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Now the past few months I have been playing the more mature, gruesome and to be honest, the more morbid and frightening games which are every increasingly growing in popularity - things like Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV and Halo.

This past week or so I have decided to take a break from that norm and go down a different route, so I dug my PS2 out and started to re-play the classic Kingdom Hearts (KH). Ever since my partner in crime Leon did his KH DS review it got me remembering how great the previous PS2 games were. So I dove right in.

The first time I played this game I couldn’t stop, it is that addictive, I had to show my friends and pretty much everyone I knew about it. But what gets me is, some people on my gaming level back at home take one look at Kingdom Hearts and either laugh or run away. Why? well they assume that just because it features Disney character it is automatically dubbed a “kids game”.

Now I can fully understand this sudden ‘WTF’ moment. I mean gamers these days don’t think that a game that consists of characters from both Final Fantasy and Disney would make a good and successful game franchise such as this one. Well it has, This game is pretty damn far from a kids game for a fair few reasons which I will list now.

The Story Line

Lets face it - classic Disney story lines consist of either a man and a woman who find each other, notice they are in love, sing about it a bit then finally get married, or the usual Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse tale which is pretty slapstick and has five-year olds laughing at it for hours on end. The whole Kingdom Hearts series however, has such a deep story line which comprises of its own characters as well as Disney and Final Fantasy, I think kids would get lost just after the part where Hollow Bastion is mentioned; hell if they manage it through KH1, then KH2 would totally confuse them with the whole of Organisation XIII, because quite frankly I was still a bit confused with Roxas’ appearance at the start of KH2, even though I did read Chain of Memories inbetween the two games.

Gameplay

We all know, if you’re going to start any RPG you going to find things quite simple to start off with - I gave this game to a couple of my mates back home and they got totally bored after five seconds through the tutorial. (That, and I think they were totally bamboozled by the 14-year-old kid wielding a huge key around.) Anyway, as the story – and indeed the game - progresses, the controls inevitably get more complex, you have your spells which you have to assign, your equipment items you have to arrange, and your Potions and Ethers you have to give each character to use in battle. Hell, I am only talking about KH1 and 2 here on the PS2. If you happen to play KH: Chain of memories on the Game Boy Advance, then the gameplay takes another confusing turn. You have to attack using a card system which is damn complex in its own right, and takes the best of us gamers a while to grasp. To be frank kids will have more fun sticking Lego up their nose than playing this.

Nostalgia

I was talking with Leon about this whole KH issue, and he made a very valid point. True this game does use Disney characters, but you have to realise that these are Disney characters of our generation (2o’s-30’s). These are the characters we grew up with, Kids nowadays are growing up with CGI characters like Bolt and crazy singing dancing weirdos such as those guys from High School Musical. They are more likely to play this game and ask where the hell is Zack Effron more than say “Awesome, Hades from Hercules is here”.

It’s Not All About Disney

What a lot of people don’t realise when they play or hear about this game is that it’s not all about Disney. As I have mentioned a couple of times in this post, it also has Final Fantasy characters that the RPG fanatics will be raving over; you have all the fan favorites, like Cloud, Tifa and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII,  Squall from VIII and Tidus and Wakka from X amongst a load of others.

But the great thing here is, the game doesn’t just run on characters from Final Fantasy and Disney alone. It has its own characters which are pretty much as awesome as the others, like Sora, Riku and Roxas. They are the driving force of this game, whereas the Disney and FF lot are just there to back them up and put some big smiles on gamers faces.

So to sum up:  To begin with, I was very confused that a game with Disney characters could appeal to a lot of  gamers out there. But when you actually play it, this game is in a totally different league to kids games. Just because it is about kids, doesn’t mean it’s for them. So for those of you out there who are a little confused and put off by the concept, don’t be. This game is a must play and a joy to behold, I am sure when you do play it, you will get a good sence of nostalgia and a great gaming experience.

Garv!