé, Hercules. It's here that one of the most iconic moments from my childhood playthroughs of this game unfolds. A caped figure walks past Sora, catching his eye. The camera pans up (this game sure likes its pan-up reveals, huh?) to reveal the familiar armour, face and hair of Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife. For anyone who might not be able to comprehend the significance of this moment, let me remind you that Kingdom Hearts predates Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children by almost three years. This was the first time I'd seen the protagonist of my then-favourite video game rendered in such detailed 3D. This was a big deal.

A couple of fights later, the motivation for Hades offering Sora a pass for the games becomes clear. We see him standing underneath the bleachers with Cloud, discussing the fact that the swordsman is likely to end up fighting against the Key Bearer in an upcoming round. Cloud isn't keen, remarking that the deal he struck with Hades was just to kill Hercules, and not some kid. Trying not to lose his cool, Hades explains that Sora is just collateral - a stepping stone on the way to fighting Herc - but Cloud walks away unconvinced. Still, it seems like Hades has a contingency plan in place, if the growling coming from beneath the bleachers is any indication.

Sure enough, it's not long before Sora is staring down Cloud in the arena. This fight bears a lot of similarities to the one against Leon in Traverse Town - a single sword-wielding opponent who outclasses Sora in terms of combat ability, but who can be overcome with the right strategy. It's a tough fight, requiring the player to listen out for Cloud's spoken tells in order to get out of the way of his incredibly fast charge attacks. His quick recovery also means that getting greedy and trying to steal too many hits will result in Sora getting acquainted with the business end of the Buster Sword. There are openings, though, and exploiting them with well-timed combos will bring a slow but assured victory. In another parallel to the Leon fight, you don't have to win this battle to move the story forward, but losing will forfeit any experience gain.

Whether Cloud is defeated or wins and refuses to finish Sora off, the end result is the same - Hades counters his disobedience by releasing his three-headed dog Cerberus into the arena. Hercules arrives just in time to hold the beast back, giving Sora, Donald, Goofy and Phil a window to escape. Back in the Coliseum lobby, Phil expresses some concern that Herc might not be able to hold Cerberus off for very long. Sounds like a job for a hero! After a brief moment to recharge at the save point and restock Sora's inventory with healing items, I charge back into the arena to give Hercules and Cloud a hand against the guardian of the Underworld. Unfortunately the hero doesn't feel like hanging around. He grabs Cloud and flees the arena, leaving our three heroes to face the monster alone.

BOSS - Cerberus - Cerberus is easily the toughest challenge that Sora, Donald and Goofy have faced up to this point. His three heads are all targets with a shared HP pool, but they are seldom within reach of Sora's Keyblade and all three attack in relentless waves. They breathe homing balls of fiery energy which can be deflected for 'tech' experience, however this is difficult without the Guard ability equipped. After this Cerberus changes stance, bringing its heads lower to the ground. This invites players in to take a swing, but the apparent opening is actually a lure, bringing an unsuspecting Sora within range of some devastatingly painful bite attacks. As with Cloud, the trick here is not to get too greedy and limit your attacks to one or two at a time, before rolling out of range and avoiding any incoming bites. I also found Thunder pretty useful in this fight, since it allowed me to attack from a distance and hit multiple heads at once.

When Cerberus' HP dips below a certain level, it will add another phase to its attack pattern - after rearing its heads up to the sky, it will lower them, spewing darkness into the ground which re-emerges in the form of dark geysers of energy beneath Sora's feet. Now more than ever, the trick is to keep moving, especially when Cerberus starts combining this attack with its fireball breath. The windows of opportunity may not be as frequent now, but the strategy remains the same. With time and patience, the three-headed dog will eventually fall, bagging Sora and co. another accessory, the Inferno Band.

The team's victory in the battle against Cerberus is enough for Phil to dub them 'junior heroes'. Donald isn't happy about this, but Hercules explains that there's a lot more to being a hero than brute strength, a lesson he had to learn before earning his own hero status (which I guess puts this canon after the events of Disney's Hercules movie?). Phil also gives the team full rights to participate in any future gaaammeesss at the Coliseum, although there's a lot of cleaning up to be done before any more tournaments can take place. I guess that's some subtle foreshadowing that we'll be returning later?

On their way back to the Gummi Ship, Sora stops to chat to a pretty moody-looking Cloud. The swordsman explains that he made his deal with Hades because he promised to help find someone dear to him. Cloud allowed himself to be lured by the power of darkness, and lost sight of the light keeping him going. Sora spots the parallel with his own journey to find Riku and Kairi, and offers Cloud some words of comfort. In return, Cloud teaches Sora the useful Sonic Blade ability, an equivalent of the charging attack he used in their previous battle. Sora challenges Cloud to a rematch somewhere down the line, and although he turns the offer down, you can't help but get the feeling that this isn't the last we'll see of the ex-SOLDIER.

As Sora, Donald and Goofy leave Olympus Coliseum, Hades reappears. He's not happy about what happened with Cerberus in the Coliseum, and vows to eliminate both Hercules and Sora in the next games. Sensing a presence behind him, he turns to see Maleficent. Telling her to stay out of his business, she obliges, parting with a cutting remark before disappearing and leaving Hades to plot his revenge...

OLYMPUS COLISEUM Thoughts - This is a difficult one, since I've already talked a little bit about how Kingdom Hearts' rendition of Olympus Coliseum relates to 1997's Hercules, and since this won't be the last time we visit, I don't want to say anything that will spoil the content still to come. As I mentioned, I think the visuals and music are fantastic, and they're supported by some excellent voice work, particularly from James Woods reprising his role as Hades. Maybe it's my inner fanboy breaking through, but I also love the incorporation of Cloud Strife into Olympus Coliseum's storyline. As a mercenary and swordsman, he's a great fit for this gladiatorial setting, and the parallels drawn between his and Sora's situations make for a really nice moment towards the end of this section, particularly for fans of Final Fantasy VII who know Cloud's background.

It's a slight disappointment that this level of presentation belies a world that is, when all is said and done, an arena for most of the game's optional combat challenges. While I can't deny it's a logical fit, it would have been nice to see this world fleshed out a little more, especially given how well the message of the film ties in with the core themes of Kingdom Hearts (lthough that's something I'll be getting into in more detail when we come back to Olympus Coliseum to wrap up its storyline). Similar to Wonderland, it also feels like a slightly missed opportunity for the developers to conjure up some awesome Heartless designs based on Greek mythology. While it's undeniably cool to face off against Cerberus, I think it could have been even more interesting to do battle with a giant minotaur or chimaera-inspired Heartless as this world's boss battle. Nomura-san, if you're reading this and it's not too late to implement, you can have that idea for Kingdom Hearts III for nothing.

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That's going to do it for this episode of the Keyblade Chronicles. I had hoped to cover a little more ground and get as far as the next world, Deep Jungle, but being as this blog is already longer than the last one, I'm going to have to draw the line prematurely and save that for next week. I think going forward I'm going to have to cover less sections of the game per blog, which likely means this series is going to go on for longer than I'd initially anticipated. Continuing at this pace, it's very unlikely we're going to make it through the whole franchise before Kingdom Hearts III releases in January, and I think I'm okay with that provided my audience is too. If you guys aren't, then my other option is to make these things longer, which I'm happy to attempt, but I'm also aware that doing so could put off potential readers. I'd appreciate feedback on this matter so I can start tailoring this series better to those who are reading it. Until next time, when I'll be covering Deep Jungle and the first return to Traverse Town at the very least, thanks very much for reading. Take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (PS4)

Ladies and gentlemen, the moment they thought would never come is finally upon us. Get comfortable, put on your biggest shoes, dig out your replica cosplay Kingdom Key and start rehearsing the words to Simple and Clean. It's time to play some Kingdom Hearts.

Yes folks, it's time for the first proper episode of the Keyblade Chronicles, the projected weekly blog series in which I'll be attempting to get fully caught up on the entire Kingdom Hearts franchise before the third (but actually tenth) and final instalment releases in January 2019. For those of you who missed my introductory blog, which outlines the specifics of what I'm aiming to do with this series, I'd recommending reading that before the rest of this entry. Once you're all caught up, feel free to read on.

Our journey begins, as any good journey should, at the start. The original Kingdom Hearts holds a special place in the hearts of a whole generation of players, myself included. Its fusion of Final Fantasy-style RPG mechanics and Disney-inspired characters and locales gave players an experience unlike anything else that had come before it, and laid the foundations upon which Square Enix and Disney Interactive would build an entire franchise. In the first set of instalments of the Keyblade Chronicles, I'll be dissecting this charming oddity of a game, juxtaposing a contemporary playthrough with my own historic remembrances to determine how well it holds up, both as a stand-alone video game and as the progenitor of a vast and confusing lineage. No stone will be left unturned - I'll be exploring every world, sealing every Keyhole, finding every last important item and taking on every single optional activity as I push to complete both Sora's quest and Jiminy's extensive Journal. I'll be sharing my thoughts on the game's plot developments, gameplay mechanics, aesthetics, level design and use of source material, assessing how each piece of the puzzle contributes to the overall melting pot of Kingdom Hearts.

What I'm trying to say is - this is going to be a long blog. So as I said at the beginning, make sure you're comfortable. We might be here a little while...

Part 01 - A Distant History

Before we begin, I feel it may be relevant to establish my personal history with Kingdom Hearts. It's also probably worth establishing that from here on out and until further notice, I'll be using the term 'Kingdom Hearts' to refer to the first game in the series. If I want to acknowledge the Kingdom Hearts series as a whole, I'll use phrases such as 'the series' or 'the franchise'. Since the first game doesn't have a subtitle of any kind, this is the best way I can think of handling it.

Kingdom Hearts launched in the late autumn of 2002 here in the UK. At the time I was twelve years old, and had developed a taste for Japanese RPGs off the back of discovering Final Fantasy VII two years previously. Back then I didn't have my finger on the pulse of the industry in quite the same way as I do today, probably due to having no internet in the family home at the time and most of my video game information coming either from magazines or from the word of mouth of friends. Consequently, I wasn't even aware of Kingdom Hearts' existence before my first encounter with a shelf of boxed copies in my local GAME store. I recall being drawn to that display like a moth to a flame, most likely due to the striking holographic cover which I can vividly recall to this day. Despite not knowing anything about the game, one close look at the box was all it took to assure me it was a product of quality. As a kid who grew up through the "Disney Renaissance" of the nineties, I was very familiar with films like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules and Tarzan. Equally, my formative interest in JRPGs told me that any product bearing the Squaresoft logo was one I could trust. Throwing caution to the wind, I spent my limited games allowance on a copy of Kingdom Hearts and took it home that very day.

This was over fifteen years ago, and my memories are sketchy, but I'm fairly certain that it took me around three months to work my way through Kingdom Hearts, beating it for the first time around (if not on) my thirteenth birthday. What I recall more clearly than the actual act of completion, however, was the fun I had playing it. Coming off the back of the Final Fantasy series' more static turn-based battles, being able to move, jump and attack in real time was an appreciated novelty. I found the core trio of original characters pretty relatable - they were around the same age as me, and on a fundamental level shared some of the same anxieties I had about feeling out of place in the world and yearning for something beyond the norm. I loved being able to act out scenes and explore locations from films that I'd seen dozens of times in my formative years. Equally, it was a thrill to see some of my favourite Final Fantasy characters rendered in such high-quality 3D for the first time - bear in mind that Kingdom Hearts predates Advent Children by some years and you may begin to understand just how exciting it was to see a faithfully recreated 3D Cloud Strife turn up in Olympus Coliseum. The Disney-inspired content was on-point graphically and faithful to its source material, the soundtrack was fantastic, and the story kept me invested right up until the final boss battle. To twelve-year-old me, it was the perfect game.

If my memory serves me correctly, I beat Kingdom Hearts no less than three times between its release in November 2002 and the launch of Giant Bomb in July 2008 - the point at which I started keeping a catalogue of the games I'd beaten, initially in blog form, then using the List feature from January 2009 onwards. One of those was a comprehensive 100% playthrough, the save file for which remains on my PlayStation 2 memory card to this very day. Those three playthroughs put the game high enough in my regard that I positioned it at number 14 in a list of my Top 30 Games published here on Giant Bomb in March 2009 (a list I intend to revisit next spring for a tenth anniversary update). In the past ten years I've beaten the game a further two times, both of those playthroughs being through the Kingdom Hearts HD I.5 ReMIX collection in the opening months of 2015. While I didn't feel as attached to the game then as I did in my adolescence, I still found a lot to like about the experience - enough to play the game twice over in a very short space of time, at least. Now, with another three years of distance between the child I was and the man I am now, I'm set to embark on what will be my sixth full playthrough of Kingdom Hearts, and it's sure to be my most thorough and most critical exploration of the game to date.

Part 02 - The Version Aversion

There are a few different versions of Kingdom Hearts available, so it's probably a good idea for me to clarify which one I'll be playing for the Keyblade Chronicles and why. Kingdom Hearts originally released for the PlayStation 2 in March 2002 in Japan, followed by a US release in September 2002 and a European release in November 2002. The delayed release for America and Europe meant the developers were able to add a bunch of additional side-content to those versions of the game - content that Japanese players wouldn't get to experience until they received a new version of the game, subtitled Final Mix, in December 2002. Ironically, that version also contained additional content that American and European players missed out on, including new cut-scenes, new enemy types, and a new secret boss battle. All these version differences were rendered irrelevant in 2013 when a standardised version of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix was released across all territories as part of the Kingdom Hearts HD I.5 ReMIX collection for the PlayStation 3, unifying the experience for players all over the globe.

Despite the original UK PS2 release being pretty feature-packed in its own right, I've instead opted to play the Final Mix version of the game for the Keyblade Chronicles - specifically, the one bundled in as part of the Kingdom Hearts HD I.5 & II.5 ReMIX collection on PlayStation 4. The simplest reason for this is that, regrettably, I no longer own my original PS2 copy, but even if I did, there are still plenty of reasons to choose one of the two more recent releases. As well as boasting extra story and gameplay content, these versions offer some significant quality-of-life improvements over the PS2 original. Most notably, camera control has been mapped to the right analog stick instead of the trigger buttons. Additionally, several context-sensitive actions have been moved from the fourth slot of the action menu to a dedicated Triangle button prompt, similar to Reaction Commands from Kingdom Hearts II. Plus there are all the expected bells and whistles of a current-generation remaster, with silky-smooth sixty frames-per-second gameplay and high definition 1080p visuals as standard. Finally, there's the simple fact that these are the most readily accessible versions of the game available today, packaged in collections purpose-built to help players get caught up in time for Kingdom Hearts III. Since that's the whole point of this feature, it makes most sense to play this version over any other.

With that said and done, let's boot up the PS4 and launch into some Kingdom Hearts!

Part 03 - What Have You Done Today to Make You Feel Proud?

As I start this playthrough of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, I'm prompted to make a few decisions. We won't worry about the ones pertaining to the camera movement and target lock, since they can be toggled during gameplay. The one decision that will have a permanent impact on my adventure is my choice of difficulty level, which is locked in from the get-go and can't be changed at any point once the game begins.

There are three options - Beginner, Final Mix, and Proud. Beginner, as the name suggests, is intended for people who've never played a Kingdom Hearts game before. It gives the player some valuable items to help them along on their journey and boosts their damage output, but at a cost - players won't be able to unlock either of the game's secret endings by playing in this mode. Final Mix is the standard, most balanced difficulty and is the way the game was meant to be played. Diligent players who explore everything the game has to offer will be able to witness its secret endings. Finally, there's Proud, the equivalent of a hard difficulty setting. This mode reduces the player's damage output and makes them more vulnerable, but its requirements for unlocking the secret endings are a little more lenient to compensate. It also offers the option to turn off all experience gain, for players who wish to challenge themselves by attempting a "Level-1 run".

While there's no doubt an argument to be made for playing on the default difficulty for this series, I've decided to opt for Proud instead. The main reason for this is that I've played a LOT of the original Kingdom Hearts at this point, and I feel like playing in Proud is the best way to guarantee a reasonable level of challenge and keep me entertained while playing. The added difficulty will hopefully encourage me to approach fights more tactically rather than simply mashing on X non-stop, which should help when it comes to putting together detailed write-ups for boss battles. Since there are no story ramifications for selecting a higher difficulty (beyond the accessibility of secret endings, which I was planning to do everything required to unlock anyway), my decision to play on Proud shouldn't have any pronounced impact on the content of the Keyblade Chronicles.

Part 04 - "Is Any of This For Real, or Not?"

Upon hitting New Game and choosing a difficulty level, Kingdom Hearts opens with a CGI cinematic scene. It's not a surprising choice, given developers Squaresoft (now part of the Square-Enix family) established themselves as the undisputed kings of computer-generated FMV on the original PlayStation. The scene depicts a spiky-haired youth in what seems to be a dream sequence. "I've been having these weird thoughts lately," he declares. "Like, is any of this for real, or not?" A statement of uncertainty that's going to echo the player's thought process as the scene unfolds over the next three minutes. There are three characters featured, along with a lot of falling and a lot of water - things which open themselves up to metaphoric interpretation, but which I won't be exploring in great detail here for fear of going too deep down the rabbit hole before we've even begun. For now, I'll leave you with an embedded version of the opening cutscene to watch for yourselves:

Considering it's over fifteen years old at this point, I think the quality of the cinematic holds up surprisingly well - the colours are bright and the characters all animate well. But let's be honest, what we really need to talk about here is the score. Assuming players haven't sat at the start screen and allowed the idle cutscene to trigger, this is the first time they'll have heard an arrangement of Kingdom Hearts' main theme, Simple and Clean. This specific version, dubbed the 'PlanitB Remix', stands out for me personally as one of the most iconic pieces of music in the franchise. It's very up-tempo and fits well with the on-screen action, and the simplicity of the lyrics combined with the driving beat ensure it'll be a lasting earworm for the vast majority of players.

The cutscene segues seamlessly into gameplay, placing the player in control of our pointy-headed protagonist (whose name as yet remains a mystery) in a strange realm of darkness, punctuated by stained-glass platforms featuring the likenesses of various Disney princesses. In a twist I've found humorous ever since I noticed it back in 2015, Kingdom Hearts manages to contradict itself in its first piece of in-game dialogue - "So much to do... So little time..." declares a disembodied voice, before immediately telling the player to "Take your time...". In a franchise that I know is going to trip up over the hem of its own lore multiple times in the games to come, it's almost comforting to see the contradictory tone established this early.

This zone, officially named 'Dive into the Heart', serves as a tutorial area, teaching the player the fundamentals of controls and gameplay and also presenting them with some choices that have a slight impact on character development. The first of these choices comes immediately, as the disembodied voice presents me with a sword, a shield, and a staff and tasks me with choosing one and forsaking another. The first choice determines the order in which I'll learn abilities through levelling up, with the three options representing attack-focused abilities, defence-focused abilities, and magic-focused abilities respectively. Together with the second choice, it also impacts my initial MP, Strength and Defence. I decide to take up the staff and forsake the sword for this playthrough - this will give me early access to magic-focused abilities, but more crucially, it will ensure I have a healthy reserve of MP throughout the whole game. Ditching the sword is preferable to the shield since Strength boosts from weapons and accessories will be plentiful, and I'm going to need all the Defence I can get in Proud mode.

Over the course of this tutorial, I notice a few things which are worth documenting. First up, let's talk about those Final Mix quality of life improvements. The mapping of camera control to the right analog stick gives the game a much more contemporary feel than the draconian shoulder button method used in the original PS2 release, especially as you can now move the camera on the Y axis, although if I'm being nitpicky I would have preferred some sensitivity adjustment options as it's just a little sluggish for my liking. The context-sensitive Triangle button mapping works nicely too - even though it's only cutting out one button press, it's also eliminating the need to remove a thumb from the left analog stick to use the D-pad, making everything feel more seamless and fluid. Something I have less praise for, however, is the constant switching between high-poly and low-poly faces on the player character's model. I don't remember it being this jarring when I played the game on PS2 - possibly because the lower screen resolution made it less obvious, or maybe I'm just less forgiving of such things these days. Whatever the reason, it's something I foresee breaking the immersion for me throughout this playthrough.

The primary focus of the next section is teaching the player how to fight by introducing them to attacks and the target lock-on feature during battles with several shadowy creatures. It's obviously very early on in the game to be passing judgement on the battle system, since we're a long way off having anything resembling a variety of moves at our disposal. That being said, it's impossible to deny that Sora's basic combo feels a little... off. There's a pronounced delay between the start of the animation and the attack actually connecting, so while the action on screen looks great, it never feels totally one-to-one with the buttons I'm pressing. I get that he's not a competent fighter at this stage, and I know that a lot of the additional bells and whistles that will come to feature in combat will go a long way towards mitigating this, but that doesn't do anything to make Sora's standard three-hit combo any more fun to use.

After being taken through the basics of movement, combat, exploring and interacting with the environment, I'm whisked out of the darkness and onto an island that looks a lot like the one in the opening cinematic. Three characters surround me, characters who veteran Final Fantasy nuts (as I was back then) will recognise as Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII, and Tidus and Wakka from Final Fantasy X. They've got some questions to ask me, and once again, how I answer will have a subtle impact on character development - specifically, how much experience is required to level up. Most combinations of answers will result in a standard growth rate, but certain combinations can yield rates that favour either early or late growth. While the latter may be preferable in the long-term, since it requires less overall experience to reach max level, the answers I give result in the standard growth rate, which I'm fine dealing with.

With all this information gathered, Kingdom Hearts kicks me back to the Dive into the Heart and finally gives me access to the menu, where I can do all sorts of RPG-ish things like check character stats and modify equipment, item and ability loadouts. It also presents me with my first save point, a ring of light which fully heals on contact and (unsurprisingly) allows me to save my progress. I do so, knowing that the game's first boss battle awaits...

BOSS - Darkside - Having been taught the basic mechanics of fighting, this first major encounter teaches players about the basic ebb and flow of Kingdom Hearts' unique brand of action combat. Darkside is a giant, twisted, humanoid creature born out of our protagonist's shadow. It has three weak points which can be attacked to deal damage - its two hands, and its head. In this battle, it has two main attacks - a fist attack which strikes the ground and creates a shockwave before releasing smaller shadows, and an energy ball attack which is released from its chest cavity while kneeling. Both of these attacks have long wind-up animations, giving the player very obvious tells as to when an attack is inbound. Players can then instinctively read the battle situation and work out when to attack and when to retreat. By far the hardest part of this fight is dealing with the energy balls - they home in on the player, and since none of the tutorials mention parrying or deflecting attacks, novice players are unlikely to be aware that a well-timed attack can send them hurtling back towards Darkside for additional damage and bonus "tech" experience points. This is one of the few fights in the game where losing will not cause a Game Over state, meaning there's no real penalty for not winning besides missing out on some early experience.

After the fight, our spiky-haired protagonist finds himself overwhelmed and sinking into darkness. The disembodied voice tells him not to be afraid, and to remember that he is the one who will open the door, before the entire screen fades to black...

Part 05 - Your Destiny Awaits

...and our protagonist wakes up on the same beach that we saw in the opening cinematic. It's here that we're finally properly introduced to Sora (yep, unless you were paying attention in the menu earlier on, this is the first time Sora is referred to by his name), as well as his two closest friends, Riku and Kairi. The trio live on Destiny Islands, a remote and idyllic world where it appears very little ever happens. It transpires that the three are working together to build a raft, with the intention of leaving their island home and exploring other worlds. For all the stick I'm likely to give Kingdom Hearts in the storytelling department over the course of this series, I can't deny that this scene works incredibly well. It sets up the scenario, establishes the quirks of each character and the relationships between them, and all within a compact time-frame. It sets up Sora as something of a lazy daydreamer, while Riku is more hard-working and determined, and illustrates the friendly competitive rivalry between them as their differing personalities compete for the attention (and possibly the affections) of the plucky Kairi. It's a really neat bit of indirect storytelling and character-building, sealed with a late title card that signifies the start of the game proper.

Unfortunately the playable portion of Destiny Islands goes a long way towards diminishing any good will the introductory cutscene builds up. The first bit of non-tutorial gameplay is a glorified scavenger hunt, with Kairi sending Sora out to search the Islands for materials for their raft. Specifically, she's after two logs, a cloth, and some rope. While this menial fetch quest might seem like an inoffensive, standard start to an RPG, I haven't yet talked about how difficult some of these items are to find. The two logs are easy enough, since their brown colouration sticks out clearly enough from the near-white sand of the beach. The problems arise when looking for the cloth and rope, both of which blend so seamlessly into the environment that you'd be forgiven for thinking they were merely part of the scenery. It's possible to ask Kairi for some clues as to their whereabouts, but doing so will remove the possibility of earning a bonus item at the end of the scavenger hunt. All in all, it's not the best way to start the first "proper" portion of your video game.

While exploring the islands in search of these items, I run into the familiar faces of Selphie, Tidus and Wakka once again. This time, they only have one question to ask me - do I want to fight? These play-fights serve as yet more practice for the player, allowing them to further get to grips with the feel of Kingdom Hearts' combat system, with each character posing a different kind of threat. Selphie's skipping rope allows her to attack from mid-range, but it has a long wind-up animation that begs to be interrupted by the player. Tidus is a close-range attacker and has speed on his side, but tires easily which leaves him open to combo attacks. Wakka's blitzball lets him attack from range, but can be deflected and even ricocheted back into him to temporarily stun him. All three offer decent, unique challenges in Proud difficulty and a chance to accrue some bonus experience too. Beating them all individually unlocks a further option to take on all three of them at once, a very difficult fight which teaches the importance of spatial awareness and crowd control - a lesson I wish the slow-moving manual camera was better equipped to deal with.

Along with Selphie, Tidus and Wakka, it's also possible to challenge Riku to a fight at this stage. He's significantly tougher than the other three, combining quick close-quarters swordplay with the ability to guard and a dangerous countering kick attack. The trick to besting Riku is to memorise his tells and attack patterns - move in to steal quick hits between his own attacking swings, and if he falls onto his back with his legs in the air, then move swiftly out of the way to avoid that lethal counter kick. Fighting Riku teaches the value of caution, patience and opportunism, three things that will come into play in the vast majority of Kingdom Hearts' many combat challenges. In a nice touch, Sora will also keep track of his record against Riku, remembering his wins and losses as a running tally. This subtle contribution to character development serves to strengthen the competitive streak that lies beneath their friendly rivalry, and helps make the otherwise infallible Sora feel that little bit more human.

Thanks to dormant memories from my playthrough three years ago, it doesn't take me very long to find the required items for the raft - although I do spend a little bit of time battling the other islanders to earn some experience and refamiliarise myself with the to-and-fro of combat. Upon taking all the requested items back to Kairi, she rewards me with the gift of a healing item and asks if I want to call it a day. While I could say no and continue to explore the island for fun and experience, I agree to finish up for the day and surrender control for another cutscene exploring the motivations for each character to leave the islands. Kairi, not a native of the Destiny Islands, wants to see her homeworld again. Riku, thinking more existentially, wants to explore the myriad worlds out there in an attempt to find out why he ended up on this one. And Sora, being the lazy daydreamer that he is, concedes that he just wants to see new places with his friends. The day's events end with Riku taunting Sora with a paopu fruit, a star-shaped fruit said to intertwine the destinies of any two people who share one. This is the first clear indication that Sora might feel something more than friendship for Kairi, as he becomes very flustered at the suggestion. Riku runs off before Sora can explain himself, and the action fades as the sun sets on another day on Destiny Islands...

Meanwhile, on a far-off world known as Disney Castle, the Kingdom's grand wizard Donald Duck arrives in court to wish King Mickey a good morning. He's met with an empty throne, and Pluto carrying an envelope bearing the King's seal. Donald reads the content of the letter and immediately runs into the castle gardens to find Goofy, leader of the royal knights. While trying to explain the top secret contents of the letter to his friend, Donald ends up inadvertently attracting the attention of Queen Minnie and his significant other Daisy, leaving him with a lot of explaining to do. The scene doesn't do anything to directly move the story along (that will come later), but it does serve to introduce us to the characters of the short-tempered Donald and the more relaxed, bumbling Goofy. It's also an opportunity for some light-hearted visual comedy, with the door into the King's throne room being a lot smaller than it initially appears, and Donald not realising the Queen and Daisy are behind him until it's too late.

Leaving Donald in a very precarious situation, the action shifts back to Destiny Islands as Sora, Riku and Kairi make further preparations for their raft trip the following day. Initially it seems like this preparation is going to be slightly more interesting than the previous day's fetch-questing - upon entering a new zone of the islands named the Cove, Sora meets Riku and the two start discussing potential names for their raft. Unable to come to an agreement, the boys agree to settle their dispute in "the usual way". Turns out this is a race to a star-shaped tree at the other end of the Cove and back again. There are multiple paths to take to the objective, ranging from the tops of trees to a ladder and zip-line. While this does introduce a new platforming element to the game, it also brings a very quick realisation that the platforming mechanics in Kingdom Hearts aren't very good. Sora's jump is noticeably delayed following the button input, and he hangs awkwardly in the air before sinking like a stone. His in-air manoeuvrability is also poor, meaning it's difficult to course-correct any jump that might be off-target on account of his delay in leaving the ground.

Something else I find slightly bizarre is the short cutscene immediately before the race, where Sora starts unnecessarily adding extra stakes to the competition as if there wasn't anything already riding on it. "If I win, I'm captain," he says, confidently thumbing his own chest. But I thought the whole point of this race was to decide what the raft was going to be called? Why are we raising the stakes? For the sake of competition? Anyway, he's put in his place by Riku who ups the ante even further by saying that the winner of the race gets to share a paopu fruit with Kairi. This is another piece of dialogue that builds a lot of character in very few words, even if it is delivered in a slightly sinister tone that's not altogether comfortable, given the established implications of sharing a paopu fruit and Kairi's complete lack of knowledge or consent.

Despite some wrestling with the poor platforming controls, I'm able to win the race thanks to the zip-wire. The result of the race feeds back into the aforementioned tally system too, further reinforcing the competitive undertones of Sora and Riku's friendship. The race can be re-run multiple times, with each victory yielding a Pretty Stone, but instead I opt to move the story along by seeking out Kairi. She's down on the beach by the newly-finished raft, and tasks us with our next objective, which is... Another fetch quest. This one is even worse than the first, on account of there being almost three times the number of objectives, and all of them being even harder to locate than the ones from the previous day. This time we're hunting for provisions for the trip - three fish, three mushrooms, two coconuts, a seagull egg, and some drinking water. What makes this scavenger hunt particularly frustrating is how small some of the items are, making them very difficult to spot amongst the environment. Thankfully my memory of this portion of the game leads me to all the objectives without too much delay - the fish are swimming in the shallows just off the beach, mushrooms can be found tucked away in dark places away from direct sunlight, the coconuts can be obtained by whacking trees with Sora's wooden sword, the seagull egg is sitting on top of one of these coconut trees, and drinking water can be gathered from the freshwater spring near the wooden shack in the middle of the island.

Our hunt for mushrooms takes us into a new area known as the Secret Place, a hidden cave with scribbled drawings all over the walls and a mysterious locked door at its deepest point. While picking mushrooms, Sora spots a pair of drawings he and Kairi made of each other when they were both younger. His reminiscing causes him to take up a piece of chalk and add a new element to the piece - an outstretched hand from his face to hers, holding a paopu fruit. It's a beautifully understated moment that demonstrates Sora's feelings for Kairi may extend beyond friendship, accompanied by a gentle musical motif and using no voice-acting to ensure that Sora's actions speak for themselves. It's one of my favourite moments of storytelling in Kingdom Hearts.

Unfortunately it's all undone as quickly as it's built up. Sora's private moment is interrupted by the arrival of a cloaked, hooded figure who tells him that his world has been tied to the darkness and will soon be swallowed whole by it. The awkwardness of his vague dialogue is matched by Sora's false bravado, completely shifting the scene from something beautiful into something almost laughably cringe-worthy. After the nebulous figure finishes his speech he disappears, leaving Sora wondering if he simply imagined the whole thing. No point dwelling on any of that now, though - I need to get these provisions back to Kairi!

Back at the raft, Sora finds Kairi making a charm out of thalassa shells to bring them good luck on their voyage to other worlds. I think this dialogue might be new to the Final Mix version, as I don't recall it from any of my childhood playthroughs of the game, but unfortunately I don't have the original PS2 version to corroborate that claim. Without spoiling too much, it nicely foreshadows events surrounding the same good luck charm later in the game. After handing over the provisions, control is rescinded for another character-developing cutscene, this one solely between Sora and Kairi. It's a more honest and raw moment between the two characters as they let their cheery guards down, accompanied by the same musical motif as the previous scene in the Secret Place. It's yet another example of why the relationship between Sora and Kairi is one of my favourite things about this game.

With the sun setting on another day on Destiny Islands, action shifts back to Disney Castle. We get to read the content of the letter left for Donald by King Mickey - several of the stars in the sky have been going out one by one, and he's left the kingdom on a journey to try and find out why. He can't be certain, but he suspects something sinister is afoot. He's tasked Donald and Goofy with finding someone with a special "key", the "key" to everyone's survival, and sticking with them on their quest. With the Queen's blessing, Donald and Goofy join up with the royal chronicler, Pinocchio's Jiminy Cricket, and head to the castle's Gummi Ship... Hangar? I guess you'd call it a hangar. On their way, they discuss the need to avoid muddling-- er, meddling in the affairs of other worlds while they travel. As the duo prepare for blast off, we're treated to one final visual gag - rather than shooting forwards out of the open hangar doors, royal engineers Chip and Dale open a trap door beneath the ship and send it plummeting out of the bottom of the world. I have to admit, this one still gets a little chuckle out of me even now, probably because of that trademark Goofy laugh as they descend. The ship regains its bearings, and Donald and Goofy set off through Gummi-space to the first stop on their journey...

As the action shifts back to Destiny Islands for the final time, Sora is sitting in his bedroom. He glances out of the window to see that a storm has struck the island. Fearing for the safety of the raft, Sora makes a break for the island to check on things, leaving his mother announcing "Dinner's ready!" to an empty room. I remember finding this scene really jarring the first time I played through the game, since my original impression of Destiny Islands was that it was an island paradise full of orphaned kids surviving Castaway-style, and suddenly here's Sora's mum calling him down for dinner. it makes perfect sense, of course - the island itself is just off the coast of a seaside town, and it's where Sora, Riku, Kairi and their friends go to play. It was just a little weird having those expectations built up in the game's opening hour or so, and then having them dashed with such a menial, ordinary occurrence.

Sora arrives on the island to find Riku's and Kairi's boats already docked (begging the question, why did they need to build a raft if they all have their own boats?), a huge glowing orb of darkness hanging in the sky, and the strange, shadow-like creatures from his dream swarming all over the island. His wooden sword is completely ineffective here, forcing me to run through the hordes of enemies spawning up out of the ground until I reach Riku. Looking up at the menacing ball of darkness, he announces that the door has opened and the darkness has come to take all three of them off the island. He offers a hand to Sora in much the same way as he did in the opening cinematic, except this time it's not water he's surrounded by, but darkness instead. Sora tries to take Riku's hand, but the pull of the darkness overwhelms them both. When Sora comes to, Riku is nowhere to be seen, and in his hand is a strange weapon - a sword shaped like a key. A Keyblade, as announced by the disembodied voices implied by the words all over the screen at this point.

Now equipped with a proper weapon, Sora can deal damage to the shadows popping up from under his feet. It makes for good practice, but the fact the enemies keep spawning infinitely means I eventually need to stop fighting and make a beeline for the next destination - the Secret Place, now sealed behind the same ornate door from Sora's dream. Inside the Secret Place, Sora meets up with Kairi, but something is wrong - she seems unresponsive, almost zombified. Before Sora can say or do anything, the door behind Kairi flings open, sending out a fresh wave of darkness that sweeps her up and carries her towards him. Sora tries to catch her, but as he wraps his arms around her, she vanishes. Now, I can't go into specifics here for fear of spoiling things before we've really begun, but I need to communicate the fact that this moment is very significant. We'll be referring back to it in future episodes, so don't forget about it.

Unable to withstand the torrent of darkness, Sora is carried out of the Secret Place and back onto the beach, where he witnesses the destruction that the darkness has wrought on his homeworld. Huge chunks of Destiny Islands have been sucked up into the glowing orb hanging above, and what little remains of the island is corrupted by the darkness. Getting to his feet, Sora turns to see the huge shadow from his dream standing behind him. Only this time, it's definitely not a dream...

BOSS - Darkside - There isn't much to differentiate this Darkside fight from the previous one. It brings all its obviously-telegraphed moves from the previous fight, plus a couple of new ones too. It can now reach deep into the ground, a move which creates a shockwave similar to its fist attack, but with the added benefit of bringing its head closer to the ground and making it a much more viable target for Sora's attacks. The other new addition to its armoury is a charged attack which rains down slow-moving energy balls from above - these don't home in, don't deal much damage and are easy to dodge, making them more of a nuisance than anything else. As with its previous attack cycles, everything has a lengthy wind-up that gives Sora plenty of time to get a combo or two in before retreating to a safe distance. Once again, a loss here does not cause a Game Over state, but winning the battle is preferable for the experience points it yields.

Whether defeated or victorious, Darkside returns to the glowing ball of darkness from whence it came. Sora tries desperately to cling on, but the pull of the darkness is too much and he loses his grip, ascending into the menacing orb and disappearing along with Riku, Kairi, and the rest of the Destiny Islands, into the black void above...

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Here ends the first proper part of the Keyblade Chronicles. I was originally hoping for this initial entry to cover more of the game, but I decided to cut it short after seeing how lengthy it was becoming. I realise this is a very long blog and I apologise for that - I'll do my best to condense future entries into shorter entries. Despite the mixed tone of this blog covering the game's opening hours, I'm feeling optimistic about the series going forward. Join me again next Monday when I'll start digging deep into the next batch of worlds - Traverse Town, Wonderland, Olympus Coliseum and Deep Jungle. I'll also be taking a look at the early Gummi Ship portions of the game, including the missions exclusive to the Final Mix version. Until then, thanks very much for reading folks. Take care and I'll catch you next Monday for more of the Keyblade Chronicles.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (PS4)

...well, that planned return to the blogosphere went swimmingly, didn't it?

Hey there folks. I know I said that I'd be returning to regular blogging in earnest from last month, and that was initially my intention, but I ended up getting diverted from that plan for a couple of reasons. One of them was family related, and while I can't go into any great detail on that front, I can at least say that everyone is okay and things have calmed down a little. The other reason for my silence is that I've been cooking up a very special something for all of you...

If you read my previous blog - and given the resounding indifference it was met with, I'm guessing that very few (if any) of you fall into that category - you may recall that one of my intentions was to dip my toes back into the serial blogging format that I came to be known for following such lengthy endeavours as Enduring Final Fantasy VII and A Month in Skyrim. For the last couple of months I've been toying with potential concepts for a new series. I had a few half-developed ideas, but nothing I felt like I could really commit to in a way that would entertain an audience.

Then, last month, everything fell into place.

The spark struck as I was watching one of the multiple trailers for Kingdom Hearts III released during E3. I have a complicated relationship with Tetsuya Nomura's Disney-fied action RPG franchise, one that I've previously documented in blog form here. The bottom line is, it's a series that I still have a lot of reverence for, and would like to further my experience with. To that end, I've picked up copies of both Kingdom Hearts HD I.5 & II.5 ReMIX and Kingdom Hearts HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue on PlayStation 4, with the intention of playing through the whole series in the run-up to the release of Kingdom Hearts III. I figured I was going to have plenty of time to work my way through the whole saga, but while watching the aforementioned trailer, I was hit by something very unexpected - a concrete release date.

That's right folks - Kingdom Hearts III is scheduled for release on January 29th 2019. That gives me just under seven months to get to grips with the whole franchise in preparation for the end of Sora's epic adventure. So, I thought, why not document the whole journey in blog form for folks on the internet to read about? Ladies and gentlemen of Giant Bomb, I give you:

The Keyblade Chronicles is a project that I originally conceived back in 2015, but ended up postponing after burning out attempting three back-to-back playthroughs of the original Kingdom Hearts that year. Now that I've had some distance from it I feel ready to jump back in and experience the entire series. While three years may have passed, and the prospective journey has become a little longer, my intention remains the same - to play (almost) every game in the Kingdom Hearts franchise in release order, within the six-and-a-half months standing between the present day and the proposed release date of Kingdom Hearts III. Every week, most likely on a Monday, given the way my work and social schedules are aligned, I'll post a blog summarising my thoughts and feelings on various aspects of the games and the series as a whole up to that point. I'll be diving deep on gameplay, mechanics, characters, worlds, music and story in a way that's likely to be comparable to my previous blognum opus, Enduring Final Fantasy VII.

The order of play will be as follows:

1. Kingdom Hearts Final Mix

The game that started it all, and the one that I have fondest enduring memories of. Kingdom Hearts follows Sora, an unassuming boy from a backwater island, who is thrust into an epic battle between Light and Darkness. Wielding the mysterious Keyblade, Sora journeys to many worlds in search of his lost friends Riku and Kairi, accompanied by Donald and Goofy as they seek their missing King. Unsurprisingly, the first game in the series establishes many of the franchise's mainstay features including real-time action combat, world-hopping exploration, and an overarching story centred on themes of friendship and strength of heart. While I'm most familiar with the original PlayStation 2 release, for the purpose of this series I'll be playing the Final Mix version included as part of HD I.5 & II.5 ReMIX on the PS4.

Episode List:

1. Parts 01-05 (Intro to Destiny Islands)
2. Parts 06-09 (Traverse Town to Olympus Coliseum)
3. Parts 10-13 (Deep Jungle to Phil Cup)
4. Parts 14-17 (Agrabah to Monstro)
5. Parts 18-?? (Coming soon...)

2. Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories

Considered by many to be a spin-off game at the time of its release, Chain of Memories is very much a full-fledged Kingdom Hearts adventure that serves to bridge the story between the original game and its numbered sequel. Utilising a card-based combat system unique to this instalment, Chain of Memories follows Sora as he ventures deep into Castle Oblivion and confronts the mysterious Organization XIII for the first time. Originally released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004, the game was remade entirely in the Kingdom Hearts II engine and released on the PS2 with the new 'Re:Chain of Memories' subtitle in 2008. Unfortunately that release was exclusive to Japan and America, meaning this 3D remake didn't come to Europe until 2013, when it was jazzed up to high definition and included in the HD I.5 ReMIX collection. While I own the GBA original, I'll be playing Re:Chain of Memories as part of HD I.5 & II.5 ReMIX on PS4 for this feature.

3. Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix

This is where things are going to start getting interesting. Originally released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006, Kingdom Hearts II documents Sora's continued battle against the Heartless and Organization XIII. I've played through Kingdom Hearts II a grand total of once, largely due to never being able to bring myself to slog through that intro sequence again. Consequently, my memories of it aren't as vivid as those I have of the first game. I do recall this game feeling a lot more fluid and fun to play thanks to a myriad of refinements and new mechanics, but I also recall the story being kind of a jumbled mess - probably not helped by the fact I didn't play Chain of Memories before leaping in. The Keyblade Chronicles will mark my first full playthrough of the Final Mix version of the game, included within HD I.5 & II.5 ReMIX on the PS4, and I'm looking forward to experiencing all the extra content added to this definitive version.

4. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

Released in 2009 for the Nintendo DS, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (pronounced "three-five-eight-days-over-two") is the fourth game in the series, the third to release on a different platform, and the first to bear one of those unwieldy subtitles that the series has become so well known for. Another interquel, 358/2 Days begins near the end of the original Kingdom Hearts and runs right up to the start of Kingdom Hearts II. It explores the full backstory of Roxas, the protagonist of KHII's much-maligned Prologue chapter, and sheds a bit more light on the motives and machinations of Organization XIII. This is the first of many games on this list that I've never played before, and so represents the start of my incredibly deep planned descent into the full Kingdom Hearts canon. Since the HD I.5 & II.5 ReMIX collection on PS4 only represents 358/2 Days as a cut-scene movie, I'll be dusting off my old DS to experience this one in a playable format.

5. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Final Mix

Perhaps the game I'm most looking forward to playing as part of this endeavour. Birth by Sleep is another misrepresented "spin-off" title that actually serves to further flesh out the franchise's extended universe. Released in 2010 on the PlayStation Portable (taking the series to five different games across four different platforms), Birth by Sleep is set ten years before the events of the original Kingdom Hearts and follows the exploits of three young Keyblade masters named Ventus, Terra and Aqua as they set the wheels in motion for the events of the entire franchise. Held in the same high esteem as the two main console instalments by many of the series' most devoted fans, this feels like the piece of the puzzle that I most regret missing on its original release. Thankfully the HD I.5 & II.5 ReMIX collection on PS4 gives me a chance to experience it in glorious high definition on my first go round, not to mention including a bunch of Final Mix content previously unreleased for a Western audience.

6. Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded

Originally released as a Japan-only mobile phone game in 2008 under the name Kingdom Hearts: Coded, this black sheep of the Kingdom Hearts franchise was remade from the ground up for the Nintendo DS and released as Re:Coded in 2011. My knowledge of this game is sketchy at best, but I believe it's set shortly after the events of Kingdom Hearts II and features a digital version of Sora trying to recover fragments of Jiminy's lost journals. Not the most highly-revered entry in the series by any means, even many purists would argue that the cut-scene movie included with the HD I.5 & II.5 ReMIX collection on PS4 provides you with everything you need to know without subjecting you to the frustration of actually playing it. To those people, I say they're missing the point of this feature - much like 358/2 Days, I'll be playing the DS release of this one in order to report back on the full experience.

7. Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD

Here is where my journey would have ended had I pursued it all the way to completion back in 2015. Originally released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2012, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance is comparable to Chain of Memories - an interquel released on a handheld with the intention of bridging the gap between two main-line console entries (in this case, Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts III). I've done my best to avoid spoilers while researching for this series, but I gather that Dream Drop Distance focuses on both Sora and Riku as they prepare for some kind of Keyblade mastery exam, and features a much-praised FlowMotion traversal system that makes exploration and combat even more fast-paced and exciting. Since originally conceiving the Keyblade Chronicles, Dream Drop Distance has seen an HD release (dropping the '3D' from its moniker in the process) as part of the HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue collection on PS4, and it's that version I'll be playing for this feature.

8. Kingdom Hearts Χ Back Cover

The release of HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue also brings two whole new pieces of Kingdom Hearts content to consume in preparation for Kingdom Hearts III, the first being Χ Back Cover. Based on events from the mobile game Kingdom Hearts: Unchained Key, or Union Cross, or KHUX, whatever they're calling it at the moment, Χ Back Cover is a cut-scene movie that serves to fill in more gaps in the overarching Kingdom Hearts lore by backpedalling over a hundred years into the past. Persistent mobile games really aren't my thing, so while I have zero intention of playing KHUX, for this feature I'm hoping that this movie will tell me all I need to know in preparation for the final chapter in Sora's story.

9. Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage

The final piece of HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue's confusingly-named puzzle is the even more confusingly named Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage. As the name seems to suggest, I believe this is a bite-sized chunk of Kingdom Hearts content that serves two purposes. First, to wrap up some perceived loose ends in the story of the original release of Birth by Sleep in preparation for Kingdom Hearts III. And second, to give all of us eager beavers a taste of the gameplay we can expect from Kingdom Hearts III when it releases. I guess I'll find out exactly what it is when I eventually get around to playing it.

And finally...

10. Kingdom Hearts III

The game that all of this is leading up to. The game that should (and hopefully will) bring Sora's lengthy journey to its intended conclusion. Given this entire endeavour is born from the intention of being ready to play Kingdom Hearts III when it finally releases, it would be remiss of me not to include it here. I'll be playing the PlayStation 4 version of Kingdom Hearts III when it comes out, and you can be sure that I'll be documenting every single facet of my playthrough to provide the Keyblade Chronicles with the dénouement it will no doubt deserve. Recent trailers suggest Sora, Donald and Goofy will be exploring new worlds based on Tangled, Frozen, Toy Story and Monsters Inc., as well as returning to established franchise mainstays including Olympus Coliseum, Port Royal, and Twilight Town. This is what it's all leading up to, and I am pretty darn excited about it. Whether I'll still be excited on January 29th remains to be seen...

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And thus, the Keyblade Chronicles is born anew. It's going to be a really interesting and exciting journey, in some cases revisiting games that I haven't played for a long time, and in many cases experiencing titles that I've never played before, all in service of being ready for a thing that I'm not even sure is for me any more. I hope you'll bundle into my Gummi ship and come along for the ride - I promise I'll do my utmost to make it as entertaining as possible. You can expect the first entry, covering the first sections of the original Kingdom Hearts, to arrive a week on Monday, on the 23rd July. Until then, thanks very much for reading. Take care folks, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (PS4)

Hey there folks. How are you all doing? It's been a little while, hasn't it? Some of you may be wondering where I've been recently, to which the answer is definitely "around", albeit in a much more passive sense these days. Fellow inhabitants of the blogosphere might even have noticed that my previous entry (promoting my contribution to last month's Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run) put me at a total of 399 blog entries since this site launched almost ten years ago. With my next written piece heralding a mighty milestone of four hundred published blog entries, you might think I've been taking a break to come up with some grand, exciting plan to mark the occasion. The truth is, I haven't put anything up in this space for a while because I've been trying to work out what I want this space to be going forward. Call it an identity crisis of sorts, if you like.

Part of the struggle is trying to work out what it is I want to say on this blog. My entries here have always been scattered across a wide spectrum of content types, with reviews, critical think-pieces, let's plays and top tens coexist in this weird miasma of video game writing without any clear mission or goal. Which, on some level, is absolutely fine. It's an approach that has worked for me in the past, as evidenced by the fact my total blogging output on this website probably rivals Tolstoy's War and Peace for word count at this point. But as "real life" (for lack of a better phrase) has placed serious limits on my free time in recent years, I've found I just don't have the time to sit down and ponderously slap a couple of thousand words down into this window whenever I feel like it. I want to continue this endeavour, not let it wither and die, and in order for that to happen I need to build a writing schedule. And if I'm going to apply some rigidity to when I write, then I need to apply it to what I write too. I need a goal in mind for what I want this blog to achieve, and it's been quite a challenge to work out what that goal should be.

Another part of the struggle has been working out whether or not a blog is even a viable way for me to say things any more. As someone who consumes a lot of video game-related content in my spare time, I've definitely recognised the pronounced shift away from the written word and towards audio-visual presentation. You only have to look at the News tab here on Giant Bomb and compare it with the Videos tab to witness the shift first-hand. There's a clear argument to be made in favour of this approach - games are a visual medium, and consequently they lend themselves very well to being demonstrated and critiqued in a video format. I've even attempted to dip my toes in those waters by producing some video content myself, ranging from a bit of casual Saturday evening live-streaming to episodic series chronicling various attempted Pokémon Nuzlocke challenges.

The conclusion I've ultimately reached is that yes, I do still feel like I have things I want to say about the games that I play and the industry at large, and I do still want to share those things by writing them down. First and foremost, I should acknowledge that the written word is where my strengths have always been. As much as I admire the YouTube personalities and the folks here at Giant Bomb who consistently produce fantastic video content on a weekly basis, I am always going to be more at home with a pen in hand or a word processor open than I am when fumbling with cameras and video software. Not only that, but written content lends itself better to opening and promoting discussion - video content, by comparison, feels very passive to consume and doesn't inspire me to engage with it like the written word does. I also think it's important to recognise that although video games lend themselves well to audio-visual presentation due to their graphical aspect, their most recognisable feature is their interactivity. A video presentation will never fully convey the experience of actually playing a game, just as even the most descriptive paragraph of text will never fully convey its graphical fidelity. For that reason, I believe written editorial still has a role to play in video game discussion and criticism, and unless we reach the idealistic summit of being able to transpose our own thoughts into the game itself, developer commentary style, for others to experience as they play, then I believe it always will.

That brings us back to the first point I raised, which is what should I be writing about? It's a question that took me right back to why I ever started writing in the first place, and some advice that I was given when I was writing more prolifically (albeit with a lot less finesse) while a teenager in school - to write for myself first and foremost, and to consider anyone else's enjoyment of the finished product a bonus. That got me thinking about the kinds of game-related content I consume, which has in itself shifted over time. A few years ago I was very heavily into Let's Play content, something that I've gradually drifted away from. Most of the game-focused YouTube personalities whose channels I subscribe to these days are focused on critique and analysis, crafting fifteen- to thirty-minute videos exploring the mechanics and stories of games and how successful or unsuccessful they consider them to be. Since that's the kind of content I enjoy most from a consumer's perspective, it stands to reason that's also likely the kind of content I'm going to enjoy creating most from a writer's perspective.

So here's my vision for this blog going forward. From June 1st, I'm going to commit to writing two critical think-piece blogs per month, taking the games I am playing or have recently played for inspiration and diving deep on some of their mechanics, gameplay systems, and the stories they're trying to tell, and trying to draw on my (admittedly now rather distant) background as a student of English literature to inform my critiques. This is going to become the primary focus of this blog, with entries most likely to be published on Mondays, given it's currently my most free day. However, I'm also keen not to abandon some of my roots. I'm aware that a significant portion of the people who have chosen follow my updates over the years did so because of my long-form serial blogging endeavours - things like Enduring Final Fantasy VII and A Month in Skyrim, which are effectively the written equivalent of video Let's Plays. So, to that end, I'd also like to run long-form serial content in that style, at a rate of perhaps one series per year. I'm yet to work out specifically how that will run alongside the bi-monthly critiques, but given I'm also yet to work out what game I'd like to focus on for my next serial, there's no imminent pressure to find the answer.

I think that's all I have to say on the matter, besides the fact that I'm hoping this new approach has you all as excited as I am for what's coming over the horizon. I'll be back in early June with my first blog under this new schedule and format, and perhaps even some news as to what my next serial project will be by that point. Until then, thanks very much for reading folks. Take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen (ANDR)

Hey there folks. A few days ago I posted a blog asking people to vote on potential ideas for my contribution to the upcoming Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run VIII. If you're unfamiliar with the GBCER, it's a fantastic community initiative that raises funds for Pencils of Promise, a charity dedicated to providing education to children in developing countries. First and foremost, thanks to those of you who voted on that blog. Thanks also to those who cast votes away from this blog, on Facebook and in other places. It was a close fought thing between a blind playthrough of inFamous 2 and a marathon of the first three Spyro games (and to be honest, I'm a little surprised that the proposal of a Pokémon Diamond Randomizer Nuzlocke got no love whatsoever), but ultimately Cole MacGrath won out over the little purple dragon.

On Sunday 22nd April, starting at 10:00am BST (that's 5:00am EDT), I'll be embarking on a marathon playthrough of inFamous 2, the second game in Sucker Punch's PlayStation-exclusive, open-world superhero action series. While I played through the first inFamous last year, I've never touched its sequel before. It's therefore going to be a completely blind playthrough, with no previous knowledge of the game. My goal is to either play the game until the credits roll, or play for twenty-four hours straight - whichever milestone comes first. The whole thing will be available to watch live on ExplosiveRuns.com, where you'll be also able to tune into various charity livestream shenanigans over the whole long weekend. And that's not all. In the name of charity, I'm going to put myself at the mercy of my donors by attempting something I've decided to call a 'Karma By Committee' run.

So what is a 'Karma By Committee' run, exactly? Simply put, it's a little caveat that allows donors to get involved with the stream and potentially modify the way my playthrough unfolds. Players of inFamous 2 will be aware of its morality system, which allows players to shape their version of Cole as either a hero or a villain depending on the actions they take and story choices they make over the course of the game. Ordinarily these choices would be made by the player, but for this special charity stream, I'm going to let my donors dictate Cole's morality for me. It's very simple - every donor is encouraged to align their donation with Good or Evil. At any given moment, whichever moral alignment has the most funds behind it will determine how I play inFamous 2. Whenever the game presents me with a moral choice, no matter how major or minor, I must side with the alignment with the most amassed donations at that moment in time.

While I expect a handful of early donors to determine how the Karma By Committee run will start, I'm also aware that donations can (and hopefully will) come in over the course of the stream. Obviously, this gives scope for Cole's morality to change, perhaps once, perhaps several times, over the course of my playthrough. Given that I have no previous experience with inFamous 2, I can't say for certain what impact that might have on the overall experience, but I can use my time spent with the first inFamous to hazard some educated guesses. If morality feeds into some kind of skill tree system, opening some branches while closing off others as it did in the first game, then one or more mid-game changes might end up locking me out of using certain abilities, thereby making the game harder. It may also result in me being locked out from earning certain Trophies over the course of my playthrough. To be clear, I am absolutely fine with either of these things happening. I don't anticipate there being any consequences of playing the game in this way that will prevent me from at least finishing the story missions. If anyone out there knows differently, please let me know.

The other eventuality to consider is that at some point, the two moral alignments may end up with a tied amount of donations. In the (unlikely, but nonetheless possible) event that this happens, I will allow any moral choices within the game to be determined by the live chat for as long as the totals remain tied. I haven't decided the specifics of how this will work - I may just go with the first person to post a response, or I may give the chat a one-minute window to cast votes before siding with the majority. Whatever the mechanics of a tie situation end up being, I'll be sure to relay them to you all in plenty of time before the start of the stream.

I think that's all I have to say on the matter. If anyone has any questions about the inFamous 2 Karma By Committee run, please post them in the comments below, or hit me up with a PM. If you'd like to donate to the cause, you can do so via my Pencils of Promise page - my goal this year is to raise $150, which would be enough to see two kids through school for a year. Please be sure to mark your donation with either a Good or Evil alignment in the comment field, so it can feed into the Karma By Committee aspect of the playthrough. And if you'd like to watch the action unfold live, then tune into ExplosiveRuns.com from 10:00am BST on Sunday 22nd April. Until then, thanks very much for reading folks. Take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (PS3)

It's that time of year again. The days are getting longer, the weather is improving, and the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run is just around the corner. I'm sure most of you know the drill by now, but just in case you don't, the GBCER is a community-led charity fundraising initiative. Now in its eighth year, members of the Giant Bomb community take to the interwebs to livestream all manner of video game happenings to raise money for a good cause. That cause is Pencils of Promise, a charity that provides educational support to children in developing countries. This year, the GBCER team is aiming to raise $7,500 for the cause - enough to put one hundred kids through school for a whole year.

Last year I was able to take part in the GBCER and had a blast doing so, livestreaming a Pokémon Gold Randomizer Nuzlocke that made it all the way up to the Champion of the Elite Four and raised $133 in the process. This year I'd really like to do the same, but I'm finding it hard to settle on one single idea for my contribution. That's why I'm throwing it open to you, the Giant Bomb community, to help me decide what to do for this year's GBCER. Below are my three final options. All you have to do is pick the option that most appeals to you, and sound off with a vote for that option in the comments below.

More Randomized Pokémon Madness

One of my options for this year's GBCER is to continue my trend (if one instance of a thing can even be called a "trend") of Pokémon Randomizer Nuzlockes. There's no denying that last year's Pokémon Gold Randomizer Nuzlocke was a heck of a thing. In a single nineteen-hour marathon livestream, I made my way through a highly randomized version of the Johto region, incorporating rules allowing only one capture per area and a permadeath clause for even more added challenge on top of totally reshuffled Pokémon and item locations. There was joy and sadness in equal measure as we overcame hurdles and lost valuable team members along the way, culminating in an epic showdown against the Champion of the Elite Four, which we sadly lost. It was tons of fun. Which is why I'm considering doing it all again this year.

If I do end up going down this route, I'll play through a different generation of Pokémon game. My friend Dean has suggested that he'd like to see a fourth-gen Randomizer Nuzlocke, which would mean getting stuck into Pokémon Diamond, Pearl or Platinum. As with last year's event I would offer donation incentives, including increased randomization the more money we raise before the start of the stream, plus the opportunity to nickname a Pokémon for all donors.

inFamous 2: Public Moral Compass Edition

Shout out to my buddy Tom for this suggestion. I played through the first inFamous last year and found it to be an incredibly fun (if a little rough around the edges) open world superhero game. I'd like to get around to playing the sequel this year, and this seems like it would be a perfect opportunity to do just that. Howlongtobeat.com lists the game as taking around 15 hours on average to beat, which should make for a fun marathon streaming session for all involved.

Where this could get really interesting is the potential for donation incentives. Every donor could allocate their donation to Good or Evil, with the side with the most funds determining how I would play the game. Obviously there would be scope for this to change over the course of the stream, depending on how incoming donors choose to align their donations. It could be interesting to let the choice be made by committee and change my play style accordingly.

A Spyro Marathon

My third and final idea is one inspired by this week's announcement of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, slated for release this September. I have an insane amount of love for the first three Spyro games, having played all of them more times than I can remember through my childhood and knowing huge chunks of each game inside and out. Wouldn't it be fun to take that rekindled passion for the little purple dragon, and channel it into an attempt to beat all three of the original PlayStation games within a single twenty-four hour sitting?

The major downside to this option is that I'm struggling to come up with any ideas for donation incentives for it. If anyone who likes the sound of this stream proposal has any ideas for how to make it more interesting from a donation perspective, please let me know along with your vote in the comments below.

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Those are your options, folks. Get voting in the comments, and the idea with the most support by Monday morning will come to fruition as my contribution to this year's Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run. Thanks for reading folks. Take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction (PS3)

As a video game enthusiast who likes to keep up with developments in the industry while predominantly playing old games, I'm very familiar with walking the interesting line between following the latest zeitgeists while not actively participating them. The most recent release to have captured my attention from a distance is the excitement surrounding Monster Hunter: World, the latest instalment in Capcom's long-running carve-'em-up franchise. It's the first time the series has graced a home console since 3 Ultimate found its way onto the Wii U back in 2013, a migration away from the limitations of handheld hardware in a presumed effort to try and ensnare a new player-base. And, if the general buzz both here on Giant Bomb and on the internet is to be believed, it seems to have worked a treat - we're not even a quarter of the way through 2018, but by some especially enamoured players, Monster Hunter: World is already being uttered in the same breath as Game of the Year.

The fevered excitement surrounding this new Monster Hunter game has infected me too, albeit in a slightly different way. Instead of taking on fearsome creatures in glorious high definition on PS4 or Xbox One, I've been sinking a lot of time into Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate on my 3DS. I'm not a total newbie to the series, having cut my teeth on Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for PSP around three years ago, but it still took me a few hours to get re-acclimatised to several of its unique quirks. Luckily the time spent in virtual orienteering was enough to refresh my memory, as well as giving me a good handle on which weapon to use - once I discovered the Switch Axe, there was no going back. Since graduating from 4 Ultimate's preliminary hunting academy I've carved my way through several Great Jaggi, Kecha Wacha, Tetsucabra and Gypceros, forging new weapons and armour from their scales, claws and hides along the way. While by no means a veteran or even a connoisseur of the franchise, I thought it might be interesting to cash in on the hubbub surrounding Monster Hunter: World to share some of my thoughts about the improvements Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate offers over my previous experience with the series.

One of my greatest misgivings playing Monster Hunter Freedom Unite was how obtuse everything was to me as a newcomer to the series. While it offered up a bunch of tutorial quests intended to ease the player into the game, a lot of the minutiae of the gameplay and systems were confined to menus that were both hidden from view and, in some instances, poorly translated. This meant I spent a lot of my initial hours with Freedom Unite reading FAQs and watching YouTube videos to learn how to play. While I can't definitively assess 4 Ultimate in the same way since I didn't go in completely blind, I feel confident saying that it does a much better job of introducing the player to its core mechanics. Alongside a similar batch of early quests that give the player hands-on experience with the mechanics of gathering, combining and basic combat, 4 Ultimate gives the player up-front access to a well-translated set of Hunter's Notes that pop up automatically whenever the game introduces a new mechanic or system. Even concepts like skills and decorations, which were almost alien to me in Freedom Unite, are explained well in enough in 4 Ultimate that I feel like I have a decent handle on them now.

Moving away from learning the game and towards actually playing it, I find myself greatly appreciating the increased verticality of the gameplay in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. Climbing played a minor part in traversing environments in Freedom Unite, but in 4 Ultimate it has expanded beyond mere traversal and plays an important role in combat. There are climbable surfaces and ledges to jump from everywhere in 4 Ultimate, and players can use changes in elevation to their advantage when fighting monsters by leaping onto their backs and "mounting" them. While I admittedly don't think much of the minigame that accompanies a successful mounting, the ability to deal extra damage and potentially break parts of a monster makes it worth attempting should the opportunity ever present itself. On the flip side, monsters can often take advantage of scale-able walls and ceilings too, forcing players to bear the lay of the land in mind when planning their defence as well as their attack. My personal highlights in this regard have been hunts for the tree-swinging Kecha Wacha and web-slinging Nerscylla, which move through multiple levels for some truly dynamic fights.

From a control standpoint, 4 Ultimate feels much better to play than Freedom Unite ever did, although I'm sure that's due to the fact I'm playing on a New 3DS specifically. The little plastic nub above the face buttons might not be the most ergonomic solution for camera control, but it's a damn sight better than having to adopt the cramp-inducing clawed grip favoured by Freedom Unite players on the PSP. Another advantage that all 3DS models have over Sony's handheld is its touch screen, which can be customised to a surprising degree. Having access to things like a map and an item quick-select on the bottom screen not only makes things much faster than fumbling with awkward button combinations in the heat of battle, but also frees up more of the top-screen's real estate, giving you a better view of the monster you're fighting and the surroundings you're in. Finally, it's worth mentioning the introduction of the Target Cam, a rudimentary lock-on that swings the camera to focus on a targeted large monster with a single tap of the L button. It's helped me on multiple occasions when I've needed to keep track of my quarry, even superseding the rudimentary right stick in terms of usefulness.

4 Ultimate also feels like much less of a grind so far. I recall spending hours farming materials in Freedom Unite, often falling victim to random number generation in the hopes of a specific rare drop in order to forge that last piece of armour in a set. In the time I've spent with 4 Ultimate, however, drops seem to have been much more generous. Monsters seem to drop a lot more materials in general, and the introduction of mounting and sub-quests (bonus secondary objectives that offer more rewards upon quest completion when fulfilled) means there are more opportunities to revel in the spoils of a hunt than ever before. I've typically found myself able to craft entire armour sets after only a few fights with each big monster. Don't get me wrong, it's still very much an experience centred on "the grind", but unlike my time with Freedom Unite, I've not been made to feel like my story progress has significantly slowed because of it. At least not yet, anyway - there's still plenty of time for that to change as I move forward with the game.

And speaking of story progress, that's one area in which 4 Ultimate soundly triumphs over Freedom Unite. My experience with the latter felt like a series of disconnected errands, a slew of fetch quests and big game hunts that never really fed into each other or served to bolster any kind of greater narrative thread. My goal in Freedom Unite was to take down the Tigrex that almost killed me in the opening cut-scene, and everything between those two events was there to pad out the single player experience. Contrast that with 4 Ultimate, which (up until this point, anyway) has a clear story structure and quests that serve to support it. I'm not just some village hunter cutting down monsters for sport - I'm a member of a travelling caravan, filled with other characters whose motivations justify the quests they contribute to the Guildmarm's job board. Significant quests are highlighted or marked as urgent, helping players to either prioritise or postpone moving the story along. Not only that, but they carry tangible rewards beyond raw materials - improved ingredients in the Street Cook's kitchen, or more options in the Wyporium. Where Freedom Unite felt like hunting for the sake of it, 4 Ultimate gives almost all of my actions a greater purpose, and that in turn makes its single-player story feel a hell of a lot stronger.

Perhaps my biggest regret with 4 Ultimate is that I probably won't get to experience the thrill of playing with other hunters. A great deal of the contemporary buzz surrounding Monster Hunter: World, and indeed the franchise as a whole, seems focused on the substantial co-operative multiplayer aspect. The thought of teaming up with other players, forging strategies and executing battle plans in order to take down the biggest and baddest monsters holds a great deal of appeal to me, to the point where I even gifted a copy of 4 Ultimate to a friend in the hopes we'd be able to play together some day. Sadly that's not something that is likely to happen, which means watching the GB crew live-stream their time with Monster Hunter: World is probably the closest I'm going to get to playing with others at this point in time. My time spent with Freedom Unite has already taught me that there's plenty of solo content to look forward to, and I know my AI-controlled Palicoes always have my back, but it sucks to feel like I'm not getting the "full" Monster Hunter experience.

I can tell that Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is going to be a firm fixture in my gaming schedule for quite some time to come. After thirty hours of play I've only just unlocked the fourth of ten ranks of Caravan quests that comprise the game's single-player story. Right now my personal goal is to forge a set of Barroth armour before pushing on with the next batch of quests. Beyond that, who knows? As for Monster Hunter: World, I don't think I'll be picking it up any time soon, if at all. It's difficult for me to justify dropping a lot of cash on a new Monster Hunter game when I have a perfectly good one right here. As always, thanks to everyone for taking the time to read these ramblings. Take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS)

Hey there folks, and welcome to my first blog post of 2018 - a belated 'Happy New Year' to one and all is in order, I guess. I had planned to put something out there a lot sooner than this. I'd been thinking about jotting down a list of priorities for 2018, both gaming and otherwise, but the moment has probably passed for such a blog to be relevant at this point. I'd also intended to resume my 'An Hour With...' series by now, but I've not yet had a chance to approach any games facing the chop. Hopefully the delay has been worth it though, because I've been fortunate enough to find a common thread in the games I've been playing that I feel is worth writing about. And as I'll soon be getting to, the word 'play' is key to that thread...

I think we all say that we 'play' video games, right? 'Play' is the verb of choice when it comes to describing this hobby that unites us all, probably because it connotes one of the core tenets that defines the medium - interactivity. We act upon our in-game avatars in the same way that children manipulate their action figures and LEGO bricks. It also connotes fun, which in most cases is the default emotional output of the games we play. But that's not all that 'play' entails, is it? 'Play' is just as much about imagination and discovery as it is about interactivity and fun. And while so many games nail the latter points, the former ones seem to be less and less prevalent in modern video game design. Experimentation and exploration are neutered by modern design choices in a lot of current-generation games, from excessive tutorialisation to world maps full of waypoints. I'm not saying that somehow makes these games less fun, just that it makes them feel less like 'play' in the truest sense of the word. Through January I've been fortunate enough to spend time with two games - one old, one new - that have gone a long way towards reinstating my sense of 'play' when it comes to video games.

Probably the biggest gaming development in my life so far this year has been my acquisition of a Nintendo Switch back at the beginning of January. I'd been saving up to buy one since last summer, and thanks to my family's generosity at Christmas I was able to pick up a one-game bundle online. Given the choice between Nintendo's flagship franchises, I opted for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild over Super Mario Odyssey. Over the last five weeks I've spent almost ninety hours travelling across the latest iteration of the kingdom of Hyrule. In that time I've reclaimed all four of the Divine Beasts from Calamity Ganon and cleared around eighty-five Shrines. I've also ridden a moose bareback across the northern snowfields, broken every single melee weapon in my inventory trying (and failing) to subdue a Lynel, tied enough Octo Balloons to a raft to make it fly, set fire to a field just to watch it burn, and climbed the tallest mountain in the world simply to see what was on the other side.

The fact I'm able to describe Breath of the Wild in these terms, terms beyond my progression statistics, is a clear indication of the ethos behind its design - empowering the player to be creative in their approach to any given situation. This version of Hyrule is built on a multitude of systems that stack upon and interact with each other in fascinating ways, all of which are left for the player to discover on their own terms. Its map isn't filled with the typical 'icon barf' that has come to define the open-world genre through series like Assassin's Creed and Far Cry. Instead, Breath of the Wild puts its map-marking tools in the hands of the player, encouraging them to set their own destinations rather than telling them stubbornly where to go and what to do when they get there. The Divine Beasts, the game's answer to the Zelda series' more traditional multi-room multi-puzzle dungeons, are liberatingly free-form compared to the old tried-and-tested formula of 'solve puzzle, get item, use on boss'. Thanks to the dual nature of the Switch I can play either at home or on the go, for five hours or for five minutes, and every play session, now matter where, no matter how long, is unique and rewarding.

I could go on for paragraphs and paragraphs about Breath of the Wild, but to do so would be to repeat what others have already said ten times over in much better prose than I can muster right now. Besides, if I fill this blog with Zelda talk, I'll have no space to say anything about the other game I've been playing, will I? Alongside breaking in my new Switch, I've been getting to grips with Banjo-Tooie - specifically the Xbox Live Arcade version, included as part of the fantastic Rare Replay collection for Xbox One. I've played through the original Banjo-Kazooie twice in recent years, and I hold up Nuts & Bolts as one of my favourite games of the last generation, but I'd never touched the game that sits between them until a couple of weeks ago. Having finally beaten Gruntilda this morning, now seems like a good time to get some thoughts down on the bear and bird's second outing, and how it too has revived my passion for 'play' in video games.

One of the first things I noticed about Banjo-Tooie (when it eventually let me play, after a very protracted opening by platformer standards) is how much bigger it is than the game that preceded it. I've read that Tooie is around three times bigger than Kazooie, and based on what I've seen (and how long it's taken me to see it), I can believe it. The Isle O' Hags is so much more open and expansive than Gruntilda's Lair, and filled with so much more stuff to do, that I'm slightly reluctant to call it a hub world. While each world has its own theme and unique feel, there's a mind-boggling level of inter-connectivity between them all, with multiple paths linking the worlds together, and even a train that can travel between several of them. It gives Tooie a much larger sense of scale and a much better sense of place - you really feel like all these environments co-exist, instead of being their own distinct zones.

This design choice may not be to everyone's tastes, but I absolutely loved it, and not just because there's more space to explore. Tooie extends this inter-connectivity to the act of collecting its Jiggies, locking many of them behind multi-stage puzzles and challenges spread across multiple worlds. The shaman Mumbo Jumbo is playable in Tooie, while Humba Wumba takes on his old role by providing the buddy duo with a host of new magical transformations to play around with. It's even possible for Banjo and Kazooie to go their separate ways, with each protagonist having a unique arsenal of moves enabling them to reach certain areas and solve certain problems that they can't when together. All of these aspects combine to create a platforming adventure that's filled with exploration and experimentation, rewarding the player for approaching problems from multiple angles and in multiple ways. It was incredibly rewarding to see each world gradually open up (and bequeath more of their Jiggies) as more abilities became available to me, making Banjo-Tooie one of the most purely fun times I've had with a platformer in recent memory. I'll definitely be going back to try for the Jiggies that I missed on my journey in the near future.

As I said earlier, this isn't some attempt to make games that don't emphasise 'play' seem less legitimate, and I will continue to have a lot of fun with games that prioritise story or challenge over 'play' in the future. But after powering through some very linear, guided and familiar experiences in the second half of 2017 (including getting all three Platinums in the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, retreading old ground in Pokémon Ultra Sun, and playing the first three Uncharted games almost back-to-back), it's been refreshing to start 2018 with some games that go completely the other way and encourage the player to go off and do their own thing. To that end, once I've wrapped up Breath of the Wild, I'm intending to pick up Super Mario Odyssey to keep my Switch active - and boy, does that ever look like a game that embodies every sense of the word 'play'. Until next time, thanks very much for reading folks. Hopefully writing this blog will be the kick-start that I need to get back to writing regularly again this year. Take care and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (NSW)

Hey there folks, and welcome to the seventh and final part of My End of 2017 Awards, my own personal take on the Game of the Year tradition. If you're just joining the festivities at this point, then you've missed a whole host of individual awards distributed over the last week. If you're interested in these tailored acknowledgements of the best and worst aspects of every game I played this year, then you can use the links in the table below to navigate through the individual awards - be warned though, there are forty-two of them, so it may take you a little while!

Today marks the reveal of my Top Ten, the ten video games that stand above all the others to define my 2017. Before I tell you all which titles made the cut, I need to explain how this list will differ from most of the Top Tens you'll see this year. For a start, every game that I've played this year is eligible for inclusion, regardless of when it was released. My reasoning for this is that I tend to play a lot of old games rather than current releases. Even in 2017, a year in which I played a whopping fifty games, only six of those could legitimately be considered 2017 releases. Doing things this way feels better than creating a shorter list, or populating it with games I didn't actually play, and it ensures the list is an accurate reflection of the time I spent playing games this year.

It's also important to note that this list isn't in a hierarchical order. More power to those who are able to rank their lists from 10 to 1, but I just can't bring myself to do it. While I could probably choose my top three without too much trouble, it gets a lot harder to separate the games from each other at the lower end of the scale, to the point where it feels more like splitting hairs than anything meaningful. A ranked order also implies that these are categorically the best games that I played this year, and while a lot of the games below are undeniably fantastic, some of them earn their places on the list for the impact they had on me rather than their outright quality. As in previous years, I'll be presenting my Top Ten in alphabetical order instead.

With fifty titles to choose from, this year's Top Ten has proven harder to narrow down than ever before. I've given this a lot of time and thought, and the list went through several iterations before I settled on the ten games below. I played a lot of fantastic video games these past twelve months, but these are the ones that defined this year for me - My Top Ten Games of 2017!

Beyond Good & Evil HD

(Ubisoft - XBLA - 2011)

I went into Beyond Good & Evil with rather high expectations, given its reputation as a cult classic among the gaming community. It met those expectations in a lot of ways, delivering an experience that must have been pioneering back in 2003 and still feels fresh now. It presents a wide variety of gameplay styles with impressive competence, including open-world exploration, tense stealth sequences, environmental puzzle solving, arcade racing, and even photography, constantly mixing things up to ensure the experience never grows repetitive or boring. Where it exceeded my expectations, and elevated itself beyond a lot of the other games I played this year, was in its cast of characters, its story and world-building. Beyond Good & Evil’s fantasy setting of Hillys belies its exploration of real-world issues including government oppression, political corruption, industrialisation and conservation. Following Jade and Pey'j’s quest across this alien landscape reminded me a lot of the Oddworld franchise, which deals with similar themes and which has long been one of my favourite game series. All these features combine to create a truly unique experience – one that defined my year in gaming, and one that I won’t soon forget.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

(Vicarious Visions - PS4 - 2017)

N. Sane Trilogy is one of the finest examples of remastering that I’ve ever played. Taking the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy from the first PlayStation and rebuilding them from the ground up for the PlayStation 4, Vicarious Visions have crafted an experience that’s not only faithful to its source material, but actually improves on it in almost every way. Seeing the characters and levels that defined my childhood rendered in full high-definition had me grinning from ear to ear as I jumped, span and belly-flopped my way through Crash Bandicoot, Cortex Strikes Back and Warped one after the other. The games feel authentic too, introducing a unified physics model across all three games that, in my opinion, feels faithful to the original games, but somehow better than they ever did. N. Sane Trilogy balances the games’ acute level of challenge with a host of quality-of-life improvements, including the introduction of a new save system to the first game that’s closer to its sequels, retro-fitting the Time Trial Relics from Warped into the first two games, and full Trophy support for all three games. I devoted two months of the year to wringing every last drop of content out of this fantastic collection, earning full completion and Platinum Trophies across all three titles. It’s a lovingly crafted tribute to some of the most important games from my formative years, and the definitive way to play Crash Bandicoot in 2017.

Cuphead

(Studio MDHR - XONE - 2017)

It’s easy to reduce any description of Cuphead to its visuals, something that even I’m guilty of doing earlier in this sequence of awards. Its 1930s Fleischer-inspired aesthetics have drawn a great deal of attention and set it apart as something wholly unique within the medium. But what a purely visual analysis of Cuphead overlooks is the fact that beneath that gorgeous retro exterior beats the heart of a fiendishly challenging and thoroughly rewarding action game that encourages patience, persistence, and the pursuit of perfection. Its army of excellently-designed boss characters all present unique, interesting multi-phase challenges, forcing the player to read tells and memorise patterns in order to achieve victory. This mentality is supported by controls that are responsive, accurate, and highly customisable in terms of both button layout and character loadout. Cuphead is a very challenging game, but it presents its challenges in such a way that they never feel insurmountable, and that’s why it’s so intensely rewarding every time that “It’s A Knock-Out!!” message fills the screen. Cuphead isn’t just one of the best-looking games of this year - it’s one of the best games of this year, period.

DOOM

(id Software - PS4 - 2016)

I enjoy playing first-person shooter campaigns, but the ones that really, really impress me are pretty few and far between. DOOM is the first time since 2013’s BioShock Infinite that I’ve felt like I’m playing an FPS that redefines the genre in a meaningful way. Where that game took world-building and story to new heights, id Software’s 2016 reboot of their flagship franchise instead focuses on delivering a fast, frenetic, visceral experience that bottles the spirit of the original DOOM and catapults it into the current generation. It achieves this by finding exciting ways to plug any potential gaps in the action, like completely stripping out the genre mainstay of reloading to ensure the assault never stops, or implementing the fantastic Glory Kill mechanic to keep the player in the eye of the storm by letting them get up close and personal with the enemy. This break-neck pacing is housed within a package that oozes atmosphere, with impressive graphics locked at a slick sixty frames per second, and an industrial metal soundtrack that perfectly complements the ultra-violent action unfolding on the screen at any given moment. Add to this some modern quality-of-life improvements such as armour and weapon upgrades, and maps full of nooks and crannies to explore hunting for various collectibles, and DOOM supports its feature-set with a longevity and replayability that most FPS campaigns can only dream of. I haven’t touched the multiplayer aspect of DOOM, but I don’t need feel like I need to because the single-player component is worth the price of admission alone. DOOM is one of the best first-person shooters I’ve played in a long time, and a much-needed antidote to the realistic modern-military shooters that have saturated the market for so long. Say it with me now: “Rip and tear...”

Grandia

(Game Arts - PS1 - 1999)

Sometimes games make these end-of-year lists not because of how great they are, but simply because the experience of playing them comes to define the year for me. Grandia is one of those games. On paper it’s a charming, competent, but pretty by-the-numbers Japanese RPG. It boasts a fairly generic art style, a typical ‘ragtag band of kids and adventurers save the world’ story, and a cool turn-based battle system that encourages experimentation by feeding back into character development in some really interesting ways. But that’s not why I’ll remember Grandia for years to come. I’ll remember it partly because of the way its characters grow as people over the course of its surprisingly lengthy playtime, shedding their archetypes and becoming more rounded individuals as the events that unfold around them start to impact on their world-view. It’s why I love characters like Vivi in Final Fantasy IX, and it’s why Justin, Sue, Feena, and especially Leen have stayed with me long after I stopped playing. But I’ll also remember Grandia for being the game that I lost myself in to cope with the distressing experience of nearly losing my mother in a hospital operating theatre back in February. It was really touch-and-go at times, but thankfully she pulled through. I pulled through too, and Grandia played a big role in helping me to do that.

Horizon Zero Dawn

(Guerrilla - PS4 - 2017)

While I always say that I don’t approve of ranking these kinds of lists, there’s usually one game that stands head and shoulders above the others such that if you demanded a definitive ‘Game of the Year’ from me, I could give you one without too much thought. Two years ago it was Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, last year it was Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, and this year it’s definitely Horizon Zero Dawn. Guerrilla Games’ first foray into the open-world action RPG genre is a near-flawless triumph that consumed over sixty hours of my life this year. It’s tough to break that experience down into its constituent parts, but I’ll try. It’s one of the best-looking games I’ve ever played, combining incredible graphical fidelity with a varied, vibrant colour palette and some incredible animation work. Every component of the gameplay, from the exploration and traversal, to the insanely deep and strategic combat against the machines, to the loot gathering and crafting, felt fully realised and more polished than anything I’ve ever seen come before it. The sci-fi story tying everything together goes to some really interesting places and asks some pretty pertinent questions about artificial intelligence, as well as our society as a whole. I spent an entire month lost in the wilderness of post-apocalyptic Colorado, loving almost every second, and I intend to jump right back in in early 2018 to sample the Frozen Wilds DLC expansion. Horizon Zero Dawn isn’t just my favourite game from this year, it’s easily become one of my favourite games of all time.

Pokémon Ultra Sun

(Game Freak - 3DS - 2017)

It wouldn’t be an end-of-year top ten list from me if I didn’t include a Pokémon game. I played two of them this year, both set in the beautiful Hawaii-inspired Alola region, but when it came to picking one over the other the choice was simple. Acting as one of this generation’s enhanced versions in the mould of Yellow, Crystal, Emerald and Platinum, Pokémon Ultra Sun feels like the game that its disappointing predecessor should have been all along. The individual enhancements might seem minor to a series outsider, but cumulatively they turn Ultra Sun into a vastly improved retelling of the story first told by Sun and Moon last year. The enhanced roster of available Pokémon shifts focus away from the series’ first-generation poster-children and gives players a lot more team-building options. It also offers a much harder challenge with tougher opponent movesets and more sophisticated AI trainer behaviour, actually causing this series stalwart to white-out for the first time since the fourth generation. Game Freak have explicitly stated that Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon will be the core series’ final appearance on the 3DS, and while I’m very excited to see what the move to Switch will bring, I can’t deny that Ultra Sun is a fitting swansong for the franchise in its current form. I’m sure I will be spending plenty of time in Alola in early 2018 as I endeavour once again to complete my National Pokédex.

Telltale’s The Walking Dead (All Seasons)

(Telltale - PS3/PS4 - 2012-17)

When selecting my top ten games for this year, I knew that Telltale’s The Walking Dead would need to feature in some form. Over the course of 2017, my girlfriend Alice and I played through nineteen episodes across three seasons and a spin-off, creating a shared gaming experience that came to define the year for me. But with four titles up for consideration, how would I separate them and pick one above all the others? Would I pick the first season, because it was my favourite? Would I opt for the second, because it was Alice’s? Would I choose the Michonne mini-series, for showcasing Alice’s favourite character from the TWD universe in a different light? Or would I triumph A New Frontier as the most recent instalment? In the end I decided to stop splitting hairs and feature all of them. It’s not the strengths of one specific title over another that caused The Walking Dead to feature on this list, but the experience of sharing a developing and evolving story with one of the most important people in my life. The Walking Dead became “our thing”, something I haven’t had with a partner and a video game for a very long time.

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection

(Naughty Dog/Bluepoint - PS4 - 2016)

It feels unfair handing out three of these Top Ten podiums to collections of games rather than individual titles, but that’s just the way this year has gone – my most memorable gaming experiences have been associated more strongly with franchises than with single titles. Uncharted is one such series, as I worked my way through the remastered PlayStation 4 versions of the first three games through the autumn months. Much like The Walking Dead, playing them in such close proximity makes it difficult to separate one game from another. All three titles in the Nathan Drake Collection offer gorgeous environments to explore, intense shoot-outs, mind-blowing interactive action set-pieces and some of the finest character acting in the entire medium, with the quality so consistently high across them that it’s been impossible for me to pick a favourite. Another notable feature of my experience with the Nathan Drake Collection is that I played through all three games on Crushing difficulty, a step above the level of challenge that I usually opt for in games like these. Overcoming these fantastic games on what was originally their highest difficulty setting filled me with an enormous sense of pride and achievement, and I believe that justifies their inclusion on this list just as much as the quality of the games themselves.

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

(CD Projekt RED - PC - 2008)

2017 wasn’t my first time trying to play through The Witcher. Coming back to it after a false start last year, I decided to start over rather than try to pick up the myriad story threads where I left off. I think that was undoubtedly the best decision I could have made – not only was I able to follow the story from beginning to end, but already having a firm grasp on the gameplay mechanics meant I was able to pay greater attention to what was going on with Geralt himself. As a result, I got lost far deeper into the plot and world of The Witcher than I was ever able to before. It’s a story full of political intrigue and moral grey areas, set in a world so squalid and corrupt that it feels refreshing compared to the usual, idyllic high fantasy tropes used in so many western RPGs. The gameplay facilitates exploration of this world, with fantastic quest design and a host of support systems that elevate a simple click-to-swing combat system into something requiring a great deal of strategy and preparation. Some of my most satisfying moments in The Witcher came from accepting a monster contract, seeking out the appropriate book to read up on its weaknesses, preparing the relevant potions to improve my odds in battle, and then witnessing all my careful planning pay off. These emergent moments were as much a part of my experience as the main story, and played a big part in making The Witcher so memorable for me. It goes without saying that The Witcher 2 is one of my top gaming priorities for 2018.

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There you have it folks, my Top Ten based on the games that I played this year. It's been a ton of fun putting together these awards over the last week, and I hope you've all enjoyed reading them as much as I have writing them. The community Game of the Year stuff has been fantastic this year, and I have a ton of blogs and lists bookmarked and waiting to read. I'll be resuming normal blogging duties one day next week, with a 'New Year's Resolution'-style post laying out some of my plans (both within and outside of video games) for 2018. Until then, thanks very much for reading. I hope 2017 treated you well, and I hope 2018 treats you even better. Take care folks, a very happy New Year to everyone, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Pokémon Ultra Sun (3DS)

A good day to all you duders, and a hearty welcome to the sixth and penultimate part of My End of 2017 Awards. Every year I put together these awards as a tribute to the games I've played over the last twelve months, honouring the good and the bad with a series of novelty individual accolades before revealing my top ten. If you're new to these awards, if you've missed any of the previous instalments, or if you're joining us from the future and want to navigate the ceremony out of sequence, you can find links to every single part thus far in the table below:

As I said, today brings the last round of individual awards - my effort to recognise the unique aspects of every game I played this year, and the experiences that I had with them. These final seven gongs take us through my game-playing in November and December, right up to the present moment, beginning with:

Save Me Award for Most Saves In A Game With No Saving

Super Mario Bros.

I really enjoy playing Super Mario Bros. I’m also rather terrible at playing Super Mario Bros. Maybe it’s because I grew up playing Sonic games on Sega consoles, but I’ve never been able to commit the feel of Mario’s jump to muscle memory despite repeated attempts. This November I decided to mitigate my shortcomings by playing the Virtual Console release of Super Mario Bros. on 3DS and making liberal use of save states, allowing me to finally move beyond the first couple of worlds and see every one of its thirty-two levels on my quest to defeat Bowser and save the princess. Is that cheating? That’s a question I’ve since attempted to address in this blog post. Whatever your thoughts on the matter, there’s no doubt that it felt good to cross this gaming classic off my Pile of Shame.

Learn To Fly Award for Longest Tutorial

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

It’s weird to think that in all my time on Giant Bomb, I’ve beaten no fewer than six top-down Legend of Zelda games, but I hadn’t played a 3D game to completion until this year. Skyward Sword was my first 3D Zelda experience for over a decade, and overall it was one that I really enjoyed. It’s just kind of a shame that in order to get into the game proper, I had to force myself through no less than three hours of painfully slow tutorials. It doesn’t stop there either – from the exploration-killing beeline-generator that is dowsing, to the item descriptions that reset at the start of every play session, Skyward Sword is always eager to make sure the player never gets lost or confused within its world. As a series veteran, that’s a level of hand-holding I just don’t need.

You’re Crazy Award for Weirdest Game

Deadly Premonition

In all my years of playing video games, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything quite as weird as Deadly Premonition. It’s a baffling mix of mediocre third-person shooting and open-world social simulation, putting players in the shoes of Francis York Morgan and his imaginary friend Zach as they attempt to make sense of a series of grisly murders in small-town America. While the gameplay is clunky and the graphics incredibly sub-par, there’s no denying the game has a great deal of heart, with memorable characters and a story that goes to some really interesting places before it reaches its totally bat-shit conclusion. I didn’t always enjoy playing Deadly Premonition, but I always enjoyed experiencing it.

Shallow Award for Lack Of Depth

Battletoads Arcade

Battletoads has a reputation for being a fiendishly difficult side-scrolling brawler, but the arcade version included as part of the Rare Replay collection on Xbox One doesn’t do much to reinforce that. The combat lacks any depth or finesse, with every fight reduced to a button mashing exercise since all attacks are mapped to a single face button. There’s no penalty for death in this version either – since the home console lacks the same trappings as the arcade, Rare Replay essentially puts the game in ‘infinite credits’ mode, allowing you to respawn over and over again with no real penalty for death. I mashed my way through Battletoads Arcade in a little under two hours, and while I enjoyed the spectacle and art direction, I didn’t really feel like I’d accomplished anything by the end.

Alive Award for Most Near-Death Escapes

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection

Is there any video game protagonist out there who’s cheated death more times than Nathan Drake? From abandoning a ship beset by pirates before it explodes at the start of Drake’s Fortune, through to escaping from an ancient city as it sinks into the desert sand at the end of Drake’s Deception, Nate narrowly avoids the Grim Reaper’s clutches so many times, and with such regularity, that it makes any modern disaster movie seem reasonable by comparison. My personal favourite examples are the rooftop and train sequences from Uncharted 2, while the most unbelievable near-death escape has to be his two days of aimless wandering in the desert with no water near the end of Uncharted 3. I look forward to steering Drake away from the jaws of oblivion once again in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End next year.

Good Times, Bad Times Award for Best And Worst Licensed Soundtrack

Forza Horizon

Forza Horizon was an unexpected surprise through the last weeks of 2017 for me. It surprised me with its huge open world, it surprised me with its huge variety of engaging events and side distractions, and it surprised me with its soundtrack. As a rock fan, I kept my dial tunes to the Horizon Rocks station, and was thrilled to hear artists like White Lies, The Duke Spirit, The Black Keys, and two tracks from the incredible debut album by The Enemy. Less thrilling was the inclusion of two tracks by Welsh band Lostprophets, though, whose singer Ian Watkins was arrested and convicted of child sex offences in the months following the game’s release. I’m kind of surprised they weren’t scrubbed from the game in a subsequent patch, since they mar what is otherwise a pretty stellar list of modern driving rock songs.

You Better You Bet Award for Most Improved Sequel

Pokémon Ultra Sun

Pokémon Ultra Sun wasn’t marketed very well by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. I, along with a lot of other players, were led to believe that it was a sequel to last year’s Pokémon Sun in the same vein as Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 from the fifth generation. It isn’t a sequel at all, but rather an enhanced and expanded retelling of Sun and Moon’s story in the style of Pokémon Yellow, Crystal, Emerald and Platinum. It addresses a lot of the problems I had with Sun, such as its slow start, its disappointing native Pokémon distribution, and its rushed narrative, delivering a game that’s better paced, more feature-packed, and perhaps most importantly, legitimately challenging in places. Ultra Sun is the game that we should have got last year, and a fitting swansong for the series on the Nintendo 3DS. It may not get it hooks into me quite as much as Pokémon Y did, but I’ll definitely be exploring its post-game content well into the new year.

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And with that, the individual awards section of My End of 2017 Awards comes to a close. It's been a lot of fun coming up with unique ways to honour the fifty games I spent time with this year, and hopefully these forty-two awards have given you all a good idea of how 2017 was for me in terms of what I played. All that remains is to reveal which of these games have elevated themselves above the others to earn a spot on my top ten list for the year, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. Until then, thanks very much for reading. Take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Pokémon Ultra Sun (3DS)