5/5 ★ – bokonon764's review of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix.

When I started playing Melody of Memory, the most recent release in the Kingdom Hearts Franchise, I promised myself I would get sucked back in and play the whole franchise again. Next thing I know, I’m back on the island, it’s 5 to 1, and Riku is tellin me I still don’t got it. If you know, you know. I fuckin love this game, ever since I played it as a kid, almost 20 years ago. For this playthrough, I finally got the platinum for the ps4 Final Mix version, so I beat a lot of the other things on previous play throughs, but all the same. It’s a crossover combining Square Enix (back when it was Squaresoft) and Disney, which doesn’t sound like it would work. And some may argue that it doesn’t. But fuck them, right? This is also in a time period (2002, to be exact) when Disney didn’t own everything, and crossovers weren’t as common, so to me it seemed so fresh and fun, not like a soulless cash grab, or just fuckin Thanos showing up in everything. This is Kingdom Hearts before the retcons, before the completely whacked storyline, when Sora had an interesting personality and arc, before your attacks cover the entire screen and you don’t have to try…that’s not to say it’s the most difficult entry in the franchise, but to me, it’s the healthy medium. It’s the tale of three friends, their desire to see other worlds, and the adventure they are forced into. If you call what happened to Kairi an adventure, I guess. the story of this game is terrific, though. Sora, the protagonist, is joined by Donald and Goofy of Disney in a world-hopping adventure, each said world representing another Disney property. Slaying heartless, sealing keyholes, and meeting Disney characters along the way. They are in search of Soras friends, Donald and Goofys king, and the elusive Ansem, who serves as the games antagonist. There’s a ton of that great “best friend goes evil” stuff in Sora and Rikus relationship, one of the aforementioned friends, that’s presented kn a way that relates to its young, targeted audience, but it holds up every time I’ve played it as an adult. This may be the only KH game I can’t say that about, maybe excluding Birth By Sleep. The story keeps it simple and elegant. I’ll say this real quick, Kingdom Hearts Final Mix is not perfect, and you’re playing the original Ps2 version, it can feel like a of a mess at times. Of all the changes they made to the Final Mix version, changing the reaction command style triangle mechanic for certain actions, instead of having players scroll to the bottom of the command menu, is a god send. The overall plates a little better, too. The auto-lock isn’t as jumpy, the camera is much more in the players control, and everything looks a little better. They added an extra secret boss, new (ish) heartless, more synth items, and an option to go solo in the games arena. There are other tweaks here and there, but they kept the game what it was, just made it better. This is a flawed, beautiful game. I think the nostalgia bias takes a role in this, but I truly believe this to be the pinnacle of the KH franchise. Maybe not the most fluid gameplay, but challenging without being too punishing. The Disney and Square influences feel important and present throughout the games story, and the characters all shine. The dialogue isn’t wooden as hell, though does come of a bit corny. It’s a video game, what do you want? Well I’m gonna start Re:Chain of Memories, the goal is to get to KH3 and do the Re:Mind dlc. I don’t know maybe