Day 96 of 100 Happy Gaming Days: Kingdom Hearts

When my wife and I first got together she introduced me to Kingdom Hearts, an adventure game starring a young boy named Sora, a host of Disney characters, a smattering of Final Fantasy characters and a bazillion monsters known as the Heartless. I'd never heard of it, I'd never played it, and seeing as it came from a developer I didn't particularly like, my expectations certainly weren't high.

On the surface it seemed like an obvious cash-in on FF fans and Disney fans alike, but what lay under the surface?

I agreed to try the game out, choosing the hardest difficulty setting and the Mage skill-set. My wife did warn me that this was going to be tough, but I scoffed, believing Kingdom Hearts to be a game for babies ... boy, was I wrong.

I discovered a wonderful adventure game allowing me to explore the Disney universe in a whole new way, armed with badass key-shaped sword that I can use to splat horrible creatures into nothingness. The hardest difficulty setting made Kingdom Hearts horrendously frustrating at times, but the challenge was worth every minute. It also introduced me to Disney movies I'd never even seen, Tarzan for example, it's a great movie and you're doing yourself a great disservice if you haven't seen it.

I played Kingdom Hearts for weeks determined to see the end, and I also collected all 101 of the missing Dalmatians WITHOUT A WALKTHROUGH!!!

When I played through Kingdom Hearts I thought it could match The Legend of Zelda series in terms of quality. A wonderful sprawling adventure that was a joy to explore, with so much to see and do, and the Disney characters only added to magic. A truly fantastic game.