UPDATE 5/15/24: Turns out there's a major major major major mistake! It appears there isn't actually credible evidence Kingdom Hearts V Cast released in Japan, at all, and actually released a few months later. Meaning, it's the *third* Kingdom Hearts game, after Chain of Memories. --------------------------------- The Current Play Order Sheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSFqq-F9ypDkXpQP5VilDoQOnmlAv8V1GWauVaAjK5UDksib3M3GPnlJIdkLOSC5y2zgToO0foaJWhX/pubhtml An important note, there was a major mistake in the video near the end regarding the ordering of Union; the spreadsheet is corrected.

If we are strictly academic about it, a “true play order” of kingdom hearts would require not playing a single game in the series until you’ve gone through every single final fantasy game referenced and have watched every single Disney movie that appears in the story. If you fail to do so you will not be aware of plot critical lore and get confused when a hitherto unmentioned naked man and his gorilla friends show up. Edit: posted this 3 days before the premier, this is crazy.

"how many Kingdom Hearts games are there?"

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who thought "WOW Union Cross had the most heartbreaking scene in all of KH... WHY THE F**K IS IT A PHONE GAME!?"

As the rules state, this play order is a *play order*, meaning it doesn't include auxiliary content from things like the manga or hotels, but there's a very odd and quick little addition you can make to your play through if you want! On August 11th, 2016, Kingdom Hearts Concert -First Breath- was performed for the first time. It was of course an orchestral event but was billed to include the voice actors of Terra and Naminé at the performance. What wasn't informed in advanced was that it would include a fully voiced dialogue scene spoken in character between the two of them that has been deemed canon by route of word of god thanks to Nomura himself. The transcript isn't long, I'm not sure if there's a recording of it but it's quick to read, and it's deemed canonical in relation to Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep A fragmentary passage. If you want to add a little quick non-game engine rendered detour to your run, you can look up that quick little passage and through it in either release order (it'd go in between 16.99 and 16.991 in the list) or just read it before or after you finish Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep A fragmentary passage.

Ive never seen an "im not THAT crazy" statement fall apart so quickly

I don't understand why people act like the Kingdom Hearts series is so complex and confusing, I find this video very straightforward

I was talking to a non-gamer friend about this and I had to do a mental reset when he said "Yeah, to play kingdom hearts 3 I'd have to play kingdom hearts 1 and 2, and that just seems like too much."

"If you already played all of Kingdom Hearts, you probably did it wrong" Me playing every game at release: 👁👄👁

but wait - if you want to watch disney's hercules, you must read the prerequisite material that the story is based on. enjoy legally purchasing and reading all of Homer, Ovid and Virgil before you can even think about playing kingdom hearts

The best part of playing KH is when you meet the TWEWY characters and stop playing KH to play TWEWY

This was a really great video, and I’d love to talk more about how I feel about it, but, you guessed it, this comment was released episodically

She is NOT joking that tidbit in the preinstall olympus coliseum is extremely relevant to days

This has convinced me to experience the Kingdom Hearts series in a brand new play order where you play chain of memories and then none of the other games ever

Really thought I was gonna have to play all of Metal Gear for a second there

the HORROR upon seeing dragon quest heroes knowing youve just opened up the infinite winding expanse of musou games was indescribable omg

i didn't know anything about kingdom hearts before this video and now i'm afraid i know even less 10/10 video, another gamechamp banger

Insightful video! My only critique is you forgot to mention the point I should watch a cell phone recording of the Kingdom Hearts Concert -First Breath-. As I’m sure you remember now, this included the spoken conversation between Lingering William and Naminé regarding Terra’s soon encounter with Aqua. As all of the tracks at this concert are from the Kingdom Hearts series, this is an extension of the game’s theatre mode and cannot be ignored.

358/2 Days being XIII is just a testament to the fact that this timeline is both a. divine and intentional and b. proof that the entirety of the heartsverse is seamlessly and flawlessly crafted in on itself to make every part of it not only important, but necessary

When you started talking about X and Union X and Unchained X, I knew how fucking correct you were. When I was showing the Kingdom Hearts series to a friend of mine, while not to the same extent, I did start pausing the cutscene compilations and breaking out the whiteboard. 10/10 video!

Love that the document states "Theatrhythm has some prerequisites"

Something I noticed with the Shin Megami Tensei requirement. The series features a lot of creatures, gods, deities and demons from a lot of religions, some not even appearing in the religion's respective reading material. This would require you to devote your life to each religion at least once to completely understand the references. In addition to this, there are plenty of Yo-Kai and urban legends that aren't tied to a religion. While it's definitely possible to encounter all of them, most players wouldn't be dedicated enough to track them down. A workaround is experiencing them through the Yo-Kai Watch series, which provides a clear index explaining their existence. Of course, Yo-Kai Watch didn't just magically appear into existence, it was released through different games, meaning the series is technically an episodic release. Persona also relies on a lot of Japan specific references. Through this, I've devised a pretty simple order to experience all of these. So first in your current lifetime, convert to a religion that has reincarnation as a major element, let's just say Hinduism for example. This would provide insurance, both so you can devote multiple lives to different religions but also as a convenience to let you play more Kingdom Hearts. Of course this would have to happen before playing Final Fantasy so you can have the maximum amount of time. Die while converted and try your best to reincarnate into somebody born in Japan in 1998. This would put you at the ripe age to experience Yo-Kai Watch and also experience Japan around the time Persona 1-5 were created. This is the life you'll play Persona and Yo-Kai Watch in. After you play those games, you want to die 3 times and convert to Christianity, Islam and Judaism (You'll need to be reincarnated as a Jewish person for this step). Finally, you'll want to reincarnate to Buddhism. I saved this step for last because it has the biggest time investment and it'll also be the life you'll experience SMT and more importantly, the rest of Kingdom Hearts with. Overall, it's not the hardest barrier to entry and won't take you too long if you know what you're doing.

The best april fools joke because she's 100% serious and if i were interested in playing kingdom hearts i would follow her words religiously

One minor correction/addition about the spiral of madness you enter at the end. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy isn't actually a Final Fantasy spin-off series. It is a spin-off of the Final Fantasy Dissidia series, itself a spin-off series taking place in a parallel universe to FF1 and connected to the timeline of that game. When you previously said to play all Final Fantasy games, you didn't specify that FF spin-offs would be included. But as required reading for Theatrhythm, Dissidia adds another 3 console games, one of which is a "remake" of a Japan-only arcade cabinet. This doesn't affect the rest of the sequence, only adds to it slightly. Or requires elaboration on what is referred to by "all Final Fantasy games."

this is one of my favorite videos on youtube. I have never played a single Kingdom Hearts game, and when I have time to sit down and spend a year of my life on a single game franchise, this list will be heavily inquired by me. thank you for this genuine work of art

Fun fact. There's two Fate musou games. Which means the entire Fate franchise is prerequisite reading material. Good luck playing the multiple 100+ hour visual novels, countless manga, several anime, numerous videogames and the mobile gacha game just to play the spinoff of the series that has a spinoff thats required to play to understand the series that spawned the epilogue to Kingdom Hearts 3

I wish I could mail you a photo of my face when you dropped rule 4 and I suddenly understood that you expect me to watch Disney Three Musketeers for my Kingdom Hearts superplaythrough

You have to play "The Bouncer" as well. Because the game is referenced on Pence's shirt. You're welcome.

started this video going "ha ha, great parody" and ended with a full salute. this is the first I've heard of the VR experience, I may claim to be a KH fan, but I am like an ant before your power and strength.

Pre Video Launch: Oh boy. I just bought the All in One Bundle. I hope this makes it easier for someone who hasn't played the series yet. Post Video: Oh God.

But wait! Given the inspiration for Disney’s movies, you must also track down the original story’s versions from Europe or something!

this video feels like a spiritual successor to the old "my goal in life is to play every video game that exists" gamechamp videos

Actually, playing Chess is also required reading since they play chess. To play chess, required reading is the 6th century game chaturanga which chess was based on. Additionally, since rules were released episodically you need to play multiple versions of chess with slightly different rules (e.g. without en passant)

I love the part where she says "If you want to play all the Kingdom Heart games, you have to play all the Kingdom Hearts games"

"Gosh I'm getting into the KH series but I don't wanna miss super important beats, maybe I should follow her list" *mentions TWEWY as a KH game after RECOM* "maybe not"

The way I smiled from cheek to cheek at “I LOVE that.” near the end. HERE’S TO A MILLION MORE KINGDOM HEARTS SHENANIGANS FOR MANY YEARS TO COME!!!

I've been looking forward to this one since you started teasing it! I think that your videos were a validation for my release-order-only obsession much to the pain of my friends who just want me to play the third game in a franchise they love. As someone who has tried (with much less effort than you mind you) to do the same thing I wholly anticipated some breaking up of games mid-way and starting with others, but anticipated it more with cameo fights and new versions of games and less with games that I had no idea released episodically! I honestly thought your list was pretty tame and agreeable. I expected this to be an over the top joke going in to it with playing every version of every game on every difficulty or something, but I genuinely wish I could have experienced things this way too. I love the inclusion of FF, Disney and TWEWY as they are so integral to the experience of KH, love the idea of watching a Disney movie right before you play the world. The suggestions for people to play specific versions of specific games without demanding every single FM and original really rings true with the ones I have played. GBA Chain is so crucial to me personally after having skipped it over for years out of a dumb kid assumption that it was either the exact same (or similar) but on a cramped GameBoy. I would love to try out all the other (lost media) versions of games I didn't get a chance to play. I learned a ton about the history of the mobile entries that I skipped, and even some games that I played like 358, Coded and BBS being announced at once. The spoiler section... I had no idea... And now I am EVEN MORE jealous of Japanese super fans that got to experience everything as it came out. I didn't understand or retain any of the stuff I did see from those games so I will have to give your order a go when I have infinite free time. The rant near the end perfectly sums up how I feel with this obsession. There's always some new awesome thing that feeds from or into some other game/franchise/whatever else that you've never heard of before and you get to try something new just to see the lineage of it all. Kingdom Hearts rules for that exact reason as do a bunch of the other franchises that link to KH even just tangentially.

Even if TWEWY isnt ACTUALLY a kingdom hearts game, play it anyway because it's fucking awesome and one of the best games on the DS ever made

If this is chronological, then my favourite bit will be when you have to play 358/2 and Chain of Memories both 1 handed at the same time for a bit. *Edit for those coming after: I made this comment before the video was released.

So, looking into this, it seems our first wall where this becomes literally impossible is V-cast as the 2nd chapter (Wonderland) is currently completely lost media. This is good, though, because that means we have a potential infinity inwhich do the potentially infinite required reading for Melody of Memories.

I have never watched a video that makes me scream "FUCK YOU" every 2 minutes, each time with growing incredulous joy, quite like this one has, well done!

Today I learned that I am actually very passionate about this subject, but I will reign in my thoughts to let Gamechamp share hers.

You forgot Einhander, the PS1 shmup that KH3 draws explicit attention to.

I am impressed that you took this as far as you did and were serious about it. I’m starting to wish we got more stuff along this line, maybe not having VG myths as often is better for your mental health. Oh, and I might as well drop it in, can we get some Battle Network or Star Force VG myths in here n there? I know the BN collection released last year to great acclaim and it goes on sale fairly often. And there could be a lot of interesting ideas from it.

I still can't process how every video ms. gamerchamp makes is objectively the best video I have ever watched in my life every time they are released I have never cared about Kingdom Hearts and will probably not play any of the games, but this was still an EXTREMELY funny video, there wasn't a single second I was not entertained. And it was a PLAY ORDER LIST. FOR 47 MINUTES.

Finally someone who was brave enough to properly order the episodically released games as frighteningly real life timeline accurate as possible. I can finally loosely attempt to recreate the experience of being a Japanese child who bought Original Kingdom Hearts in 2002 that was actually Final Mix pulled from slightly in the future, And religiously followed the series from there in every bit and piece released in any capacity. Of course I just have all the games on Playstation 5 and smart phone to watch the dubbed and edited together movies of the mobile games, I’m sure buying a few DS games on top of that and personally begging G-Mode to port og Coded won’t be too hard.

Literally nobody is going to see this, but I just want to say that Miss Gamechamp's voice is so distinct that after watching one of her videos I hear everything I read narrated in her voice for about an hour or so. I am completely serious.

The Musou music kicked in and I started taking psychic damage. This video is wonderful, thank you Miss GamerChamp

Been actively playing the games in order and this video is so helpful! Thank u! ❤

I can’t wait for Gamechamp to inevitably explain why Melody of Memory should be first in the order.

i think you missed a crucial detail about smash brothers. you see, the reason why mario called sora over to the smash brothers universe is because he's the only one who can truly defeat galeem and darkhon, for galeem is a nobody and darkhon is a heartless.

I was just about to go to bed when this video premiered, but I decided to give myself a little peek to know just what I would be getting into the next morning. Upon entering and immediately seeing her list The World Ends With You completely unironically, I knew I was in for a good watch.

This may be one of my favorite videos you've ever done, excellent job! My big takeaway is that Tokyo Mirage Sessions is secretly reading material for playing the Kingdom Hearts series. A surprise, but a welcome one. Also, if anything, I feel that at least Sora's Classic Mode route could be considered a play order release

-Me: Looking at the video length, wondering when the insane shenanigans would begin. -Miss Gamechamp: 4:35

This video should be included with every copy of KH media from now on. And I'm not even joking.

Okay, so I get that rule 4 is partially a joke, but it really does help to have experienced the movies that are adapted in the Kingdom Hearts game. There was one reviewer who I would watch on a regular basis and after enough people asked him to, he decided to play and review Kingdom Hearts 3. One of his biggest complaints was that he wasn't interested in the Disney worlds because he didn't have a connection to any of the movies or characters. So, for example, he didn't care about Baymax in KH3 because he hadn't seen Big Hero Six beforehand and the game just assumes that you've seen that movie.

This is perhaps one of the funniest and best things I’ve ever found when trying to find out which is the best way to play this game with my girlfriend

So basically, if you want to understand the 40-hour Disney/Square Enix advertisements dressed up as video games, you first have to understand the entire history of human storytelling. Cool, seems doable.

The ending twist had me cackling thank you so much. This is now one of my favorite KZfaq videos.

thank you miss gamerchamp for constructing a play order than 83% of people wont listen to.

I didn't know that in order to prepare for Kingdom Hearts 4 I need to play Neopets: The Darkest Faerie.

About Fist of The North Star, it has a Yakuza spinoff game, you know what that means.

One of my favorite game series was brought up in this video and I couldn't even appreciate it because I was too busy gaping in horror at the Kingdom Hearts Play Order.

The kicker about having to play all of Fire Emblem is that Fire Emblem has directly acknowledged Smash Bros, with the Robin amiibo unit in Fates saying that he was just in a battle where he was launching fighters and they were launching him, and Fire Emblem Heroes directly quotes Byleth's reveal trailer in a Forging Bonds event. Meaning you not only have to play Smash 4 before going into Fates, you also have to play all franchises represented in Super Smash Bros. And the fact that owning Melody of Memory unlocks a song in Smash Ultimate doesn't help that order.

I'm going to discuss the plot twist spoiler, so some blank lines: - Given that the games were released episodically and concurrently, I think it's quite likely that the plot twist that makes it relevant was conceptualized and developed after initial marketing for the remake. So, given you know the plot twist exists, it should be sufficient to play the remake up to the point that development decision was made, and at that point start playing the original. Since you're already acquiring Sqare Enix to be able to play the original you might be able to find out when that decision was made

"This list is not a joke." Ok I believe you.

I just got to the part where you tell us to play The World Ends With You, and I 100 percent agree that the World Ends With You is a Kingdom Hearts game. Hearing that music in the video made me very happy.

I’m definitely gonna call it “Buncha days” from now on

As a diehard fan, I can confirm that Gamechamp's order is the correct order

Nobody that I saw talking about how Devil May Cry crosses over with Shin Megami Tensei so you have to play every Devil May Cry. And brother is that worth its own play order list. That also means playing the Bayonetta games too.

When you started talking about playing Coded in the episodic release order, I was filled with dreaded anticipation of X[CHI] and Union Cross.

I'm very glad you brought up that spoiler section because I found out about it in ONE video of the many "Watch this before playing KH3" videos before KH3's release and no one else brought it up despite being kind of important as to why certain characters act the way they did.

Miss Gamerchamp, I dont want to play this franchise anymore.

Was just thinking i haven't seen a video from you in a while... glad I could fathom it into existence

I really like this video! I learned about a few things here, like the pre-install episodes of coded. It’s interesting to think about what it means to be a Kingdom Hearts game and which games help people understand the story and the evolution of the gameplay. Personally, I am not going to tell my aunt who has never played a Kingdom Hearts game before that she has to emulate an unplayable mobile game if she wants to get into this series. There is this one channel I watched where a man nearly quit playing the series because he, at his viewers' request, watched all the unvoiced cutscenes in χ, unchained χ, and Union Χ before playing KH3. And how many times have people asked if they can skip Re:CoM after playing like two card-based battles? When I think about how a person can get an enjoyable experience out of this video game series, I think it's fine to skip certain entries or at least return to them later. That's kind of been my journey with KH - I played Dream Drop Distance on 3DS FIRST because that was the most accessible game to me at the time. I would not recommend a new player start there now, but it was what worked for me at the time. Sometimes things don't go as neatly as they could, and that's okay. I'd still like to play CoM on the GBA someday! I'd also love to play the Japanese PS2 games and BbS FM on the PSP. I'm also cool skipping whatever gacha nonsense will surely be in Missing-Link. I know what I like and dislike by now. But mad respect to anyone who plays all these games/watches all these movies in spreadsheet order!

ACTUALLY You can't play KH3 all the way through until you complete Union X all the way through because an important ending plot twist in KH3 completely relies on you to play through the whole Union X campaign while simultaneously knowing that there was a promotion to include the names of numerous active players of the game as important Kingdom Hearts lore.

The sheer whiplash I got when I realized that ZEEBO EMULATOR is how you can play the Kingdom Hearts Vcast. Truly an almost Stop Skeletons from Fighting crossover. (I'm assuming Vcast was a Brew OS game?)

I remember trying to get you to play KH years and years ago lol. Glad to finally hear you've gotten to it.

In one of the kh concerts, nomura showed a scene of namine talking with terra which has never been seen outside of it (connects to remind), so that specific concert should be in the list. Didnt nomura also make an ARG so we could find out that the voice in the missing link trailer is sigurd? Thats also completely new and necessary information for the series and not just director commentary since it was a game as well

Just got to the part where she says playing TWEWY is required to play the entire Kingdom Hearts series and honestly? My only complaint is that she didn't take it far enough. Playing TWEWY should be a prerequisite for doing anything even vaguely adjacent to the idea of having a story. Day one of middle school language/literature and you're immediately assigned TWEWY as homework.

Gamechamp: *Voices 4 different disney character impressions* Me: So, you've chosen to use voice training for evil?

Truly, this is the most definitive, well researched, comprehensive and truly correct order to play Kingdom Hearts ever devised. It's also completely insane and I would never dare force my friends to jump through all the necessary hoops to follow it, but that's besides the point. Good job Champ you madwoman.

Are we sure this entire video is not just a way for gamechamp to release all of her madness from her challenges over the years

Totally agree Gamechamp that you have to play Final Fantasy 6,7, 8, 9, 10 and 13 before starting Kingdom Hearts. Glad someone finally said it 🙏

Champ, I have to say it was a wonderfully good thing to hear that you emphasized that gameplay and gameplay progression is another thing to consider for a list like this, and that games that are hard to get still belong on this sort of list. With the way videogame preservation is nowadays it is good to hear those sorts of comments on why some games matter, even if they might seem like they don't.

You forgot to mention that to play Kingdom Hearts III, you also need to play Einhander, as you have to fight the Schwarzegiest

when i thought the video couldn't get even more unhinged that ending was the fricking icing on the cake. my attention span is super bad nowadays but your personality was so crazy i couldn't look away. good job!

gotta love when the play order video is a compelling video game essay in disguise, I've never wanted to play kingdom hearts more than before

This order is inacurate because it doesn’t feature Damo 279’s incredible fandub of both Chi & Union Cross. This is THE way to experience those games now.

BTW, Shin Megami Tensei had a Dante Sparda cameo, that means you have to play every single one of the Devil May Cry in order to play MoM; oh and what's that, DMC started as a new Resident evl? that means you have to play EVERY SINGLE ONE RESIDENT EVIL TITLES BEFORE PLAYING MELODY OF MEMORIES

"You have to read Berserk" Welp, time to start playing Kingdom Hearts. 10 years later: It made me read Berserk, worth it

I'm pretty sure the "read One Piece" step takes as much time as every other thing mentioned here combined

Personally, I believe the following to be the correct playorder: 1. Kingdom Hearts 3 - This has a lot of characters in it, and it's good to be introduced to everyone nice and early! 2. 358/2 Days - Following up mostly on Roxas, Xion and Axel who we met in KH3. This explains more of their backstory. 3. DDD - This will explain more about Riku, who was kind of mysterious in Days. 4. Kingdom Hearts 2 - Still more Roxas, which is good to get out of the way. Also explains what happened to most of the organization from Days. 5. Chain of Memories - Might as well follow up with the rest of Org XIII. 6. Melody of Memory - A good break in gameplay, but you really need to understand this story before continuing on 7. Dark Road - The perfect time to catch up on some background lore about Xehanort, before jumping right back into his story 8. Kingdom Hearts 1 - Yes, this was the first game to release, but you can't actually play it until you know Xehanorts story, as otherwise you won't understand who this Ansem guy is or what he's doing. 9. Final Fantasy VII - Follows up on Cloud & Sephiroth, who were important in KH1 & KH2. Note: Sephiroth, depsite having silvery white hair, is not actually a Xehanort yet. This will remain to be the case until KH6. 10. Birth by Sleep - It very much is now time to follow up on some of the other people from all the way back in KH3, like Ventus, Terra and Aqua 11. Union X - [The funny joke that connects this to the rest of this playorder has been discontinued and is no longer available] 12. 0.2 - The sexiest game in the franchise! (Mickey goes shirtless in this one!!!) 13. Re:coded - honestly I dont care about this games story. The game is good though. I assume KH4 will be somewhere in the middle

This felt a normal amount of umhinged for her, then the last few minutes happened and it all made sense.

I was in tears towards the end of this video, you did an amazing job 😂 thank you!

“Wait, you’re telling me it’s all Musou games all the way down?” Gamechamp: “Always has been.”

Addendum: Zelda has a game in which Mario and Kirby characters appear and are crucial to the gameplay of said game, which opens up nearly every Nintendo game and any game a Nintendo character appears in, which opens up every game, movie, anime, manga, show, KZfaq series, and religion in which a character who appears in Fortnite appears in, which in turn opens up nearly all narrative and interactive media ever released on planet Earth, save for the original cuneiform of Epic of Gilgamesh and the Emoji Movie (2017), both of which are just non-canon so you can skip them.

Nice to see someone be upfront about release order! Especially so recently!

If you are including SMT and persona, I'm afraid you missed out All required reading . Since Persona borrows from religion and myths for Personas, then EVERY myth or Religious text should be included. So one must therefore read: The Bible The Koran The Bhagavad Gita Journey to the West Arsené Du Lupin Paradise Lost Divine Comedy A biography on Johanna Every Greek Myth and their retellings Every Roman Myth All Norse Myth William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar The Emerald Tablet And watch the Operas: Carmen Madea Der Niberlüngen trilogy

Great list, and im very happy to see someone else who remembers Dynasty Warriors: Gundam. It was one of my favourite games when i was younger, and very few people seem to know it even existed in the first place.