[GAME] Kingdom Hearts (2002)
I legitimately thought I was going to have to drop this one in the first couple of hours - terrible camera, clunky controls, obtuse and frustrating quests, absolutely none of the game was fun outside of the atmosphere. Thankfully, about halfway through, the combat system develops into something a lot more mature, and the encounters start becoming a lot more strategic, with the player having to balance combat abilities and magic in interesting ways. The story also improves massively, and shifts tonally into something a lot darker, but in a way that still somehow fits that everything that came before. The frustrations never truly go away (particularly with the absurd multi-phase final boss difficulty spike) but the improvements that are there are good enough to make me want to check out the rest of the franchise.
Gameplay aside, the Disney worlds created here capture the atmosphere of their respective films perfectly. There is a really endearing lack of polish to the way these are presented - they feel massive and empty, maybe "liminal", in today's terms. Another comparison I would make is to a theatre stage. Wonderland in particular feels like I have entered a Disneyland dark ride after closing hours. A special shoutout should also be given to Halloweentown, which is by far the best world in the game and is unbelievably detailed and well executed. I was very impressed with the fact that the characters had custom skins created just for that level. The voice acting is superb and all the Disney characters talk and act just like their film counterparts.
The story, outside of the Disney vignettes, is by-and-large shonen nonsense about the power of friendship and the like. The draw here is not the overarching plot but the character interactions, and the charmingly weird JRPG dialogue. As mentioned before, I was really impressed with how the story was able to take a very somber, and at times even a little frightening, tone towards the end. I am told that the rest of the series goes a little off the rails in terms of complicated storytelling, but if the execution is anything similar to the first game, it shouldn't matter. Characters can monologue about darkness all they like - the joy of this game is in the little character moments, and that's probably what will stick with me the most.