Strange dreams haunt Sora's mind, showing him a world enveloped in darkness. But it's just a dream, right? It's a quiet and normal life that Sora and his friends lead on Destiny Island. Yet they seek something more, adventure and excitement. After carefully planning, Sora, Riku and Kairi have finally constructed a raft to carry them off the island and in search of clues of Kairi's hidden past. That nightfall brings a storm,and concerned about how well their raft will hold, Sora sets out for the island, finding that both Riku and Kairi have already come. Of his friends he sees no sign, but shadows come alive on the island, swarming about Sora. The boy finally finds Riku, and the silver haired boy holds out a hand to the younger boy in a disturbingly familiar gesture from that of Sora's dreams. The shadows threaten to engulf them both, but fate has other plans for the spikey haired boy.

Keyblade.

His home is gone. His friends no longer at his side. The fate of worlds now rests in the hands of one boy. And a dog and duck.

Two monster companies have put forth the strangest hybrid of game worlds ever. The game Kingdom Hearts features characters from the worlds of both Disney and Square in this action RPG. As Sora, you wield the Keyblade and traditional Final Fantasy spells to defeat the onslaught of baddies known as the Heartless. Sure, they may sound like something you'd find against the Care Bears, but no Care Bear stare can take these things down quite so easily. Although some of the Heartless are somewhat cute. If beating on little Orko-throwbacks doesn't cut it for you, well don't worry- there's also the big Disney villains at your disposal. Or waiting to be disposed, rather. Your character party consists mainly of two others, Donald and Goofy (and if you think that's worthless, you'll think twice after you're saved by your fuzzy and feathery pals with a helpful potion or two) although in some worlds you can switch one out and substitute with another character native to that world, such as Aladdin, Ariel, or Jack. The worlds themselves are mainly based off of Disney movies, and Sora-tachi will venture from Wonderland to Halloween Town to Neverland before this crazy game is ended.
The cast of voice actors seems to have been carefully picked, and in some cases closely matched to the Japanese seiyuu. And of course the Disney characters were given their original voices when possible.

In the Japanese version of the game, the same was done concerning the Japanese cast of Disney characters. And to be noted: the Japanese Donald is so accurate it's frightening. Not the usual turn-based game that Final Fantasy RPGs are constructed as, but the battles are done in real-time and can be quite challenging. Players will find the AI controlled members of their team quite valuable when it comes down to tough situations, such as boss fights. The option is also given to adjust the frequency of when items are used, so your inventory isn't thoroughly spent in one minor encounter. As for magic, it's amusing to see Donald dishing out healthful doses of Thundaga only a moment after Heartless appear. Who says Disney characters can't fight?

There's plenty of places to explore and characters to meet- and for Disney and Square fans, there is plenty of appeal. The worlds are beautifully detailed and the character graphics are so intricately done, the movements so smooth that at times it doesn't even look like a computer generated character- as can be expected of Square. Surely an interesting game worth checking out, and a different change of pace from the standard RPGs released.

Get your Kingdom Hearts goods here from Akadot Retail.