Kingdom Hearts

I don’t believe the “Kingdom Hearts is too complicated” meme, but looking back at the series’ twists, turns, and retcons, there’s something refreshing about how straightforward that original PlayStation 2 game was. Sora’s debut has issues. It’s a poster child for finicky cameras of the era and the Gummi Ship mini-game is dreadfully dull, but man, remember what it felt like hearing “Simple and Clean” for the first time? That ending was the first time a video game made me cry, and the waterworks have not stopped since.

The original Kingdom Hearts is still one of the best deliveries on the Disney crossover concept. As the series has gone on, the Disney worlds have started to feel like an afterthought as Square Enix has prioritized the series’ own lore. But Sora and concepts like the Heartless and Keyblade were so well integrated into those stories that seeing the childlike wonder of that first game fall to the background makes the original game feel like the calm before the storm. Kingdom Hearts IVseems to be expanding this universe even further, so it’s unlikely we’ll ever see something this pure out of the series again.