That beginning part talking about Riku's fight basically teaching you not to be greedy with button mashing attacks... I can't believe Kingdom Hearts trained me for Dark Souls.

I was just complaining on another video that kingdom hearts fans are terrible at retelling the story of kingdom hearts. This is the first time I've seen someone actually tell the story instead of just giving a list of disconnected events that only really matter in context. With this video, you provided all the necessary context and didn't bog anything down with explanations of future games that are unrelated every couple seconds. I also really love all the tech talk since I'm making a kingdom hearts dark seeker saga demake for GBA.

One thing I always think about with the intro of the Raft building is that it's not an ACTUAL desire to leave, but moreso an activity done by kids who are starting to gain a desire of exploration. They always come to the island in a bay [as we see it later from the mainland in this and KH2] with rowboats, but they still are close to home. It's an activity that represents their desire for independence, and foreshadows them eventually going on their own. Its something for them to do together, an activity that makes them happy. Or maybe these three were planning to go out to sea with about 2 days of food and half a days worth of water, considering how they act I can see that happening they all share about 13 braincells that mostly belong to Riku on the best of days.

I never thought about how the fights against the kids on destiny island are for teaching you the combat and game mechanics. It's so interesting how game designers teach you sneakily, without you realizing it's happening. Game design really came a long way in the ps2 era.

It's a bit out of context but I just wanted to say it. It still baffles me to see that despite how good your retrospective video are, you still only have such a small amount of subscribers and view count. Yet you keep on pushing some of the best content available on youtube. I might not always agree with what you say, but you are a wholesome source of inspiration for me to not give up on my goals even though I have almost zero chances of my content ever being noticed. I genuinely hope that you will soon blow up and have the opportunity of making a living out of this.

No idea if you'll see this, but thank you for making these videos. Just came from the MGSV video. I have some form of autism, used to be called Aspergers. I have a tendency to take things at face value more than I'd like. Enough so that I can't see the depth of things that others can. I know there's more to these stories than I can see, so this is helpful for me. Helps me sound smarter when I talk about it. Thanks for your work, I deeply appreciate it!

I've wondered for about 10 years why Sora felt that he knew Hollow Bastion and why he felt like he knew the picture in Deep Jungle. I put 2 and 2 together and knew that that cadtle in the picture was Hollow Bastion but I never understood why Sora felt like that. Now it makes sense that it is because of Kairi. Thank you for answering this question for me after 10 years.

It makes perfect sense that Triton would be extremely suspicious of anyone wielding a Keyblade, especially at this point in the story. No matter how positive the actions are this time. It suits his character very well.

Tinker Bell actually helped me a LOT during my fight with Dragon Malfeficent on the ps2.

Kairi bringing Sora back always cracks me up. "Don't worry Sora, this time I'll protect you" *immediately calls to Sora for help*

The part where sora goes from being a shadow to a human again I always felt is like how Ansom is basiclly a bodyless shadow himself before enhabiting riku. Sora having a strong enough will and emotion to basically awaken and take his own shape again. Talk about achievements in ignorance.

This series was really special to me growing up. It's been amazing reliving it through someone who's passionate about the games. You get Dearly Beloved, and that's the main thing to me. Thank you, I"m really looking forward to the rest of the series!

Yk what’s crazy? Tarzan was right, Kairi was in Sora’s heart :0

I've been addicted to "retrospective/analysis/video essay" types of media recently; something about seeing a lengthy 2+ hours of content, filled with nostalgia, hits the spot. Kingdom Hearts being one of, if not my top, favorite games/series of all time, I was so excited to see someone had tackled this beast of a topic. Every minute of the entirety of 3+ hours flew by and I am only that much more excited to fire up video 2 about CoM, right now. Thank you for spending so much time making not only this video, but the others in this playlist I now have saved forever. You've earned the subscription and like, everyone else should follow suit. Cheers !

1:35:50 There's actually missable NPCs in Agrobah that are reskins of the man we see get his heart taken in Traverse Town and a reskin of Wakka both explaining how their towns were full of people but everyone is off hiding now. They're only available after clearing Agrobah and not leaving the world. They'll be occupying the stores. It's weird that they would do that at all and I wish they'd make that more of a regular thing for worlds.

Oh this clunky fucker will always have a huge place in my heart!!!! Lol many of nights spent on school days with my brother and sister trying to take out Sephiroth and Ansem and Ice Titan and just messing around looking for dalmatians ❤️❤️❤️. Still one of my favorite games of all time despite my nostalgia, i can critique it but i can never hate it. Great video!!!

Ansem: "let your heart-" Me, having played through 95% of the franchise already: "Be your guiding key."

Watching this simultaneously gave me rose tinted glasses and PTSD

I don't think I've seen anyone as critical of KH1's story as you are, and I'm thankful of that. Personally I think KH1 has the best wtitten story, but even then it's only adequate at best for a video game. Not good, but does enough of a job to keep most interested in the narrative of the game.

I work 12 hour shifts so I'm always looking for long form videos that I can listen to without having to watch the video the entire time so I'm. Glad I came across your channel, these videos are really well made and well narrated I hope to see you gain more subs ill definitely be watching every video so keep up the great work!

I have to say I've been playing this series since it first came out in 2002 when I was 11 years old. Only during this retrospective did it dawn on me that you fight a shadow version of yourself in Neverland because it's an homage to Peter Pan's Shadow coming to life...

What I find fascinating about ultima weapon is that it's always specifically the strongest *BALANCED* keychain in a given entry, but can still be outclassed in *specific* areas by other keychains, at the cost of being *less* effective in everything else.

Oh man that summer of 6th grade truly was a life altering experience. I decided to watch Naruto therefore branching me into anime and Japanese culture and I noticed just beneath my dad's Tv stand a strange checked ps3 videogame case. A young boy sitting on the throne in a anime-esque sense with a gold crown, DopNald n Gooby, (two other "games" spliced on the cover)I couldn't pinpoint exactly the emotions that looking at gave me but I just knew this game was gonna be something else. Something I needed to experience. I load it in and.......I can't even describe how dearly beloved made me feel. This ethereal experience, I for but a moment transcended the bounds of my humanity and gained consciousness into another realm. I sat there staring at the screen not entirely ready to start the game and miss out on this beautiful masterpiece. Kh1 will always be with me, in my heart blah, blah, blah. But My favorite rendering? Of Dearly Beloved is without a doubt 358/2 Days. This was the second time Dearly beloved made me reach out from within myself into another dimension and yet again I was appalled at the beauty. Too bad the gameplay is pretty poopy but Roxas is my favorite character and thank you Kingdom hearts. You are one of my Dearly Beloved pasttimes. -My Friends Are My Power. 👑🗝️⚔️

simba, mushu, and bambi are all really good summons i dont know why you think otherwise. I also find the way the jump works quite intuitive cause how long you press the button determines how high and long you're in the air much like hollow knight and some other games

The music is what brought me to this series. I never really cared much for the childish story with the Disney characters. But I dove in to the darkness. The whole over arching story is quite intriguing 😂❤

I believe the control scheme of the original PS2 release is superior to the remix versions because the right stick scrolls through the command menu and L2 and R2 pan the camera. This allows you to comfortably maneuver Sora around the battlefield while searching spells and items.

One of my favourite underwatched long form channels to listen to alongside Private Sessions and PatricianTV. It's funny how you even mention The Elder Scrolls series in this analysis making me wonder how long it will be til you give your take on them. Keep it up!

Regarding difficulty, I think its because its a kids game and being able to avoid challenge by grinding a couple levels and swapping gear around is a good way to have some challenge but also allow a parent to help the kid out without needing to play the game for them.

I have so much love for KH1. It is by far my favorite game of all time. I am 29 and I have been playing it for 22 years!! It never gets old and I've been replaying it for years. Your video here really shows your love for this masterpiece of a game and I really enjoyed it, thank you :)

What you say about stats versus skills is interesting. I must have been really terrible at the game, because anytime I tried to get involved in boss fights I would get killed all the time. I just let Donald and Goofy take care of everything while I stayed as far away as possible.

Love the video so far! I just wanted to mention my experience as a child of what you discuss at 34:43. The devs most definitely leave out plot details in their KH iterations (which I’m sure you discuss ad nauseum in your other vids, as you should!). When I was little, I didn’t mind or even really notice it that much. The first several times my brother or I played through KH1, I hadn’t yet seen Tarzan, Hercules, or The Nightmare Before Christmas. But the game did well at giving me the basic gist of “this dude be bad, and he’s currently doing bad things.” They take this a bit too far in later games, in my opinion, but maybe that’s because I have now seen all the featured movies and know just how much they’re not telling Sora/us. Storytelling isn’t great, but this issue kind of helps the pit-stop nature of the worlds (which you also discuss). This is also why I actually love how much Olympus Coliseum shows up. It gives them an opportunity to explore a different facet of the (first) film in each game instead of fighting to cram a whole plotline into a tiny filler arc.

seeing the announcement vid yesterday: oh cool, so like a new 40 ish minute kingdom hearts video every couple months interspersed with the occasional 10 minute video devoted to recoded or something. got it seeing this video in my sub box: ah.

Only an hour in but this is INCREDIBLE! I cannot fathom how many dozens and dozens of hours this took to make. Amazing work and I hope more people discover you because this is such quality conteng

In the beginning in Traverse Town you don't actually need to kill any shadows to progress the story. If you see all 4 cutscenes of Sora and Donald & Goofy missing each other and visit the Third District you can then go back in to the Accessory Shop and leave to continue the story. Killing 5 shadows is just the easier and quicker options which is the reason why most people think is the way to progress.

This is the level of depth I really wanted out of a KH video. Thank you!

Another long form analysis channel to add to my collection

Dearly beloved is such a good song. I got KH2 as a gift from my mom's friend thinking it was going to be some lame Disney trash but was admittedly drawn to it's silver color and the cool character designs. As soon as I heard dearly beloved and saw that immaculate title screen I changed my mind instantly.

You're not at all imaging things about Dearly Beloved. I have no history with this series at all, but I feel exactly what you describe. I think Halo is the only other game series to have as an iconic theme that's used so meaningfully throughout the whole series. Something to be proud of and cherish to be sure.

Kairi doesn't act like she was comatose because that's not what she experienced. She was with Sora the whole time. She went on all those adventures with him.

I honestly don't find anything wrong with the Platinum Match. It's hard to be hard and that's why I love it. Run from his pillars before he uses them and you'll be fine. He hits you without warning? Better have aeroga on and curaga on the ready for use. The abilities in the game are meant to help you with it. I don't think it is bad design if it's meant to be that unforgiving. Plus, his match is child's play compared to the data battles. Ugh, those are nuts.

After working my way through your MGS vids I cant wait to continue with Kingdom Hearts. Really appreciate the work you put into your content - love it! Please keep it up even in tough times.

1:01:14 Magic is actually key to mix into your combat if you want to defeat enemies and bosses with lower stats. For example stop works on both giant Ursula Churnabog, to the point where with a few items you can keep them from attacking at all. Summons also work well on level one, simba can clear most of final rest and mushu can kill the first fight with ansem

As always, your analysis is dangerously based and very well thought out. I'm looking forward to the next installment! I'm curious to hear you thoughts about 3. Keep up the amazing work my guy!

Not the toontown music at 57:20. Man of culture

I honesty just want the series to die. I've played every one in the series and at this point now it feels more like an obligation rather than a want.

Man I was watching patricians metal gear survive vid you were on, thinking to myself yeah this is cool but I wanna watch a kingdom hearts retrospective, but I like this dude patrician has on his vid so I'll go sub to him. Search your name, and kh1 retrospective uploaded 1 day ago. Wtf, what a treat.

Fantastic video! I've only played KH for about 15 minutes as a kid but I loved the video start to finish! A great mix of analysis and story explanation.

Hm...I DO appreciate that you use a speedrunner's input to point out inconsistencies in the Sephiroth fight, but I also want to point out that speedrunners are not always the best gauge, especially on the 'I might get lucky' front. Speedrunners are used to dealing with things as fast as possible. They want to take the shortest route between the start and end of a fight. That means in a non-deterministic fight the decisions they're making aren't necessarily to avoid damage, they're to set themselves up for the best possible scenario to deal damage quickly. They go for speed, not consistency, and they would rather scrap a run than do suboptimally, at a certain point. That means there are probably a few of those situations where there IS a safer way to play, and the runner is just not taking it because doing so would be slow.

This is probably the most in-depth video of the game that I've seen. Thanks for focusing on so much of the gameplay, as there were things I had no idea of. Good work! [Personal edit: Gameplay discussion at 38:44]

really interesting retrospective on kh1! looking forward to the next one.

Figured I'd leave a comment to boost this video in the algorithm

1:13:06 Damn that transition was clean!

If my brother ever happens to watch this, I still haven’t forgotten when you needed me to beat Cerberus for you 🤷‍♂️

I’m not going to lie, the way heartless are described in this game sound exactly like darklings, which is funny as the heartless proceed to act completely differently in future compared to how we think they are now

You're gonna get big one of these days dude, these videos are really good I hope it takes off

I feel some catharsis with you tearing apart sephiroths fight like that because it shows just how truly BS his fight is.

Loving these long-form reviews man, keep it up!

It just occured to me that it's kinda odd that Riku-Ansem fights like Riku, and that Riku uses many of the unique moves used there later in the series. You're not fighting Riku in that fight, you're fighting Ansem, you're fighting Xehanort, he should have his own unique way of swinging the keyblade around. Though Riku later using the unique moves from that boss fight, Dark Firaga (edit: forgot he used that one in Riku 2), Dark Break, and Dark Aura, does play into the theme of him claiming control over the darkness and using it for good.

wow, I'm glad i found this video in my side bar, incredibly well made, I've got the other KH video qued up now, excited

If I'm not mistaken, if you pop into Jiminy's journal, it tells you what you need to do next. Like your current objective

Can't wait for part 2 of chain of memories, liked this analysis

52:58 You knew exactly what you were doing there.

Absolutely enjoying the content, keep up the grand work chief 😊

Wow, KZfaq legit never showed me that these videos were even out until I saw the most recent one pop up in my feed just now. Glad to have several hours of good shit to dive into 👍

Great video! Thanks for the content, very fun to listen to and look back on.

Sora essentially megaman’d himself to monotony:.:🤔 2:27 Disney did this countless times, merging franchises. Kingdom hearts was just the first time they did it with video games. Outside of the occasional cameo. Before this, there was who framed roger rabbit, and wrath of the chaos god.

I have this game concept inspired by KH that I've worked on for years, and there I've made it so that the Magic option on the command menu doesn't even exist, it's just the shortcut menu. You decide what 4 spells you want to use beforehand based on your playstyle. Triangle acts as the shortcut shortcut essentially, whatever spell you place on Triangle will always be a button press away without having to hold L2 (I've assigned L1 to Target Switching here). The spell variety veers in the direction of BBS and DDD, but you're still limited to 4 spells, wide options plus restricted slots promotes developing your own preferences. Items take on a whole new level of importance, as relying on Cure robs you of an offensive spell, if you can make good use of the riskier option that is potions instead, then your attack options increase as a reward. If you're good enough to just not get hit, then I've also provided a whole category of consumable items that do more than just refill your bars, 20 second long boosts to your movement or attack speed, either as separate items or combined together within a higher tier one. There's even whole ass attacks, that you can just repeatedly use, that are treated as items to put in your item slots, repeating the interplay of "cure or potions?" with a whole new tier of risk, potions or attacks? The influence items have on your gameplay changes based on your skill level, relying on cure is the most restrictive, and the further you're able to move away from that playstyle, the more fun the game becomes.

I remember when I first played it, I misunderstood the keychains and just thought they were key items, so I made it all the way to the second Riku fight in Hollow Bastion with the Kingdom Key equipped. I also love FromSoft games now, so y’know. Pretty on trend for me.

29:37: Uh Goofy, you OK there, buddy?

The L1 menu isn't limited to spells. You can also assign items, so if neccessary you can quickly pop an ether or elixir during hectic boss fights.

Comment to help with algorithm shenanigans. Good stuff. I like it.

Great video as always, really hoping you make a video on KH2 down the road.

I don't agree with all your points in this but I'm extremely happy that this game finally has a video that actually does it justice. Excited to hear your opinions on the later entries as the series just falls apart and loses the what it had. Though most fans like them, just from the title of your series I have a feeling on where you think the games ultimately headed. Personally I'm only a fan on 1, CoM, and 2 and just pretend it ended there.

Amazing retrospective g, Hoping you’re gonna get more views

I love this game so much, thanks for the content! 😊

You said that you've never heard of telling your party members to attack being used. Well, I'm here to say that I've used it. And to great success. When I was young and far less skilled, I went into more than a couple boss fights that at the time were just too difficult for me to do without getting significantly stronger first. But I found a way around that. Using level geometry, I was able to avoid most attacks that Clayton and dragon form Maleficent could use on me. Allowing me to use Donald and Goofy to chip away at their health until I felt comfortable in running out to deal the final blows. Cheap way to win a fight, but I was Eleven, and loading a save meant going back and still being stuck on the world till I got to a high enough level that you could pretty much tank your way through.

When you were talking about the menu system in combat it reminds me that ever since I switched to keyboard and mouse I can use the scroll wheel for the menus whilst still moving lol

Little correction on the Sephiroth fight actually, compare to the original version the actually modify him, specifically they make me more unpredictable compare OG and most important of all they made him much MUCH more trigger happy with the Fire Pillar attacks, in the OG he mostly use the Fire Pillar at the end of a sword attack, so you could predict it, in Final Mix he can use it whenever he want basically, specifically the big difference is in Final Mix he can teleport and when he appears immediatly use the Fire Pillar, he never does that in the OG or of he does it's very rarely in the OG, also when he retaliate after 4 hits in OG I'm pretty sure he couldn't retaliate with the fire pillar.

I’m at the part around 47:30 where you are talking about a fix for the multiple inputs needed to reach certain spells from the command menu. The fix you mentioned uses the circle button and I think that the devs purposefully left out circle as a means of allowing the player to jump before casting. Your solution wouldn’t technically remove that option, but it would definitely make it more technically challenging as you would have to jump, than press and hold L2, than cast. Almost like a street fighter combo… honestly maybe it could even be fun. But I also believe if they were to set up the shortcuts to allow for all spells to be cast on a whim, that would take away from the strategy of the gameplay. I personally believe that, although frustrating to new players, the command menu introduces a unique way of introducing skill to the game beyond learning and understanding enemy attack patterns. And I think they made the right call of keeping the quick spell slots to a minimum so players wouldn’t be frustrated about not pulling off a heal on time. I personally think even removing quick spells all together wouldn’t be that detrimental. Maybe allowing the system to be unlocked via ability’s like dodge rolling and stuff. This could even give healing items a little more usefulness since it’s a simpler input to preform quickly than cure? Anyways rant over. Liking the video so far

That intro to this video is awesome

your channel is relatively small, but this video is top knotch. good work, friend.

God, I'm 25, this series shouldn't work on me on an emotional level but IT DOES! AND I CAN'T EXPLAIN WHY TO SAVE MY LIFE!

Well fuck this was a damn good analysis. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on critical mode in kh2

Really great work here. I followed the series also for over a decade and i appreciate the hard work you did out into it. awesomo :3 edit: kairi is the girl in the secret ending back then, now its gonna get reckoned to someone else xD

Probably the best video on kingdom hearts 1 on KZfaq atm. After listening to private talk about rewatching this video I decided to do it too, and it’s so disappointing seeing the view count be so low. You’ll blow up soon enough I’m sure but it’s still frustrating seeing such good content being seemingly thrown by the wayside.

Let’s see… we got time travel, pocket universes, pocket multiverses, parallel multiverses, divination, possession, and a dance with death. With the tinkering of heart, body, and soul. Off the top of my head.

Re:coded is best handheld game in the series, and has the best use of the command deck.

That thing about Mickey not being in 3D before is wrong. 2 years before KH there was a 3D racing game by Rare called Mickey's Speedway USA, which did feature Mickey rendered in 3D. Both as an in game character and for promotional renders. Oh, and development on that game started a year before in 1999 while development for KH started in 2000.

Actually you CAN kill shadows with the wooden sword before getting the Keyblade, they just take like a billion hits because without the keyblade's buffs, Sora's attack stat is basically zero. Also they probably gave those shadows extra HP just to make the keyblade seem more impressive.

This is a truly fantastic analysis. I think you capture some points here that I have never seen another reviewer even consider. I cannot wait to watch the rest of your videos!

Crazy that this game is as old as I am

I don't think it's fair to say sora completely forgot about saving them, I just think he put it in the back of his mind, but still active, as he did this other objective and the writers understood that only hearing sora go WHERE FRIENDS every 5 mins would be a little annoying.

seeing how you describe sephy, waiting to see your take on mysterious figure from BBS. Literally unfair fight.

im cursed with being a hardcore toontown online fan and mickey was rendered in 3D in the 2001 beta build of the game. I guess they were both trying to figure it out in tandem though so this correction wasnt necessary. interesting to see the different takes though especially on how they handled his ears

Kindness to aid friends. A shield to repel all. ...I never realized the other weapons were different, as I never picked one...

If people think Sephiroth without Leaf Bracer back on the PS2 was bad, let me tell ya something. Imagine Heartless Angel without Sliding Dash.

This is pretty-much exactly what I searched for

1:56:38 Melody of Memory’s rendition of Dearly Beloved is my new favorite version.

I don’t really get the lore gone astray complaint. If you fully engage in things like D&D you’ll feel ever more lost and there’s WAY MORE SHIT you gotta learn to fully understand, and that created the genre. I think Lore that takes engagement or some research is just a matter of taste and effort. I never remember finding KH that convoluted and I got it on launch as a little kid lol

This was a fantastic video I’ve been a fan of kingdom hearts since I was a kid (KH2 is still my absolute favorite). I found this through Patrician TV’s podcast and I can’t wait for your COM video!