Introduction

Kingdom Hearts is a game released in 2002 by Square for the Playstation 2. Developed in conjuction with Disney, it combines the franchises of both companies into its own weird and confusing mess of a universe. The game ended up being a smash hit, having sold over 5.6 million copies worldwide by December 2006 and receiving rave reviews across the board. The success of the first game prompted many sequels, by October 2013 the series had sold over 20 million units worldwide. A few months after its initial release Kingdom Hearts 1 got a Japan-only rerelease called Kingdom Hearts Final Mix. Final Mix added a new boss, gameplay tweaks, several new cutscenes and a entirely new ending. In 2013 an HD rerelease of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix came out for the Playstation 3 called HD 1.5 Remix, which simply upgraded the visuals to HD. We're playing that one.

Kingdom Hearts 1 is an Action-RPG, making for a simple seeming combat system with a surprising amount of depth attached to it. At times it can feel like a slower character action game, requiring reflexes and knowledge of the game's mechanics to tackle some of the later stuff.

The story is about a young man named Sora, who along with his friends Riku and Kairi want to find something more in life. Hijinks are definitely going to ensue!

Hi, my name is FutureFriend and I fucking love this game and I love the dumb series that spawned from it. Along with me, my buddies ChorpSaway, killeremcee and a_raving_loon will be joining in on my weird love letter to a videogame designed entirely for pre-teens. ChorpSaway has played most of the numbered games and I sometimes wake him up in the middle of the night to talk about how great Kingdom Hearts is. killeremcee hasn't played this game in years and loon is going in pretty much blind. We'll be providing cut and uncut versions of the videos for those who wanna see the cutscenes untainted.

Oh, I should also mention I've seen like one Disney movie in my life so I might use this as an excuse to watch some and talk about it sometimes.

Hey, are you going to 100 percent the game?

No, but I will do the interesting stuff like optional bosses and of course getting all the endings. Some stuff that will be done for 100% will be done off-screen, mostly because I feel those aren't too interesting to watch, though. We won't be doing Synthesis because fuck Synthesis

Any reason you're doing this on the hardest difficulty?

I have played this game so many times that normal mode outright bores me. Plus I feel Proud mode essentially forces me to showcase more of the mechanics this game has due to its higher difficulty.

1. No spoilers. Please don't do that coy "nudge nudge" shit either.
2. Don't talk about other games in the series either. This is an extension of the first rule but I honestly feel it needs to be said either way.