Donald and Goofy are somewhere in the distance. “I know you will!” she cries back, as their hands are pulled apart and stars light the sky above them. “Kairi! Remember what you said before? I’m always with you too. AaronĪt the end of the first game, Sora reaches out to his childhood friend Kairi as the ground parts beneath them, separating their worlds. The power of this game came from its ability to make you remember, while still pushing forward. It felt meaningful to engage with movies I hadn’t seen in years, to see how their core themes of love, friendship, and justice accentuated the main storyline. These games were released when corporate exploitation of decades-old intellectual property was not such an industry standard. Sora, the main playable character in Kingdom Hearts, standing on a stain glass rendering of Snow White. But the success of the Kingdom Hearts franchise is a ray of light through that malaise: it should never have worked, but it did. I was a nerdy, reserved 10-year-old just starting to really notice the men on underwear packaging at Walmart.Ī crossover game from a squeaky clean Disney and a darker Square Enix sounds like it makes no sense in 2018, when for so many companies the “brand” comes above all, the consolidation of production is a virtue, and the monolithic status of a company and its creative output is often preferred. Aladdin was hack-slashing through demonic cartoon creatures in Agrabah. Jack Skellington was casting elemental spells to defend Halloween Town. Then all of a sudden this deeply emotive, sentimental, and intensely fun Square Enix/Disney collaboration crash-landed into my universe, adding layers to characters I’d met in the Final Fantasy worlds as a maturing boy, and to the Disney characters I knew since I wore diapers. I was just a few years removed from my introduction to the Final Fantasy series, which absolutely blew my mind and gave me hours upon hours of 16-bit and blocky 3D material to play through. had launched Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, Thoroughly Modern Millie had just started previews on Broadway, the first season of The Wire was about to begin, and I was a nerdy, reserved 10-year-old just starting to really notice the men on underwear packaging at WalMart. When Kingdom Hearts came out in 2002, the U.S. For the past year or so, I’ve been deliberately revisiting the video games I played as a kid.
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