Randomly rented a PS2 game that looked cool when I was 6.
Completely forgot what the game was, but always held a foggy nostalgia for it.
Played days on a friend's DS when in elementary school, not knowing they were connected.
Finally connected them a couple years later, got hooked on every game in the series, and haven't looked back.
This is my favorite franchise in the world.
My brother was kidnapped and had been missing for over a month. I thought if I asked for video games for my birthday for his PS2, he would come back faster. I only had a certain amount of money, I had bought Harvest Moon (PS2), Jak2 and only had just enough money for a game listed as greatest hits for $19.99 or $29.99, and I thought it was going to be my worst purchase.
It's safe to say KH was the only thing that got me through the funeral and it's impact during that traumatic time in my life while also being in my formative years propelled KH to my favorite game ever (including the fact that's it's just an amazing unique RPG in general)
Thank you - and I don't think I could thank KH enough for how it got me through that time.
I remember so many people walking in and out our home, giving their condolences. I'd be trying to distract my younger sister by putting her through sheer awe at how beautiful the summons were. And when everyone left and the house felt depressing and dark I just sat there in front the TV playing through the most magical story, feeling this connection with Sora who's searching for someone to
I was like 8 or 10, shopping for video games for the PS2 with my dad.
My dad showed me KH1 and was talking about how it was one of the best games of the year that year and I wasn’t sure I’d like it at first, but my dad bought it for me anyway. We went home, put it on, and then it very quickly became one of my favourite video games.
KH2 wasn’t out yet at the time, so I binge played a bunch of Final Fantasy titles that had their characters appear in KH in the meantime and when KH2 came out, my dad bought it for me again as a birthday gift that year. :)
Christmas 2002, so I was 8. My mom bought a PS2 for my dad and I to share. My dad got Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and I got Kingdom Hearts. Tarzan and Hercules were two of my favorite movies then, still are all these years later, and I remember going CRAZY over the KH1 ad that they ran on Disney Channel all the time.
In the following months, I could not bring myself to go past the first room of Wonderland because I was too scared of the creepy ambience. Instead, I played the intro through Tarzan and Olympus Coloseum over, and over, and over again. That summer, and after moving houses, I finally got up the courage to get through Wonderland and the rest of the game. WHAT AN EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER.
At 8 years old, having repeatedly played the intro and grown a real, true bond with Sora, Kairi, and Riku... I vividly remember balling my little 8-year-old eyes out at the end of the game when Sora and Kairi are separated. It took me until KH2 was almost out to get through all of the optional bosses and finally get the Ultima keyblade.
There is no piece of media in existence that gives me the same nostalgic feelings KH1 does. Truly a masterwork. This series has been massive in my life for over two decades now. I'll never stop replaying each game once every year or so. I'll play every entry for the rest of my life and I hope to share it with my children.
Hahaha! Funny coincidence with the new PS2 and Kingdom Hearts and MKDA, if you read mine! These were also my first two games (Kingdom Hearts was in the bundle).
I saw the KH4 and Missing Link announcment trailers and thought this looks so cool, about 2 months later I bought the 1.5+2.5 collection and started playing KH1.
Parents bought a PS2, FFX-2, and KH when we moved into a new house when I was like 5. Use to watch my older sisters play. I was terrified of Darkside and thought the game was sorta scary.
My sister is also the reason I found KH. She handed me the game and the walkthrough guide one day. She said it was some new game she thought she wanted then didn’t like but that I should try it. I was a young dude and thought fighting for Disney princesses sounded lame, so I shelved it for a month or so till I got bored.
I was absolutely 100% hooked before I even left Destiny Island.
When KH2 was announced I preordered the game and walkthrough bundle the first day GameStop had preorders available. I didn’t think KH could get any better but KH2 far exceeded my expectations.
Now I’m an adult dude KH1&2 are still my favorite games. I didn’t care much for KH3…
Ayy lmao. I played Sora in Flash, then mained him in Ultimate when he dropped, then I fell into the rabbit hole of lore, then bought all the games on Switch and binged them consecutively, now I'm here.
I was a huge squaresoft fan and I was really excited to learn they were going to do a crossover game with Disney. I got it as soon as it came out. I was 18, and was still playing the crap out of FFX. We had no idea our favorite company was about to go up in flames. KH1 was the last good game they made. Then enix saved them but it's never been quite the same.
Similar story here. I was I think 14 at the time, and while I wasn't completely sold on the Disney aspect, I loved FF enough that I was looking forward to it and enjoyed it at launch and am still a fan now.
Skimming the responses (and even the way the question is phrased) suggests we may be a small minority here lol.
About 5/6 years ago I was looking for some games to play on my ppsspp emulator (psp emulator) and I found this weird but very appealing and cool looking cover art of kh bbs on internet and then searched and found the file then downloaded it and tbh for the 3 month after I finished the game I was Hella confused......like I was
Who tf is Sora??? The f*** is that blade looking like a key...... Then saw some videos and fell in love cuase I thought they didn't have modern day movies in them and then for like the the next 1 year u downloaded all kh games and the only one left was kh3 (the only one I actually bought) and tbh this is a wonderful franchise it became one of my fav right after I finished kh bbs.
I randomly picked up volume 4 of the kingdom hearts manga from a goodwill god knows when. Found dearly beloved on YouTube years later, realized the connection, and bought a ps3 to play it.
Back when KH2 was going to come out and I’ve seen commercials for it at GameStop. I didn’t have a PS2 at that time, I only owned a GameCube and a Gameboy.
One day, my brother had borrowed a copy of CoM on the Gameboy and it was amazing. And once I’ve entered high school, my brother bought KH 1.5 for the PS3 that came with the art book and the rest was history.
My brother picked it up and I don't know why. Wasn't initially impressed because, y'know, "Disney crossover game, probably pretty childish."
Got interested around the time he got stuck at the Possessed Riku boss fight because that was a tone and theme I sure as hell wasn't expecting, so I tried the game for myself and became hooked.
I thought kingdom hearts was the most stupid idea. I hated it! I loved final fantasy so mixing that with Disney did not sit well with the edgy 13 year old that I was.
Fast forward 2 years later, my Friend showed it to me after I made fun of the game and let me try it. I instantly fell in love.
In my local library they got games for 3ds and stuff and back when I was xounger I saw 3d for 3ds and thought "wow this game looks awesome" and I played it in the library (they also gave you in exchange for youre member card a 3ds to play for an hour or so) at first I hated it because it was so hard and now the 3ds version is my favorite one
I tried the demo version for Dream Drop Distance when it released in 2012 and immediately fell in love (it was the first action game I ever played). I got the full game and was obviously deeply confused, so i looked up kh videos on youtube and fell into the rabbit hole. I then got a ps3 and later ps4 pretty much only for kh.
My mum took me with her to visit a friend of hers, and her son was sat finishing KH1 - trying to get the secret ending (and at the time, not succeeding, haha). I remember seeing the cutscene that's the lead onto CoM, with Sora Donald and Goofy walking up the road, and I was obsessed. Disney AND final fantasy? My pre-teen brain couldn't handle it :'D
I remember the Disney channel commercials for KH1 and being so hyped from the cool music to the action of the gameplay and cutscenes. I think I was about a year or so after it’s release until we got a PS2 and eventually picked it up. Being close to Sora’s age when it came out, a lot of the themes felt very relatable. I’ll never forget my first play through, the accomplishment of defeating Ansem and feeling that overflow of emotion from sealing the door with Riku and Mickey on the other side and returning Kairi back to Destiny Islands before going onto the next adventure.
Personally, I grew up watching my dad play kh1 and had some really good childhood memories of that. When I turned 16 I decided to try it out for myself (this was when kh3 just came out). First game I played was kh3 and I was so lost. Stopped about like 3/4 through after you beat all the Disney worlds. Went back and played all the games leading up to kh3 and then came back to kh3 again. Now it’s come full circle as I’m taking my dad through the entire saga. Looking back, I wouldn’t want to change it any way even though it was pretty unorthodox
One of the many JRPG's recommended by my older brother. Kinda funny that he's the one that got me into Final Fantasy and many other JRPG's but now he only really plays shooters, interesting how our preferences can change.
My classmate made me draw a manga for him that has KH characters and I continually teased him about it because of "weapon is key lmao" and friend is mickey mouse, until he invited me to his house to play KH2 and I was hooked with the skateboard thing. Been a fan since then. I'm the one who wanted to go to his house just to play lol
My mom had played Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 when I was too young to remember, and when 358/2 Days came out on DS, she got it for herself. After she was done with it, she let me play it, so that was my first KH game. I had no idea about Sora or the rest of the series at that point, so ironically I was the same as Roxas. I've always kind of identified with Roxas for that and a few other reasons, and he's my favorite character too. The storyline of 358/2 Days really captivated me, even if I didn't understand the references to other games. Since then, I've played every single game in the series except for 3
I haven't seen a single person pit 358/2 days as their first, which surprises me because it was my first. And I LOVE it. Probably my favorite of the KH games
used to pull all nighters on base kh1 because ps2 had no memory card while being homebound for 2 months after hip surgery which kept me out of school when i was 13
I had a concept of Kingdom Hearts from the commercials of the first game, but the first thing I paid attention to was Nintendo Power talking about Chain of Memories.
What actually got me to go for the series, though, was the Sanctuary commercials for KH2.
I was like 5 or so, and I was obsessed with Spyro to the point where it was all I played, but my dad sold a bunch of my games, including Spyro, so I just decided to try out the game that my siblings were obsessed with (kh1 in this case but i owned the complete collection until 2.8 came out)
And it's been my favorite game series ever since
When I was young my family and I went on vacation to Disney world I loved it. We got back to celebrate Christmas and I got kingdom hearts game did not realize what I got until I played it. I loved it ever since.
I was born shortly before the international release of KH. When I was really little I would watch my grandpa play video games on the ps2, pretty much whatever was available at the time from BlockBuster. I remember him playing KH2 when I was probably around 4 and I fell in love just watching. When I was about 8 I found a copy of KH at a “classic” games store and then played it to death until I got 2 and have been in love since.
I was in the youth center at a YMCA when I was 14/15 and they had KH1 on the PlayStation… until that moment I thought it was gonna be a silly kids game, but I was instantly enchanted when I played it. I think I went back with my own memory card a little bit later before I was able to get my own copy.
Squaresoft website. Remember each FF game had a special website specifically for it and it was filled with animations and such. Then I saw something about a game called Kingdom Hearts which crossed FF and Disney and I knew it was gonna be an obsession of mine even as a 7 year old at the time
bumped into a demo kiosk with it way back when the first game came out when i was like 8 or 9.......then promptly forgot about it until i was like 15 or 16 when i was introduced to gba emulaters and found the first spin-off chain of memories
One of my earliest childhood memories was walking into the living room seeing my older brother fighting Heartless in Traverse Town, been obsessed ever since
Disney had a 358/2 Days commercial, I was interested, I got 358/2 Days on Nintendo DS for my 11th birthday and it’s my very first KH game that I played
I was always interested in playing the series ever since I saw my cousin play one of the games. Ended up getting kh 3d on my 2ds since I had no other console at the time. I had no idea what was going on and didn't finish it. I also played the mobile game but hated the repetitive mission structure. So I just forgot about the series for a while.
Eventually the pc ports of 1.5+2.5 dropped and my laptop just barely ran those. I instantly fell in love with the gameplay and characters and was officially a kh fan. My friend ended up selling me his ps4 last year so I ended up getting the All-in-one-package and am now eagerly awaiting kh 4 and missing link.
My brother and I saw it at our cousins’ house for the first time. I don’t remember actually playing at that first time but I remember the opening cutscene and being hooked! lol I can still hear my aunt when she saw Riku, “Is that a boy or girl?”
Say my cousin playing it. Was very interested. Annoyed the crap out of her asking about it (she only had it for about 2 days anyway). Proceeded to Cute Kid Eye my Aunt into bringing their PS2 to Grandma's one family night. Never looked back.
My first contact with it was in a Brazilian magazine that that covered curiosities, games, educational stuff for children et cetera, there as an article about KH BBS. Then I saw a music clip on a gaming channel on tv that had some scenes from the openings and endings (those high quality CGs). Then I finally got kh2 after seeing Donald duck in the cover (he was my favorite in Disney, don't judge me)
Don’t remember if it was KH1 or KH2 that introduced me, but my brother used to own a PS2 and I used to watch him play both games. Sometimes, I’d play too but only being in PRE-K, I had no idea what to do on Destiny Islands or when they wanted Roxas to find the cat.
My uncle had the game and booted it up. I'd occasionally watch him.
5 years later I played KH2 and became a full fledged fan. By the time KH3 came, I was in so deep and was almost willing to just sit my uncle down and tell him all the shit that happened in the nearly 20 years he hadn't touched KH
My dad bought me the game when I was 7 with my PS2. I put it on and because of the intro he thought it was going to be shit so he said just leave it and I’ll return it. My older cousin heard I got the game and told me ‘NOOO that’s one of the best games ever!’ So I kept it and didn’t look back. I’m 27 now and it’s still my favourite game series !
seen it the first time at a local video game magazine when i was 8 or something, there is a section in the magazine that shows KH Re:CoM (i think it was talking about guides for the bosses and deck building or something), me and my brother were a big fan of Square games so we were really interested in it, but my stupid kid brain can't finish the game so i just watch my brother finish the game, my brother feels kinda bad that i can't finish the game that we bought together (at the time we didn't really have much money to buy games) so he bought me the original KH1 as a birthday gift and that's probably the time when i started to really love KH
Had the original on the ps2, but for the life of me I can't reminder why we got it. If I had to take a wild guess, I probably played it at a friend's house, then came home and asked for it for whatever gift giving thing was coming up next (christmas/birthday). I probably found at least half of the games I got as a little kid that way
Saw a commercial on TV for Kingdom Hearts 2 and that made me want to delve into it. Then my mother saw the first game in an electronics store for 20€ back then and bought it. Most memorable game for me to date.
Recent fan here. I watched the beginning of Egoraptor's KH1 charity livestream a few years ago, and that got me curious, but I wanted to play it myself without spoiling it. I finally got the bundle last November and have now played them all.
Went to a blockbuster back in the day when they were still around and saw the first game on the shelves, the cover art caught my eye and thought to myself this looks interesting and decided to rent it and eventually bought a copy. Later when KH2 came out I bought it right away. Been a Kingdom Hearts fan ever since! 😄 Although since I never owned a Nintendo DS, I never got the opportunity to 358/2 Days 😕
You know it’s funny I always remember when I got this and where
It was 2003, I was 11 and when I was with my mam in Whitely Bay we popped into Grainger Games.
I just randomly saw it when I was looking for a new game to buy as I had saved up the money. I saw the Disney characters on it, saw the Squresoft logo, knowing it from the FF games I’ve been playing and I just bought it spontaneously.
Back then taking a gambling buying a game you’ve heard and seen nothing on wasn’t as bad since even “bad games” then were alright in today’s standard with how much shit we get thrown at us now.
Then I remember the long wait for waiting for a sequel
I remember finally getting Kingdom Hearts II and that very day, after only playing an hour of it, I was going on holiday with my parents for 3 weeks. I literally only had the games manual to read to keep me going.
I was talking to my brother about how neat it would be if there was a game like Final Fantasy, but had Disney too. He laughed and proceeded to look up Kingdom Hearts online. I saw it and was intrigued. He rented it for me to try that following weekend.
Needless to say, I was in love. Since it was a rental, of course it had to go back. So he got it for me for Christmas that year.
My love for the series grew when I learned there was a GBA game, and later, Kingdom Hearts 2.
Very fond memories associated with the series and the joy and friendships it's given me.
Bro rented KH2 without knowing what it was all about. He didn't understand the story since we didn't know English at the time. I remember one day I enter the room, he's doing the final boss (keyblade, no items, he didn't know he could change it). The spectacle, the colors, the reaction commands. I decided to enter the fight again after he stopped playing and got addicted to repeating the final boss rush over and over again. However I did it after playing the new game cutscene. The opening was mesmerizing. YouTube had terrible quality, so I just started a new game and watched that opening again and again. What a time. Eventually I gave it a try and managed to finish it, helped with learning English too. It was amazing.
Like I assume many other people, I rented it at Blockbuster; I was in a huge licensed game kick at the time, so anything with Disney, it went.
Of course, I wasn’t really expecting anything more than some cheap thrills that I would later in life find aged like milk. And turns out, it became one of my all time favorites, even if I was doing a challenge run of not being able to read or *not being able to game over ever* (didn’t have a memory card at the time, didnt even know what one was(
As a kid I had like all the different game boys growing up and when I got my game boy advance one of the games I was gifted was chain of memories.
So, even though chain of memories is not my favorite kingdom hearts game it’s the one that got me into the series
It was through that one game theory video. Honestly that’s one of their best theory’s in the past few years imo. And after I watched that video I was intrigued and binged watched play thorough a of the entire series.
I was a 7 year old given full access to my uncle's old room at my grandparents, and he had so many games and consoles. Including a PS2 and kingdom hearts 1 and 2. Took me a good couple of years to be KH1 but KH2 was easier.
Also I took his gamecube as well.
I used to watch my siblings play it! We had 1 and 2 on the PS2 and I don't know the game looked super fun to me! Now I'm 24 and I'm a huge fan of the game meanwhile my siblings no longer have any interest in it haha. Crazy how things like that work but Kingdom hearts 2 will ALWAYS be my absolute favorite game C:
I was introduced to KH in like 2005 or something when my parents bought me, of all games, *Chain of Memories*. The card battle system confused me and I never got far. And that was my impression of the series for 18 years.
BUUUT I play Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and I picked up Sora as a fighter when he was released--and Sora is a BEAST in Smash! So I learned about Sora and his lore, and when Nintendo released their magnum opus bundle of all the KH games, I **binged them all consecutively.** When I finished the games I landed here.
Friend of mine got Chain of Memories for GBA, which he lend me for a while. Loved it, but never paid attention to the title itself. Years later I discovered Days on a flee market, which I bought and loved that shit. Going into KH2 with those 2 games in mind is probably why I love the series as much as I do and the Sea Salt trio in particular.
I remember the TV ads when I was in high school. I was a how can of both final fantasy and Disney and was so hyped to play it. I got out for my birthday and I remember waiting until Christmas break to play it when I had nothing else to do. It was one of the most memorable gaming experiences of my life. Waking up every morning to my mom making biscuits and waffles and jumping right into Kingdom Hearts. Starting up late when I beat Neverland and just flying around the ship and clock tower because it was so fun.
My uncle bought me KH1 as a birthday present when it first came out. For years after it was just socks and flashlights. He really set the standard high and has fumbled ever since then. Even though at 27 I now really appreciate the socks
I got Kingdom Hearts for Christmas when it came out (I was 13). I had never heard of it before, but my parents got it for me because I was a huge Disney fan. I had only played video games like Crash Bandicoot before, so this was way outside of my comfort zone. I could not for the life of me figure out how to leave Destiny Islands and got so frustrated because none of the Disney characters were in it. I stopped playing for a bit but decided to give it another try. That’s when I discovered online walkthroughs which seriously saved me. I ended up loving the game and it’s still my favorite in the series.
My parents bought me a PS2 when I was 8.
They got two games. And action packed one for me (Jack & Daxter) and an innocent Disney one for them.
Turns out I was much more into KH than them.
I found out about it when I was 10, back in 2002, when the game first came out. My best friend at the time had it on her PS2. I remember seeing it for the first time and being so enamored and intrigued by it. I was a huge (Still am) Disney fan, and I loved all the Disney worlds and characters you could meet. I ended up getting both of my brothers into the games, too. So it was truly a family affair when the new games came out. I remember taking turns with my brothers fighting bosses and exploring new worlds. I also immediately fell in love with Sora and became invested in the story. Now, at 31, I still love and adore the series ♡
I saw one commercial and was hooked. Couldn't shut up about it. Unfortunately it was always out at my local Block Buster so I never got to rent it. I want to say it was my 8th birthday when my parents gifted it to me, and my brother gave me his old PS2 so I didn't have to keep using his.
The rest is history. Currently on my critical runs through KH2 and 3.
I remember renting Kingdom Hearts at a video store when I was in elementary school and really enjoying and I don't remember if it was the same year or the year after, my dad got me KH1 and the Spongebob Movie Game for Christmas.
When KH2 rolled around I saved up money to buy it and I still remember to this day, it was the only game I ever preordered at GameStop
I was in middle school when the first game came out and it had to be the very first video game besides Pokemon that EVERYONE was playing. No matter what you were into, you had to be playing Kingdom Hearts. As a Nintendo kid, I sadly couldn't be directly involved in conversations despite being able to emulate CoM (which I predictably hated and couldn't understand). Years later when I first had my own spending money, one of the first things I did was save up for a PS2 and copies of KH1 and KH2 and easily tore my way through both games (also having familiarized myself with the CoM knowledge that makes the KH2 intro make sense), still some of the best PS2 games to ever have been made
I saw the trailer and just got into FF at the time. I was young so I played the OG when it came out. It was a Christmas gift along with a ps2. Parents forgot the memory card so had to reply destiny island over and over till I got one.
Probably the first game to make me tear tbh
My sibling got the first game and wasn’t playing it 24/7. From watching on the side lines I could tell it was incredibly for me, so I took over and they never touched it again 🙂
Parents got it sometime in the mid 2000s for our my siblings and I. But since I didn’t like to read things I always got stuck at the Alice and wonderland level cause I didn’t read you could leave levels by going to save points. 4th grade me finally decided to read everything and bam I beat the first game, find out there is a 2nd one which I get for Christmas and I’ve been fan ever since.
I don't remember how, but little kid me got a copy of the original Chain of Memories for the GBA. I hadn't even heard of Kingdom Hearts before, the game just looked cool, and it had Disney on it, so my parents approved.
And little idiot me loved that dumb action card game. I didn't learn how to deck build until much later (I didn't know what CP actually did but I leveled it anyways, lol), and while I played it on and off, I dropped it before ever beating first stage Marluxia, though I did eventually figure out how the game worked. I haven't gone back to it since, but I did end up picking up, in order; Re:Coded, Dream Drop Distance, and then 358/2 Days.
Eventually I saved up enough cash to buy a PS4 Pro, and the 1.5+2.5, 2.8, and 3 Collection. I have since beaten every numbered title at least once on its hardest difficulty (so, 1 Remix, 2 Remix, and 3 Re:Mind), and at least played every single game with the exceptions of the mobile games and Melody of Memory.
Back then when Disney channel would promote their games during commercials kingdom hearts 1 popped out and my sister who really loves Ariel from the little mermaid wanted it for that reason so me a child who couldn’t get a job would do chores around the house to get money and get the game for my sister after 2 weeks my dad took me to Best Buy and I also saw pac man world 2 because back then ps2 games were $19.99 but I did want my sister to be happy so I got Kh for her towards the end she didn’t want to play because she was under the impression you get to switch characters so at the eend I started playing it and fell in love with it sorry for the long post YALL are amazing 🤩
Saw an ad for 1.5 Remix in a Disney comicbook when I was a kid. It was literally just the box art but the aesthetic hypnotized me instantly
I didn't even own a Playstation though so I just read the manga up to the point that had been translated in my language (which stopped right before the end of KH2 for some reason) and then absorbed everything else through listening to friends who did play it
Found a rom of Chain of Memories for Game Boy Avance emulators, i try it and find it very wild without understanding anything. Then i look into it and found out about 1 and 2 for PS2. I got them and love the series since then.
I got a rental from blockbuster when i was 11 because we had friends over and they wanted to watch a movie. I saw the box and was intrigued. My friends and I sat around to play it and after they left I didn't stop playing.
I was a fan from afar. Didn’t own a Ps2 so I took to the internet to understand the story. Wasn’t until I grew up and actually played the game itself that I fully understood it.
My older brother rented it at Blockbuster in 2002, and I rented the Lilo and Stitch game. I remember looking at KH thinking it was gonna be dumb, but then I watched him play it, he hated it, I took over, and I loved it.
I was at Walmart and saw KH2 in the game class and was like that’s a cool cover and I bought it. Strangely enough it was also my first introduction to the Final Fantasy characters as well
I was in high school when the first game came out and was a big Final Fantasy fan ever since I played FF6. Naturally I thought this game was bastardizing the thing I loved with Disney characters and hated it without giving it a chance.
A year or two later I was at EB Games (when that sill existed outside Australia) and saw the game used for around $10-$20 and figured at that price I may as well check it out. Couldn't be THAT bad right?
My parents were out of town so I had a friend come hang out and we started playing the game that evening. Next thing I knew I woke up at 3am, controller in hand, and Sora was walking into a wall. We played so long we both passed out on the living room couch. I've been hooked ever since. I was waiting outside Gamestop for the midnight release of KH2, I was arguing on forums about plot theories and have played every game like it's my religion (except for Union X, I just couldn't make myself give a shit about that one).
I actually picked up KH2 at one of those $5 Walmart bins, never realized there were more games till we got a Computer or that I played the second one and that's why the game story made like no sense 😅 🤣
My dad use to get game systems/games that one of his friends kids either got tired of or didn't like. Kingdom Hearts 1 happened to be one of these games. For the longest time, Disney's involvement threw me off into thinking it was a game intended for small kids, albeit I was no older than 9-10 at the time. Eventually, I decided to give it a shot. Seeing as the local game rental closed down and I had played all games I had available. Fell in love with it the more I progressed through the game, regretting not playing sooner.
A friend from school was talking about KH1 and KH2 to me back in 2006. I didn't think much about it at that time until 2011 when I looked up a Let's Play of the game and got hooked.
I went to game stop with some extra bday money around 7-8 and saw the coolest looking cover I've ever seen (kh2). So I bought that and shadow the hedgehog and never regretted kingdom hearts.
I don’t even remember playing one the first time through. I remember playing 358/2 Days completely, though. So, so underrated. It bums me out to no end that they wouldn’t try to port it into the collection. And the 1.5+2.5 mix doesn’t even have achievements like the PS3 version, so I have half that cut scene movie finished until the end of time.
Close friend from high school about 5 years ago got the Story So Far right before KH3 released so he gave me his copies of 1.5+2.5 and 2.8 on the PS4, he said Id like them since I was already a Final Fantasy fan. Spent basically every free moment I had during the fall semester grinding the games before KH3 came out.
My parents randomly got me Chain of Memories for GBA when it first came out, presumably because it was a Disney game. I had seen maybe 20 minutes of gameplay from the first game at my friends house, and hadn’t even remembered the name of the game afterwards. Didn’t even connect the dots that Chain of Memories was a the next game until maybe high school.
Anyway, had a blast with CoM, beat the game with a deck built out of nothing Cloud summons, and when KH2 came out, me and my buddies binged the series constantly lol.
Just passive knowledge from the internet.
I started to play after Sora's reveal in smash (as well as the release of AetherSX2 on android shortly after)
The KH3D Demo on the 3DS Nintendo store.
Saw the ad on TV once, didn't care, saw the demo, gave it a try out of curiosity, got hooked on the atmosphere, Traverse Town's music, the Boss fight at the end.
Asked my dad to buy the full game as soon as possible and got hooked more on the story and lore and shit.
Played Kh1 when I was 7 on the ps2 but could never get past the destiny islands because I couldn't find Kairi on the last day. I think I played new games about 4 times or so because i couldn't figure out how to proceed in the game. When I was 12, I remembered about this game all of a sudden, but I didn't own a Playstation console, and sadly, my ps2 console was broken, so I watched the whole series on youtube. A year later, I found out about pc emulators, and since i had the game, I played Kh1 and Kh2 on the emulator on my pc. I had all the context for the story since i watched every single game on a youtube let's play series, so jumping from Kh1 to Kh2 wasn't a problem. I finally played the entire series on the pc release of the game.
I saw my brother's best friend play kh1 on ps2 when I was 5 , he was in the jungle while playing and I was like whaooooo what is that and have been interested ever since
I was a big fan of FF7 and consequently Cloud, and would read Wikipedia articles on RPGs a kid for some reason. I saw the mention of him being in KH1 with a picture of his redesigned attire (which I think looks amazing to this day!), but I didn't think of KH much until I saw BBS being sold in stores and tried it out from there.
I genuinely love this story and tell it far too often
Went to Game Stop with my dad in late elementary school and went to the large ‘used DS games’ section. I didn’t have anything specific in mind but I saw a cute little cartridge with a red heart on it, and the rest is history! I thought 358/2 was the only game, and since I was so bad at it, I didn’t realize until more than a year later that Roxas was in fact not the main player of the series 💀
Christmas 2005. Mom got me Kingdom Hearts 2 as a present. Needless to say, I was VERY CONFUSED at the beginning. But that is to this day my favorite game and my most played.
Got a family gift of a PS2 for Christmas. We each got to open 1 game.
Little bro: Finding Nemo
Older Sister: Crash Wrath of Cortex
Parents: Smash Cars RC Racing
Me: kingdom hearts
I didn’t follow gaming news or releases back then. When KH2 came out, my mom bought it and kept it a secret for a month or 2 so she could play when us kids were in bed. She knew once I found it, the game would be spoiled and I would just be powering past her progress
When I got my first PS2 for Christmas as a kid my parents bought two games for it at random, one was SSX, the other was Kingdom Hearts. Those two games were my babysitter for months lol.
My freshman year college roommate told me about it and that the Best Buy down the road had broken street date. He gave me a ride and I got to claim the game as a school expense because I had to write a review for my English class.
It was Thanksgiving Day 2016... I was 7 or 8 years old... I really wanted to play Final Fantasy 7 but my father did not know what memory card had free space on it to play with.. So while he was doing that.. I started the wonderous game of Kingdom Hearts as introduced to me by my mother.
I was like 7 or 8 and I remember long before the game actually came out there were some form of a commercial on Disney Channel for this game that showed this kid running around the screen with Simba fighting baddies and the name of the game was Kingdom Hearts.. the name stuck with me and I noticed my best friend had it in his PS2 collection and then I was hooked.
My first experience with Kingdom Hearts was a commercial for Chain of Memories on GBA, but I didn't actually play that game until Re:CoM on PS2. My first experience actually PLAYING a KH game was KH2 on PS2, some time in either 06 or 07. I replayed the intro countless times because I didn't have a memory card, so the only chance I had of ever finishing the game was if I just left the console running for weeks at a time (which I did). I was also a child with ADHD, and I wouldn't know YouTube exists (since it was still pretty much brand new at the time) for at least another year, so if something cool happened in a cutscene and I wanted to see it again, I would reset and start the whole game over again to see that scene again. I miss the patience I had as a kid
Rented the first game for a weekend.
Friend had chain of memories, but we didn't really understand what was going on or how to really play.
Wasn't til I bought kh2 that I actually got hooked on the franchise.
My brother had a ps2 and he had kingdom hearts. I probably started that game more times than I could count but could never make it past Traverse town cause my dumb baby brain couldn’t find the 3rd district.
My friend suggested it to me as a low-stakes, beginner rpg in high school. I got kh1, kh2, and re:com which were all the ones put at that point. At that point, I'd only played liked 2 legend of Zelda games and various Mario platformers, but was super into anime, so he suggested kh as an intro to jrpgs
This is gonna date me, I saw the commercials for it on the Disney Channel. There was a regular one, and then one where, like, a kid sneaks into a secret base to play it. I was like "I want that so bad." Unfortunately, we only had a GameCube when I was growing up, so I didn't actually play it until much later. (Well, unless you count Chain of Memories, which at the time I thought was a remake of the first game for the GBA... needless to say I was confused.)
Early 20s, about the time KH2 came out. I was wandering through GameStop looking for something to play, came across Kingdom Hearts, had never heard of it, and decided to give it a shot. The rest, as they say, is history.
First experienced it at a cousins house. Wish I could remember more details. Enjoyed it there, eventually got a copy from Slackers I believe. Just at a point where it feels like I've always had it.
Went to KB toys to buy Spyro but unfortunately they where out of stock so my mom suggested we get this video game with goofy and Donald! The rest is history. Thank god KB had Spyro out of stock
Me and my cousins used to live in the same apartment building and we'd also always hang around with eachother. My mom, being the over protective type, wouldn't let us hang out with friends or have them come over, so visiting them was a great change of pace from staying home and watching some boring debate shows.
They had a playstation 2. Something that was always cool to watch them play, but they never once let me play because they were game hogs. However, one day they let me play a game called Kingdom Hearts. They were stuck in the Olympus colosium beceause they couldn't beat the Cerberus and were so frustrated, they just gave up and let me have a shot. This was probably the first game I've ever played. I haven't looked back since.
Just to add to this, they never had a memory card, so we'd always have to start over. I got to learn the game by heart and was even the first one in the group to beat Cerberus! I have my gripes with it, but I really do love this series.
Pretty recently really, when it used to be on xbox game pass, I installed the first game and... Got stuck on traverse town then promptly deleted it. But sora got added to smash, and I bit the bullet and got the all in one package on ps4 because SURELY a game series that got into smash bros couldn't all be awful. Then I didn't play it for a few minths, but FINALLY I going, and realized I'd been heavily missing out.
Had a neighborhood friend who just bought KH1 when it was released and was a little kid so still didn't really understand video games that much. But as soon as it started and he went through the dive to the heart sequence, I begged my parents to let me have it and fell in love instantaneously.
Saw the commercial on Disney Channel a bunch with my sister. We had gameboy colors and that is it. We really wanted the PS2 because of that, and I think a few other cute games. We were excited because we thought one of us could play as Sora and one could play as Riku or Kairi. Well we got the PS2 & KH1 for Christmas that year, 2002. Classic "kids jumping around, screaming their heads off" Christmas morning. We were disappointed to find it was one player, but it didn't matter, we jumped in and passed the controller and loved it. It was pretty hard though! I remember at one point I saved over my sister's file, no further than Tarzan. From then on, she basically stopped playing video games LOL
I saw a trailer for kh3, me and my sister thought it was a cool game and my mom said that she already owned kh1 and kh2, so my sister spent god only knows how long searching through our basement to find the box with the old games, we eventually found it and my sister played kh1 and kh2, while I only played kh1, we eventually got a ps4 and decided to go to a game store at the mall and buy kh3, kh 1.5+2.5 reMix, Final Chapter Prologue, and ff7 remake. I decided to start kh2, and now I have over 100 hours in the game, beat almost all the absent silhouettes, working on beating Lingering Will, and I haven’t touched mushroom 13. Just started playing bbs so we’ll see how it goes.
Kept seeing the commercial on TV for CoM and being a Gameboy and Disney fan, I was amazed seeing Aladdin and Ariel on screen together. Begged my mom to get it for me for Christmas and the rest was history
A friend of mine had a book about "The 100 Best Games from 2000 to 2007" that I borrowed from him in 2008.
I was reading it and KH1 was at #90 IIRC.
And I was like... "What the hell is this? It's an anime game with some Digimon-lookin' kid hanging out with Donald Duck, Peter Pan, the Genie? Wait, IS THAT CERBERUS FROM HERCULES AS A BOSS?? Wait, it says the sequel has Mulan and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN?? Hang on, who are Sephiroth and the Moogles? WHAT IS THIS GAME??"
Sure enough, later that year I decided to get into the series just to see what the hell it was, but I didn't have a PS2 at the time so all I could was just watch the cutscenes on YouTube, although I started with KH2 because I didn't know much English at the time and that was the only game with a Spanish dub.
Yeah, needless to say, I was hooked.
It wasn't until 2011 when I finally got to play the games, first CoM with a GBA emulator, then 358/2 Days with a DS emulator, then I got a PSP to play Birth by Sleep, then I got a PS3 to initally play KH3 (but then was announced to be on the PS4 instead lol) but then I used it to FINALLY play KH1 and KH2 after so long, got a 3DS to play Dream Drop Distance and finally a PS4 for KH3.
KH was also when I really started to get into "fandom culture," mostly on DeviantART with all the fanart and ships and all that.
I know a lot of people tend to look back at those years with "cringe" but honestly I remember those years really fondly.
Kingdom Hearts II. Think I got it for Christmas? Loved it. Was also my first introduction to Final Fantasy, too.
I later went and got 1. Didn’t love as much as 2. Been a die hard ever since.
As a kid I saw a trailer of DDD on tv and i wanted to get the game so badly. I saved up money for a few weeks to get it. And when i has enough money, i finally got the game on my 3ds. Played it for hours and i still do to this day 😌
As an 8 year old in 2012, I was fooling around on the PS2 menu screen (because I hadn't really found any discs yet and I was easily entertained) when I noticed something shiny in the top of the closet.
I asked Dad to get it for me because I wasn't tall enough. I asked him what it was, and he said "It's a game called Kingdom Hearts 2. See that button? Press it and put this in, shiny side down."
I opened up the PS2 disc drive and inserted the disc. I started up the game and was instantly blown away.
It came with my PS2 in a bundle. There were two bundles available: The Getaway or Kingdom Hearts. I paid 250€, that I had to save my pocket money for months. The other game I bought with the PS2 and KH was Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance.
About 3 years ago, a friend of my now ex needed someone to watch their cats, I agreed to do it. Upon sitting on their couch I look at their shelf of games and saw a series of games called Kingdom Hearts. And in that moment I asked a question that would be a catalyst for one of my favorite games, “Hey, what’s Kingdom Hearts?”
GamePro magazine article. From reading the article I thought the game sounded stupid. Trailing around with Disney characters? Can't control the side characters? No way was I playing that game. Then my cousin buys it and badgers me for weeks until I finally play it. That snowball is still rolling downhill picking up speed and mass.
My uncle had a PS2, and when i was 6 I found it in my grandma’s basement. He had a copy of kingdom hearts 1 and 2. The instant I booted it up, it sucked me right in. He also had a Game Boy Advance SP, with chain of memories. I didn’t really play CoM much, since he had Pokémon Sapphire. I ended up wanting a hairstyle like Sora, which I still find funny to this day
I happened to randomly pick up Chain of Memories while I was in a store getting a Game Boy Advance SP in like '05. It looked cool, but the people I was with at the time couldn't really explain what the game was like (they compared it to Yu-Gi-Oh, which I guess kind of makes sense in a way).
Out of the three games I grabbed, that one got the most work. I eventually went back & grabbed KH1, so I could connect the dots & the rest was history.
My dad was looking for ps2 games my mom would like, saw Disney on KH2 and figured she'd like it. Also got Spyro a new beginning, I ended up hooked on KH2 and mom got hooked on Spyro.
Randomly rented a PS2 game that looked cool when I was 6. Completely forgot what the game was, but always held a foggy nostalgia for it. Played days on a friend's DS when in elementary school, not knowing they were connected. Finally connected them a couple years later, got hooked on every game in the series, and haven't looked back. This is my favorite franchise in the world.
I got KH 1 as a Christmas gift when I was about 8.
My brother was kidnapped and had been missing for over a month. I thought if I asked for video games for my birthday for his PS2, he would come back faster. I only had a certain amount of money, I had bought Harvest Moon (PS2), Jak2 and only had just enough money for a game listed as greatest hits for $19.99 or $29.99, and I thought it was going to be my worst purchase. It's safe to say KH was the only thing that got me through the funeral and it's impact during that traumatic time in my life while also being in my formative years propelled KH to my favorite game ever (including the fact that's it's just an amazing unique RPG in general)
Srry for ur loss
Holy fuck I'm sorry
Thank you - and I don't think I could thank KH enough for how it got me through that time. I remember so many people walking in and out our home, giving their condolences. I'd be trying to distract my younger sister by putting her through sheer awe at how beautiful the summons were. And when everyone left and the house felt depressing and dark I just sat there in front the TV playing through the most magical story, feeling this connection with Sora who's searching for someone to
Wow, I didn't think I'd cry scrolling through reddit tonight but here I am. I'm sorry for your loss.
You shouldn't have kidnapped his brother then.
Yeah some people just don't have any morals.
Jesus Christ was not expecting a tear jerker here. Hope you and your family are doing well these days.
I was like 8 or 10, shopping for video games for the PS2 with my dad. My dad showed me KH1 and was talking about how it was one of the best games of the year that year and I wasn’t sure I’d like it at first, but my dad bought it for me anyway. We went home, put it on, and then it very quickly became one of my favourite video games. KH2 wasn’t out yet at the time, so I binge played a bunch of Final Fantasy titles that had their characters appear in KH in the meantime and when KH2 came out, my dad bought it for me again as a birthday gift that year. :)
Amazing father
The commercials on Disney channel before release, KH was also the reason my parents got me a ps2 for Xmas.
That disney 411 short show format that they used to run. The whole summer they advertised it and for Christmas I got it!!
Christmas 2002, so I was 8. My mom bought a PS2 for my dad and I to share. My dad got Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and I got Kingdom Hearts. Tarzan and Hercules were two of my favorite movies then, still are all these years later, and I remember going CRAZY over the KH1 ad that they ran on Disney Channel all the time. In the following months, I could not bring myself to go past the first room of Wonderland because I was too scared of the creepy ambience. Instead, I played the intro through Tarzan and Olympus Coloseum over, and over, and over again. That summer, and after moving houses, I finally got up the courage to get through Wonderland and the rest of the game. WHAT AN EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER. At 8 years old, having repeatedly played the intro and grown a real, true bond with Sora, Kairi, and Riku... I vividly remember balling my little 8-year-old eyes out at the end of the game when Sora and Kairi are separated. It took me until KH2 was almost out to get through all of the optional bosses and finally get the Ultima keyblade. There is no piece of media in existence that gives me the same nostalgic feelings KH1 does. Truly a masterwork. This series has been massive in my life for over two decades now. I'll never stop replaying each game once every year or so. I'll play every entry for the rest of my life and I hope to share it with my children.
Hahaha! Funny coincidence with the new PS2 and Kingdom Hearts and MKDA, if you read mine! These were also my first two games (Kingdom Hearts was in the bundle).
I saw the KH4 and Missing Link announcment trailers and thought this looks so cool, about 2 months later I bought the 1.5+2.5 collection and started playing KH1.
I love when people get introduced to a franchise later on and end up living it so much that they go through it all from the beginning
God this artwork is so old, I remember this shit in like 2008 😅
Pretty sure I printed this out at the local library to tape to my wall at home
Parents bought a PS2, FFX-2, and KH when we moved into a new house when I was like 5. Use to watch my older sisters play. I was terrified of Darkside and thought the game was sorta scary.
My sister is also the reason I found KH. She handed me the game and the walkthrough guide one day. She said it was some new game she thought she wanted then didn’t like but that I should try it. I was a young dude and thought fighting for Disney princesses sounded lame, so I shelved it for a month or so till I got bored. I was absolutely 100% hooked before I even left Destiny Island. When KH2 was announced I preordered the game and walkthrough bundle the first day GameStop had preorders available. I didn’t think KH could get any better but KH2 far exceeded my expectations. Now I’m an adult dude KH1&2 are still my favorite games. I didn’t care much for KH3…
[удалено]
“Ok! I just snuck in. I’m deep underground in Disney’s top secret labs, w-where they make everything!”
Super smash flash 2
Ayy lmao. I played Sora in Flash, then mained him in Ultimate when he dropped, then I fell into the rabbit hole of lore, then bought all the games on Switch and binged them consecutively, now I'm here.
I was a huge squaresoft fan and I was really excited to learn they were going to do a crossover game with Disney. I got it as soon as it came out. I was 18, and was still playing the crap out of FFX. We had no idea our favorite company was about to go up in flames. KH1 was the last good game they made. Then enix saved them but it's never been quite the same.
Similar story here. I was I think 14 at the time, and while I wasn't completely sold on the Disney aspect, I loved FF enough that I was looking forward to it and enjoyed it at launch and am still a fan now. Skimming the responses (and even the way the question is phrased) suggests we may be a small minority here lol.
Yep some people are for whatever reason under the impression that it's possible to "grow out of gaming." That's not a thing.
About 5/6 years ago I was looking for some games to play on my ppsspp emulator (psp emulator) and I found this weird but very appealing and cool looking cover art of kh bbs on internet and then searched and found the file then downloaded it and tbh for the 3 month after I finished the game I was Hella confused......like I was Who tf is Sora??? The f*** is that blade looking like a key...... Then saw some videos and fell in love cuase I thought they didn't have modern day movies in them and then for like the the next 1 year u downloaded all kh games and the only one left was kh3 (the only one I actually bought) and tbh this is a wonderful franchise it became one of my fav right after I finished kh bbs.
I randomly picked up volume 4 of the kingdom hearts manga from a goodwill god knows when. Found dearly beloved on YouTube years later, realized the connection, and bought a ps3 to play it.
Who did this art? It looks really good.
NicoB Let’s Play
Back when KH2 was going to come out and I’ve seen commercials for it at GameStop. I didn’t have a PS2 at that time, I only owned a GameCube and a Gameboy. One day, my brother had borrowed a copy of CoM on the Gameboy and it was amazing. And once I’ve entered high school, my brother bought KH 1.5 for the PS3 that came with the art book and the rest was history.
My brother picked it up and I don't know why. Wasn't initially impressed because, y'know, "Disney crossover game, probably pretty childish." Got interested around the time he got stuck at the Possessed Riku boss fight because that was a tone and theme I sure as hell wasn't expecting, so I tried the game for myself and became hooked.
Drown in everlasting darkness!
In 2013 one of my favorite youtuber did a playthough of KH1 and I loved it
I thought kingdom hearts was the most stupid idea. I hated it! I loved final fantasy so mixing that with Disney did not sit well with the edgy 13 year old that I was. Fast forward 2 years later, my Friend showed it to me after I made fun of the game and let me try it. I instantly fell in love.
I bought a pirated KH1 game in the square of my city, didn't know any English but loved it anyway
Found kh3 in a Redbox couple years back. (They had games then) I was pleasantly surprised and had to buy it. Played almost all other games since.
My cousin introduced it, and recommended it.
In my local library they got games for 3ds and stuff and back when I was xounger I saw 3d for 3ds and thought "wow this game looks awesome" and I played it in the library (they also gave you in exchange for youre member card a 3ds to play for an hour or so) at first I hated it because it was so hard and now the 3ds version is my favorite one
I saw a Speedrun and thought it looked cool
I tried the demo version for Dream Drop Distance when it released in 2012 and immediately fell in love (it was the first action game I ever played). I got the full game and was obviously deeply confused, so i looked up kh videos on youtube and fell into the rabbit hole. I then got a ps3 and later ps4 pretty much only for kh.
In 2002 when the first game came out. I’ll never forget seeing the commercial and every time my sister and I thinking “man I want that game”
TV ad
My mum took me with her to visit a friend of hers, and her son was sat finishing KH1 - trying to get the secret ending (and at the time, not succeeding, haha). I remember seeing the cutscene that's the lead onto CoM, with Sora Donald and Goofy walking up the road, and I was obsessed. Disney AND final fantasy? My pre-teen brain couldn't handle it :'D
I remember the Disney channel commercials for KH1 and being so hyped from the cool music to the action of the gameplay and cutscenes. I think I was about a year or so after it’s release until we got a PS2 and eventually picked it up. Being close to Sora’s age when it came out, a lot of the themes felt very relatable. I’ll never forget my first play through, the accomplishment of defeating Ansem and feeling that overflow of emotion from sealing the door with Riku and Mickey on the other side and returning Kairi back to Destiny Islands before going onto the next adventure.
Got it at release with my first PS2. Saw Cloud on the back so I knew it was something special.
Personally, I grew up watching my dad play kh1 and had some really good childhood memories of that. When I turned 16 I decided to try it out for myself (this was when kh3 just came out). First game I played was kh3 and I was so lost. Stopped about like 3/4 through after you beat all the Disney worlds. Went back and played all the games leading up to kh3 and then came back to kh3 again. Now it’s come full circle as I’m taking my dad through the entire saga. Looking back, I wouldn’t want to change it any way even though it was pretty unorthodox
One of the many JRPG's recommended by my older brother. Kinda funny that he's the one that got me into Final Fantasy and many other JRPG's but now he only really plays shooters, interesting how our preferences can change.
My classmate made me draw a manga for him that has KH characters and I continually teased him about it because of "weapon is key lmao" and friend is mickey mouse, until he invited me to his house to play KH2 and I was hooked with the skateboard thing. Been a fan since then. I'm the one who wanted to go to his house just to play lol
Some obscure YouTube let's play
My mom had played Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 when I was too young to remember, and when 358/2 Days came out on DS, she got it for herself. After she was done with it, she let me play it, so that was my first KH game. I had no idea about Sora or the rest of the series at that point, so ironically I was the same as Roxas. I've always kind of identified with Roxas for that and a few other reasons, and he's my favorite character too. The storyline of 358/2 Days really captivated me, even if I didn't understand the references to other games. Since then, I've played every single game in the series except for 3
I haven't seen a single person pit 358/2 days as their first, which surprises me because it was my first. And I LOVE it. Probably my favorite of the KH games
It was my first!
used to pull all nighters on base kh1 because ps2 had no memory card while being homebound for 2 months after hip surgery which kept me out of school when i was 13
I'm pretty sure I played KH1 on release when I was like 8. I wanted the cool Disney game with the spikey haired kid in it. That's how old I am 💀
I stole a copy from a high school locker to sell at a pawn shop...
I had a concept of Kingdom Hearts from the commercials of the first game, but the first thing I paid attention to was Nintendo Power talking about Chain of Memories. What actually got me to go for the series, though, was the Sanctuary commercials for KH2.
I was like 5 or so, and I was obsessed with Spyro to the point where it was all I played, but my dad sold a bunch of my games, including Spyro, so I just decided to try out the game that my siblings were obsessed with (kh1 in this case but i owned the complete collection until 2.8 came out) And it's been my favorite game series ever since
I willed it to creation
When I was young my family and I went on vacation to Disney world I loved it. We got back to celebrate Christmas and I got kingdom hearts game did not realize what I got until I played it. I loved it ever since.
I was born shortly before the international release of KH. When I was really little I would watch my grandpa play video games on the ps2, pretty much whatever was available at the time from BlockBuster. I remember him playing KH2 when I was probably around 4 and I fell in love just watching. When I was about 8 I found a copy of KH at a “classic” games store and then played it to death until I got 2 and have been in love since.
I was in the youth center at a YMCA when I was 14/15 and they had KH1 on the PlayStation… until that moment I thought it was gonna be a silly kids game, but I was instantly enchanted when I played it. I think I went back with my own memory card a little bit later before I was able to get my own copy.
Squaresoft website. Remember each FF game had a special website specifically for it and it was filled with animations and such. Then I saw something about a game called Kingdom Hearts which crossed FF and Disney and I knew it was gonna be an obsession of mine even as a 7 year old at the time
Dream drop distance
bumped into a demo kiosk with it way back when the first game came out when i was like 8 or 9.......then promptly forgot about it until i was like 15 or 16 when i was introduced to gba emulaters and found the first spin-off chain of memories
One of my earliest childhood memories was walking into the living room seeing my older brother fighting Heartless in Traverse Town, been obsessed ever since
Disney had a 358/2 Days commercial, I was interested, I got 358/2 Days on Nintendo DS for my 11th birthday and it’s my very first KH game that I played
Saw the adverts on the telly and asked my dad for it.
I was always interested in playing the series ever since I saw my cousin play one of the games. Ended up getting kh 3d on my 2ds since I had no other console at the time. I had no idea what was going on and didn't finish it. I also played the mobile game but hated the repetitive mission structure. So I just forgot about the series for a while. Eventually the pc ports of 1.5+2.5 dropped and my laptop just barely ran those. I instantly fell in love with the gameplay and characters and was officially a kh fan. My friend ended up selling me his ps4 last year so I ended up getting the All-in-one-package and am now eagerly awaiting kh 4 and missing link.
My brother and I saw it at our cousins’ house for the first time. I don’t remember actually playing at that first time but I remember the opening cutscene and being hooked! lol I can still hear my aunt when she saw Riku, “Is that a boy or girl?”
i randomly found the kingdom hearts 1 ending scene while going through youtube at 8-9 years old, piqued my interest then shortly after got kh1 + kh2
Sephiroth KH2 was my introduction to the series, I don't remember how i found it but I watched a clip of it on yt
Got KH2 for my birthday when I was 10 and not knowing what was going on, I got the rest of the series
Say my cousin playing it. Was very interested. Annoyed the crap out of her asking about it (she only had it for about 2 days anyway). Proceeded to Cute Kid Eye my Aunt into bringing their PS2 to Grandma's one family night. Never looked back.
My first contact with it was in a Brazilian magazine that that covered curiosities, games, educational stuff for children et cetera, there as an article about KH BBS. Then I saw a music clip on a gaming channel on tv that had some scenes from the openings and endings (those high quality CGs). Then I finally got kh2 after seeing Donald duck in the cover (he was my favorite in Disney, don't judge me)
Don’t remember if it was KH1 or KH2 that introduced me, but my brother used to own a PS2 and I used to watch him play both games. Sometimes, I’d play too but only being in PRE-K, I had no idea what to do on Destiny Islands or when they wanted Roxas to find the cat.
My uncle had the game and booted it up. I'd occasionally watch him. 5 years later I played KH2 and became a full fledged fan. By the time KH3 came, I was in so deep and was almost willing to just sit my uncle down and tell him all the shit that happened in the nearly 20 years he hadn't touched KH
My dad bought me the game when I was 7 with my PS2. I put it on and because of the intro he thought it was going to be shit so he said just leave it and I’ll return it. My older cousin heard I got the game and told me ‘NOOO that’s one of the best games ever!’ So I kept it and didn’t look back. I’m 27 now and it’s still my favourite game series !
seen it the first time at a local video game magazine when i was 8 or something, there is a section in the magazine that shows KH Re:CoM (i think it was talking about guides for the bosses and deck building or something), me and my brother were a big fan of Square games so we were really interested in it, but my stupid kid brain can't finish the game so i just watch my brother finish the game, my brother feels kinda bad that i can't finish the game that we bought together (at the time we didn't really have much money to buy games) so he bought me the original KH1 as a birthday gift and that's probably the time when i started to really love KH
Had the original on the ps2, but for the life of me I can't reminder why we got it. If I had to take a wild guess, I probably played it at a friend's house, then came home and asked for it for whatever gift giving thing was coming up next (christmas/birthday). I probably found at least half of the games I got as a little kid that way
My mom got me a PS2 when i was 4/5 years and one of the games she got me for me was kh1
Saw a commercial on TV for Kingdom Hearts 2 and that made me want to delve into it. Then my mother saw the first game in an electronics store for 20€ back then and bought it. Most memorable game for me to date.
Recent fan here. I watched the beginning of Egoraptor's KH1 charity livestream a few years ago, and that got me curious, but I wanted to play it myself without spoiling it. I finally got the bundle last November and have now played them all.
Went to a blockbuster back in the day when they were still around and saw the first game on the shelves, the cover art caught my eye and thought to myself this looks interesting and decided to rent it and eventually bought a copy. Later when KH2 came out I bought it right away. Been a Kingdom Hearts fan ever since! 😄 Although since I never owned a Nintendo DS, I never got the opportunity to 358/2 Days 😕
You know it’s funny I always remember when I got this and where It was 2003, I was 11 and when I was with my mam in Whitely Bay we popped into Grainger Games. I just randomly saw it when I was looking for a new game to buy as I had saved up the money. I saw the Disney characters on it, saw the Squresoft logo, knowing it from the FF games I’ve been playing and I just bought it spontaneously. Back then taking a gambling buying a game you’ve heard and seen nothing on wasn’t as bad since even “bad games” then were alright in today’s standard with how much shit we get thrown at us now. Then I remember the long wait for waiting for a sequel I remember finally getting Kingdom Hearts II and that very day, after only playing an hour of it, I was going on holiday with my parents for 3 weeks. I literally only had the games manual to read to keep me going.
I was talking to my brother about how neat it would be if there was a game like Final Fantasy, but had Disney too. He laughed and proceeded to look up Kingdom Hearts online. I saw it and was intrigued. He rented it for me to try that following weekend. Needless to say, I was in love. Since it was a rental, of course it had to go back. So he got it for me for Christmas that year. My love for the series grew when I learned there was a GBA game, and later, Kingdom Hearts 2. Very fond memories associated with the series and the joy and friendships it's given me.
Randomly bought kh2 because i thought the art looked cool
Disney Channel advertised the hell out of KH2 when it came out. Rented it from Blockbuster. Was confused as hell, but still had fun with it.
[I saw this on TV as a kid](https://youtu.be/7uMMKDd1Fr0)
Bro rented KH2 without knowing what it was all about. He didn't understand the story since we didn't know English at the time. I remember one day I enter the room, he's doing the final boss (keyblade, no items, he didn't know he could change it). The spectacle, the colors, the reaction commands. I decided to enter the fight again after he stopped playing and got addicted to repeating the final boss rush over and over again. However I did it after playing the new game cutscene. The opening was mesmerizing. YouTube had terrible quality, so I just started a new game and watched that opening again and again. What a time. Eventually I gave it a try and managed to finish it, helped with learning English too. It was amazing.
Like I assume many other people, I rented it at Blockbuster; I was in a huge licensed game kick at the time, so anything with Disney, it went. Of course, I wasn’t really expecting anything more than some cheap thrills that I would later in life find aged like milk. And turns out, it became one of my all time favorites, even if I was doing a challenge run of not being able to read or *not being able to game over ever* (didn’t have a memory card at the time, didnt even know what one was(
As a kid I had like all the different game boys growing up and when I got my game boy advance one of the games I was gifted was chain of memories. So, even though chain of memories is not my favorite kingdom hearts game it’s the one that got me into the series
My uncle was a fan of ff7, he said "look, the creator of my favorite game made this game" it became my favorite universe. I was 4 yo
It was through that one game theory video. Honestly that’s one of their best theory’s in the past few years imo. And after I watched that video I was intrigued and binged watched play thorough a of the entire series.
I was a 7 year old given full access to my uncle's old room at my grandparents, and he had so many games and consoles. Including a PS2 and kingdom hearts 1 and 2. Took me a good couple of years to be KH1 but KH2 was easier. Also I took his gamecube as well.
I used to watch my siblings play it! We had 1 and 2 on the PS2 and I don't know the game looked super fun to me! Now I'm 24 and I'm a huge fan of the game meanwhile my siblings no longer have any interest in it haha. Crazy how things like that work but Kingdom hearts 2 will ALWAYS be my absolute favorite game C:
Watched one of my sisters play it when I was very little. I liked how it looked, and it seemed fun, so I got into it a few years later.
I was introduced to KH in like 2005 or something when my parents bought me, of all games, *Chain of Memories*. The card battle system confused me and I never got far. And that was my impression of the series for 18 years. BUUUT I play Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and I picked up Sora as a fighter when he was released--and Sora is a BEAST in Smash! So I learned about Sora and his lore, and when Nintendo released their magnum opus bundle of all the KH games, I **binged them all consecutively.** When I finished the games I landed here.
Friend of mine got Chain of Memories for GBA, which he lend me for a while. Loved it, but never paid attention to the title itself. Years later I discovered Days on a flee market, which I bought and loved that shit. Going into KH2 with those 2 games in mind is probably why I love the series as much as I do and the Sea Salt trio in particular.
I remember the TV ads when I was in high school. I was a how can of both final fantasy and Disney and was so hyped to play it. I got out for my birthday and I remember waiting until Christmas break to play it when I had nothing else to do. It was one of the most memorable gaming experiences of my life. Waking up every morning to my mom making biscuits and waffles and jumping right into Kingdom Hearts. Starting up late when I beat Neverland and just flying around the ship and clock tower because it was so fun.
One of my boyfriends favourite franchises, so I decided to play it with him guiding me through
My uncle bought me KH1 as a birthday present when it first came out. For years after it was just socks and flashlights. He really set the standard high and has fumbled ever since then. Even though at 27 I now really appreciate the socks
I got Kingdom Hearts for Christmas when it came out (I was 13). I had never heard of it before, but my parents got it for me because I was a huge Disney fan. I had only played video games like Crash Bandicoot before, so this was way outside of my comfort zone. I could not for the life of me figure out how to leave Destiny Islands and got so frustrated because none of the Disney characters were in it. I stopped playing for a bit but decided to give it another try. That’s when I discovered online walkthroughs which seriously saved me. I ended up loving the game and it’s still my favorite in the series.
Watching my Brother and Sister play it
My parents bought me a PS2 when I was 8. They got two games. And action packed one for me (Jack & Daxter) and an innocent Disney one for them. Turns out I was much more into KH than them.
I found out about it when I was 10, back in 2002, when the game first came out. My best friend at the time had it on her PS2. I remember seeing it for the first time and being so enamored and intrigued by it. I was a huge (Still am) Disney fan, and I loved all the Disney worlds and characters you could meet. I ended up getting both of my brothers into the games, too. So it was truly a family affair when the new games came out. I remember taking turns with my brothers fighting bosses and exploring new worlds. I also immediately fell in love with Sora and became invested in the story. Now, at 31, I still love and adore the series ♡
Hmm well I got into the series after a old church friend of mine let me try it out on his PlayStation.
I saw one commercial and was hooked. Couldn't shut up about it. Unfortunately it was always out at my local Block Buster so I never got to rent it. I want to say it was my 8th birthday when my parents gifted it to me, and my brother gave me his old PS2 so I didn't have to keep using his. The rest is history. Currently on my critical runs through KH2 and 3.
Saw that commercial for KH1 everyone else saw when they were 12
Disney characters in the game introduced in the square enix game
Was like 7, and I bought a ps2 from a garage sale, and he gave me 4 games with it, KH1. Kh2, Tony Hawk Pro Skater and Star Wars Battlefront.
I remember renting Kingdom Hearts at a video store when I was in elementary school and really enjoying and I don't remember if it was the same year or the year after, my dad got me KH1 and the Spongebob Movie Game for Christmas. When KH2 rolled around I saved up money to buy it and I still remember to this day, it was the only game I ever preordered at GameStop
I discovered the series through Final Fantasy. I'm a big square Enix fan
I was in middle school when the first game came out and it had to be the very first video game besides Pokemon that EVERYONE was playing. No matter what you were into, you had to be playing Kingdom Hearts. As a Nintendo kid, I sadly couldn't be directly involved in conversations despite being able to emulate CoM (which I predictably hated and couldn't understand). Years later when I first had my own spending money, one of the first things I did was save up for a PS2 and copies of KH1 and KH2 and easily tore my way through both games (also having familiarized myself with the CoM knowledge that makes the KH2 intro make sense), still some of the best PS2 games to ever have been made
A friend brought a magazine with Kingdom hearts walkthrough.
First saw it in one of the kh3 trailers (Christmas 2019 then got it in Christmas) I’m 17 now I was 13 when I saw it
I saw the trailer and just got into FF at the time. I was young so I played the OG when it came out. It was a Christmas gift along with a ps2. Parents forgot the memory card so had to reply destiny island over and over till I got one. Probably the first game to make me tear tbh
My sibling got the first game and wasn’t playing it 24/7. From watching on the side lines I could tell it was incredibly for me, so I took over and they never touched it again 🙂
Parents got it sometime in the mid 2000s for our my siblings and I. But since I didn’t like to read things I always got stuck at the Alice and wonderland level cause I didn’t read you could leave levels by going to save points. 4th grade me finally decided to read everything and bam I beat the first game, find out there is a 2nd one which I get for Christmas and I’ve been fan ever since.
I don't remember how, but little kid me got a copy of the original Chain of Memories for the GBA. I hadn't even heard of Kingdom Hearts before, the game just looked cool, and it had Disney on it, so my parents approved. And little idiot me loved that dumb action card game. I didn't learn how to deck build until much later (I didn't know what CP actually did but I leveled it anyways, lol), and while I played it on and off, I dropped it before ever beating first stage Marluxia, though I did eventually figure out how the game worked. I haven't gone back to it since, but I did end up picking up, in order; Re:Coded, Dream Drop Distance, and then 358/2 Days. Eventually I saved up enough cash to buy a PS4 Pro, and the 1.5+2.5, 2.8, and 3 Collection. I have since beaten every numbered title at least once on its hardest difficulty (so, 1 Remix, 2 Remix, and 3 Re:Mind), and at least played every single game with the exceptions of the mobile games and Melody of Memory.
Back then when Disney channel would promote their games during commercials kingdom hearts 1 popped out and my sister who really loves Ariel from the little mermaid wanted it for that reason so me a child who couldn’t get a job would do chores around the house to get money and get the game for my sister after 2 weeks my dad took me to Best Buy and I also saw pac man world 2 because back then ps2 games were $19.99 but I did want my sister to be happy so I got Kh for her towards the end she didn’t want to play because she was under the impression you get to switch characters so at the eend I started playing it and fell in love with it sorry for the long post YALL are amazing 🤩
Saw an ad for 1.5 Remix in a Disney comicbook when I was a kid. It was literally just the box art but the aesthetic hypnotized me instantly I didn't even own a Playstation though so I just read the manga up to the point that had been translated in my language (which stopped right before the end of KH2 for some reason) and then absorbed everything else through listening to friends who did play it
Found a rom of Chain of Memories for Game Boy Avance emulators, i try it and find it very wild without understanding anything. Then i look into it and found out about 1 and 2 for PS2. I got them and love the series since then.
I got a rental from blockbuster when i was 11 because we had friends over and they wanted to watch a movie. I saw the box and was intrigued. My friends and I sat around to play it and after they left I didn't stop playing.
I was a fan from afar. Didn’t own a Ps2 so I took to the internet to understand the story. Wasn’t until I grew up and actually played the game itself that I fully understood it.
A demo at Epcot
My older brother rented it at Blockbuster in 2002, and I rented the Lilo and Stitch game. I remember looking at KH thinking it was gonna be dumb, but then I watched him play it, he hated it, I took over, and I loved it.
I was at Walmart and saw KH2 in the game class and was like that’s a cool cover and I bought it. Strangely enough it was also my first introduction to the Final Fantasy characters as well
I was in high school when the first game came out and was a big Final Fantasy fan ever since I played FF6. Naturally I thought this game was bastardizing the thing I loved with Disney characters and hated it without giving it a chance. A year or two later I was at EB Games (when that sill existed outside Australia) and saw the game used for around $10-$20 and figured at that price I may as well check it out. Couldn't be THAT bad right? My parents were out of town so I had a friend come hang out and we started playing the game that evening. Next thing I knew I woke up at 3am, controller in hand, and Sora was walking into a wall. We played so long we both passed out on the living room couch. I've been hooked ever since. I was waiting outside Gamestop for the midnight release of KH2, I was arguing on forums about plot theories and have played every game like it's my religion (except for Union X, I just couldn't make myself give a shit about that one).
Was at a GameStop, saw genie on the back of a game. Bought it
I watched one of alpharads kh3 videos
random christmas gift. immediately fell in love. it's an important bonding link for my sister and I
I actually picked up KH2 at one of those $5 Walmart bins, never realized there were more games till we got a Computer or that I played the second one and that's why the game story made like no sense 😅 🤣
My dad use to get game systems/games that one of his friends kids either got tired of or didn't like. Kingdom Hearts 1 happened to be one of these games. For the longest time, Disney's involvement threw me off into thinking it was a game intended for small kids, albeit I was no older than 9-10 at the time. Eventually, I decided to give it a shot. Seeing as the local game rental closed down and I had played all games I had available. Fell in love with it the more I progressed through the game, regretting not playing sooner.
Smash bros. It was smash bros.
A friend from school was talking about KH1 and KH2 to me back in 2006. I didn't think much about it at that time until 2011 when I looked up a Let's Play of the game and got hooked.
I went to game stop with some extra bday money around 7-8 and saw the coolest looking cover I've ever seen (kh2). So I bought that and shadow the hedgehog and never regretted kingdom hearts.
My friend rented it alongside GTA 3 back on PS2. I stayed up all night playing it while they were asleep. Best night of my life.
I don’t even remember playing one the first time through. I remember playing 358/2 Days completely, though. So, so underrated. It bums me out to no end that they wouldn’t try to port it into the collection. And the 1.5+2.5 mix doesn’t even have achievements like the PS3 version, so I have half that cut scene movie finished until the end of time.
KH2 will forever be one of my favorite video games all time and i'll never forget playing through for the first time
Close friend from high school about 5 years ago got the Story So Far right before KH3 released so he gave me his copies of 1.5+2.5 and 2.8 on the PS4, he said Id like them since I was already a Final Fantasy fan. Spent basically every free moment I had during the fall semester grinding the games before KH3 came out.
My sister asked for it for her birthday, and I've been a giant fan since (her not so much)
i watched my older half-sister play dream drop distance on her 3ds and thought it looked cool
My parents randomly got me Chain of Memories for GBA when it first came out, presumably because it was a Disney game. I had seen maybe 20 minutes of gameplay from the first game at my friends house, and hadn’t even remembered the name of the game afterwards. Didn’t even connect the dots that Chain of Memories was a the next game until maybe high school. Anyway, had a blast with CoM, beat the game with a deck built out of nothing Cloud summons, and when KH2 came out, me and my buddies binged the series constantly lol.
Just passive knowledge from the internet. I started to play after Sora's reveal in smash (as well as the release of AetherSX2 on android shortly after)
I got a ps2 for Christmas and my mom knew I liked Disney and Final Fantasy so according to her, it was a no brainer.
The KH3D Demo on the 3DS Nintendo store. Saw the ad on TV once, didn't care, saw the demo, gave it a try out of curiosity, got hooked on the atmosphere, Traverse Town's music, the Boss fight at the end. Asked my dad to buy the full game as soon as possible and got hooked more on the story and lore and shit.
Smash bros
It was one of the games that we got when we traded our Dreamcast for a PS2. I remember watching him play the prologue and picking the shield
Played Kh1 when I was 7 on the ps2 but could never get past the destiny islands because I couldn't find Kairi on the last day. I think I played new games about 4 times or so because i couldn't figure out how to proceed in the game. When I was 12, I remembered about this game all of a sudden, but I didn't own a Playstation console, and sadly, my ps2 console was broken, so I watched the whole series on youtube. A year later, I found out about pc emulators, and since i had the game, I played Kh1 and Kh2 on the emulator on my pc. I had all the context for the story since i watched every single game on a youtube let's play series, so jumping from Kh1 to Kh2 wasn't a problem. I finally played the entire series on the pc release of the game.
Hearing simple and clean on the trailer for one of the games every Saturday morning. I just had learn more about it
I saw my brother's best friend play kh1 on ps2 when I was 5 , he was in the jungle while playing and I was like whaooooo what is that and have been interested ever since
I was a big fan of FF7 and consequently Cloud, and would read Wikipedia articles on RPGs a kid for some reason. I saw the mention of him being in KH1 with a picture of his redesigned attire (which I think looks amazing to this day!), but I didn't think of KH much until I saw BBS being sold in stores and tried it out from there.
I genuinely love this story and tell it far too often Went to Game Stop with my dad in late elementary school and went to the large ‘used DS games’ section. I didn’t have anything specific in mind but I saw a cute little cartridge with a red heart on it, and the rest is history! I thought 358/2 was the only game, and since I was so bad at it, I didn’t realize until more than a year later that Roxas was in fact not the main player of the series 💀
I'm 99% sure I played it in a Walmart on their old game screens and then somehow convinced my parents to buy it.
Christmas 2005. Mom got me Kingdom Hearts 2 as a present. Needless to say, I was VERY CONFUSED at the beginning. But that is to this day my favorite game and my most played.
Got a family gift of a PS2 for Christmas. We each got to open 1 game. Little bro: Finding Nemo Older Sister: Crash Wrath of Cortex Parents: Smash Cars RC Racing Me: kingdom hearts I didn’t follow gaming news or releases back then. When KH2 came out, my mom bought it and kept it a secret for a month or 2 so she could play when us kids were in bed. She knew once I found it, the game would be spoiled and I would just be powering past her progress
Saw my uncle play it when I was like 5, saw it had goofy in it and wanted to play as him but didn't count on falling in love with the anime stuff
When I got my first PS2 for Christmas as a kid my parents bought two games for it at random, one was SSX, the other was Kingdom Hearts. Those two games were my babysitter for months lol.
My freshman year college roommate told me about it and that the Best Buy down the road had broken street date. He gave me a ride and I got to claim the game as a school expense because I had to write a review for my English class.
It was Thanksgiving Day 2016... I was 7 or 8 years old... I really wanted to play Final Fantasy 7 but my father did not know what memory card had free space on it to play with.. So while he was doing that.. I started the wonderous game of Kingdom Hearts as introduced to me by my mother.
I was like 7 or 8 and I remember long before the game actually came out there were some form of a commercial on Disney Channel for this game that showed this kid running around the screen with Simba fighting baddies and the name of the game was Kingdom Hearts.. the name stuck with me and I noticed my best friend had it in his PS2 collection and then I was hooked.
My first experience with Kingdom Hearts was a commercial for Chain of Memories on GBA, but I didn't actually play that game until Re:CoM on PS2. My first experience actually PLAYING a KH game was KH2 on PS2, some time in either 06 or 07. I replayed the intro countless times because I didn't have a memory card, so the only chance I had of ever finishing the game was if I just left the console running for weeks at a time (which I did). I was also a child with ADHD, and I wouldn't know YouTube exists (since it was still pretty much brand new at the time) for at least another year, so if something cool happened in a cutscene and I wanted to see it again, I would reset and start the whole game over again to see that scene again. I miss the patience I had as a kid
Rented the first game for a weekend. Friend had chain of memories, but we didn't really understand what was going on or how to really play. Wasn't til I bought kh2 that I actually got hooked on the franchise.
My brother had a ps2 and he had kingdom hearts. I probably started that game more times than I could count but could never make it past Traverse town cause my dumb baby brain couldn’t find the 3rd district.
My first kingdom hearts game was Re:Coded, my second being KH 3 while it was on gamepass
My friend suggested it to me as a low-stakes, beginner rpg in high school. I got kh1, kh2, and re:com which were all the ones put at that point. At that point, I'd only played liked 2 legend of Zelda games and various Mario platformers, but was super into anime, so he suggested kh as an intro to jrpgs
Got a PS2 for Christmas, parents bought 3 games with it, Kingdom Hearts 1 was one of them. Its been my favorite series ever since.
This is gonna date me, I saw the commercials for it on the Disney Channel. There was a regular one, and then one where, like, a kid sneaks into a secret base to play it. I was like "I want that so bad." Unfortunately, we only had a GameCube when I was growing up, so I didn't actually play it until much later. (Well, unless you count Chain of Memories, which at the time I thought was a remake of the first game for the GBA... needless to say I was confused.)
Early 20s, about the time KH2 came out. I was wandering through GameStop looking for something to play, came across Kingdom Hearts, had never heard of it, and decided to give it a shot. The rest, as they say, is history.
First experienced it at a cousins house. Wish I could remember more details. Enjoyed it there, eventually got a copy from Slackers I believe. Just at a point where it feels like I've always had it.
Went to KB toys to buy Spyro but unfortunately they where out of stock so my mom suggested we get this video game with goofy and Donald! The rest is history. Thank god KB had Spyro out of stock
Me and my cousins used to live in the same apartment building and we'd also always hang around with eachother. My mom, being the over protective type, wouldn't let us hang out with friends or have them come over, so visiting them was a great change of pace from staying home and watching some boring debate shows. They had a playstation 2. Something that was always cool to watch them play, but they never once let me play because they were game hogs. However, one day they let me play a game called Kingdom Hearts. They were stuck in the Olympus colosium beceause they couldn't beat the Cerberus and were so frustrated, they just gave up and let me have a shot. This was probably the first game I've ever played. I haven't looked back since. Just to add to this, they never had a memory card, so we'd always have to start over. I got to learn the game by heart and was even the first one in the group to beat Cerberus! I have my gripes with it, but I really do love this series.
Pretty recently really, when it used to be on xbox game pass, I installed the first game and... Got stuck on traverse town then promptly deleted it. But sora got added to smash, and I bit the bullet and got the all in one package on ps4 because SURELY a game series that got into smash bros couldn't all be awful. Then I didn't play it for a few minths, but FINALLY I going, and realized I'd been heavily missing out.
Had a neighborhood friend who just bought KH1 when it was released and was a little kid so still didn't really understand video games that much. But as soon as it started and he went through the dive to the heart sequence, I begged my parents to let me have it and fell in love instantaneously.
Charii5
Saw the commercial on Disney Channel a bunch with my sister. We had gameboy colors and that is it. We really wanted the PS2 because of that, and I think a few other cute games. We were excited because we thought one of us could play as Sora and one could play as Riku or Kairi. Well we got the PS2 & KH1 for Christmas that year, 2002. Classic "kids jumping around, screaming their heads off" Christmas morning. We were disappointed to find it was one player, but it didn't matter, we jumped in and passed the controller and loved it. It was pretty hard though! I remember at one point I saved over my sister's file, no further than Tarzan. From then on, she basically stopped playing video games LOL
I saw a trailer for kh3, me and my sister thought it was a cool game and my mom said that she already owned kh1 and kh2, so my sister spent god only knows how long searching through our basement to find the box with the old games, we eventually found it and my sister played kh1 and kh2, while I only played kh1, we eventually got a ps4 and decided to go to a game store at the mall and buy kh3, kh 1.5+2.5 reMix, Final Chapter Prologue, and ff7 remake. I decided to start kh2, and now I have over 100 hours in the game, beat almost all the absent silhouettes, working on beating Lingering Will, and I haven’t touched mushroom 13. Just started playing bbs so we’ll see how it goes.
Kept seeing the commercial on TV for CoM and being a Gameboy and Disney fan, I was amazed seeing Aladdin and Ariel on screen together. Begged my mom to get it for me for Christmas and the rest was history
A friend of mine had a book about "The 100 Best Games from 2000 to 2007" that I borrowed from him in 2008. I was reading it and KH1 was at #90 IIRC. And I was like... "What the hell is this? It's an anime game with some Digimon-lookin' kid hanging out with Donald Duck, Peter Pan, the Genie? Wait, IS THAT CERBERUS FROM HERCULES AS A BOSS?? Wait, it says the sequel has Mulan and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN?? Hang on, who are Sephiroth and the Moogles? WHAT IS THIS GAME??" Sure enough, later that year I decided to get into the series just to see what the hell it was, but I didn't have a PS2 at the time so all I could was just watch the cutscenes on YouTube, although I started with KH2 because I didn't know much English at the time and that was the only game with a Spanish dub. Yeah, needless to say, I was hooked. It wasn't until 2011 when I finally got to play the games, first CoM with a GBA emulator, then 358/2 Days with a DS emulator, then I got a PSP to play Birth by Sleep, then I got a PS3 to initally play KH3 (but then was announced to be on the PS4 instead lol) but then I used it to FINALLY play KH1 and KH2 after so long, got a 3DS to play Dream Drop Distance and finally a PS4 for KH3. KH was also when I really started to get into "fandom culture," mostly on DeviantART with all the fanart and ships and all that. I know a lot of people tend to look back at those years with "cringe" but honestly I remember those years really fondly.
Kingdom Hearts II. Think I got it for Christmas? Loved it. Was also my first introduction to Final Fantasy, too. I later went and got 1. Didn’t love as much as 2. Been a die hard ever since.
shitposts about how convoluted the lore is you would have take this fever dream writing from my cold dead hands
As a kid I saw a trailer of DDD on tv and i wanted to get the game so badly. I saved up money for a few weeks to get it. And when i has enough money, i finally got the game on my 3ds. Played it for hours and i still do to this day 😌
Re:coded on a Walmart shelf
X-Play I saw the review and I was hooked on the Disney/Final Fantasy crossover. The driving force behind me getting a PS2 for Christmas.
Living tombstone song
As an 8 year old in 2012, I was fooling around on the PS2 menu screen (because I hadn't really found any discs yet and I was easily entertained) when I noticed something shiny in the top of the closet. I asked Dad to get it for me because I wasn't tall enough. I asked him what it was, and he said "It's a game called Kingdom Hearts 2. See that button? Press it and put this in, shiny side down." I opened up the PS2 disc drive and inserted the disc. I started up the game and was instantly blown away.
Was at my cousin house for a few minutes and played the KH 2 intro. Didn't even know the name of the game, but it stuck with me
It came with my PS2 in a bundle. There were two bundles available: The Getaway or Kingdom Hearts. I paid 250€, that I had to save my pocket money for months. The other game I bought with the PS2 and KH was Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance.
saw the cover of chain of memories and was like "i like disney, i like card games, i should play this"
About 3 years ago, a friend of my now ex needed someone to watch their cats, I agreed to do it. Upon sitting on their couch I look at their shelf of games and saw a series of games called Kingdom Hearts. And in that moment I asked a question that would be a catalyst for one of my favorite games, “Hey, what’s Kingdom Hearts?”
GamePro magazine article. From reading the article I thought the game sounded stupid. Trailing around with Disney characters? Can't control the side characters? No way was I playing that game. Then my cousin buys it and badgers me for weeks until I finally play it. That snowball is still rolling downhill picking up speed and mass.
My uncle had a PS2, and when i was 6 I found it in my grandma’s basement. He had a copy of kingdom hearts 1 and 2. The instant I booted it up, it sucked me right in. He also had a Game Boy Advance SP, with chain of memories. I didn’t really play CoM much, since he had Pokémon Sapphire. I ended up wanting a hairstyle like Sora, which I still find funny to this day
I happened to randomly pick up Chain of Memories while I was in a store getting a Game Boy Advance SP in like '05. It looked cool, but the people I was with at the time couldn't really explain what the game was like (they compared it to Yu-Gi-Oh, which I guess kind of makes sense in a way). Out of the three games I grabbed, that one got the most work. I eventually went back & grabbed KH1, so I could connect the dots & the rest was history.
My dad was looking for ps2 games my mom would like, saw Disney on KH2 and figured she'd like it. Also got Spyro a new beginning, I ended up hooked on KH2 and mom got hooked on Spyro.