From the very first time I jumped into the Destiny Islands shores to the most recent time I defeated a giant purple boat with a face.
Let me give you some context. When I was a teenager (like most of you) I didn't had money to buy games. Even when the priced dropped I couldn't buy them. I saw the Kingdom Hearts trailer on the Beyond Final Fantasy DVD that came with Final Fantasy X and I was sold on the concept alone. I mean: Disney and Final Fantasy characters interacting in the same game? I had to get that game.
Sadly, I would only play the first Kingdom Hearts on the same year that the second came out.
Living in the early 2000's
A friend's friend lend him the game and my friend quitted the game because it was to repetitive after a while. I asked if he minded if I took it from a few days... I still have that copy.
Destiny Island? My childhood in a nutshell
I have an older brother, he's just one year and a half older than me. He was bigger, faster and stronger than me. I was a scrawny little kid who was always sick. We used to play all the time with other kids from our street and used to build roller carts out of wood in my father's workshop. I was always the one who tested the car to prove to everyone I was braver than any of them. My brother made fun of me when I ended up on the ground because the cart crashed into a wall or I fell.
We would end up fighting and he would end up beating me up. We would end up making up and going home with our bruises and smile in our faces. Them we would talk long hours while playing games about how we weren't going to be like the rest of our family and would leave that street and become rich to travel all around the world.
When I first played the opening level of the first game, alone in a dark room covered up in blankets with a cup of hot coco right beside me, I cried. The relationship between Sora and Riku was exactly like mine with my brother (or I just wanted to believe it was). They had friends that would play around in the sand with swords made of sticks and beach balls. Getting materials together to build a raft. You could challenge Riku to a fight as many times as you wanted and he would, probably, beat you the first few times... Then at the end of the day they would sit together, smiling and talking about leaving the Islands.
Tetsuya Nomura directed those scene in the most beautiful way, but nothing could be accomplish without the masterpiece that was the soundtrack composed by Yoko Shimomura.
Just a small island kid
To this day no other game was able to accomplish what Kingdom Hearts did. The biggest brand of kids entertainment in the West crossed over with the granddaddy of all Japanese Role-playing games.
Many call Kingdom Heats childish because your party members are Sora, a small kid with the the biggest feet in gaming history, Donald, the character with the most annoying speech pattern ever created and Goofy, I love Goofy. These three go around various Disney worlds fighting the darkness and learning the importance of friendship, companionship and, most important than all, that a giant-key when swung fast enough can take down all of Disneys villains.
The game follows a very simple formula:
Travel to a world, find out that the Heartless (the game's main enemies) are wrecking the place, save it, close the keyhole, open the pathway to a new world. Repeat until you defeat a Giant Purple boat with a face.
While you do this Sora grows as an individual. From a kid that never went off his island to a boy who saved dozens of worlds while making new friends. And those friends give him the strength to fight over the most overwhelming enemies, and, even some older friends.
That's life. Or at least that's life for me.
Today I'm better because I played Kingdom Hearts
I'm the youngest of a five, I was bullied in school, I was beaten up by my brother to the point I had to leave home when I was sixteen (I came back later), my mom died of cancer two and a half years ago and we were in so much financial troubles that we were in danger to lose our house.
I, now, have 27 years old, I just started my first full time job after I finished my my University studies and just got out of my father's house. The reason I was able to survive the hardships that life has thrown at me was because of my friends. And I learned that relying on friends isn't being weak because I played Kingdom Hearts. Also, I just finished beating a Giant Purple boat with a face and I couldn't be more happy with it.
Kingdom Hearts was released in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 and is now available in HD with additional content for the PS3 and the PS4.
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