The first Kingdom Hearts game is a major success, as it bonds Final Fantasy characters, with characters from Disney. The major difference between this RPG and Final Fantasy is the way the game play is handled. Final Fantasy uses a turn-base strategy system, while Kingdom Hearts uses a more action, hand to hand combat system. This worked effectively with the plot which is astounding in detail.

    The game begins with a short intro that you would swear was done when someone was a little high. It's not that it doesn't make sense, it's just the fact that it's plain out weird. First the main character Sora, is falling out of the sky, and the next second he's underwater. Like we said, it does makes sense and introduces the three main characters of the game but is truly weird to be perfectly honest.

    Once the intro is over, you find yourself playing as one of the main characters, Sora. You find yourself going through a series of dark platforms that not only teach you how to play the game but also sets up your game speed and weapon depending on what you choose.  At the end of the "tutorial", if you can call it that, the actual plot of the game unfolds.

    Apparently darkness is destroying worlds all across the universe and throwing everyone and everything off of world lightning quick.  Beings, known as heartless, are from the darkness in peoples hearts and are also attacking and taking over these worlds.  But what to do?  Who can stop them ? That's where Sora comes in.

        As you leave the tutorial, Sora wakes up in his world. Apparently Sora dreamt the whole "tutorial" part up, where a disembodied voice tells him about heartless and tells him he is the key blade wielder, which yes, the key blade is a weapon, and he must fight the heartless for the key blade chooses its master- and it choose a fourteen year old boy with spiked hair that must take at least six bottles of hair gel to stick up.  Go figure...  But as we were saying, he wakes up and is startled by another main character, Kairi, Sora's friend, which he tells about his crazy "dream".  Not believing him, she is suddenly distracted by yet another main character, Riku.  From Riku coming over to investigate what's going on, you learn how the three are planning to build a raft to explore other worlds.  And oh boy would they get their wish.

    You spend two days on the island, running around doing odd job and such to build the raft, but on the second night the game begins its long Sora adventure.  That night, a storm sweeps the island and Sora feels inclined to save the raft they spent days on from the storm.  And so, Sora rows his boat to the island they built it on, and discovers Riku and Kairi already there for he sees their boats.  But the storm brewing is not of mother natures doing, yet is a storm of darkness, swallowing and destroying Sora's world.  When Sora ventures inland, heartless begin to attack him.  He finds Riku but after a few words, he is swallowed by darkness so Sora is left all alone with the heartless.  But suddenly the key blade from the "tutorial dream" appears in his hands. With no other way out of it, Sora attacks the heartless with the key blade and finds it very affective for the heartless are for some reason attracted to it.  He searches for Kairi as you head for the secret cave.  There, Kairi stands almost lifeless and a door to darkness behind her bursts open and Kairi and Sora are pushed by a dark evil force out of the cave.

       Eventually all that remains of Sora's island is him, some land and a monster from the darkness that you must fight.  And as you finally defeat it, Sora falls off the ground he stands on and his world is completely obliterated.

    Meanwhile, on another world far, far away, a king has gone missing; King Mickey.  His servants, Donald and Goofy are left a message that instructs them to find the key blade master and stick with him.  So they depart, not knowing what is going on and without a king, in their gummi ship and begin their search.

    Sora lands in Traverse Town, a world where misplaced people wind up when their world gets destroyed.  Immediately, he sets out to find his friends Riku and Kairi.  As he ventures out, Donald and Goofy are looking for the key blade master as well in the same world.  Eventually, they meet, and Donald and Goofy have Sora come with them to other worlds to stop the heartless from taking over all the worlds and to find Sora's friends.  This is where the game plot really begins.

    The worlds you travel to are of Disney movie resemblance.  The plots in the worlds on the other hand pertain to locking that world's door to the darkness with the key blade and solving the local characters problems. You visit places like Wonderland, The Coliseum, and many more Disney fantasy lands. The game is very long and has two difficulty modes- normal and hard. So you can play the game twice with two different experiences.  So if you are into friends twisted by darkness, keys that kill things, and people who are too happy for their own good, this is your game. 

We give Kingdom Hearts, 5 key blade swipes, out of 5.