9/10
May 13, 2019·✓ Recommended
Beat·PS4
The enhanced remake of the first Kingdom Hearts, KH:FM is by far the best version of an already wonderful game.
Our hero is Sora, a young lad on the appropriately-named Destiny Islands who, when his world is consumed by monsters called Heartless, finds himself the wielder of the mysterious Keyblade, alone chosen to defeat the hordes of darkness. He's joined in this endeavour by, yes, Donald Duck and Goofy of Disney fame - this game is famously Square Enix and Disney's weird, weird mashup project. The end result sees Sora scoot through a pleasing array of worlds based on Disney hits, as well as one or two originals just so the plot has somewhere to live.
The combat is perhaps the bit that's aged the most wonkily over the years; despite the work done by Final Mix to smooth things out, it does occasionally still feel a bit clunky. It's fun to have a proper real-time combat system in a Square Enix JRPG though. Much has been made of only needing the mash the X button to get through the game, but in reality you'll also need to make use of the impressive array of classic Final Fantasy spells and summons Sora can wield, as well as getting to use a lot of quite exciting and cinematic special attack abilities that help zhuzh up the combat.
I think it's fair to have gripes with KH, especially given that its story is absolutely nonsensical right from the get-go, but it's also a comforting and familiar bit of fun for me. Running through it is like running through a childhood fantasy.
Check out my full review! The Almighty Backlog, review #41:
https://thealmightybacklog.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/kingdom-hearts/
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