Kingdom Hearts could, in theory, have been a pretty decent franchise, but it's kind of muddled by a couple of things.
The gameplay is alright; in some games it's more fun than others. It used to be that the games were just too easy (especially KH 2), but higher difficulty modes in newer games/special editions that include them in older games has mitigated this problem. It can actually be pretty fun on the higher difficulties since you need to master dodge roll, and the combat is pretty flashy and impressive.
Where the series falters the most, however, is its plot and characters.
The plot of the first game was simple, but did its job alright. since then the story has branched out considerably and begun to focus more and more on its original elements as opposed to the Disney ones. Some say it's become too complex for its own good, but it's honestly not that hard to follow provided you play all the games or do some reading.
The problem is just that the plot just isn't very good, complexity or no. The dialogue is terrible, riddled with horrendous Narm in a lot of situations. The concepts it deals with COULD potentially be alright, but its focus on The Powerof Friendship and the light vs dark thing comes across as extremely juvenile in execution. Adding to that, the characters for the most part fall into predictable JRPG molds and simply aren't that interesting, though some of them like Riku and Axel are better than others. Some of them who are supposed to be main or at least important characters, barely get any development or screen time(see: Kairi).
While you could perhaps chalk this up to it being a Disney game in part, the truth is that most Disney films were much better-told and were in a medium that often has an easier time telling a story than videogames. The limited technology in the games often ruins scenes from the movies (like Mufasa's death). The games tend to either just recycle the plots from these films but shoehorn in Sora and co., or they try to write original plots that are underwhelming. Not helping this is the lack of NPC's in the worlds and the lack of exploration in a lot of the games, which often makes them feel empty and lifeless.
I've spent most of this review complaining, but honestly KH isn't really a BAD series. It's honestly fun, but could be much better than it is.
Less Than The Sum of Its Parts
Kingdom Hearts could, in theory, have been a pretty decent franchise, but it's kind of muddled by a couple of things.
The gameplay is alright; in some games it's more fun than others. It used to be that the games were just too easy (especially KH 2), but higher difficulty modes in newer games/special editions that include them in older games has mitigated this problem. It can actually be pretty fun on the higher difficulties since you need to master dodge roll, and the combat is pretty flashy and impressive.
Where the series falters the most, however, is its plot and characters.
The plot of the first game was simple, but did its job alright. since then the story has branched out considerably and begun to focus more and more on its original elements as opposed to the Disney ones. Some say it's become too complex for its own good, but it's honestly not that hard to follow provided you play all the games or do some reading.
The problem is just that the plot just isn't very good, complexity or no. The dialogue is terrible, riddled with horrendous Narm in a lot of situations. The concepts it deals with COULD potentially be alright, but its focus on The Powerof Friendship and the light vs dark thing comes across as extremely juvenile in execution. Adding to that, the characters for the most part fall into predictable JRPG molds and simply aren't that interesting, though some of them like Riku and Axel are better than others. Some of them who are supposed to be main or at least important characters, barely get any development or screen time(see: Kairi).
While you could perhaps chalk this up to it being a Disney game in part, the truth is that most Disney films were much better-told and were in a medium that often has an easier time telling a story than videogames. The limited technology in the games often ruins scenes from the movies (like Mufasa's death). The games tend to either just recycle the plots from these films but shoehorn in Sora and co., or they try to write original plots that are underwhelming. Not helping this is the lack of NPC's in the worlds and the lack of exploration in a lot of the games, which often makes them feel empty and lifeless.
I've spent most of this review complaining, but honestly KH isn't really a BAD series. It's honestly fun, but could be much better than it is.