Kingdom Hearts
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I absolutely love this game as it combines fluid gameplay with my beloved Disney characters (it is basically Final Fantasy + Disney). For some reason this game really connected with me even though it wasn't technically completely new with the FF aspect unlike Jak and Daxter or Sly Cooper, it still had a really great premise that worked for me. I first discovered this game while watching TV and I saw an ad for it and it looked amazing. Me and my sister would play this game for hours defeating Heartless and leveling up Donald and Goofy.
The story is basically about a young boy named Sora living an idyllic life on Destiny Islands with his friends. On a night where the islands are destroyed by creatures named the Heartless, Sora receives the Keyblade, which is an effective weapon against them. Sora ends up in a completely new world (Traverse Town) after the destruction of his own and befriends Donald and Goofy, who are on their own quest to find their missing King, Mickey Mouse. The residents of Traverse Town (Leon, Yuffie, Aerith and other FF characters) aid Sora in gaining knowledge about his Keyblade and the Heartless, while also encouraging him to find more clues.
The trio travel from world to world with their Gummi Ship, aiding those Disney characters in need with their Heartless problem. Sora uses his Keyblade to lock the Keyholes to the heart of those respective worlds, which prevents the Heartless from consuming that world. We also slowly learn that a slew of Disney villians, led by Maleficient are the reason for the flood of heartless, which are destroying worlds. The protagonists travel to worlds like Wonderland, Tarzan's Jungle, Olympus, Agrabah, Neverland, and much more. Sora travels to these places hoping to reunite with his friends Riku and Kairi, who appeared to be taken by malevolent forces.
This game has a strong voice cast and many of the original actors that voiced their original theatrical character. It also has Haley Joel Osment in the role of Sora, which I believe serves him very well.
What I really enjoy about KH is that the stories resemble their original Disney film, but obviously have a twist with the Heartless. One example would be that Jafar uses the Heartless to take over/destroy Agrabah while also having a different plot to capture Princess Jasmine for Maleficient. All of these stories have similar endings to the original, so the overal story doesn't change that much. It's also great because Sora make friends that he can call upon in battle to offer a special attack to aid him. We don't get to go to all of these worlds in this game (later in the sequel we do go to Pride Rock and the Beast's Castle) but it is still cool to experience such an expansive Disney catalogue in one game. It has some cool mini-games like finding all 101 Dalmations and helping Winnie the Pooh in his book adventures .
I feel that the animations are top-notch and still age really well despite all of the advances in technology. The cut scenes actually feel more like a movie and look really well done. Of course the background music is another great addition as it puts a nice addition on Disney themes that we alread know. Plus the opening theme "Simple and Clean" is such a great way to open the game into a music video type of setting, which really sets it a part from only similar games and gives it a nice Japanese feel to it.
Overall, the game has great themes of friendship and courage plus it has everything you love about Disney. I choose to play this game for my Psychology of Video Games class (haha, yes thats real) weekly gaming assignment and soon became immersed and obsessed with leveling up and defeating Heartless. Plus Goofy and Donald truly make up a great team and provide countless entertainment in the journey. I highly recommend this game if you haven't played it yet (its been out for 12 years), especially since the highly anticipated KH3 is coming in the next few years. All of the nuances make it a very memorable game and one that you can always go back to.
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