5/5 ★ – KingdomSharts's review of Kingdom Hearts.

Alright motherfuckers, sit your candy asses down and listen to a thirty-year-old man proselytize about a game where you assault Oogie Boogie with a giant key. Before the incessant timeline jumping, before everyone became prone to ceaseless bouts of retrograde amnesia, before all the bad guys had an X in their name and wore a hooded trenchcoat with the chunkiest zipper you've ever seen, there was simply Sora, Goofy, and Donald Duck ransacking their way through everyone's favorite Disney movies. I see Clayton. He's got a big shotgun and he's aiming it at those cute little gorillas with strangely two-dimensional eyes. I'd like to teach him a lesson. Oh now he's riding a giant chameleon? Well my buddy Tarzan's got a spear and a six-pack and I just learned how to shoot fireballs on command. Good luck, lizard. The first time I beat this game, I was a snot-nosed little kid. I didn't know how to equip items or abilities. I didn't know how to upgrade my companions. I couldn't even figure out how to switch from the default keyblade. But I could press X like no one's business, and woe to any googly-eyed Heartless bastard that got in my way once I figured out how summons work. The combat is shallow but satisfying, the music is practically flawless, the voice talent is monumental, and the art direction is top notch, seamlessly pairing the aesthetics of final fantasy anime shit with golden-age Disney classics as if they were peanut butter and goddamn jelly. It's wild to think back on just how insane of a gamble this was for 2002 Disney, riding high on decades of goodwill, who had everything to lose and practically nothing to gain from this partnership. I can't believe that actual real-life development time was devoted to the coliseum tournaments, or the minigame where you push Pooh bear on a swing and launch him through the air like a WWI-era artillery weapon, or crazy secret bosses like a giant scarab named Kurt fucking Zisa because of course a bug has a surname you fucking idiot. There's so much wacky shit in this game, but it never crosses the line into being totally incomprehensible or silly (a trap that the later games fall into constantly). It has so much earnestness, so much intention, so many emotional beats that know how to pull at the heartstrings of kids without being overtly manipulative. "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." Just close your eyes and imagine hearing that at age 9. Now open your eyes and tell me this is a bad game so I can whack you in the nose with my car keys you heartless son of a bitch.