A couple of posts back in Guiding Key, Kotaku’s year-long Kingdom Hearts replay book club, I said that Kingdom Hearts was my first foray into Final Fantasy. I was young enough at the time that I didn’t even realize this series was meant to be a crossover between Disney and Final Fantasy until I opened up Jiminy Cricket’s journal and saw those characters listed as having originated from an RPG series I only really knew from the Final Fantasy X commercial that would play on the TV sometimes. Now that I’m an adult and have played a great deal of Final Fantasy games, it’s fascinating watching Kingdom Hearts’ opening hours with full knowledge of who these characters are as they interact with Donald, Goofy, and of course our hero Sora, who exists in between Disney’s light-hearted, family friendly vibes and Final Fantasy’s emotional highs and lows.

The opening segments set in Sora’s home on Destiny Islands and in Traverse Town, the place that has essentially become a safe haven for people whose worlds are disappearing, probably best reflect what Final Fantasy fans were hoping the series would be in terms of its crossover potential. Sora is a childhood friend of Tidus and Wakka from Final Fantasy X , as well as Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII , and they’re all aged down by at least half a decade, I’d estimate. They fight with playground-approved versions of their weapons from their original games, with Tidus wielding a bokken training sword instead of an actual blade and Selphie swinging around a jump rope in place of her usual nunchucks.

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