Tetsuya Nomura/Shinji Hashimoto/ Disney Enterainme Kingdom Hearts

Kingdom Hearts is a story that revolves around Sora, a young 14 year old boy living on Destiny Islands with his best friend, Riku and the girl he loves, Kairi.

On a fateful day Sora has a dream which places him into a dream world. In this world he encounters a voice telling him to open a door. He then awakens on the shore of his island both with Kairi and Riku. All 3 of them decide to leave the island the next day. However, when they prepare to leave, that night a fateful storm approaches and Sora meets with an unknown dark black enemy. Sora is also equipped with a new found weapon - the Keyblade.

Sora then heads out to find Kairi who has vanished. Riku later meets up with Sora but then decides to leave as the darkness takes over Sora.

Sora awakens in an odd world and meets Donald and Goofy. An adventure then unfolds that will change the very life around him. The fate of others are now in Sora's hands.

Gameplay

Like many traditional role-playing games, Kingdom Hearts features an experience point system which determines character growth. As enemies are defeated, a player gains experience leading to a "level-up", where the player characters grows stronger and gains access to new abilities.

Unlike many other games of its genre, Kingdom Hearts allows a certain degree of character development and customization. By choosing certain options, the player is able to manipulate how Sora learns abilities, grows statistically, and even gains levels. Depending on how you start will affect when and how you learn certain abilities.

Combat

Combat in Kingdom Hearts is in real time and involves complete interactivity with the character on-screen. A menu found at the bottom left of the screen provides other combat options such as using magic and items. In addition to Sora, your two party members Donald and Goofy are usually present who also take part in combat. Though these characters are computer-controlled, you can still customize their behavior to a certain extent through the menu screen.

Graphics

This installment in the square games houses tremendous graphics. The in game scenes are truly something to be admired. The first opening scene rivals graphics such as Halo and other strong graphically modern games.

Sound

The soundtrack of Kingdom Hearts is calming and yet still strong. Many people have said it was and still is the best soundtrack for an RPG title. Kingdom Hearts fuses classical music with upbeat tempos, and J-pop from Utada Hikaru.

Final Thoughts

I highly recommend this game to any RPG fan. I'm sure you may think Disney and Square... are you serious? I thought the same of the game until I got it in my hands. There's a great amount of replay value.

Go and get yourself a copy if you haven't already and get into the KH fandem.

Official website at http://na.square-enix.com/games/kingdomhearts/.