Square meets Disney. Who would've though it would work out this well?
Yes, it was strange. How would it work out? It didn't make sense. Disney characters? Serious?
But wow, what a surprise I was in after getting this game. In essence, the plot's about going to other worlds to lock doors and find two friends who were lost in an abnormal storm. Disney worlds that is. That's a really neat concept and it works really well.
As you know, Kingdom Hearts is an RPG and it retains that same RPG interface during and out of battle which includes "Attack, Items, Magic, Summon, etc". Except battles take place in real-time like an action game. So if you highlight the attack command and repeatedly press the X button, you'll get a chain of attacks. Outside of battle, you can customize your skills with AP points that you'll gain in the process of levelling up. In which you'll be able to junction skills with them. Don't worry about running out though, think of it as a hard-disk, you can remove the old skill and replace it with another skill with those same 3 points or whatever.
The camera works for the most part but sometimes during platforming sequences and battles it can get pretty wonky and it get s annoying when you can't see a damn thing that's happening thanks to a wall ruining your camera angle.
Although it's not deep, the gameplay is fun enough to keep you engaged.
The game's graphics at the time were pretty good. Cut-scenes are not CGI and the character models are really great. Although while playing in-game, somehow the character model of Sora isn't as good, and you could tell if you ever got a glimpse of his face up close in battle. The artistic direction though is really good, which is pretty much expected as Square had the Disney worlds for reference. Really nice. Frame rates stay at a smooth framerate too.
Most, if not all the voice-actors from the original Disney movies are back to give impressive performances in Kingdom Hearts. The voice-overs are really great. None of it sounds forced, or fake, it all works really well. Donald and Goofy sounded just like they always have on television. The soundtrack is also pretty good for the most part and suits the themes of each world well. Then again some songs come straight from their individual movies/series, such as that Winnie the Pooh theme song.
Overall Kingdom Hearts is just a great game. I love it and unless you're one of those snobbish people who think they're too cool for Disney cartoons, you'd probably love it too. Cheers.