Kingdom Hearts may have one of the most intricate stories for a Disney / Square Enix franchise, but many flaws existed from the beginnings of light, darkness, and the power of the heart itself, just as old as the sagas of Sora and Xehanort.
- While Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories was fairly well-received and popular enough to get an Updated Re-release, it embodied a number of controversial trends that would get out of hand in later installments:
- The decision to publish on a different console. CoM was released for the Game Boy Advance instead of the PlayStation 2 like the first game; this was considered acceptable if not ideal in 2004 since the GBA was the only widespread handheld, so if there had to be a spin-off there were few other options. The game is also barely required viewing to understand Kingdom Hearts II. However, over time more of these handheld "spin-offs" ("spin-offs" in quotes because they were actually critical to the Myth Arc all along, CoM included) were released exclusively on competing Nintendo and Sony systems; when all was said and done, playing every game on release and avoiding the Continuity Lockout required five different dedicated gaming hardwarenote and a compatible Japanese cellphone. Remakes and remasters have rectified this; as of 2020 you only need a PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch to experience basically the entire seriesnote as well as Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory. That said, Melody of Memory is also on the Nintendo Switch, where none of the other games were playable for a few years, though this was mitigated by Melody of Memory's story mode being a Recap Episode for the entire series up to 2019 if Switch-only owners didn't mind a plot that consists almost entirely of summarizing every single Late-Arrival Spoiler. Later on, the Epic Games Store would make every game available, allowing the entire series to be accessible through a PC.
- Introducing several original characters, removing focus from the Disney and Final Fantasy elements that brought people in. This was cool at the time since nobody knew what to expect of the new bad guys, but the continual shift led to a Broken Base as to whether downplaying these elements was a good move for a series built on those franchises.
- Confusing plot decisions and elaborations on the rules of the setting. Kingdom Hearts kept things reasonably vague, and everything appears to work. CoM, on the other hand, introduces new rules without clearly explaining them, such as memories and their relationship to the heart and some odd changes to the definition of darkness. The new characters are also kept mysterious through the end of the game. At the time, everyone knew that Kingdom Hearts II was on the way and weren't bothered because they assumed that it would clear all of this up. And it did... only to introduce just as much confusion about other things in the process. And it just kept going from there, reaching Mind Screw levels by Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], which introduces a thoroughly confusing version of time travel to the series.
- This game completely recycles the Disney worlds and characters of the original game (except Deep Jungle, which had to be axed due to Disney losing the rights to Tarzan); the only new worlds are originals (and aren't deeply explored anyway due to the nature of the game). Between the game's memory-based premise, the new gameplay, and the different visual style, the experience was fresh enough to avoid many complaints. Kingdom Hearts II, being a numbered sequel with a larger budget, could focus on new worlds and expand the returning onesnote . But subsequent games (most blatantly the Nintendo DS games Days and Re:codednote ), kept on recycling worlds, characters, and scenarios to some degree or another, and specifically based them on their KHI incarnations (among the DS games, the only Disney world not reused is Beast's Castle, which was from KHII, though 358/2 also used portions of II's Agrabah, added new areas to Neverland, and brought in Pete from II as a minor antagonist for both of the latter worlds), and it has worn thin for many, who wish Square would take advantage of other Disney movies. CoM was likely meant as a cheap gateway title for players who didn't own a PS2, so the rehashing was less of a problem back then, and it was less noticeable with a few years between games, but with the full Compilation Re-release in 2017, visiting Agrabah and Olympus five times each on the same disc is exhausting. Fortunately, later games (Birth by Sleepnote and Dream Drop Distance) finally addressed this by finally introducing multiple new worlds each.
- A totally different gameplay style. The Game Boy Advance was simply too weak to really emulate the first game's gameplay—while there were complaints over the card game system, it was understood that the change was necessary. However, when emulating the original gameplay on handhelds did become possible, the handheld entries continued to experiment anyway, meaning players had to learn intricate new systems from scratch each game. Not only that, they were usually much less refined as a result. This culminated in Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, which is a Rhythm Game, a completely different genre (with the other side games, at least the genre could still largely be described as "Action RPG"). While it's generally considered a good rhythm game (thanks to its gameplay being mostly based on the pre-existing Theatrhythm Final Fantasy), there's no guarantee that a Kingdom Hearts fan will also be a fan of that genre (especially given how widely disliked the Rhythm Game-based Atlantica level of KHII is), giving MoM a divisive reputation.
- Another element of the Kudzu Plot (namely, the sheer number of Evil Counterparts, Good Counterparts, clones, doppelgangers and time-traveled versions of characters) can be traced back to Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, which introduced Naminé and made her an evil(ish) counterpart to Kairi for dramatic purposes. Her backstory and explanation introduced the concept of Nobodies who, unlike (most) Heartless, look exactly like the human they used to be (or pretty close). That concept automatically meant that, with just Organization XIII alone, there were more than a dozen doppelgangers walking around. That same game also featured the Riku Replica, an Evil Twin of Riku passed off as the original until being revealed as a manipulated impostor, while in Kingdom Hearts II, Riku would spend a large portion of the game disguised as Ansem the Darkness Seeker, the Big Bad of the first game. Then, the Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix secret ending revealed that the three Keyblade warriors teased at in the ending to the last game included three characters that not only had a dynamic similar to Sora/Kairi/Riku, but that one of them (Ventus) looked exactly like Roxas (who already looked somewhat like Sora). From then on, each game usually had some kind of cliffhanger or "What the heck?" reveal that showed some familiar character doing something seemingly out-of-character, or a deceased character seemingly returning, only to reveal that it wasn't them but some doppelganger, imposter or alternate version instead. By the end of Kingdom Hearts III, anyone who wasn't familiar with KH lore required extensive charts and graphs to understand who these different characters are, what their relationships are, and why so many of them look alike.
- Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, as prequels, their Downer Endings and the darker stories leading up to them were accepted as inevitable, and the heroes were successful enough in thwarting the villains, even enabling their decisive defeats in the main games, that it wasn't for nothing. The "downer" part of those endings were also downgraded by the secret ending of Birth by Sleep and the revelation in coded that they can be reversed. Then Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] pulled a Diabolus ex Machina by revealing the Big Bad was running a Xanatos Gambit that invalidated everything the heroes had done to stop him throughout the franchise, serving as a tipping point. Later games were criticized for adding so much bleakness that it became harder and harder to believe that Kingdom Hearts III will have an ending worth it all. note
- By a similar measure, the Happy Ending Override goes back to Kingdom Hearts II. That game revealed that despite Sora defeating Ansem and sealing the Door to Darkness, the Heartless would remain in the Realm of Light As Long as There Is Evil and that Maleficent was Back from the Dead. This was tolerated as it was shown in-game that while the Heartless were still around, it was a more manageable number and thus the many worlds were at a much lower risk of being consumed by darkness, along with a general understanding the Heartless were too iconic to drop from the series. Furthermore, the game emphasizes that Maleficent's defeat caused the other Disney Villains to lose faith in her leaving her with only the Heartless, Pete and an empty castle, with Maleficent even losing control of the Heartless to Organization XIII halfway through the game, which forces her to pull an Enemy Mine with Sora. This all demonstrates that even though Maleficent’s defeat wasn't permanent, the heroes still achieved a major dent in her plans. In contrast, Xehanort reveals in Dream Drop Distance that everything the heroes did in prior games was at best a minor setback and his Stable Time Loop ensured the outcome was weighted towards him from the start, which imparts a feeling of every game prior had been All for Nothing.
- A common criticism of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is that Terra comes off as Too Dumb to Live and a Horrible Judge of Character for falling prey to the manipulation of several Disney villains and especially Master Xehanort. But Terra isn’t the first Keyblade wielder (release-wise anyway) to be manipulated by Obviously Evil characters. In the first game, Riku was suckered into working for Maleficent and kidnapping the Princesses of Heart because of a lie that doing so would restore Kairi’s heart. It was more believable in Kingdom Hearts I as Riku was only 15 years old and had never left Destiny Islands before. This combined with Riku displaying exploitable personality traits and being rescued from his island’s destruction by Maleficent makes it believable that Maleficent could so easily manipulate Riku. By contrast, Terra is 20 years old and shown to be an overall Nice Guy with implicit knowledge of the outside world, making it harder to accept he could be so easily manipulated. Compounding the issue, the only reason the game ever musters for Terra to trust Xehanort, is that Master Eraqus also trusts Xehanort, which comes across as a flimsy excuse given Xehanort is preaching things that go completely against Eraqus’ teachings and a flashback in the game reveals Eraqus knows about Xehanort’s plans and received his scar from Xehanort, meaning there’s no logical reason for Eraqus to trust him either.
- The series' central Crisis Crossover occasionally gets criticized for being a bit inconsistent in tone and style, leading to immersion-breaking Mood Whiplash. Even though the games were sold as a tribute to the classic characters and stories of the Disney Animated Canon, they've been known to spotlight Disney films that are too recent to be considered "classics", as well as a few that aren't even part of the Animated Canon. This goes all the way back to the original, which featured levels from Tarzan (which was less than three years old when the game was made) and The Nightmare Before Christmas (which was a Touchstone Pictures film). But Deep Jungle still fit in perfectly fine as a generic jungle level, while Halloweentown was from a beloved Cult Classic — so most fans were willing to overlook the fact that it wasn't a canonical Disney feature. But then Kingdom Hearts II took it a step further and gave us worlds from Pirates of the Caribbean and TRON, as well as making the title character from Chicken Little a Summon. One of those three was a recent blockbuster, one was a Cult Classic from the 1980s that most kids in the target audience had never even heard of, and one was released the same year as the game and was almost instantly forgotten. Not only that, Pirates and Tron were both live-action films, which led to some pretty jarring Non-Standard Character Designs when the characters from those films met Donald Duck and Goofy. III alleviated this somewhat as far as Pirates of the Caribbean is concerned by having Sora, Donald & Goofy wear pirate outfits to avoid sticking out so much. There's also the lack of actual crossing over outside of the Princesses of Heart in the first game, Mickey's extended cast, the cabal of villains in the first game, and Beast, though that's probably more Disney's fault than Square's, in spite of the fact that Disney was rather into having their various characters bumping into each other, such as in House of Mouse and the crossover episode between Hercules and Aladdin, but still, it's apparent that the focus on the Original Generation to hold up the overarching plotlines of each game with the Disney worlds being mere episodes by comparison is to compensate for the developers being unable to do more with the Disney material.
- The introduction of the Big Bad Ansem (er... Terra-Xehanort's Heartless) in the original Kingdom Hearts was secretly the first step in the series' infamous Kudzu Plot getting out of hand. There was nothing really wrong with Ansem as a character, mind you, but his introduction didn't do much for the story other than making it more complicated. For most of the game, Maleficent is clearly set up as the Big Bad, most of the conflict is resolved in the Hollow Bastion chapter, and there's very little foreshadowing for The Reveal that somebody else is pulling Maleficent's strings; if Maleficent (a beloved and iconic Disney villain) had stayed the Big Bad, and the game had ended with Sora and Riku's dramatic Cain and Abel confrontation at Hollow Bastion, few fans would have complained. But despite that, Ansem was still a genuinely threatening villain with an intensely charismatic presence, he was brought to life with an excellent performance by Billy Zane, and his fun and challenging boss battle is still widely considered a highlight of the series. But then the sequels just kept pulling more dramatic reveals about the Big Bad's true identity, gradually piling on more layers of increasingly complex backstory as if trying to one-up the first game's big Plot Twist—first revealing that "Ansem" wasn't the real Ansem, but his apprentice, Xehanort; then that he was an older Keyblade Master and stole younger player character Terra's body; and then that in his youth he was a time traveler sent forward by his elder selves. By the time his connections to the mythos of Kingdom Hearts χ were hinted at, many fans felt that the villain's story arc had gotten too complicated to stay emotionally invested in it, leading to mostly apathy toward his role in Kingdom Hearts III up until the widespread rage at his ending, which many saw as a ham-fisted attempt to retcon Xehanort as a Well-Intentioned Extremist while giving him little in the way of comeuppance for any of his atrocities across the series, including new offenses within that exact same game where his manipulations cause Sora to disappear at the end of the game after he saves Kairi.
- Likewise, Ansem's introduction as the Big Bad of the first game was the start of downplaying the Disney Villains in favor of original villains like Organization XIII. Kingdom Hearts had a Legion of Doom comprised of many popular Disney villains like Maleficent, Jafar, and Hades; and even with Ansem they still had the lion's share of screentime with their activities spanning multiple worlds and providing a constant threat to Sora and co. In Kingdom Hearts II, only Maleficent and newcomer Pete were still involved with multiple worlds, and although their schemes are ultimately irrelevant to the main plot and Organization XIII's machinations, they still pose a threat in-game, resurrecting Oogie Boogie and empowering Scar, and them pulling an Enemy Mine with the heroes in order to get what they want suggested good things for them in the future. In Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Xehanort and Vanitas served as the overarching villains, with Disney villains like Maleficent confined to their respective worlds while remaining dangerous. Maleficent did get to take over for a while as the main antagonist in Kingdom Hearts coded, brainwashing Data Riku, shattering Data Sora's Keyblade and trapping Mickey and co. in the datascape. In Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Maleficent's only appearance had her and Pete kidnap Minnie to lure Mickey out (something that happens away from the main plot in the worlds), only to be easily driven off by the revived Axel/Lea, and the True Organization XIII takes over any world-spanning villainy. The only new Disney villains in game were Judge Claude Frollo and CLU, with Frollo being considered especially underused considering his popularity. By Kingdom Hearts III, well-liked villains like Frozen's Prince Hans and Mother Gothel had little screentime or relevance, with their roles being usurped by Organization XIII members, especially the former who has no lines or characterization. Meanwhile, Maleficent spends the entire game on a fruitless sidequest for the Black Box, a MacGuffin and Sequel Hook, and her only interaction with the heroes is a couple passing conversations.note
- The absence of Final Fantasy characters (apart from Moogles as shopkeepers), new or returning, from Kingdom Hearts III was a rather contentious point for fans. However the downplaying of Final Fantasy characters really started with Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, where the "Final Fantasy homeworld" of Radiant Garden was absent and Organization XIII had a Moogle among their ranks that has not reappeared in subsequent installments. It then continued in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep which did feature Radiant Garden but somehow only had one Final Fantasy character, Zack Fair, who appears in a different world. However, for the former it was a story focusing on what Roxas was up to prior to II, so it made sense they wouldn't get much focus. For the latter, Radiant Garden already had Ansem's apprentices (Braig, Aeleus, Dilan, Ienzo, and Even), Lea, Isa, Xehanort, Scrooge McDuck, Mickey and young Kairi to fit into the story, so their absence from the prequel was understandable if regrettable. Likewise, although Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] had no Final Fantasy characters, it did feature the The World Ends with You cast and Radiant Garden was not a featured world. Thus when Kingdom Hearts III had Radiant Garden return prominently in cutscenes with none of the recurring Final Fantasy characters that Sora had formed close bonds with, like Leon, Aerith, Yuffie, and Cid, it was much more egregious, even with the appearance of fellow Square Enix character Schwarzgeist as a boss.note It doesn't help that the Cloud-Sephiroth subplot built up in KHI and KHII was dropped like a stone and hinted character appearances like Rinoa Heartilly never came to pass. The Re:Mind DLC for III did bring back some recurring characters, though... with no major impact on the ongoing storyline.
- In terms of storytelling, the Tangled, Frozen, and Pirates of the Caribbean worlds in Kingdom Hearts III are considered the weakest plotlines due to how much they rehashed the plotlines of their movies, just with Sora and company inserted into them, making it feel like Padding until the main plot gets started. However, there were Disney worlds in Kingdom Hearts I and II that did the same with little to no criticism when doing the same parroting of the original films' story. The difference being that the previous "rehashed" worlds struck a much better balance of involving Sora, Donald, and Goofy and reliving the movies' journey by having the trio meet the movie's protagonists relatively early in their story, then having the trio stick with them until the end of the world visit. In some cases, the basic plot of the film was maintained, but the details changed because of Sora and crew's intervention or because the existing worlds caused elements to change, such as Clayton losing his heart to Darkness in I, or how TRON is integrated into the lore of the setting of Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden and instead merely uses elements from the plot to allow characters to appear like the MCP. II also had the heroes return to each world a second time, with completely original plots occurring that allowed for the writers to make unique stories, especially since these second visits were tied even closer to the main plot due to having Organization XIII playing an even bigger role in each world's story arc than previously, such as Scar's ghost haunting the Pride Lands or Xaldin manipulating events at Beast's Castle to try and turn him into a Nobody. Meanwhile, the "rehashed" worlds in III deviate from this formula in significant ways; The Kingdom of Corona has Sora, Donald, and Goofy awkwardly dip in and out of the plot at regular intervals rather than sticking to Rapunzel and Flynn from beginning to end which caused the important development points of those characters to be missed out on, Arendelle had the trio interact with each of the main cast twice at mostnote , causing much of the canon story to occur offscreen, showing many of the film's scenes out of context (notably, it's the first time the games adapted a film's Signature Song into their setting, with the main trio strung along as "Let It Go" is performed by Elsa), and with Sora having minimal interaction with the film's main characters,note , and The Caribbean was an adaptation of the third movie instead of the second, resulting in much confusion due to the trio being dropped into the middle of an ongoing storyline with no time set aside for catching the audience up outside of a small Info Dump.note It also doesn't help that Sora and co. have much weaker reasoning to visit the Disney worlds: in I and II, the heroes had personal stakes that directly tied into exploring the Disney worlds (searching for Riku and Mickey, and reopening the lanes between worlds), while III only gives Sora the vague goal of obtaining the Power of Waking after his prior learning of it was sabotaged in DDD (and subsequently undermined with Ventus saying Sora had it all along), and then has Worlds appear on the map for no reason (aside from Sora using the Keyblade in cutscenes to manually open pathways), making it seem like Sora is only going to the Disney worlds because they're there. Not helping matters is the small amounts of plot development within the Disney Worlds were all given away by the game's extensive marketing.
- Kingdom Hearts has become infamous for the copious amounts of characters who have come Back from the Dead or otherwise suffer from a Disney Death. This has been a constant in the series since the first game, with Sora removing his own heart to free Kairi’s, which turns him into a Heartless but he gets restored to a human a few minutes later. This was seen as passable given the game's journal entries made it explicitly clear how Sora came back so easily, and it fits with the Lighter and Softer nature of the game, being akin to a Disney fairy tale, and Kingdom Hearts II showed there were repercussions to this act that Sora wasn't aware of. Furthermore, Sora's Disney Death occurred over a single game making it easier to swallow, than if it had been dragged out across multiple games. Kingdom Hearts II would continue the trend by having Maleficent, Oogie Boogie, and Ursula all come Back from the Dead but that was balanced out by having the latter two get quickly disposed of again and Maleficent suffering from a lack of resources to be a proper threat again, along with numerous casualties from both sides. Yet despite the series progressing through Cerebus Syndrome, the games would bring numerous characters Back from the Dead or reveal they never actually died hampering the emotional impact of prior stories. The fact the series often achieved this by retconning prior games to shoehorn in characters who had natural ends to their storylines (such as Xehanort, Ansem the Wise, Axel, and Xigbar) through increasingly convoluted means, for seemingly no reason other than the character's popularity. Not helping matters was that the explanations provided contradicted what had been established in prior installments (such as Kingdom Hearts coded revealing a human can come back to life if their Heartless and Nobody are both destroyed when every game prior indicated that this would result in both halves undergoing Cessation of Existence). The nadir for this trend came with Kingdom Hearts III where every member of the Guardians of Light suffers a Disney Death (with Kairi going through this twice), along with restoring the hearts and bodies of Roxas, Namine, Terra, and Xion. The last of these especially stands out, as prior to the game's DLC there was no clear explanation as to how Xion managed to return when all memories of her had been erased from existence. Compounding the issue is that the game ends with Sora suffering a Heroic Sacrifice to counterbalance everybody's return, but any emotional impact that could come from this is hampered by the implicit knowledge that Sora will eventually come back, with the game's secret ending practically confirming this.
- One of the largest criticisms of Kingdom Hearts III is that the ending has Xehanort get Easily Forgiven by Eraqus’ spirit and granted a peaceful send off to the afterlife. The thing is this is far from the first instance of a character having their misdeeds easily overlooked. Riku, Naminé, Axel, and Terra had all committed several misdeeds that came at the expense of others. The difference is these characters had clear moments of conflict that built sympathy and they had to deal with the repercussions of their misdeeds, going through hell to make amends for their mistakes. This is in contrast to Xehanort, who dies before he has to answer for any of his sins and showed no remorse for any of his actions beforehand, which included killing Kairi solely to motivate Sora. Furthermore, this forgiveness came from Sora (or in the case of Terra, he was forgiven by his found family) with other characters still expressing anger or mistrust towards these individuals for their past crimes. In contrast, Xehanort gets exonerated by Eraqus, the guy he previously murdered along with ruining the lives of his adoptive children, making his forgiveness much harder for the audience to swallow.
- Kingdom Hearts Re:coded is particularly divisive for its Gameplay Roulette, but ever since the first game, the series has been no stranger to Unexpected Gameplay Changes - the Gummi Ship sections and Hundred-Acre Wood have been a recurring element of the numbered titles, while the non-numbered entries have introduced several mini-games like the Disney Town events in Birth by Sleep, or the pre-world Dive sections in Dream Drop Distance. Opinions on these gameplay shifts are mixed, but for the most part these shifts in gameplay in are brief and take a backseat to the combat - Re:coded, meanwhile, has prominent ones for almost every world and boss, to the point where less than half of its bosses are fought in standard combat.
