STACK January 2017 Issue 147

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With Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue out this month,
Mark Ankucic takes a look at why gamers regard the series so highly.
You’ll hear themes bandied around the KH
series, of hope and darkness and hearts and
love and all the elements that make sappy
anime unbearably addictive. You’ll recognise
that these themes exist in Final Fantasy,
normally encapsulated deep within superbly
outrageous Japanese metaphor, and within
Disney, normally encapsulated on the surface
following Goofy falling off something and saying
‘YAAAAAAHA HA HOOOOOOIE’.
Arguably, what separates how each franchise
handles these themes is their respected
demographics. Disney is for children and girls
in their mid-to-late twenties who still reckon
they’re a princess, and Final Fantasy is for
angsty teens and grown-up people that need a
60-hour excuse to escape their families.
KH is basically the bridge between the two;
the ‘tween’ game, where things are bright,
and colourful, and hopeful, but constantly
challenged by the new, the scary, the dark, and
the fear of things to come.
It’s the gaming equivalent of taking your
visit
40 JANUARY 2017
GAMES
FEATURE
here is no sense – not taste, or sight, or
feel – that should allow for children’s light-
hearted distractions to mix so elegantly with
manifestations of existential dread.
Yet Kingdom Hearts succeeds with the
assuredness of a runaway mine cart.
Despite its passionate following, Kingdom
Hearts is a niche title. You couldn’t blame your
average shopper from looking at the cover and
dismissing it as ‘some weird Japanese thing’; yet
the keener-eyed of them might glance again and
think ‘what the hell is Goofy doing next to a spiky-
haired, ridiculously round-eyed anime trope?'
It’s a good question, and the answer is quite
simple. Disney and Square Enix shared an office
building, and some creators got talking in an
elevator. Fast forward through what I’m sure was
the most convoluted legal and creative processes
in the history of entertainment, and voila, Cloud
Strife strides proudly alongside Donald Duck. And
it works.
It really, really works – for a few reasons.
favourite teddy with you to investigate the
noises in the dark – old enough to face the
problem, but not without button-eyed emotional
support.
For a lot of people, that’s the sweet spot,
calling back to a time of confusion and hope and
angst, all while being surrounded by faces you
love and trust.
One of the problems with franchises like God
of War is that everything you do is epic. You’re
either fighting a hundred guys at once or slaying
a city-sized monster, so the sense of scale in
the game expands and then retracts back to
normality. Epic is about juxtaposition more than
things being big and explosive all the time.
Why Kingdom Hearts Works