Kingdom Hearts (PS2) | Understanding Its Success — Blogs — CNTR

Kingdom Hearts is a unique out-lier in the world of entertainment. It is a role playing game created by a Japanese studio utilizing not only its own existing properties but also those of one of the biggest corporations in America. It features a convoluted story overcomplicated by various concepts spread across not just one video game system, but seven - covering three entirely different gaming ecosystems. While there may exist crossovers between similar universes, such as superheroes and cartoons, there really isn't precedent for a crossover so ludicrous as stated above to actually work and be successful (save Space Jam of course).

Yet here we are, 15 years later and with over 24 million copies sold, the Kingdom Hearts series is one of the biggest gaming franchises today. Just recently, a friend who was probably one of the more casual gamers I know came up to me and asked, "Hey, you ever play Kingdom Hearts before?" This of course prompted a lengthy discussion on the series up to this point. It also raised a question in my mind - what exactly made this game, this weird Frankenstein, the success it was?

While it may be easy to point to the gameplay or the music or, most obvious, the Disney properties used, I believe that there's more to the story than that. Kingdom Hearts had way more factors, both external and internal, at play that developer and publisher Square Enix were able to capitalize on around the early 2000s. So let's take a dive, and discover what those factors are.

Of course, one of the more obvious pieces of the Kingdom Hearts puzzle was the Disney renaissance of the 1990s. The first game in the series (and its spin offs to an extent) utilize various worlds during this era. Settings based on Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Tarzan, and Hercules. The Nightmare Before Christmas, while not necessarily part of it, could also slot in as a companion piece to that era. As per Disney's MO, these films were made primarily for a family-oriented demographic and more specifically children. It makes sense that when Kingdom Hearts was released with promotional art and ads featuring Aladdin, Ariel, Jack Skellington, and so on, it caught kids' attention. The mainstream appeal of Disney properties certainly helped to gain attention to a wider audience than that, but I mention children to come to my next point.

Upon having a bit of a nostalgic rush for the series lately, and with Kingdom Hearts III less than half a year away, I decided to jump back in from the very beginning. It was very intriguing still remembering my experience with the game back as a 7 year old while playing it today. I could point out vivid memories of being a child and struggling to get through certain pieces of the game, such as trying to beat Clayton in the Deep Jungle. I can still recall with pinpoint detail sitting in front of my 32-inch cube TV at 5 in the morning. The smell of my dad ironing his work clothes, the scatter of steps as my mom awoke to prepare my lunch as well as hers, and low volume of my television as I mashed furiously on the face buttons of my DualShock to beat this annoying piece of work. Fast forward to the present, and my attempt to beat him only takes one try and just 5 minutes of my time. This example was just one of many that occurred during my revisit through Kingdom Hearts, and it's something that shouldn't be understated concerning its success.

Retroactively, Kingdom Hearts contains a combat system that is best described as 'easy to grasp, but difficult to master'. On a surface level (and from the eyes of most children I imagine), the action in Kingdom Hearts lies solely in just a few buttons that are always laid out to you on-screen. As a kid, it was very easy to understand the basics - if I wanted to fight, I had to press X. It was literally right there on the screen. If I wanted to use magic, it was just a couple finger taps away to find “Cure” or “Fire”. I don't think I ever really understood everything pertaining to managing my abilities or synthesizing items or knowing enemies' strengths and weaknesses or creating an excellent Gumi Ship, but you never really needed to unless you were going for the gold. If I needed to switch out equipment, the stats for your characters were incredibly succinct. Did more numbers go up than down? Alright, let's equip it.

Playing through it now though, I can see the nuances in the system so much better. It also makes me realize some of its shortcomings too - potions are used as a sort of catch all for both revives and healing, and gaining MP is as easy as whacking on a few enemies. While these are useful for newcomers to the RPG genre, it kind of breaks the game. Item management is an almost nonexistent issue in fights, hampering even a few of the more difficult bosses. While the Colosseum trials have the appearance of a challenge mode for the player, there's practically no challenge at all if you have an above-average understanding of the combat systems in place.

The beauty here is that these concessions and changes to the RPG formula were made to make it more inviting to a younger audience, while still placing deeper systems in place for those older and more familiar with the formula. Kingdom Hearts was my first RPG of any form. I, like many other kids, were introduced to an entirely new genre through this game, and simplifying some of the mechanics helped to not completely gate out an entire audience from enjoying it.

When I mention children, I'm taking care not to mention a specific gender. The reason being is that the series has managed to create a very diverse fanbase. Disney properties have wide appeal, and it isn't just boys or just girls that enjoy them. Square Enix, whether intentionally or not, placed a good mix of Disney worlds in place that catered towards all types of individuals. This helped them avoid the trap that can be commonly seen in other games and toys which could have a sense of being gender skewed. It gives the game a quality that makes it easy for any child, as well as their parents, to feel like it's for them.

Of course, Disney has a much broader reach than that, and the same can be said for Square Enix and their properties. Pooling from two very different types of stories and characters definitely helped to expand Kingdom Hearts reach past the already large audience they had locked in. It was also around the same time that little sites FanFiction.net and Deviant Art had exploded in popularity, helping to foster communities for various shows and games. To this day, Kingdom Hearts is still the second most written about game property on FanFiction with over 70,000 stories written.

There's something about the first Kingdom Hearts that's unique. Well, there's a lot to it that's so fascinating. And while I give a lot of credit to the team at Square Enix for Kingdom Hearts, Disney was the initiator of the discussion on creating on a crossover product. It’s clear that Disney had some amount of foresight to realize that a game such as Kingdom Hearts could and work work well.

Like a Jekyll and Hyde project gone completely (for the most part) right, series creator Tetsuya Nomura was able to make the inconceivable a reality. And while the series certainly has its critics, the community that has grown up with Kingdom Hearts seems to have only gotten bigger over the past decade. There's a lot of anxiousness from fans about how the multi-layered story will wrap up in the long awaited Kingdom Hearts III, nearly 14 years after Kingdom Hearts II. Here's hoping that it was worth the wait come January.