The History of Kingdom Hearts: The Playstation 2 Era
Reading Time: 34 minutesThis article is the first chapter in the history behind the Disney/Square-Enix crossover video game crossover franchise, Kingdom Hearts during its beginning in the early 2000s. It covers Kingdom Hearts (2002), Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and Kingdom
Intro
There were many simple yet effective concepts throughout video game history. An Italian plumber saving a princess in a magical kingdom, a hero traversing through treacherous dungeons to defend the land from evil, a blue hedgehog running around and stopping a mad scientist, etc. But, every now and then, these types of concepts would expand on worldbuilding and the lore around the player. The RPG genre was a prime example of that notion when video games acted more cinematic and had elements that stood out from other games at the time. However, one franchise, in particular, takes an idea that sounds ridiculous on paper, but slowly evolved into one of the best-selling video game series of all time. What happens if you mix Disney and Square-Enix? You'd get Kingdom Hearts.
Twenty years after the first game's release, Kingdom Hearts has been considered one of the most entertaining and successful properties under Square-Enix for combining the action/role-playing gameplay from Final Fantasy with interacting with the worlds and beloved characters from the Walt Disney Company. Though some may find the concept unusual and its storytelling convoluted, the series managed to charm players and fans alike nonetheless, along with building new generations. As a fan of the series from the start, it will be an interesting experience discovering and learning the history behind each game's development.
Keep in mind: I'll only be talking about the mainline games and the spin-off games that connect to the narrative of the Xehanort saga. The manga and other media will be not discussed but will get mentioned from time to time.
And now, let's wield our Keyblades and board the Gummi Ship as we explore and unlock the history behind the magic that connects our hearts, Kingdom Hearts.
Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only. Please do not harass anyone associated with Disney or Square Enix mentioned in this article, and please respect their privacy, especially if anything mentioned here is something they do not wish to talk about.
Starting from Square One…
Before we talk about Kingdom Hearts, it's best to quickly discuss its video game developer Square-Enix, formally known as Square (SqaureSoft in North America). It all began in September 1983 when Square was originally a software subsidiary of electric power company Den-Yu-Sha, led by Kuniichi Miyamoto; no relation to Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. His son Masafumi, however, was more interested in working in the up-and-coming video game market than in his father's company. So, after setting up a Yokohama branch office located near a town square in Hiyoshi, Square was born. Besides the location, the name was also a representation to face challenges head-on.
Around that time, video games were usually developed by a single programmer. Miyamoto, on the other hand, believed that cooperating with graphic designers, programmers, and professional story writers would keep up with the increasingly complex video game production process fuelled by rapid advancements in computing. He then offered and hired new recruits suitable for the job through an Internet café-like salon, which the office was based in. These new employees included part-timers Hironobu Sakaguchi and Hiromichi Tanaka, and Hisashi Suzuki, who later became CEO in 1995.
After starting out with a few action PC games, Square moved to Ginza after shifting focus to making Famicom (Family Computer System) games as part of a licensing agreement with Nintendo. Despite hiring more workers and making a few successful Famicom games, the company was struggling financially due to the high costs of the Ginza area rents. This resulted in forcibly moving to smaller offices in Taito while Miyamoto brought together the company's four directors to vote on new game proposals. Sakaguchi suggested creating an RPG game, thanks to the production and success of another company Enix's game Dragon Quest. With a skeptical Miyamoto's approval, Sakaguchi and a production team of five developed Final Fantasy within a span of ten months. The game was a commercial success selling over 40,000 copies in Japan.
Not only Final Fantasy saved Square from economical troubles but also later spawned a few more sequels for the Famicom, and the newly developed Super Famicom and Game Boy systems. Even Sakaguchi was eventually promoted to executive president in 1991 when Miyamoto stepped down and Suzuki became vice president. With the RPG genre as their new forte, new standalone titles like Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars were made through collaborations with Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, and, of course, Shigeru Miyamoto, respectively. Other new staff members have expanded the company, like Yoshinori Kitase, Tetsuya Takahashi, Kaori Tanaka, Yoko Shimomura, and Tetsuya Nomura.
Once the trend of 3D gaming hit the industry, Square transitioned over to the Sony Playstation console through high cartridge costs and hardware limitations over their latest project being Final Fantasy VII. That development process ended up with good news and bad news. The bad news was that making the game hindered business relations between Square and Nintendo. The good news is that Final Fantasy VII was a massive critical and commercial success, making it one of the greatest and most influential video games of all time. Aside from some employees departing due to creative differences, Suzuki was promoted to president in 2000 and hiring more employees, such as Shinji Hashimoto, Square would continue making experimental titles with smaller budgets, along with creating a film division known as Square Studios. In 2001, Square Studios released their first movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, a CGI animated feature that specialized in photorealism, along with attempting to push forward cross-media storytelling. However, since the film ran was met with mixed reviews, and grossed over $85 million against its $137 million budget, The Spirits Within was a box-office bomb, thus causing financial damage, resignations, and leadership changes for the company.
During that time, the Sony Playstation 2 was new to the video gaming market, and Final Fantasy X was delayed being finished during its three-year production cycle. Square's new president Yoichi Wada was restructuring the company by streamlining production and resources, and cutting development costs to increase profits. As a direct sequel of Final Fantasy X was being made, against Sakaguchi's wishes, a brand-new original title was being made around the same time, this is where a new collaboration between Square and an unexpected company unlocked a new chapter in gaming. This was Kingdom Hearts (2002).
Kingdom Hearts (2002)
When a young boy named Sora gets separated from his friends and wound up in another world, he must find them. Along the way, he meets and teams up with Donald Duck and Goofy, who are coincidentally looking for their lost king. Together, they now must travel to different worlds, defeat evil creatures known as Heartless, and use the magical weapon known as the Keyblade and seal each world from darkness.
The idea began with a discussion between producers Shinji Hashimoto and Hironobu Sakaguchi about a 3D game with freedom of movement, not only inspired by Super Mario 64 but also rivaling it with their own characters that are as popular as Disney. After overhearing the conversation, Square character designer Tetsuya Nomura took interest in the project, especially Disney characters, as both Hashimoto and Sakaguchi agreed on him to be director, thus making Nomura's directorial debut. Nomura, in actuality, had a history of turning down proposals from Disney due to pursuing his own original open-world RPG concept that is not based on a Disney property.
Since both Square and Disney have previously worked together in the same building in Japan, Hashimoto managed to catch a meeting with a Disney executive in an elevator where the pitch got approved. Development began in February 2000 when the team consisted of over 100 Square and Disney Interactive employees. Initially, the game was focused more on a simple story that would aim at Disney's target audiences. But after Sakaguchi feared that the game would not appeal to the same crowd as Final Fantasy, Nomura had to flesh out the story further.
As for the title, it was tentatively called ‘Kingdom’ named after the Disney parks Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom because Nomura was looking for something that ‘isn't supposed to be taken lightly.’ However, trademark issues became apparent and Nomura thought up comedic name ideas like ‘Kingdom Champions.’ And yet, he wanted the story to have ‘heart’ as its theme. So, the title went through ‘Kingdom Heart’, and ‘Kingdom of Hearts’ to ultimately ‘Kingdom Hearts.’
Since Disney was the main focus of the concept, Square originally thought up Mickey Mouse as the main character while Disney Interactive wanted Donald Duck as the lead role. But, Nomura wanted to have a human character as the main protagonist to envision his concept.
The character initially was designed as a lion/human hybrid where he wields a chainsaw-like weapon. When presenting the design to Disney, they were shocked at how violent the weapon looked. So, Nomura changed the weapon into a key that would ‘free and takes back hearts’ from enemies instead of killing them, thus creating the ‘Keyblade.’
To compromise both sides of the companies' arguments, Nomura combined many elements. For starters, the character was made more human to avoid confusion with protagonist Zidane Tribal from Final Fantasy IX. His proportions were made rounder and his outfit was heavily inspired by Mickey Mouse's clothes: white gloves, red shorts, and yellow shoes. As for the name Sora, he was named after the Japanese word ‘sora’ meaning ‘sky.’ His name also symbolizes his role and connection with his friends Riku and Kairi whose names represent ‘land’ and ‘sea’ respectively.
Even though Donald didn't end up as the protagonist, they decided to make him an ally and team member on Sora's journey, including Goofy as well. Donald Duck portrays the court wizard of Disney Castle and the representative of magic-based attacks, similar to the Black Mage from the Final Fantasy series while Goofy plays the Captain of the Royal Guards that specializes in Knight defense-based moves, initially having a sword for an additional weapon. Since Disney ordered Donald and Goofy not to punch or kick enemies, Nomura removed Goofy's sword and altered their outfits with a ‘zipper aesthetic’ that resemble their original outfits. Actually, their iconic regular outfits made an appearance in the early trailer before being officially changed. The only time that their original outfits made it into the final product was during the post-credit scene and the intro in Chain in Memories.
As for Mickey Mouse himself, he was constantly mentioned as ‘the King’ who went on a secret journey and only made a cameo appearance in the near-final cutscene.
In an interview, Nomura said:
‘Actually, due to contractual issues, we were only able to use him in one scene. So I thought hard about where to put him in. […] Disney gave us permission for a role such as waving from the back of a crowd of people in town, but if we were going to use him, I thought we should use him in a single shot to leave the greatest impression. So there was only that one place that we could use him in, really.’
— Tetsuya Nomura, director of Kingdom Hearts
While the game contains many recognizable and guest characters from both Disney and Final Fantasy, the game balances the cast out with its own mixed roster of original and familiar characters. Growing up and living on the Destiny Islands, Sora's closest friends are the kind and caring Kairi and the collected yet envious Riku. At first, they seem to act like typical archetypes (i.e. damsel-in-distress and rival), but their roles gradually play out more significantly in terms of the game's (and eventually the series') emotional theming. Throughout the game, Sora and his party would fight varieties of enemies that are living beings of darkness within people's hearts called Heartless. Though there is confirmation or influence on the game's true antagonist Ansem, so would believe that his name was based on Anselm of Canterbury, a Christian monk that theorized in ‘faith seeking understanding.’
On the Disney side of the spectrum, there are a select few that share supporting roles that progress Sora's journey. Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio appears as the royal chronicler who documents everything that the player encounters in their playthrough, including character bios, lists of collected items, minigame records, and scattered Ansem's reports. Chip and Dale portray the engineers and navigators of the Gummi Ship portions of the game. There is one side-quest where Sora would find and collect all the missing 99 puppies from One Hundred and One Dalmatians and exchange them for rewards from Pongo and Perdita. Donald's nephews Huey, Dewie, & Louie run an item shop in Traverse Town. Merlin from The Sword in the Stone and the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella help train Sora in magic spells and unlock summon characters respectively.
In terms of plot significance, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty plays the primary antagonist and leader of iconic Disney villains consisting of Hades from Hercules, Jafar from Aladdin, Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Captain Hook from Peter Pan, and Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Their goal is to capture all Seven Princesses of Heart, which includes Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Jasmine, Belle, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, and Kairi, as keys to unlock a seal that would plunge all worlds into darkness. From the original and simplified draft, each Princess's respective princes would make an appearance to rescue them during the final battle but got scrapped. For those wondering why Alice of all Disney heroines was chosen as one of the seven Princesses, it's because Ariel was planned to be part of the roster. However, since she is a mermaid and the programmers found it difficult for her to survive on land with just fins, Alice took her place. On the plus side, Ariel would end up as Sora's party member in Atlantica.
Fun fact: If you visit other worlds before Wonderland, the cutscene with the villains would change the next captive princess from Alice to Snow White.
For representing the Final Fantasy side, the main residents of Traverse Town are Squall Leonhart a.k.a. Leon from Final Fantasy VIII, Aerith Gainsborough, Cid Highwind, and Yuffie Kisaragi from Final Fantasy VII. As for the latter's protagonist and antagonist, Cloud Strife and Sephiroth, Cloud appeared in Olympus Coliseum's story where Hades struck a deal with him that if he defeats Hercules, he would lead him to find Sephiroth. Additionally, Cloud's original character design was altered where his left-handed side was modeled with a cape after another FFVIII character Vincent, who was planned to appear but got cut. That change was meant to visualize Cloud ‘leading towards the dark side.’ Outside of the story, Leon, Yuffie and Cloud are optional boss battles in several cup tournaments. Sephiroth's appearance is more exclusive than just a cameo. He appeared as a secret optional boss in the Platinum Cup, which many have considered one of the most difficult bosses in the series' history. Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII, Tidus, and Wakka from Final Fantasy X were redesigned as younger residents and cameos in Destiny Islands. The franchise's recurring species Moogles have a synthesizing shop in Traverse Town where Sora would bring in various items for them to make stronger and more powerful weapons, including the legendary Ultima Weapon.
When it comes to worldbuilding, there was no greater challenge for the development team on choosing the literal worlds themselves. During his visit to the Walt Disney Company, Nomura wasn't keen on the idea of limited visiting one world. So, he suggested that the player would visit multiple worlds that are based on iconic Disney movies and properties. Around that time, the team also took a peek at what movies were being developed to help them get a headstart.
Originally, the development team opted for a number of worlds between 30 and 40. But, because of technical limitations and the amount of content suitable for bigger-budget projects, they reduced to a total of eight worlds, excluding the original worlds. With Square deciding on which worlds to pick, Nomura wanted to make sure each world is different and unique from another while tying to the theme of the story.
The finalized roster of Disney worlds chosen was: Wonderland from Alice in Wonderland, Deep Jungle from Tarzan, Olympus Coliseum from Hercules, Agrabah from Aladdin, Monstro from Pinocchio, Atlantica from The Little Mermaid, Halloween Town from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Neverland from Peter Pan. Out of all the worlds present, Monstro was the most unique due to the character's ginormous size and the player traversing through his insides. There are a couple of worlds where Sora and his party would visually change their appearances to authentically blend in with the characters and environments around them. For example in Atlantica, Sora would change into a merman, Donald into a half-octopus ala Ursula, and Goofy into a sea turtle. Of course, the player would optionally choose Tarzan, Aladdin, Ariel, Jack Skellington, Peter Pan, and the Beast from their respective worlds as party members.
A couple of worlds present heavily emphasize mini-games yet are optional at the same time. In Olympus Coliseum, Sora and his party would compete in various tournaments for rewards and fighting bosses ranging from the movie's villains Hades, the Rock Titan, and Ice Titan to the aforementioned Sephiroth. The second is a ‘world within a world’, which in this case, is the Hundred Acre Wood book from Winnie the Pooh. Sora would find torn pages scattered across worlds and restore them inside the book. Once there, Sora would interact with Pooh and his friends in a series of minigames for goodies and completion purposes.
As for the original worlds, there is the Destiny Islands where Sora and his friends reside, Traverse Town as the main hub world, Hollow Bastion whose haunting and dark architecture was heavily influenced by both Maleficient's fortress from Sleeping Beauty and Beast's castle from Beauty & the Beast, and the End of the World where Sora goes through a series of obstacles and illusions all the way to his final battle against Ansem. The Chernabog from Fantasia made a surprise appearance in that world as the penultimate boss, where the character was initially meant to be the game's final boss in Hollow Bastion. On top of that, the End of the World was planned to have a final battle between Sora and Riku in an area called ‘Crumbling Island’ before the climax with Ansem. However, their final battle took place in Hollow Bastion instead and the area was repurposed as a remnant of Destiny Island consumed by darkness.
On a side note, players would travel from world to world using Gummi Ship routes where they avoid obstacles and defeat enemy ships in a shoot 'em-up format. They also have the option to build and customize their vessels with stronger weapons and defenses by collecting blueprints found throughout the game, along with later unlocking a warp drive that would travel to worlds faster without the routes.
Of course, there were a number of worlds that didn't make it into the final product. The most notable example was Disney Castle, Donald and Goofy's homeworld, where the early trailer showed Sora exploring the castle. However, the world only appeared in cutscenes. One world based on The Jungle Book was considered a candidate but got discarded over Tarzan instead while avoiding multiple worlds with similar theming. Additionally, the Pride Lands from The Lion King was planned but got cut due to time constraints, and the programmers had a difficult time animating Sora's four-legged movement. Toy Story was also planned but got scrapped twice because both Disney and Pixar were different companies at the same.
With Disney and Final Fantasy being the highlight of the visuals, the game balances out with gameplay, inspired by the latter. As an RPG, it had familiar components like NPCs, side quests, shops, and leveling up/gaining new abilities from experience points. But, unlike Square's previous role-playing games, Kingdom Hearts stood out for having its own action-based, hack-and-slash system to its gameplay. Instead of turn-based combat, players had more freedom to move Sora around in interconnected field maps while attacking enemies in real-time from a third-person camera angle.
In the spirit of Final Fantasy, the player would use an Action menu to perform combat options, magic, and items. Magic spells from that franchise, such as Fire, Blizzard, Cure, etc., would be obtained and upgraded from progressing through the game. It was also beneficial to the real-time combat where the players can customize shortcuts using the shoulder buttons or manipulate the menu using the right analog stick while avoiding enemies. Another element carried over was Summons where Sora would summon familiar Disney characters to temporarily help him in battle. These characters can be unlocked by finding summon gems and would be activated by the Fairy Godmother. These summonses include Simba from The Lion King where charged roars could stun foes, Dumbo for flying around and spraying water at Heartless, Genie from Aladdin launching magic at multiple enemies, Bambi granting Sora extra health and magic items, Mushu from Mulan for shooting fire-ranged attacks, and Tinker Bell from Peter Pan keeping Sora's health up during battle. She and the Genie are the only summon characters that naturally join Sora without the Fairy Godmother's help.
As neat as translating many 2D Disney characters to 3D was, animating them was proven to be a challenge. So, the development team watched and studied many Disney animated movies for reference, along with some supervision under the Telecom Animation Film Company and animator Kazuhide Tomonaga.
On the audio side of the spectrum, Kingdom Hearts was known to feature an all-star cast for both the English and Japanese versions. The Japanese version starred Miyu Irino as Sora, Mamoru Miyano as Riku, and Risa Uchida as Kairi, while the English version featured Haley Joel Osment as Sora, David Gallagher as Riku, and Hayden Panettiere as Kairi.
A significant and special factor about the cast is that most of the official voice actors of the characters from the Disney movies and media have reprised their roles while some actors from related television series or direct-to-video sequels replaced a few original actors, particularly in the English version. For example, James Woods returned to voicing Hades while Dan Castellaneta, who voiced the Genie from the Aladdin television series, provided the role instead of Robin Williams. It was also officially the first time that the Final Fantasy VII & VIII characters are fully voiced (excluding Cid and the Moogles). While their Japanese voices continue voicing them to this day, their English voices were supplied by celebrities around that time, such as Christy Carlson Romano, David Boreanaz, Mandy Moore, and Lance Bass. As for Ansem, he was voiced by Akio Otsuka in the Japanese version and Billy Zane in English.
When it was time for the soundtrack, composer Yoko Shimomura was in charge of the music. Outside some tracks being arranged with melodies from previous Disney films, most of the soundtrack was original themes made specifically for the game. The game also featured an orchestrated session for both the opening and ending credits conducted by Kaoru Wada and the New Japan Philarmonic Orchestra.
Ever since the game was in development, Nomura wanted to include a theme song and thought up the perfect singer for the job: pop singer Hikaru Utada, to whom he contacted and accepted the collaboration
In a brief interview with IGN, Nomura stated:
‘Her music has moved millions of fans, and I was absolutely thrilled when she agreed to contribute to this project. I see her as an icon for young artists and she also proves that music transcends national and language barriers.’
— Tetsuya Nomura, director of Kingdom Hearts
The song Utada wrote was a pop folk song called ‘Hikari’ for the ‘Deep River’ album where the lyrics discuss the themes of life's mysteries and daily human activities, which have proven to be difficult for her to write about. The song was not only positively received, but was commercially successful peaking at number one on both the Oricon Singles and TBS's Count Down TV singles charts.
During the international promotional run, the song was re-recorded into English under the title ‘Simple & Clean’ where both the original and remix versions were made by music producer Russell McNamara (a.k.a. PlanitB). Similarly, Utada found writing the English version to be as difficult as before.
During a detailed interview with Jetanny Magazine, Utada explained:
‘… [T]hat was so hard, it's just, and it felt strained, and as a result, I'm happy that I worked hard to do those, because those English versions are really good and ‘Simple and Clean,’ I think, is a really good song, and people—most of the people that know me here, they know me for that—but it's not ideal for me as a writer, to—because, actually, I changed the melodies for ‘Simple and Clean’ and ‘Hikari,’ because when you change the language you're singing in, the same melodies don't work—and as a writer, it's just very frustrating to have, like—I wrote these melodies for Japanese words, and to have to write in English for that, it's just not right. And then, so, for this, uh, this contract with Island Def Jam, in the beginning I separated it to this English language album, and I don't do Japanese translations. I just, my integrity as an artist just would not take that, could not take that.’
— Hikari Utada, singer for ‘Hikari (Simple & Clean)’
Nonetheless, ‘Simple & Clean’ received an equal amount of praise as its Japanese counterpart, making it Utada's first performance outside of Japan.
Reception & Legacy
It was a ton of pressure for Square till they got approval from both Disney Japan and then-CEO Michael Eisner. But, once Kingdom Hearts finally hits store shelves on March 28 in Japan, September 17 in North America and November 15 in Europe, everyone's hearts became connected with this newfound adventure. The critics loved the visuals, action and role-playing gameplay, musical score, voice acting, and mixing of the Disney and Square elements. The only complaint that the game received was that the camera was sometimes frustrating while the Gummi Ship missions were characterized as ‘pale imitations of the Star Fox series.’
But, the critical acclaim was nothing compared to how much ‘munny’ Sora and his party have earned. During its first two months of its North American release, Kingdom Hearts was the hottest-selling video game during the 2002 holiday season. As time went up to December 2006, the game not only reached Playstation's ‘Greatest Hits’ status but became the tenth best-selling Playstation 2 game with 3 million copies in North America, 1.5 million in Japan, and 1.1 million in PAL regions, earning a worldwide total of 5.6 million units. Not to mention the merchandising that came before and after the game's release with toys, clothing, and books. For the latter, Kingdom Hearts was adapted into a manga by Shiro Amano which mostly follows the events of the story with minor differences and liberties. The manga was a moderate success with the artwork being highly commended but criticized for the lack of new content.
Kingdom Hearts also received numerous nominations and accolades. GameSpot awarded the game ‘Best Crossover Since Capcom vs. SNK‘ in their 2002 Best and Worst of the Year awards. It won ‘Best Art Style/Direction’ for IGN's ‘Best Looking Games on PS2’ list, along with being a runner-up for ‘Best CG Graphics’ with Final Fantasy X winning the title and an honorable mention for ‘Best Animation.’ Other awards included ‘Best Story’ at the G-Phoria awards event and ‘Excellence in Visual Arts’ by the International Game Developers Association. Moreover, Kingdom Hearts was ranked number nine on IGN's ‘Top 25 PS2 Games of All Time’ list and number one on GameRadar's ‘Top 7 Disney Games’ in 2009.
Back when the game first came out, a television series was pitched for the Disney Channel in 2003 where the main cast reprised their roles, with the exception of Haley Joel Osment due to scheduling conflicts, and was replaced with Bobby Ender. Despite the pilot going well with test audiences, director Seth Kearsley recently revealed that the series was rejected because of the franchise's expansion and the difficulty of keeping up with the ongoing game series.
Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix
Months later after its original release, Japan exclusively launched an enhanced version of the game called Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix. This version included new cutscenes, weapons, abilities, extra and recolored enemies, and gameplay tweaks that made the experience easier for newcomers. One of the highlights was a new boss battle called ‘the Unknown’ which was an attempt to raise interest for a sequel, especially with an unlockable secret ending video titled ‘Another Side, Another Story [deep dive].’
It wasn't until 2013 that Kingdom Hearts Final Mix finally got an international release as part of the ‘HD 1.5 Remix’ compilation for the Playstation 3. Comparing the previous versions, Nomura stated the original game's assets were lost some time ago, so the graphics had to be recreated from scratch along with using Dream Drop Distance's character models for the base. In addition to having high-definition graphics and trophy support, the gameplay was modified to play more similar to Kingdom Hearts II, mainly using the triangle button. The compilation would later get re-released for the Playstation 4 in 2017 with the framerate significantly running at 60 frames-per-second and eventually the Xbox One two years later.
At first, this idea of a crossover between Disney and Final Fantasy sounded ridiculous and impossible for Square to handle. But, through Nomura's direction and proper collaboration, that project turned out to be grander than anyone would expect. It gave both Disney and Square fans authentic experiences exploring and interacting with their favorite characters, introduced new action and hack-and-slash gameplay that no other RPG provided, and became emotionally connected with its story and characters from beginning to end. It is often regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time for that reason alone. While a few elements have aged by today's standards, that doesn't put a dent in the massive impact that game led on the gaming industry and its newfound audiences. With the secret endings and cutscenes revealed, it's clear fans are discovering that Tetsuya Nomura had bigger plans in store for the series' future. Whatever the outcome may be, Kingdom Hearts was the beginning of a new and bigger adventure yet to come.
With both Final Fantasy X and Kingdom Hearts becoming commercial hits, this resulted in a sacrificial yet reincarnating change for Square. Because the company is financially stabilized, this gave them an opportunity to merge with its rival company Enix which was under consideration since 2000. It was doubtful at first, but after altering the exchange ratio to one Square share for 0.81 Enix shares, the merge was greenlit. From 2003 and onwards, the company Square Enix was reborn and 80% of its staff transitioned over.
Now that the company's financial troubles are over, they can resume working on the next installments for their franchises. For Kingdom Hearts, it was immediately time for the staff to experiment with 3D to 2D gameplay on the go. No pun intended: The crew had to play their cards right with Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (2004)
After defeating Ansem, Sora and his friends get lost and end up in a mysterious castle called Castle Oblivion. However, upon entering the castle, they immediately start losing their memories and must create new memories in order to survive. Along the way, the group encounters hooded figures known as ‘the Organization’ and a girl named Naminé while uncovering the castle's secrets. Meanwhile, Riku struggles with his inner darkness while traversing inside the castle's basements. With help from King Mickey and a mysterious man called DiZ, Riku must learn how to control his powers.
Development began when director Tetsuya Nomura and his team were discussing new ideas for the second game, which was planned to be set a year after the first game. Nomura's intentionally wanted the sequel to have the player start over from the beginning, ability-wise. However, they decided to include an intermediary title for the story reason to gap between the first and the planned sequel. The story would revolve around Sora's memories being manipulated and applying a card battle system in the gameplay to represent his memories. Its original title was called ‘Kingdom Hearts: Lost Memories’ but was later changed to ‘Chain of Memories’ to match the overall story while preserving its memory theming.
With Chain of Memories transitioning over from the Playstation 2 to the GameBoy Advance, Nomura was hesitant about the idea since he felt that the 3D graphics of the original game wouldn't translate well into 2D. But, once children demanded to play a handheld Kingdom Hearts game, he became open to it and wanted to make sure that game could still feel like and play like what gamers were used to in the original while giving it a ‘lighter tone.’ The game was co-produced by Square collaborator Jupiter. It was also the first game where it featured two campaigns instead of a singular, linear story, with Riku making his playable debut.
In terms of the story, it reintroduced characters and nearly every world recreated from Sora's memories, where interacting with Sora acted like they never met before. I said ‘nearly’ because a couple of worlds that appeared in early screenshots have ended up literally forgotten in the finalized version. The first was ‘Dive to the Heart’, the tutorial level from the original, which was planned to be a memory-fabricated floor but got discarded in favor of Traverse Town being the tutorial level instead. The second was Deep Jungle which had the level aesthetic and Jungle King card on display. Unfortunately, the level was removed due to Disney's licensing with the Edgar Rice Burroughs company expiring, thus losing the rights of Tarzan for future projects. Among the returning worlds, the only new world added to the roster was Twilight Town, the second-to-last level in the campaign.
For new characters, it was the debut of the hooded ‘Organization’ which was teased during the secret ending and Final Mix version of the original game. A few of these members consisted of Axel, Larxene, Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion, and Marluxia. Other newcomers included the memory-manipulating Naminé and the bandaged man named DiZ, which is short for ‘Darkness in Zero.’
Cards are, no pun intended, a key component of the gameplay. Sora (and Riku) must collect and strategically use cards in order to progress. On each floor of Castle Oblivion, Sora would use traverse through isometric ‘rooms’ based on his memories called ‘Room Synthesis’ where they unlock each door using a certain number or essential amount of ‘map’ color cards. The 'Enemy’ red cards change the number and type of enemies, the ‘Status’ green cards affect the user's deck, and the blue ‘Bounty’ cards modify the room itself for treasures and a save point to appear.
Whenever combat occurs, players must rely on their customized deck of cards to perform physical attacks, magic, items, and summons. Speaking of the latter, in addition to the entire summon character roster from the previous game returning, Cloud exclusively appeared as a summon as well. Each card is numbered 0 to 9 and must strategically use the appropriate number to break enemy cards or execute combo attacks. Once in a blue moon, the boss and enemies cards can also be obtained where the player is granted a temporary ability for enhanced offense and defense capabilities. Of course, with the game retaining its RPG elements, players can still level up through experience points and either increase their health, total card points in their deck, or unlock sleights.
However, the card combat system varies on what character using them. Sora would easily earn cards by defeating cards, purchasing or making cards through Moogle Shops, and customizing up to three decks. As for Riku, his combat is limited to physical attacks, enemy cards, and Mickey ally cards, which cannot be customized. However, when breaking enough enemy cards and combos, Riku temporarily transforms into his ‘Dark Mode’ for stronger attacks and combo moves.
Since this was released on the GameBoy Advance, Chain of Memories included link cable support where players could battle each other.
Though Chain of Memories managed to transition from 3D to 2D decently with pixel art, the same wouldn't apply to the audio quality due to the GBA's cartridge hardware and technological limitations. For starters, the voice acting was reduced to a minimum with many of the actors' voice clips from the previous game recycled. The only new ‘voices’ added was Keiji Fujiwara as Axel, Tatsuya Kando as Vexen, Marluxia, and Lexaeus; and Rieko Katayama as Larxene, during the battle sequences in both English and Japanese versions. And by ‘voices’, I mean grunts, laughs, and battle cries.
‘Hikari (Simple & Clean)’ and the music from the first game were also recycled, with a couple of exceptional tracks, so a soundtrack of Chain of Memories was never released.
Despite being a 2D game, Chain of Memories occasionally provided 3D cutscenes, minus the voice acting. The cutscenes were made using the Playstation 2's graphical engine, then compressed and encoded for the GameBoy Advance.
Reception & Legacy
When Sora launched his first handheld adventure on November 11 in Japan, a month later in North America, and May 6 the following year in Europe, that adventure turned out to be…good, but not as phenomenal as the first. The graphics, story, and compressed cutscenes were appraised, but the card system was quite a mixed bag. Some felt that the gameplay was original and well-suited for the GameBoy, while others found the cards ‘awkward’ to plan strategies and the Room Synthesis ‘too linear.’
Compared to its predecessor, Chain of Memories was commercially decent, holding a record for selling 104,000 units within 48 hours in Japan at the time. During the first month of its North American release, GameSpot ranked the game number one on ChartSpot for portable systems and 6th for all systems. By the end of 2006, it was the 24th highest-selling game for portable consoles that country with a worldwide total of 1.50 million copies sold.
Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories
In 2007, Chain of Memories was remade for the PlayStation 2 under the new title, ‘Re: Chain of Memories.’ It was originally made by Square Enix's fifth Product Development Division as a second disc for Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+ in Japan. It was later released on December 2, 2008, as a standalone title in North America.
As expected, the game was built using the game graphics as the first game polygonal 3D battles and worlds. The most notable additions were the revamped soundtrack and voice acting where some of the actors from Kingdom Hearts and II reprised their roles, while a few were replaced. For instance, Kairi was voiced by Alyson Stoner instead of Hayden Panettiere, Naminé was voiced by Camp Rock's Meaghan Jette Martin instead of Brittany Snow, and Corey Burton was the understudy for DiZ instead of Christopher Lee. For the English version, Shanelle Gray voiced Larxene, Derek Stephen Prince voiced Vexen, Dave Boat voiced Lexaeus, Vincent Corazza voiced Zexion, and Keith Ferguson as Marluxia. Voice acting only occurred in the Castle Oblivion scenes and occasionally during Destiny Islands and Twilight Town. While the card battle system and the Room Synthesis remain intact, the remake included the Reaction Command mechanic from II, exclusive cards, new cutscenes, and bosses.
Unlike its 2D counterpart, the remake received mixed-to-positive reviews where many found it either an improvement or a step back from the original game. Nonetheless, Re: Chain of Memories was ranked number 92 on IGN's ‘Best Playstation 2 Games.’ Later, the remake was remastered into high-definition with trophy support for the ‘HD 1.5 Remix’ compilation in 2013 on the Playstation 3 and eventually ported onto the Playstation 4 in 2017, and the Xbox One in 2019.
Like the first game, Chain of Memories also released a manga adaptation, which was a moderate success and its first volume was ranked number 112 on USA Today's ‘Top 150 Bestsellers’ during its first week of release.
Migrating from the Playstation 2 to the GameBoy Advance, as well as changing up the gameplay, was already an uncertain direction, at first. But, thanks to a unique card battle system, innovative visuals, and a roster of newcomers, Chain of Memories was proven to be a solid experimental entry with flaws that hinders it from reaching the levels of its predecessor. Some have enjoyed the aforementioned elements alone while others found it to be a watered-down version of the first game with frustrating and confusing gameplay mechanics. While the remake continues to be ported into later consoles, the original will be fondly remembered as the first handheld Kingdom Hearts game. It may not be the Kingdom Hearts II that they wanted, yet the best was yet to come.
Going back to Kingdom Hearts and its Final Mix version for a moment, fans were getting teased with secret endings featuring mysterious, hooded figures, a horde of new Heartless, a Keyblade battle in a rainy city, and a series of text from Ansem's Report with the Roman numerals counting down from ‘XIII’ to ‘I.’ Many have speculated if these characters would appear in the next installment or wondered if there was going to be a Kingdom Hearts II. When Chain of Memories was released, it didn't present any of what the previous game teased, but it did provide enough hints and clues on what to expect. Once that game teased its secret ending featuring a brand-new protagonist, it was clear that Nomura and his team were just appetizing their fans as the main course eventually arrived. This was where things start to become grand and epic with Kingdom Hearts II.
Kingdom Hearts II (2005)
One year later after their memories were restored, Sora, Donald, and Goody resume their journey to look for their friends. During their travels, they encounter old and new friends as well as old and new foes, including Organization XIII. Meanwhile, a young man named Roxas finds strange incurrences in Twilight Town as he discovers his true identity with help from Naminé.
With all the teasing provided, it was clear that a sequel was in the works once Kingdom Hearts Final Mix was completed. However, Kingdom Hearts II wouldn't officially begin production till Tetsuya Nomura would go through obstacles in order to proceed with the project. The biggest challenge was requesting to have Mickey Mouse more screen time, which Disney eventually approved. As mentioned before, Nomura originally planned that the sequel to be released after the first with the player starting over from scratch, in terms of abilities. However, they needed a story reason to fill the gap, and thus, Chain of Memories was developed. Once that game was done, Nomura would continue where he left off where most of the original staff have returned to work under Square Enix's Product Development Division-1.
After the end credits of Chain of Memories, a post-credit scene displayed an unknown teenage boy hanging on the Clock Tower of Twilight Town. When asked about this new character, Nomura wouldn't immediately answer but stated this character would play a significant role, as well as being playable, in the series. Within a short time frame, the developers wrote the character's story to add mixed feelings while being playable in the prologue before officially playing as Sora in the main campaign. After positive fan feedback on the character's backstory, Nomura felt satisfied that the prologue was well executed. This character was named Roxas, which is the name ‘Sora’ rearranged with an ‘X’ to symbolize the connection between these two characters. There was going to be a scene where how Roxas got his name, but was cut due to Nomura finding it difficult to implement time-wise. However, that scene was later revived for the Final Mix version.
While the Heartless return as major enemies, a new breed of creatures known as Nobodies make their official debut. Nobodies are classified as bodies of strong-willed beings without hearts. They are commanded by a group of individuals known as Organization XIII. Beforehand, these hooded figures made cameos appearances in Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, and a few of the members were introduced in Chain of Memories yet were never fully established who they are.
Designed by Nomura himself, the concept of this organization began with Roxas as the thirteenth member and its leader Xemnas. As mentioned before, each member's name is an anagram of their original name with the letter ‘X’ included. They wear black hooded coats to protect them from traversing through worlds using dark portals too much. Around that time, Nomura created these characters as ambiguous as possible, whether they are good or evil while leaving plot holes and/or relations with other members for fans and players to speculate till the next sequel.
Besides Roxas and Xemnas, the members present in the game were: # II. Xigbar, # III. Xaldin, # VII. Saïx, # IX. Demyx, and # X. Luxord. The only member from Chain of Memories that returned was Axel while the others were defeated as part of the plot. There were Organization XIII battles planned at Olympus Coliseum but dropped due to time constraints. These battles were repurposed in the Final Mix version as optional rematches against stronger versions of defeated members, including the ones from Chain of Memories.
With most of the characters from the previous games returning, the sequel's roster has expanded with new characters from both Disney and Square properties. Even certain characters like Chip & Dale and Merlin were given voice roles instead of text-based dialogue from before. Outside of Roxas and Organization XIII, a few more original characters like Roxas's best friends Hayner, Pence, and Olette were essential to the prologue and key points in the plot.
On the Disney side, new recurring characters included Scrooge McDuck, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather from Sleeping Beauty, the sorcerer Yen Sid from Fantasia (which marks the first time he speaks), and Pete as the bumbling, second-in-commander of the Heartless under the resurrected Maleficent. Speaking of Disney villains, Hades, Jafar, Oogie Boogie, and Ursula returned while Shan-Yu from Mulan, Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean, Scar from The Lion King, and the Master Control Program (MCP) from Tron were the new Disney baddies.
Since the first game featured Final Fantasy characters that were directly designed by Nomura, he and his team ‘took some risks’ by including characters from other games, making a total of nearly twenty characters. For the returning characters, some of their attire was updated based on the then-newly released Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children film. In addition to reprising his role as an optional boss, Sephiroth was given a story role haunting Cloud's struggle with his inner darkness.
Taking Cloud's place under Olympus Coliseum was Final Fantasy X protagonist Auron, who is the first Final Fantasy party member in the series. The Disciplinary Committee from Final Fantasy VIII, with the exception of Vivi, appears as the bullying Twilight Town Disciplinary Committee rival group. Final Fantasy VI protagonist Setzer has a minor role as a defending Struggle fighting champion.
This also introduced cut characters during the first game's production, such as Tifa Lockhart who was planned to appear in Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, and Rikku from Final Fantasy X-2 was intended as part of Leon's gang. For the latter, she, Yuna, and Paine were reimagined as pixies instead of regular humans because Nomura believed that the composition would be too crowded if the camera focused on all three of them at once if they were in their normal human forms.
However, having a large cast of characters makes up the scope and quality of the worlds as well. The sequel features old and new worlds where their areas have been reworked and expanded to emphasize exploration and responding to user feedback from the previous games. Additionally, almost every world would be revisited for story purposes or optional objectives to completing the game.
The returning Disney worlds were Olympus Coliseum where the majority of the setting takes place in the Underworld with new tournament cups, Agrabah loosely follows the plot to Return of Jafar, and Halloween Town where Sora and his party venture through Christmas Town. Out of all the returning worlds, Atlantica received a significant change, in terms of gameplay and story. Initially, the swimming mechanics from the first game would be implemented. However, due to players' backlash on how difficult and awkward the controls felt, the world was retooled as an optional minigame world instead. There, the player would go through rhythm-based minigames containing iconic songs from The Little Mermaid (i.e. ‘Part of Your World’ and ‘Under the Sea) and new original songs to progress the plot. The Hundred Acre Wood retains its role as a minigame world where its story revolves around Sora finding the Torn Pages to restore Pooh's memories. Disney Castle made its official playable appearance, along with a side plot involving time travel to Timeless River, a world modeled and inspired by the early black-and-white Walt Disney shorts.
The new worlds include the Land of Dragons from Mulan, Beast's Castle from Beauty & the Beast, and the previously removed Pride Lands from The Lion King where the programmers managed to handle Sora's four-legged movement and combat gameplay well. This was also the first game to incorporate worlds based on Disney live-action properties, primarily Port Royal from Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Paranoids from Tron, which is a digital world located within Hollow Bastion.
In a 2007 interview with the Japanese imprint Dengeki, Nomura explained:
‘I came up with a small selection of films I presented to Disney that I could use as a really eye-catching world and the one I first had in mind was refused… Then as they were asking if there was any other I would fancy, the ‘PotC’ was enjoying a pleasant success so I decided I could try to do that one and when I introduced a new function called ‘Real Capture’ (nbMors: something about using live action pictures rather than drawings as a basis for generating polygon models) the team leaders were also very eager.’
— Tetsuya Nomura, director of Kingdom Hearts II
As for the original worlds, Twilight Town and Hollow Bastion act as major recurring ‘homeworlds’ for story reasons with the latter taking Traverse Town's place. Destiny Islands is inaccessible and only appears during cutscenes, yet can be played when hacking through GameShark. The final world is known as ‘The World That Never Was’, which was teased in the first game(s)' secret endings and serves as the homeworld for Organization XIII for the climax.
As expected, the hack-and-slash action gameplay system with leveling up and abilities was revived and reworked from scratch without using any animations from the first game. For instance, the camera system was improved by migrating the controls to the right analog stick instead of the shoulder buttons. Since Sora has matured, Nomura wanted his fighting style to reflect that by making his animations more energetic and versatile. Among the returning components into the Action menu, the Reaction Command was the newest feature added. It is pressed by the triangle button at the precise time to trigger special enemy-specific attacks, defeat regular enemies or finish a boss battle cinematic-style.
Like before, the party would hold up to two other members where the player could switch between Donald and Goofy with Mulan, the Beast, Auron, Jack Sparrow, Jack Skellington, Simba, Tron, and Riku in their respective worlds. However, their assistance helped create ‘Limits’ where Sora and a certain party member perform a powerful attack that would rack up combos and defeat enemies with ease, though costs up Sora's magic gauge in the process. Occasionally, other characters, like Hercules and Cloud would aid the player in certain battles throughout the campaign. In fact, if the player gets defeated in select boss fights, there is an option where King Mickey would surprisingly appear as a playable character to restore a considerable amount of Sora's health while holding off the boss. Unlike Chain of Memories, Riku is only playable during Xemnas's final phase when Sora gets captured and must rescue him.
Another new special ability added to the combat is Drive Forms where Sora temporarily gets a powerful form by fusing with one of his party members that further cosmetically tie in with his new outfit given by the Good Fairies. For example, when Sora fuses with Goofy into his Valor Form, not only his outfit turns red but also enhances his physical attacks and abilities using two Keyblades. Wisdom Form makes Sora specialize in magic-based attacks with a shade of blue, Master Form is the yellow-colored combination of both strength and magic, and Final Form is a random yet very powerful version of Master Form that unlocks hidden abilities, such as Glide. Utilizing these Forms allows players to customize and level each unlocked ability to improve Sora's fighting capabilities. However, another random Form known as ‘Anti-Form’ is an intense combat-oriented yet risky technique that lacks magic and health recovery. The Drive Gauge also applies to the Summon characters as well. With a total of four, the Genie from Aladdin is the sole-returning Summon where he supplies his own Drive Forms depending on which one Sora uses. The newest additions were Chicken Little from the titular 2005 film, Stich from Lilo & Stich, and Peter Pan and Tinker Bell from Peter Pan. Speaking of the latter, Never Land was originally part of the world roster due to an unused audio file left from the first game. But to avoid worlds with similar theming, especially with Port Royal, the world was scrapped yet its characters were recycled as summons instead.
One of the first game's criticisms was the Gummi Ship gameplay. So, the routes were reimagined as a mix between a rail shooter and a ‘Disney theme park ride’ while maintaining its basic traveling purpose and previous features (i.e. building your own ship). The map was more third-dimensional where players could freely travel to worlds in a top-down view and unlock new Gummi Ships by completing missions.
It is clear that the sequel was given more polish to the production values where the cutscenes were given dynamic and cinematic cinematography, along with more expressive and energetic character animations.
The voice acting added more diversity where this was historical of few video games to have an extensive cast, with a total of over 300 actors in both English and Japanese versions. Many of the main and recurring actors have reprised their roles, including those that were unavailable from the first game, such as Tate Donovan as Hercules, and Glen Shadix as the Mayor of Haloween Town. Certain actors, especially with the Final Fantasy character, had to be recast with anime voice actors (i.e. Doug Erholtz and Quinton Flynn) due to the original celebrity actors being busy or expensive to hire at the time. Newcomers to the all-star cast in English featured Jesse McCartney as Roxas, Brittany Snow as Naminé, and Christopher Lee as Ansem the Wise a.k.a. ‘DiZ.’ while Koki Uchiyama, Iku Nakahara, and Genzō Wakayama respectively voiced them in Japanese.
While Yoko Shimomura returned as the composer with Kaoru Wada and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra providing the orchestrations for the beginning and end, Hikaru Utada once again sang a brand-new theme song for the sequel called ‘Passion.’ Beforehand, there were several legal issues that both Square Enix and Disney had to settle after the sequel's confirmation, in terms of their characters and properties, while Nomura ensured to keep Utada in hand after her contribution in the first game. However, Utada had a hard time scheduling to appear due to working on her second English album ‘Exodus’ in New York City. Eventually, she was confirmed to be on board.
‘Passion’ was already written before the game's release, yet some lyrics had to be changed to coincide with the game's elements and theming. The game's visuals and the storyline were major inspirations for the writing of the song and found the experience better than ‘Hikari.’ The lyrics conveyed themes of nostalgia, and discusses the circumstances of the past, present, and future, in order to connect with the game's characters. Once the song was internationally released as ‘Sanctuary’, they found the lyrics to be easier to write than its original version and retrospectively found the lyrics from both versions as their favorites.
In a December 2005 interview with Oricon Style, Utada said:
‘[Passion] is like. It has a feeling that connects together the end of the last game [Kingdom Hearts] and the sequel. Like, how it showed the characters and how they met and so forth. It was pretty easy to think up an image. It's like … as if [Hikari] was the dawn, and Passion has a concluding or 'dusk' feeling to it. From here after, I wanted this song to communicate so many various ideas. While you can see some very ordinary imagery in the song, when you listen the imagery can become very dramatic.’
— Hikaru Utada, singer for ‘Passion (Sanctuary)’
When ‘Passion (Sanctuary)’ was released, it was critically acclaimed as ‘Hikari’ though it wasn't commercially successful because Oricon didn't renew its New Year's policy, with a total of 112,345 units sold by the end of 2006. Regardless, the single was certified Gold twice by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for digital and cellphone sales of 100,000 units.
An important factor worth addressing is that Kingdom Hearts II was released around the time when the ESRB updated its rating system with a new rating ‘E+10’ for everyone ages ten and older. It is mainly because the original Japanese version of the game was highly violent for younger audiences and its content was changed and/or toned down during localization.
The most evidential use of censorship was during Port Royal where it heavily edited scenes like Will Turner attempting suicide or Jack Sparrow getting stabbed in the chest after his fight with Barbossa. The undead pirate enemies do not burst into flames and their weapons, which are muskets, had to be changed to crossbows. In Olympus Coliseum, the Hydra's green blood was altered to black and purple smoke instead. Another major change was during the boss fight with Xibgar where the character's telescope sight point-of-view was crosshairs and combined his guns to resemble a sniper rifle. In the English version, Xigbar's crosshairs were replaced with black shading around the sides to three glowing circles and instead firing with a single gun after twirling them.
Reception & Legacy
Within months' time of anticipation, Kingdom Hearts II was finally released on December 22, 2005, in Japan, a few months later in North America, and five more months afterward in Europe. The sequel didn't just receive the same praise as the first, it surpassed it. Critics and audiences highly appraised the story, improved presentation, voice acting, soundtrack, and tweaked gameplay. Although the prologue was tedious and the party members' A.I. was sometimes ‘terrible’, everything else overshadowed its flaws.
Commercially, Kingdom Hearts II sold 730,000 units within its first-week release in Japan while it became the highest-selling title within the first quarter of 2006 with an estimated one million copies. By March 31, 2007, the sequel made a worldwide total of four million units. It also earned as many awards as its praise, including a Satelite Award for ‘Outstanding Game Based on Existing Medium’, two G4 G-Phoria Awards for ‘Best Voice Work’ and ‘Best Soundtrack’, tied with Resident Evil 4 for Famitsu's ‘Game of the Year’ in 2005, and ‘Best Sequel’ by Electronic Gaming Monthy the following year. Among top-ranking lists, the sequel was number 34 on Erurogamer's ‘Top 50 Giames of 2006’, number 10 on VideoGamer.com's ‘Top 10 Role-Playing Games’, GamePro named it the 25th ‘Best RPG Title of All Time’, and recently the 16th greatest console video game of all time in a 2021 Japanese poll conducted by TV Asahi which surveyed over 50,000 respondents.
Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix
Following what the first game did, a Final Mix version of the sequel was released solely in Japan on March 29, 2007, with extra cutscenes, exclusive boss battles (i.e. Roxas and the Lingering Will), items, a brand-new ‘Limit Form’ that resembles Sora's original outfit and abilities from the first game, and an additional secret movie. This also included the cut content from the initial release, especially the ‘illusion’ rematches against all the Organization XIII members, including Roxas, located within a hidden area in Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden. Early u
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