Off the Shelf Media

Genre: Action, Role-playing Game (RPG)

Developer: Square Enix, formerly Square Co. 

Publisher: Square Enix, formerly Square Co. 

Release Date: September 17, 2002 (U.S.) // June 13, 2024

Players: Single-Player 

Review Date: August 16, 2026

Format: PlayStation 2 // PC 

Playtime: 300+ hours // 35.7 hours

MSRP: $19.99 // $49.99

Kingdom Hearts (KH) has been a beloved franchise for over two decades now. For younger audiences, being allowed to explore and fight alongside iconic Disney characters while traversing worlds straight out of a VHS tape had obvious appeal. But how did Final Fantasy get brought into the mix? 

Well, according to reports, it happened as a one-off elevator pitch due to the fortunate circumstances of Disney and Square Enix executives sharing office space in Japan at the time. Unsurprisingly, the team at Square Enix, then known as Square, was looking to create a franchise with iconic characters able to compete with the likes of Nintendo and Mario. What better heavyweight to bring to the fight than Mr. Mickey Mouse?

At a glance, the marriage between Disney and Final Fantasy, as well as other Square Enix intellectual property (IP), makes zero sense. Even former Disney CEO Michael Eisner has admitted publicly that he doesn’t recall greenlighting the series. 

However, after two decades, thirteen titles, and a plethora of merchandise, the series is considered to be one of The Walt Disney Company’s “billion-dollar” franchises. 

In fact, it was announced at this year’s D23 Conference in Anaheim, California, on August 15, 2026, that in addition to the much-anticipated Kingdom Hearts IV release, a new animated series around the franchise would be coming to Disney Channel and Disney+. After all these years, it seems Disney hasn’t quite forgotten about the KH fandom and fans. What will they do with it? That’s yet to be proven. 

One thing is for certain, though. The rush of new games, series, and merchandise will surely bring along with it a new generation of fans. Will original KH fans welcome new fans with open arms, or will it turn into a firefight for who got there first? 

While we aren’t here to speculate, we did have long-time player and fan, Off the Shelf Media Writer Will Tarashuk, and new player, Off the Shelf Media Content Lead Emily Provost, come together to give their perspectives on how Kingdom Hearts 1 (KH1) holds up today for both veteran and rookie players. 

Here’s what the two very different gamers had to say about the game that sparked a billion-dollar franchise. 

Gameplay: 2 (WT) // 1 (EP)

WT: The Kingdom Hearts franchise has seen its fair share of gameplay changes over the years, but KH1 does a good job of laying the foundation for other games to expand on. You play as Sora, who hits a diverse group of enemies with a magic key. Pretty straightforward. 

After 20+ years, I think the combat still holds up, especially in the HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX edition. The game still has its clunky combat mechanics, but it doesn’t bother me or hold me back from picking up the game and playing it again and again. 

I subscribe to the belief that the clunky combat fits in canon because Sora is a new Keyblade wielder, so it makes sense that there’s a learning curve. Is it cope for a poor mechanic? Well, that’s for you to decide, but I’ll give the developers some grace and their props for expanding and perfecting the combat in future entries in the series. 

EP: Let me start by saying this: I have really enjoyed my time playing KH1. It is a great game, and I can certainly see why it’s lasted the test of time. 

However, the clunkiness of the gameplay mechanics in a remixed version, nonetheless, detracts for me. I’ve never excelled at platformers and remember plummeting to my demise plenty of times on PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games like Crash Bandicoot: Warped. It was a part of gaming at the time, and most of these remastered versions of older titles feature the same challenges and pitfalls. 

If I were playing Kingdom Hearts (KH1) on an original PlayStation 2, I would accept the clunkiness as a symptom of the time it was made. For me, however, I cannot let it slide in a remastered version that got a complete facelift. I can understand, and even somewhat agree, with the argument that any clunkiness or weird mechanics in a remastered game should remain to keep the playing experience authentic, but the clunkiness combined with the lack of direction did take away at times from my enjoyment. I could take one or the other, but sadly, not both. 

WT: The gameplay can be a little formulaic. You go from world to world and fight different variations of the same enemy. You get the Large Body in early worlds like Wonderland and Olympus Coliseum, and when you get to Agrabah, you fight the Fat Bandit, which is the Large Body, but it breathes fire. Super original, guys. 

Then there’s the platforming. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good platformer, but it’s very easy to get lost in these worlds, and the platforming doesn’t help you at all. I remember my first time in Traverse Town or swinging the vines in Deep Jungle, and don’t get me started on Monstro. I think Square Enix (or Square if you want to blame the original developers before the merger) needs to remember that this game was intended for children to play, and this game gives you zero direction. 

And that is where I want to take the point off, but won’t, and I’ll explain why at the end of this section. This game gives you absolutely zero direction. I don’t need my hand held, but I first played this game in 2005. I was 10 years old in the fifth grade, and I could not get through this game. I didn’t beat it until my second or third playthrough in 2007 or 2008, when I found out the internet existed and there were game guides to help me out. Fun fact: I beat Kingdom Hearts 2 twice before I beat KH1. 

I won’t hate on a game for being difficult, but you have to remember who your audience is. This is a Disney game made for kids, and if kids cannot figure out how to play the game, they are going to put it down and play something else. Luckily enough, kids did figure it out or came back in their teens and fell in love with everything this game has to offer. 

Take the opening of the game, for example. It has you pick a weapon and drop a weapon. This is so important to how the game is played, and if you pick wrong, your build is completely ruined. I wrote a full article and did a video explaining what each choice does, so give that a read or a watch at your leisure. 

EP: One thing I did really appreciate about this game was its simplicity and repetitive formula. For most gamers, I could understand how this could take away from the enjoyment, but playing it for the first time in 2026, I found it to be refreshing. 

As much as I wish it wasn’t the case, I don’t have an abundance of free time to devote purely to playing videogames. (Though you can help us change that by subscribing to the site and to our YouTube channel). These days, I love when I can find a low-lift, low-investment game to play. As much as I love titles like Fallout 4 or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I find myself never completing games that large because I get bored from trying to accomplish 300 hours of quests for one game. 

I also completely agree with Will that the lack of direction makes the game difficult to play without external guidance. I did enjoy, however, how I could just meander through the game, giving it a few honest attempts myself before turning to the advice of the internet to guide me along. Actually, I frequently found myself referencing Will’s videos and articles from our site to help me through when I first jumped into playing. 

WT: In defense of the gameplay, there is a lot to do in this game. There are a ton of side quests and extra content to go around and explore. There is no reason to go back to old worlds unless you want to open that chest you couldn’t access or go do the Trinity Mark you hadn’t unlocked yet. One of these days I’m going to write an article and do a video ranking all the worlds in KH1, and spoiler alert: Wonderland is a low-key S-Tier world. There are so many hidden secrets all over this world that only the true fans will go back for the discovery. It’s the attention to detail and the effort that make the difference, and I still need to look them all up because there are too many to remember. 

I think the game does a good job of breaking up the rhythm of gameplay too. You enter a world like Atlantica, and it plays nothing like the other worlds. The swimming mechanic isn’t perfect, but it is different, and it fits in nicely with the rest of the game. Then there’s the Coliseum, which is just the arena where you can grind to the next level or test your skills against the Ice Titan or Sephiroth if you’re up for the challenge. 100 Acre Wood is all minigames, but that’s fine. I’m all for a break in the cycle to do something new. 

I stand by my two rating because I truly believe Kingdom Hearts’ gameplay is a subgenre. The games industry has adopted the term “souls-like.” When you say “it’s a souls-like game,” you know exactly what they mean. We are close to that with Kingdom Hearts. The gameplay is unique, and there are newer games borrowing the mechanics and reintroducing them into the marketplace. 

Duskfade is a new game that was released on August 13, 2026, and it draws from Kingdom Hearts’ style of HUD and design. It’s a dude who carries a magic sword and goes from colorful world to colorful world. Gee, that sounds familiar. I haven’t played it yet, but it’s 100% on my list and on my radar. Then there’s a solo developer creating a game from scratch called Luminous Lights, which looks a lot like Kingdom Hearts in its combat, menu system, and enemy types. It’s a passion project, but it plays to a bigger trend. 

People like these types of games, especially with the combat so fluid and perfected in later titles. The mini menu in the bottom corner makes combat fast and fun. The animations are clean, and the colors explode on the screen. All of that started with KH1, and 25 years later it still has an impact. So I like the term KH-like, and I think it’s fair to call the gameplay a subgenre of an action RPG. 

EP: The variety of gameplay through exploring different worlds like Atlantica certainly adds to the game, and I completely expect some pushback in the comments on giving the gameplay a score of one. 

For me, without a seasoned player like Will to tap for questions, I found myself really lost trying to find my own unique yet effective way to play. For instance, switching between spells for Sora to use based on different worlds or enemy types was not super intuitive, and I wasted a ton of time battling some of the bosses with all the wrong combinations of magic. And don’t even get me started on customizing Gummi Ships! 

In the game, Gummi Ships are used to travel between each world. As you explore, you collect a number of parts to customize these ships as well as blueprints to help guide you in the customization aspect. 

However, the Gummi Ship customization mechanic alone is worth deducting a point. While there is a tutorial, nothing about this system flows or is intuitive. Again, I understand it’s an older game and to have so many features in a title from the early 2000s is already impressive, but Gummi Ship customization is more of a headache than anything else. I’d rather have to navigate my way through Monstro forwards and backwards four times over with no guides before trying to customize Gummi Ships.  

Another aspect of the gameplay I really enjoyed was the ease with which you can level up Sora, Donald, and Goofy. It’s reminiscent of other games from the early 2000s like Pokémon LeafGreen Version, where if you simply are willing to devote the time to battling and training up, by the time you reach a point in the game where you need to be strong, you’re already there from naturally exploring and fighting your way through the world. 

At this stage, I have yet to play any of the sequels to KH1, though I certainly will. That being said, I can’t evaluate the game against its successors. As a stand-alone title, the clunkiness of revamping an old platformer, combined with the lack of being able to purchase a player’s guide from my local GameStop, makes this an imperfect title for gameplay for me. 

Story: 1 (WT) // 1 (EP)

WT: Man, your guess is as good as mine. I think one of the reasons I play this game over and over again is so I can truly understand the story from beginning to end. I will say, out of all the KH games, this one has the most straightforward story. 

You play as Sora. An adventurous boy who wants to go and see the world with his two best friends, Riku and Kairi. Together they build a raft, but the night before their maiden voyage, their island gets attacked by these mysterious creatures called Heartless. Their island gets plunged into darkness, and the three friends get separated. So Sora starts out on his quest to find his friends in other worlds. 

That’s the foundation of this story, and the game never steers away from it. But that’s where the simplicity ends. What are the Heartless? Where do they come from? Why are they drawn to the Keyblade? What exactly is Kingdom Hearts? Who is Ansem? All great questions, and as you play more games, you get some answers, but those answers bring five times more questions. 

Other than the confusion of the overarching story, the game has a secondary job of creating extra stories in each Disney World. In Wonderland, you need to prove Alice is innocent only to have her disappear at the end of the story. Turns out Alice is a Princess of Heart, which is kind of, sort of important to the main story. So that’s cool. But then you have worlds like Halloween Town where you basically learn what a heart is actually made of. No real importance or meaning to the main plot; it’s just there for the sake of being there. 

Not every world needs to be a Traverse Town, but the stories in the Disney worlds aren’t that important, and I think that matters. A world like Monstro is important. Riku succumbs to the darkness in his heart and has real conflict with Sora. That leads into Neverland and concludes in Hollow Bastion. There is real story progression with a throughline between the Disney worlds and the overall plot. It’s okay to have a break in the action or a side quest like the Coliseum, but other worlds feel like filler and a chance to run around a Disney movie. 

The Achilles’ Heel in this franchise will always be its story, but you do fall in love with the characters. You do pay extra attention when main plot points happen, just in case you learn something new. I’ve spent years trying to fully understand this story, with all the spin-offs, mobile games, and YouTube videos breaking everything down. The web is there; it’s an interesting web and a web I’m invested in, but it’s still an intricately spun web I don’t think will ever fully be untangled, but I’ll never stop trying. 

EP: Again, if we are viewing KH1 as a standalone game for the sake of this review, I think the story holds its own enough with a pretty solid lesson to be learned here for younger players, especially given that you’re able to complete the journals and find Ansem’s Reports, which help offer more context that will, of course, lead to a much broader story. 

However, once again, we need to remember that this game was initially created for a younger audience, so let’s be honest: those kids aren’t reading those reports. But they’re there if you want them! 

Is there confusion? Of course, would it be a Kingdom Hearts game without some confusion? Certainly not. Yet, I don’t think its story is too complicated for anyone to follow, especially when compared to its gameplay. 

Atmosphere: 2 (WT) // 2 (EP)

WT: I wish I could give atmosphere a three and make this game a perfect 10/10, but I can’t, so allow me to gush over how much I love the atmosphere in this game. 

The secret to Kingdom Hearts’ success is the music. Yoko Shimomura nails every single world, battle theme, and song on the soundtrack. Utada Hikaru and Kaoru Wada also deserve credit for their works on “Simple and Clean” and “Sanctuary,” respectively. And don’t even get me started on “Dearly Beloved.” I will sit at the menu screen to hear that beautiful piano play one of the greatest songs in videogame history. 

If you didn’t know, if you sit on the menu long enough, it will cut to the orchestral version of “Simple and Clean” called “Hikari,” and it is breathtaking. I will sit and watch it every time before I load up the game. I played the trumpet in elementary school and moved to the percussion in high school, so concert band and orchestral music hold a special place in my heart. 

I love the music so much I made a Spotify Playlist dedicated to Kingdom Hearts. It includes multiple fan versions as well as the official versions. I’ve been listening to it as I write this.  I’ll warn you now, there are 915 songs in this playlist, and it’s almost 50 hours long. There are 76 different versions of “Dearly Beloved” in it. So proceed with caution. 

Outside of the music, each world within Kingdom Hearts looks and feels very different. Traverse Town feels comfortable, and like a place I’d want to find if I was ever lost and didn’t know how to get home. Halloween Town has a dark palette similar to the movie it’s based on. Destiny Islands feels like a safe paradise with bright colors and a soundtrack that feels like a resort. 

The voice acting isn’t perfect, and the animations can look silly, especially with how their mouths move, but I don’t really care. It doesn’t take me out of the moment or out of the immersion of the world that’s been built and designed to feel unique for the player. 

EP: What can I say about the atmosphere besides simply calling it perfection?

I had heard that the franchise had great music, so that was no surprise. While some of the worlds can feel small, like Wonderland, each world completely nails the vibe of the film it’s based on. 

Even the worlds not associated with Disney IP, like Traverse Town, just feel like a place I would want to explore in real life, though hopefully with fewer Heartless. 

The music, the vibrant colors, the character design, it all hits the mark exactly as it should. 

Value: 2 (WT) // 2 (EP)

WT: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought these games. I’ve bought the HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX edition three times. Once on the PS4, once on Epic Games, and once on Steam because Epic is not my favorite user interface (UI). It’s worth the bundle. The 1.5 ReMIX comes with three full games, so you get the most bang for your buck. There are no microtransactions, no DLC, no season pass. It’s just the games and a movie version of the games that were released on the Nintendo DS or Game Boy. Why they did that is a story for another day. 

EP: As a kid, I never played Kingdom Hearts, ergo playing as a rookie in 2026. So for me, HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX was really my only option if I wanted to understand why fans like Will were so devoted to it after all of these years. Safe to say, I understand the hype. 

Because the current versions available come with so many games, $59.99 feels like a more than fair price. If KH1 were the only version available at near $60, I could see die-hard fans still even saying that is a good price, and I would say any gamer who likes Disney, even casually, would probably enjoy the game at that price given the amount of content and hours you can put into playing. 

Duration: 2 (WT) // 2 (EP)

WT: I’ve played this game from start to finish multiple times. I’ve lost count of how many, but I recently did everything there is to do in this game. I got 100% completion. Now, I never have to play KH1 again, but who knows. I’ve done everything there is to do, and I loved every second of it, even beyond platinum. 

EP: Whether you’re a completionist or simply looking to catch up on the story of Kingdom Hearts, this game is at the perfect timing threshold. Not too long, not too short. Goldilocks would be proud. 

Truthfully, unless you know exactly what to do and exactly when to do it, you’ll likely find yourself spending a lot of time taking things on in a trial-and-error fashion. Whether because you’re lost or missed a cutscene, expect to be at least a little patient with yourself as you figure it out, but thanks to the great music and atmosphere, you won’t mind getting turned around in the worlds. Though don’t shy away from using walkthroughs unless you are really up for cutting your teeth on figuring some of these levels out.  

Total Score: 9/10 (WT) // 8/10 (EP)

Despite the confusion around the story, the nonlinear plotline, and the removal of some titles from mobile markets, Kingdom Hearts has become a franchise with a nearly cult-level following and may be one of the only reasons why Disney even bothers with games today. 

Whether you’re gearing up for your first playthrough or your hundredth, one thing is clear: Kingdom Hearts 1 is still as great as it ever was. And it’s about time Disney gave it its flowers.