Over the years, the consoles and platforms that Kingdom Hearts has been available on have changed, but the series never made the transfer to PC, leaving me and many others to miss out on key entries in the series. Since I didn’t own a PlayStation 2 or PlayStation 3, I never really got to take in the first few entries, and my only real experience with the franchise was Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, which I played multiple times as a child on my Gameboy Advanced SP. With Square Enix finally bringing Kingdom Hearts to the PC, myself and others who haven’t been able to follow Sora’s story over the years finally will be able to play it first-hand from beginning to end.
A Whole New World
Originally appearing as a PlayStation exclusive with the first release in 2002, the Kingdom Hearts series has grown to include over 17 entries across a variety of platforms. Unlike other role-playing games at the time, Kingdom Hearts featured iconic characters from other universes like Disney and Final Fantasy, eventually going on to include both Donald Duck and Goofy as the main character’s companions in later entries. It was a unique blending of worlds that helped to create something that felt distinctive and different. Over time, the Kingdom Hearts story has grown as it pushed into new territory and welcomed in characters from Disney and Pixar along the way. In 2019, Kingdom Hearts III, the big conclusion to Sora’s story, even included worlds inspired by Frozen and other newer Disney and Pixar films. This constant addition of new universes to the already-tangled web of a story that was being woven through Kingdom Hearts helped keep it fresh, despite the almost 20 years that had passed since the first game’s release.
Clearing Things Up
With so many different releases within the series—including a few remixes—the Kingdom Hearts story has become rather confusing, with some even calling Kingdom Hearts III’s story an absolute mess. Combine that with the weird naming conventions of some of the releases, and getting into Kingdom Hearts this late in the game seems like more of a chore than anything. Thankfully, the PC release looks to clear things up a good bit. While the PC releases will include all of the mainline entries in the series—like Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 Remix, Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind, Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, and Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory—the way that it’s all being packaged seems a lot easier to follow. Instead of offering six or seven games for players to buy, Square Enix has divided the titles up into four main offerings, making it a much less daunting task to jump in and explore Sora’s story from the beginning. This new packaging also will make it easier for players to dive deeper without having to follow detailed guides about game order. We can get right to the meat of the gameplay and the story, something that I’m beyond excited to do. The way that Square Enix blends the worlds of Disney and Pixar together with elements of its other RPG series always has been appealing. Now that it’s all coming to the PC, I feel like I have the best chance I’ve ever had of appreciating why everyone loved this series so much, and maybe even understanding why Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories has stuck with me for so long.
