The original Kingdom Hearts came to the PlayStation 2 in 2002 when David Gallagher was 17 years old. The actor, now 40, has played deuteragonist and noted “sexy guy” who “the gamer girls” go crazy for, Riku, for more than half his lifetime, but somehow hasn’t ever played the Disney RPGs. Gallagher has a Twitch channel where he’s played plenty of other games like Persona 5 Royal and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but now he’s finally giving the people what they want: a blind playthrough of the Kingdom Hearts games.
Though Gallagher calls the upcoming stream a “blind” playthrough, technically he has to know what’s coming since he’s voiced Riku for 20 years, right? Well, if you know anything about video game voice acting, you’ll know it’s not uncommon for actors to be dropped into their recording sessions with minimal context. It’s up to the developers to direct actors and piece all the dialogue together in post, and Gallagher says that even Square Enix had trouble catching actors up to speed on Kingdom Hearts’ complicated lore in his recording sessions. So even though he’s appeared in nearly every Kingdom Hearts since 2002, he’ll likely have some surprises in store as he plays the games for the first time. Gallagher’s first stream is scheduled for tomorrow, July 16, on his Twitch channel, igobygraven, at 2 p.m. Pacific, with regular streams scheduled on Wednesdays and Fridays each week.
Hopefully, that will give Kingdom Hearts fans some crumbs to feed on until we hear more about Kingdom Hearts IV. God knows they’re hungry for them. Back in May, Square Enix released a few new screenshots from the game, including one that revealed Mickey Mouse will return as a playable character in the sequel. For more on Kingdom Hearts, check out our ranking of every game in the series.