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The Things You Love And Hate About KH1?



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BufferAqua

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I took some inspiration from the The Things You Love And Hate About CoM thread, so check that out first!

What did you love/hate about the original Kingdom Hearts?

Love:

-Story
-Characters
-Great gameplay. It's a little clunky, but I love it.
-Disney
-Many things to explore

Hate:

-Many of the worlds (Hallow Bastion especially)
-Donald's AI
-Some of the gameplay can be tedious
 

catcake

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I love basically everything about it. I can't take off my nostalgia goggles, they've fused with me and make the first game perfect in my eyes, and I can't help it. It's that one game I never get tired of playing. The atmosphere and mood it has throughout the game, but especially towards the end in Hollow Bastion and End of the World are just amazing. KH1 is the reason why I study game design, and probably a big reason why I'm even an artist in the first place. It's impossible to look at it objectively. All it's flaws are just part of the charm.

I do remember disliking Riku as a kid, I was like 8 and didn't even understand half of the english in the game, so all I gathered was that he was a jerk. I also kept getting completely destroyed in every fight against him so that might have had something to do with it too. But that doesn't count anymore either, because he's a pretty good "villain" in that game, and a great character all around. Poor kid. So I guess I can't come up with anything. 10/10 game for me, that's that.
 

Caxinuld

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Creator of the Love/Hate COM thread here with my thoughts on KH1.

I absolutely loved the original game as a kid & I still do today, even though I admit to not being able to get very far. The story kept me captivated because I wanted to learn more about it (I had no idea walkthroughs for the game or story summaries existed at the time) and I wanted to see what other characters I could meet and fall in love with. Even though I still despise the Hippo section in Deep Jungle or the heartless battles in Olympus, I thought the gameplay was solid & never felt repetitive with many different strategies for different enemies.
 

Silverwarrior

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I really love the atmosphere of the game; like going through Hollow Bastion, or End of the World, or even places like Agrabah and Halloween Town (series staples that they are). Plus I liked the integration of the disney characters into the non-disney world (and non-disney stories). I also like the disney villains work together (somewhat)

I really dislike how clunky the game feels (to me anyway), and I dont particularly like the gummi missions, (and the lack of Tate Donovan as Hercules is particularly jarring)....
 

Jochira

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as a kid so did I hate Maleficent (Dragon) and Riku/Ansem fight, but other than that, wasn't many things I hated owo

what I love though, the OST (S/O to all the OSTs involving Ansem SoD in 1 way or another), story, gameplay and that you gotta know tactics to do well
 

andreverts

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The first KH has a special place in my memories, so it's very hard to be evaluated.

Anyway, first the good things: the context was innovative and unique, Disney characters in a rpg? Awesome idea for kids grown with cartoons and videogames. Was it about a story for kids? No, not exactly, it was a deep story with kids like the Disney movies: you can enjoy it as a kid or as an adult, because it's funny, entretaining and apparently simple, but also mature and talks about important themes of life.
The game itself is still the best one in the serie in my opinion, especially when we focus on gameplay and battle system: essential, balanced and challenging. It wasn't very easy, neither very hard, but required the good amount of strategy and intelligence. Not too much stuff into it, just abilities, summons (not very useful) and magics - I'm not a fan of commands and the rest is up to the player (old fashioned way).

What I disliked: the camera controls (fixed for Final Mix), the final battle (Riku/Ansem was my real final boss of the game) and some minigames.
 

Elysium

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The only thing I dislike about KH1 is the fish face. Oh, and the gummi ship, I guess. Everything else is perfect. So many things about this game were never repeated again. Hard to believe the Coliseum and HB appeared in multiple KH games, but they were still at their best in the first game… D&G and Maleficent were also taken seriously here. CoM is really the only other game that does. I miss when the FF crew were relevant, too.

Still the best game in this series. <333 (Although that's simultaneously pretty sad to think about.)
 

andreverts

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Right, the gummiship - it's included in my previous post under the line "minigame". I never enjoyed it, even if I still prefer KH1 gummiship than KH2 gummiship where the thing really got out of the hands in my opinion. Anyway, space shooting is not something I like to play and I don't see how can this fit in a game like KH.
 

The Dark Mamba

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Lots to love bout KH1. I think it has the best overall story/storytelling in the series. Classic chosen hero goes on an epic quest type stuff. Great use of the Disney villains and incorporation of Disney in general when it came to stuff like the Princesses, villains, Dalmatians etc. The coliseum tournaments are great and plenty of great story and postgame bosses.

Four things I really didn't like. One is the fish faces. Way too many close up shots of them in action. The other is too many characters without voice acting( Cheshire Cat, Cid, Terk, Eeyore etc.) Also gummi ships...............zzzzzzzzzz

The other is that I think this has some of the worst Disney worlds in the series with Wonderland, Monstro and Deep Jungle. I really think these worlds were very poor adaptions of their source of material. It felt like sleepwalking versions of the original films. Wonderland hardly had any cutscenes, was missing too many characters from the movie and was very poorly designed with the whole box room thing. Monstro is a dumb idea for a world anyway, is visually boring and was just annoying to navigate. Tarzan is one of my favorite Disney movies and while I thought this world's story was fine, I hated how Tarzan was such a Neanderthal in this game, and too much back and forth through the vines. /rant.

Still a great game, I'd rank it 2nd in the series.
1. Kingdom Hearts II
2. Kingdom Hearts
3. Birth By Sleep
4. Dream Drop Distance
5. Chain of Memories
6. X
7. 358
8. Coded

It's close between KH1 and BBS but I give KH1 the edge for better gameplay.
 
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DarkosOverlord

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I love:
- Worlds and how they were represented
- General atmosphere, never seen again in the series
- Puzzles and references
- Most of the enemies design
- The multiple easter eggs in almost all boss fights
- Story
- Soundtrack

I don't like:
- camera, especially in the first one
- reach sometimes
- Atlantica
- various bugs when I speedrun, like the random "nope you're not going to Neverland lol"

I'm not putting Gummiship parts in the flaws because with the right tweaks they become much faster than the ones in KH II. Then again, it's also not a plus.

The reason I'm a huge KH1 lover is because with years and practice I managed to work around the gameplay's flaws.
I can't work around KH II's empty, hallway-like worlds, for instance.
 

VoidGear.

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I absolutely love the story, the way you're thrown in and know as few as Sora does. It's kinda thrilling. Especially near the end, it got so "dark" imo when I was young and I loved it. The music was of course always a big plus.

I can't stand the gameplay because of the clumsiness tho. Like, the overall concept is cool, but especially compared to KH2, KH1 kills me everytime.
 

jazzphenom

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the thing I love most about KH is the feeling I got when I first put it in my PS2 it was actually my first PS2 game but the feeling I got when I turned on that game, I never have felt that feeling before or after KH1 its weird, its like I instinctively knew it was gunna be the best game I ever played. I really love KH1 more than any other game FFX is 2nd to KH1
 

Recon

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I enjoy the Disney theme, the characters, the witty conversations, and the overall story.

I dislike the action mechanics, animations, and combat to some extent.
 

FarmerRaguna

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When I think about the original Kingdom Hearts, there's a lot to love there. The story is very well done, and being the first in the series, they did a great job introducing the characters and the premise, even with relatively little dialogue, compared with most other RPG's or other games in the series. Basically, it did a great job at what it needed to do: make a solid foundation for the series. That, and having played it at a younger age, this game will always have a solid spot in my heart.

However, not all is good there either, even though most of my criticisms can probably be argued to be due to them still figuring out how to work this series. Passing on the obvious issues, like the original release camera and the gummiship (took way too long to be able to warp, in my opinion. Having the warp from the get-go would probably have made people remember this segment a little more fondly), there is something that was more problematic for me, and it is the actual world design. Sure, we had some great designs overall, like Traverse Town and Hook's ship, but most of the other worlds feel a bit disjointed. To elaborate, I'd like to call attention to Halloween Town. The world in itself is beautiful, but when you think about the way you navigate it, it doesn't feel fluid at all. Basically, you feel like you're exploring a series of disjointed thematic rooms instead of an actual world/town. Aside from that, though, I say the combat and gameplay in general lacked a bit of polish. Also, there's the fact that they actually thought they could get away with the "platforming" in this game. The engine wasn't built for this and it shows. This, however, always makes me appreciate gliding and how much it trivializes this part of the game that much more.

So, basically, the first game sells the premise, the world and characters in a great manner, and delivers enough substance in it's gameplay to merit being called a wonderful first step. However, this same gameplay needed a lot of polishing, and the design of the worlds also needed a little bit more of coherence and more thought deserved to be put into the actual tasks you needed to do in those places. There's an honest try, and a good one of that, but they clearly hadn't fully figured out how to make the designs truly engaging by this point.
 

Odrikah

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My absolute favorite thing about KH1 has got to be the atmosphere. The mystery. The mystique of not knowing anything about this world and being thrust into it and having to, as Sora puts it, "Line the pieces up". CoM has the same feel. But I feel like all of the games KH2 and after kind of lose that. You learn more and more about the backstory of everything and so it becomes less exciting the more you figure it out. This also kind of extends to the visual design of the games, Kingdom Hearts 1 being more dark, yet also more 'bouncy', while KH:CoM and afterwards are more light but jagged. I'm not quite sure how to put it, but visually and emotionally, Kingdom Hearts 1 hits all of those "childlike wonderment" vibes for me. Don't get me wrong, all of the other KH games certainly have their place and feel like great, exciting adventures, but KH1 has a vibe that they haven't replicated since.
I also adore Billy Zane as Ansem and all of the voice actors in this tbh, they all did great.

Also everyone complains about Donald but I'll be honest I've never had a problem with him, I just tweak his settings to always heal me, give him MP Rage, and he has genuinely saved me from some very bad situations. I pretty much just focus on healing Donald instead of myself because Donald just heals me 24/7 better than I could do it myself, all I gotta do is keep Donald alive and I'm alive.

Now for what I don't like.

The camera.

Oh GOD the camera.

And the TARGETING. The targeting that MESSES UP THE CAMERA.

Also, the cheesy dialogue. Kingdom Hearts is like Star Wars, the writing, symbolism, yadda yadda overall is fantastic, but when you actually pay attention to the way characters talk, you're like "...Really?"

Also I hate Atlantica and everything about it I would say burn it but it's underwater so that's impossible.
 

Desii

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Love:
World design
Disney characters. Seriously they feel much livelier than they do in any other KH game.
Music
Graphics

Both Love/Hate:
Gameplay. I find it really fun, i really enjoy playing KH1. But then there's the plataforming, the camera, the target locking...
Story. I both hate and love how childish the first kh game was. It does not feel mature, and that's (sometimes) tiring, but it fits the game so well.
Original/FF Character visual design. They have personality at the same time they are awful. I hate KH1 Kairi's outfit, Sora and Riku are weird, some FF characters just don't look like themselves, but its not like I hate them.

Hate:
Again, the camera.
Atlantica and Neverland
Unskippable Scenes.
Gummi Ship. Enjoyed it more than i did on KH2 tho
 
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FangirlfromHell

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Kingdom Hearts has always been a favorite franchise of mine since it hit the states, but now that I'm older I can easily find what I love and hate about each individual title. Though as this thread is about the first game, we'll have at it!

Love: Characters
Story
MUSIC!

While none of the cast in the original game is my absolute favorite character, I enjoy all of them including Ansem SoD. They are fun to watch, even if Sora has some quirky pauses bordering on Shatner (Long Live Kirk).

The story to me in the first game is the right balance of 'but wait there's more to this story' and 'wait, that's it?'. Even some of the explanations led us to plotholes but without plot holes we would not have theory fodder.

The best thing to me about the first game is the music. While some of it is admittedly not the best, the music always seems to fit the world. Destati is still my favorite vocalized piece.

Hate: Secret Bosses - Xemnas
Camera Controls
Dalmations

Xemnas was the only secret boss that did not absolutely thrash me in this game. That and there are just too many Secret Bosses in the game one of whom is literally only in the game because VII is still the cash cow of Enix it seems. Don't get me wrong, I like Sephiroth but seriously there are better bonus villains we could have had. Xemnas at least ties into KHII and is a fight I enjoyed having.

THE CAMERA IS WHACK! Even on the PS4 version, the camera controls in KH are just horrendous when you look at how much better they were in KHII and subsequent titles. Just dear Clow why?!

The Dalmatians >m< I HATED hunting the puppies down so much on the PS2 and even in the HD remaster...just why? The Trinities were fun but the puppies was a nightmare. It is always the number one reason I procrastinate on subsequent playthroughs of the first game.
 
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