Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix

The original cover of the game

Back in 2002 at my birthday I got the original game as a present. I guess I was 15 or so if my math checks out and this was an enjoyable game. It had Final Fantasy-characters, Disney-characters and what wasn't to love? Most voiced Disney characters were voiced by either the real voice actors or someone close (as far as I know, since most of these I've only heard the Swedish dubbing for). The main character Sora was voiced by the kid from The 6th Sense, Haley Joel Osment and the big bad is Billy Zane, you know the actor playing the Phantom? From the Phantom movie back in 1996? Alright so he was also the bad guy in Titanic. And the part of Riku went to David Gallagher from 7th Heaven... 6th sense, 7th heaven??? Nah, must be a coincidence. So basically the game is an action-platformer RPG. You swing your weapon, use magic and jump around a lot. The spells are all from the Final Fantasy-games, but here they are actually useful outside of combat to interact with the world. See a chest on a floating platform? Gravity it down. Lighting a fire? Fire of course, but if you need to extinguish it blizzard works. Of course the platforming isn't always the best, sometimes a jump doesn't register, close quarter combat on small railings are not advised (especially in Hollow Bastion) and small nitpicks.

The remake cover... or is it remaster?

So you play as Sora, young kid living on an island together with Riku and Kairi... and Wakka, Tidus and Selphie. But those three aren't important other than training exercise. The main three kids dream of leaving an island so they construct a raft, but before leaving dark shadows appear on the island and Sora is sucked of to another world, Traverse Town. There he meet Donald Duck and Goofy who are out looking for King Mickey who has disappeared. Donald is a wizard and Goofy is a knight. Sora have for some reason been given the Keyblade, a weapon that will destroy the Hearless, shadowy creatures consuming people's hearts. The only way to stop them is to the seal the keyholes on every world so Sora sets of in Donald and Goofy's Gummi Ship in search for the King and Sora's friends. You know, reading the summary... this is a really silly game. How can't it be when you mix the worlds of Final Fantasy and Disney? And for some reason this was a really enjoyable game for me as a kid and replaying the remake I quickly found myself feeling very nostalgic. You travel to worlds based on Alice in Wonderland, Hercules, Tarzan, Winnie The Pooh, Aladdin, Pinocchio, The Nightmare before Christmas, Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid. And you would think they would use the music from all the movies to really catch you, but if my ears hears correctly I could only find three places were they used the movies music and that was The Nightmare Before Christmas, Winnie the Pooh and The Little Mermaid. And those have the worst ear worms of them all.

HAVET ÄR DJUPT, HAVET ÄR DJUPT!

Fun fact the Swedish dub for Sebastian is the same actor who voiced Gandalf in the Swedish Lord of the Rings radio dramatisation.

So during the course of the game you face the antagonist, the Disney Villains. A shadow conspiracy led by the most dark and evil characters from the Magical Kingdom led by Malificient. There's Hades, Captain Hook, Oogie-Boogie, Ursula and Jaffar... they are the villains because they f***ing cheats. Now, stupid as I was I went for Proud mode since the easier settings sounded like an insult. Take these extra items and such thing. So stupid me choose proud meaning that they hit harder and apparently have a bigger repertoire of attacks. Doesn't help that most of them are puzzle bosses with platforming needed. I especially look at you Ursula. Magic in cauldron... f***ing cheap. Most other bosses you can beat with some grinding. That is until the end game start. You sealed most of the Keyholes and you found your way to Hollow Bastion, the place where the Final Fantasy-characters live in. At the beginning Donald and Goofy abandons you when the Keyblade switches over to Riku who has joined the dark side so you have to get help from Beast (from Beauty and the Beast) to enter the castle. Inside Beast is fooled away and Riku is about to confront you, but at that moment Donald and Goofy switches sides again since even though they were given orders to follow the wielder of the Keyblade, they can't abandon a friend. Defeat Riku and he leaves, but becomes possessed by an unknown person. You find Maleficent and defeat her, but as she tries to escape Riku joins her and plunges another Keyblade into her heart transforming her to the Dragon from Sleeping Beauty. Turns out that the person possessing Riku is Ansem, the lord of Hollow Bastion that researched the Heartless and apparently was consumed by his findings. You find his scattered reports after defeating certain bosses. This was an interesting twist when I played it the first time. He was with you from the beginning hinting about some dark mystery during the first 10 minutes of the game and you naturally assumed Maleficent or Riku would be the final boss. And so this person shows up that everyone told you would have the key to understanding the heartless. Really subtle work there.

Maybe not his design, but you can't get everything

You defeat possessed Riku and retrieves the unconscious body of Kairi... who's a Disney princess and her heart together with 6 others princesses (Snowhite, Aurora, Belle, Cinderella, Alice (?) and Jasmine) the villains had kidnapped in order to open the Keyhole, but Kairi has lost her heart so she is basically a lifeless doll. Turns out her heart was hidden in Soras's heart all along so to release it he uses Riku's blade and stabs himself and seemingly killing himself. Wow, and I thought this was a Disney game. Suicide? Hardcore. Well, since this is Square of course he comes back, but in the form of a heartless and have to travel down the whole castle to catch up with Donald, Goofy and Kairi who escaped Ansem when Riku's spirit stopped him. Kairi senses that it is Sora in the heartless and tries to shield him from the other heartless ready to attack and as in any Disney movie he regains his human form. It's kinda sweet. They escape back to Traverse Town to regroup and after some side questing you can return and seal the keyhole, but Ansem have disappeared. You travel to the End of Worlds and start the decent and the surrounding gets more and more twisted until you reach...  NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN

First suicide and now the literal devil, this game is hardcore

A tip, just fly behind him and whack him. A bit undignified for one of the most scary Disney characters I must say. Travel onward and you reach the end, which is the beginning, Destiny Island, Sora's home. Here a fight in what, 7-8 stages with Ansem until you bash him enough so he opens the doors to Kingdom Hearts where he is obliterated by light... ok, so he actually thought it would be darkness, but since this is a Disney spin-of of course every heart has a speck of light. The gang tries to close it and on the other side Riku and king Mikey appears, sealing the door from their side. Credits roll and our friends are now searching for Riku and Mikey again. The End!

And King Mickey saves the day

I really liked this game as a kid and playing again it felt rather nostalgic and I actually did things I didn't do before like actually trying to synthesis items. The only thing I dreaded to touch was the Gummy ship construction since I still don't get how to use it. This being a remake certain things have changed and been added. First and easiest to see is that they changed colours on several of the enemies. Why I don't know, I actually prefer the blue colours compared to the yellow ones on the soldiers and fat men. They also added some scenes that stand out like a sore thumb, not because they don't fit the narrative, they actually explain things that I didn't get in the beginning. The problem is that it's voice less and you see that this should be speaking parts due to the font they uses on the text. It's a small nitpick cause I could see how the voice acting would stick out even more since Osment was a kid when it was first released. Other thing's I find interesting thinking back is the completely useless side-characters you can add to your party, but you are limited to three people at time so one of the regulars have to go. Now why would I change? Donald and Goofy is clearly superior due more items to use, more armours to wear. The AI is still bad for all of them so it doesn't matter either. The only time picking the other characters is in Agrabah due to Aladdin being able to hit 2-3 switches to unlock treasures, Neverland where Peter Pan is needed to fight an optional boss and Hollow Bastion where Beast can break down walls (and for story reason he is your body guard during your first trip). You even have to equip them with better gear since they come with just the standard. Things that they should have changed is the information in the bestiary. Can't they please add what everyone drops so I can quickly check which enemies to grind for stones, shards or gems? And also where to find these monsters. Jiminy Cricket, you can do better you know.

Yeah, show some concern will you!

Now I never played any other game in the series since it was all over every console and since I moved away in 2006 and never bought a Playstation 2 to play the sequel and I actually think I couldn't get my hands on the GBA game or even the DS ones. Well luckily there's 2 more games on this compilation so let's get started.