 If you asked me in 2001 if I wanted to jump from Disney movie to movie, bashing monsters in the face with a giant key, I probably would have laughed at how silly you sounded, and gone back to catching Pokemon on my Game Boy. Little did I know, the following year I'd spend my entire Christmas holiday doing just that. The legendary crossover that everyone thought was doomed to fail and quickly rose to became one of the most iconic and legendary series of all time, Kingdom Hearts is an example of what happens when you take two fundamentally opposed things and smash them together with creativity and love. And in this case, those two things are Final Fantasy and Disney. Not only does the whole thing work, but it works really well, and since its debut has captivated the hearts of millions. Beneath the surface of this action-packed adventure, we find a tremendous depth of heart, wisdom, and mind-blowing symbolism. And even from the ground up, the game encourages personal inquiry into the duality between light and dark, the power of our heart, the love that binds us together, and the fear that tears us apart. And you know, this is one of those subjects that is actually very easy to struggle with, and so if you personally need help with heart-centered relationships, please use the link below, and we'll help you out. The story, spoiler warning, essentially follows Sora and his two companions, Donald and Goofy, who traverse the many worlds of the Disney universe in search of their missing friends. They're on a quest looking for King Mickey, who has mysteriously gone missing, along with Sora's buddies, Kairi and Riku. The story actually plays out with a pretty standard hero's journey, with Sora, Riku, and Kairi all living out their days on Destiny Islands. This tropical paradise in the middle of nowhere, dreaming of far-off worlds, and planning on getting there by, you know, building a raft. I mean, okay, showed that the island was near a mainland with a town, inviting the question of why didn't they just take the rowboats. Anyways, a mysterious stranger reveals that the worlds have been connected, and the next thing you know, darkness spills into the island. Kairi mysteriously vanishes, and Sora and Riku are sucked into the void. Fun! The next thing you know, Sora wakes up in a place called Traverse Town, meets some classic Final Fantasy characters, along with Donald and Goofy, and they head out into the cosmos in search of the aforementioned. Going deeper into this premise though, we hear often that the worlds have been connected, implying that previously they were not, and thus did not affect each other. However, when the worlds do connect, as one place plunges into darkness, we find that this affects all of the other worlds as well, which is why the Heartless consume Destiny Islands. One could allude this to our collective consciousness, and how what happens to one person will have an effect, large or subtle, on those around them. And while we don't really learn what's going on until later, this is basically what's happening. Darkness has overtaken the universe, which of course means Tarzan's Jungle, Wonderland, Agrabah, and places like this. It's almost as if the concept of duality has been introduced to the universe, and in a way, it is eerily reminiscent of the Garden of Eden story. Sora, Riku, and Kairi, and some teeny bopper Final Fantasy characters live in paradise, but they were exposed to the knowledge of good and evil, and while this broadened their horizons, they were essentially ejected from the garden and had to learn to fend for themselves out in the wild, wild universe. There is even talk of the magical Paopu fruit on Destiny Islands, which when you share it with someone, you are linked together forever. Granted, not quite the same as the forbidden fruit and the snake, but still, I wonder if that symbolism was reflected upon while writing this story. The game also beautifully describes what happens when we choose either or, darkness or light. For Sora, he becomes the one and only Keyblade Master, which retains a sense of specialness for this game only because later on, Keyblades are more common than products with processed sugar in a grocery store, but for now, you're the chosen one and surrendered to the light of your heart. Riku, on the other hand, his sense of fear and separation, along with some prodding from Maleficent, ultimately leads him to embrace darkness. She uses his own fear to steer him to find power in the dark side of the force, but eventually is taken over by the main villain of the game. In a way, this creates a relationship dynamic similar to that of Naruto and Sasuke, for those familiar with those guys, in that we have this infamous duo of light versus dark, the once friends and now enemies, all the while with Sora trying to maintain his friendship with Riku, who eventually isn't even himself anymore, but just a puppet for the main villain, Ansem. Or am I supposed to call him Xehanort? Or Teranort, rather? The series retconned so much after the fact, adding all these crazy time-jumping story loops that made the series overly complicated and nearly impossible to follow for everyone as the games went on. If you want to get the download, watch Barry Kramer's A Good Enough Summary of Kingdom Hearts. It's hilarious and covers everything, but for now, I'll try and stick with this game as a standalone experience. Anyways, the main enemy you face in the game, like hordes and hordes of, are these wacky and sometimes adorable critters called Heartless, kind of like a physical manifestation of darkness, or, you know, toxic positivity, and are born when the darkness within a person's heart consumes them, giving the darkness shape and form. This is an amazing metaphor for heartless people in the world today. When people have been mistreated, lose their way, lose their sense of connection to love, compassion, or goodness, it's very easy to fall astray and become wicked and cruel. Take Ebenezer Scrooge, for example. He's basically a human heartless, but of course, the game portrays this in its own way, monsters that you bash in with a big ol' key. Granted, if I was to rewrite a Christmas Carol today, I'd totally have Scrooge be visited by Sora instead of a ghost and he'd just smack him upside the head with a keyblade, and Scrooge would just snap out of it. Anyway, another key aspect of this story, pun fully intended, is the motive of the villains, and as you might expect, there's a bunch of them. The main baddie is Ansem, who is supposedly a scientist who studied the heartless, but who was ultimately taken over by that dark force, but who in later games is essentially described to be a disembodied soul of another evil guy who took over another guy and then lost his heart. Okay, whatever, let's stay on the scientist narrative. Anyways, you have him, and you also have Maleficent, the non-Angelina Jolie version, who kinda has this whole fleet of bad guys, Captain Hook, Jafar, Oogie Boogie, Ursula, that whole gang. The main interest from all of the villains is gaining entrance to Kingdom Hearts, which is said to be the source of all hearts in existence. Basically, it's like the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Realm of God, or the Source Field. And the way to get there seems to be by collecting the Seven Princesses of Heart and using their magical pure hearts to open the door to Kingdom Hearts. So naturally, the villains have scooped up Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Alice, Jasmine, Cinderella, and of course, Kairi, because it was necessary to have someone from the main plot included in the mix. The Seven Princesses on a deeper level though really seem to be speaking about the Christ Consciousness, or the Christ Sophia rather. A soul with a pure heart with no darkness at all, the Divine Feminine, and even in Kingdom Hearts lore, these princesses of heart were the souls who essentially rebuilt the universe after a great Keyblade War for Kingdom Hearts long ago. So of course, the underlying narrative of the game then is actually about how darkness seeks to manipulate and control that which is pure in order to fulfill ego desires. The light is so bright that it can cut through the darkness so the darkness cast shadows in order to try and quell the light. Along his journey, Sora, stopping off in all the Disney worlds, finds and seals the keyhole of each location, isolating the world from the rest, but also cutting off the path by which new Heartless may arrive there. Unless you want to just, you know, grind and level up, in which case they're still there regardless. Now, the ceiling of the keyhole is also reflected in our world in a unique way. Where in the game it signifies a sense of completion, beating the final boss of that world, sealing the keyhole for us can actually be like completing certain stages of life, whether they're projects, relationships, graduating from school, or anything like this. It's like being able to definitively put the past behind you, bringing that level or stage of life to conclusion, and taking the lessons you've learned all along your way into the next stage of your life, which is probably why Sora always gets a new keyblade at the end of every world. Oathkeeper was totally my favorite, which one was yours? One thing that's really special though, is how both the story and the game mechanics highlights the importance of teamwork and friendship. While in many games it's just you, sometimes with superpowers or a good-for-nothing otsal on your shoulder, versing off against the entire universe, this game puts you in a position where sometimes you really need the help of your friends, Donald, Goofy, and maybe even some summons like Genie and Simba, in order to survive. I mean, okay, certainly there's times where you're frustrated that your friends aren't nearly as strong as you and you really do have to carry the battle to win, but on the other hand, there are times when you're right at the end of a boss fight on your last legs, one hit to dead, out of mana, and suddenly Donald casts Cure on you. And it just makes up for all that frustration on the other end. And you know what? Later on in the game they definitely give you the opportunity to see things from the other side. After arriving in Hollow Bastion, Riku steals the Keyblade from Sora, and Donald and Goofy totally did you. Good friends, right? Fortunately for Sora, he hooks up with Beast, who has traveled there looking for Belle. And honestly, I feel so bad for Beast. Poor guy. His only support on this treacherous journey is a wimpy little kid with a stick. You really gotta rely on him to get by, so I guess it goes both ways. But either way, compared to Riku, who is more about getting super strong with the power of darkness, it paints this very lovely, picturesque idea that darkness is me consciousness, and light is we consciousness. By the end of the game, we reach the door known as Kingdom Hearts, which later is of course retconned into the door to darkness, as Kingdom Hearts becomes like a heart-shaped moon portal in the sky, I guess? Anyways, Ansem turns into a boat, and after that awkward yet still fun final battle, in his dying words he espouses to Sora that the essence of Kingdom Hearts is darkness. And Sora exclaims, You're wrong. I know now. Without a doubt. Kingdom Hearts is light. And in that moment, the door opens and light pours out, dissolving Ansem in the process. It's beautiful. Haha, surprise fool. Weren't expecting that, were you? From there, we mostly see a few scenes that set up for a sequel. There's Heartless inside of Kingdom Hearts, Riku is back to normal, you get a glimpse of King Mickey for a moment, and together they seal what everyone believes to be Kingdom Hearts, until, you know, sequel games. But actually, the ending is really quite bittersweet. You're so excited that Sora and Kairi are finally going to be reunited after all this time. Sora says that he's always with Kairi in her heart, and that he'll come back to her as they're pulled apart one last time. And, I don't know, after this whole adventure, it really might just make you cry. Also, completely a side note, but what does it mean that there was actually Heartless inside of Kingdom Hearts? To me, it seems to be a subtle reference to the concept of the Demiurge, especially since it was retconned into the door to darkness later on. It's like, you think this thing is real, you believe it's what you've been after for the whole story, and only once you get there do you find out it was an illusion, not the real gold. I mean, I guess it was just all about the journey, not the destination, huh? If there's one takeaway from Kingdom Hearts, it can be summarized really well when Sora describes this powerful virtue that the heart may be weak, and sometimes it may even give in, but I've learned that deep down there's a light that never goes out. It also echoes the wisdom of Mickey the only time you see him, that there's always a door to the light. Actually, this game is filled with amazing quotes. At the very beginning, Sora says, Getting really meta, as he is a video game character, and also inviting us to think about how maybe the entire universe is a holographic simulation reality matrix kind of thing. Not to mention this quote, although my heart may be weak, it's not alone, it's grown with each new experience, and it's found a home with all of the friends that I've made. I've become a part of their hearts just as they've become a part of mine, and if they think of me now and then, if they don't forget me, then our hearts will be one. I don't need a weapon, my friends are my power. I mean, it really does drive home the essence of the interconnection between us, and the power we gain from these connections. All in all, Kingdom Hearts is a game that invites each player to connect with the light within them, to become their own Keyblade Master, to stay true to the light, and walk a path of virtue and truth.