In recent months, I’ve been replaying most of the Kingdom Hearts games thanks to a handy collection I have on the PS4. In case you’re not familiar, this is a Final Fantasy and Disney crossover RPG created by Square Enix. The series is known for some complex lore and an emphasis on friendship and the heart. I’ve loved this series since its initial release on the PS2, even if not all of the games maintain the same quality as that first, beloved entry in the series. With the games fresh in my mind, I decided to rank them all, with the exception of those which were not playable in my collection.  This includes 358/2 Days and Coded, which I only played once many years ago, the mobile game (Union Cross, I think?), which I never played, and the rhythm game, Melody of Memories, which I also never played.  Oh, and I won’t be including A Fragmentary Passage, either, which is excellent, but only a couple hours long.

6: Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep

That’s right, after a lot of thought, I’m actually ranking this game at the bottom.  Originally released on the PSP, this oddly named game is a prequel to the series and follows three characters, Terra, Aqua, and Ventus. I should be saying three friends, but this trio has zero chemistry, and although the game insists that they like each other, I can’t say I’m terribly convinced that their relationship goes beyond “three people who are stuck together might as well get along, I guess”.

BBS is…okay, gameplay-wise.  It’s a decently fun game.  I liked getting all these cool new abilities and being able to level them up and even meld them into new, potentially stronger, abilities.  On the flipside, the worlds are very barren, and I didn’t always know why characters were visiting certain worlds or what they were doing there.  Terra gets to Neverland, for example, immediately runs into Captain Hook, and decides to help Hook defend his treasure from Peter Pan.  Ignoring Terra’s lack of discernment, why is he wasting time with this?  Dunno…

The story of BBS had a lot of potential, but that potential was not met.  The endings for each character is, actually, quite good.  Or at least, it would have been good, had the characters not been so boring and devoid of personality.  This means I only cared for them out of sympathy for what happens at the end, rather than caring about them because they were compelling characters.  Also, I don’t feel the series needed a prequel, particularly one that changes the lore of pre-existing details from the original game.  (Even though it was cool getting to see certain characters before the events of the mainline games, such as a younger Sora, Riku, and Kairi, and the first 8 members of Organization XIII before they lost their hearts to darkness.)  With weak character-building and motivations, and very barebones stories in the Disney worlds, BBS felt like a rough draft that was never fully ironed out.

Summary: BBS is an unnecessary prequel with bland characters and barren worlds.  The adequate gameplay doesn’t quite make up for those shortcomings.  Also, needing to replay the game for each of the three characters was quite tedious, even if each character had slightly different routes through each world.

5: Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

Surely it’s no surprise that this game (formerly released for the GameBoy Advance) is low on the list. And it’s really unfortunate because I think CoM has a pretty good story and some of the best writing and characters in the series. The members of Organization XIII portrayed in this game were interesting (save for Lexaeus, the poor boring guy), and I enjoyed their bickering and backstabbing. But, unfortunately, a good story can’t make up for abysmal gameplay.

Now, you might be thinking that I’m talking about the card-based gameplay, and you would only be partially correct. Having every move tied to a card that can be broken by your opponent can be quite aggravating, and I used to run out of cards all the time, leading to a miserable experience indeed. But during my most recent playthrough, I tried harder to understand the gameplay mechanics, and it wasn’t really that bad. Just have your cards already pre-sorted into sleights so that you can unleash one powerful attack after another, sprinkle in a few 0’s for breaking any combo your opponent throws at you, and you can breeze through this game with relative ease. (Even Vexen’s infamous battles were a cinch, and his shield never once posed an issue for me!)  Dare I say it, but…the boss fights in this game were actually pretty fun!

No, the worst part of CoM is the tedious, repetitive gameplay. Every world lets you choose what each room should be like based off of different options. Do you want lots of enemies, stronger magic, more friend cards? That’s not a bad idea in itself.  But the problem is, the rooms are just so dang boring and have nothing of interest. And although each world is broken up by a few story rooms, you’re still spending an hour or more per world just entering one battle after another, defeating all the enemies, then entering another battle, and defeating the enemies, and… Other KH games have fighting, of course, but the locations are more interesting, and since the battles don’t take you to another space in which to fight, it doesn’t constantly break up the action. If you’re interested in CoM, just watch the cutscenes online. Or read the manga. Don’t play this boring game!

Summary: COM’s worlds are boring and tedious.  But the card-based battles are surprisingly fun when you know what you’re doing, and the story and characters were well-written.  This might be the most boring game of the series, but it does, at least, have some redeeming qualities.

4: Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

When I revisited Dream Drop Distance, I had initially believed this would be my least favorite game.  I just wasn’t really a big fan of the overly colorful, Pokemon-esque Dream Eaters.  Pokemon and other similar games are all well and good, but it’s just not what I’m looking for in a Kingdom Hearts title, y’know.  But the more I played, the more I realized that DDD is a pretty solid game, despite some major issues.

Originally created for the 3DS, I must say, it’s a pretty fun game.  You have similar abilities to that of BBS, but rather than melding these basic abilities into better ones, you can get stronger attacks through nurturing your Dream Eaters.  Honestly, having to pet and play with my Dream Eaters was sometimes rather tedious, but they did kind of grow on me after a while. 

I tend to compare DDD and BBS because they were both handheld games that still resembled their console counterparts despite the smaller screen.  And let me tell you, Sora and Riku were more fun characters to follow than Terra, Aqua, and Ven, and the worlds felt so much more alive in DDD.  You had more interactions with the characters inhabiting the worlds, and there was more of a story to follow.  Worlds like Country of the Musketeers and Symphony of Sorcery (based off of Fantasia) were so much more fun than running through barren hallways in a spaceship in BBS’s Deep Space.  And while I’m not a big fan of the Dream Eaters, having two goofy looking critters follow you around in DDD was more fun than running around completely alone in BBS.

Comparing this game once more to BBS, while BBS had you playing each character’s story one at a time, DDD has the drop system, where, after a while, you will run out of time and have to swap to the other character.  In general, I preferred switching periodically between both characters than the system BBS had set up.  I just wish the timer would pause during boss fights because having to redo a battle because you got stuck switching to someone else halfway through was quite aggravating!

Aside from that, my biggest complaint with DDD was the main story.  While the stories in the Disney worlds were fine, I don’t like the lore changes/updates DDD made, such as introducing time travel and bringing back characters that really shouldn’t have returned.  BBS didn’t exactly update the lore in a way I liked, either, but I feel like DDD was the start of the most unforgivable changes to KH’s story…

Summary: While I hate the direction the story took in DDD, and I’m not a fan of the Dream Eaters, it’s still a pretty fun game with a good selection of worlds.  So it’s a lot more fun than COM, and the worlds are less barren than BBS.

3: Kingdom Hearts 3

Like a lot of people, my feelings for KH3 are extremely mixed.  On one hand, I felt really let down by this game.  And on the other, it is, in fact, pretty fun and has some really powerful moments near the end.  That’s why I’m placing it as high on the list as I am. Um, to start, KH3 is, graphically, extremely impressive.  I think we can all agree that the game is beautiful.  But, beyond that, everything else about the game is inconsistent.

For starters, KH3 has some huge worlds, leading to a lot of exploration (Caribbean).  But some worlds are also too big and overstay their welcome (Arendelle and Kingdom of Corona).  The story has some amazing high points, but all the good stuff is crammed near the end.  Most of the game just feels like filler, and between many of the worlds, we even get cutscenes of Sora having no idea where to go next, as if he, too, is wasting time until he figures out what to do.  Organization XIII has returned (many members have changed, though), but their presence feels kind of pointless, as they usually just appear to pester Sora verbally a bit, then leave.

By now, the story has also gotten so complicated, and in order to understand it all, people are expected to have played so many games, including handheld and mobile games, several of which were never remade on consoles.  And as I mentioned earlier, the good moments are all crammed into the end of the game instead of strewn throughout, making what should have been a satisfying conclusion to so many plot threads feel rushed.  I’m actually working on a revisited analysis to KH3 after my most recent playthrough, so I can expand on that then.  KH3 just suffers from being, what should have been, the most emotionally satisfying game, while also failing to deliver, leaving many fans, such as myself, feeling hollow and empty.

Summary: Easily the most disappointing game in the series for how poorly it handled really important story moments, cramming them into the very end of the game and not giving them time to shine.  The game has some fun, larger worlds, and it was fun to see Sora, Donald, and Goofy together again (even if Donald was an even bigger jerk than usual), meaning this game had some good highs, which were bogged down by some very low lows.

2: Kingdom Hearts

Ah, yes, the original game that started it all. I can’t tell you how magical this game was when I first played it all those years ago on the PS2.  Kingdom Hearts was exactly what you expected, and wanted, from a Final Fantasy/Disney crossover.  So many classic Disney villains have teamed up, under the leadership of Maleficent, and you get to explore all these beloved worlds from some of my favorite movies as the happy-go-lucky Sora in his size 30 shoes, alongside Donald Duck and Goofy!  It was such a good time!  Throw in some Final Fantasy cameos like Squall and Cloud and Aerith, and even a tough optional battle against Sephiroth, alongside original characters and a simple, but effective story about friendship and hearts and darkness, and you just have a recipe as comforting as mixing chocolate chips into cookie dough.

Sure, the first KH game could be hokey (but so is every game that came out since), and the original gameplay was rather simple and barebones compared to the spectacle it is today, but like a tattered plush from your childhood, the original game will always be one of the best, feel-good games of all time.  If you can just let loose and enjoy watching characters carry on a serious conversation about friendship with Donald Duck and Goofy in the background, then there’s no way this game can’t warm your heart, whether you’re still young or a jaded adult like myself.

Summary: The classic game that started it all.  While the game was rather barebones compared to later titles, no other entry in the series managed to incorporate the Disney worlds and villains so well into the story.  Also, no other game has felt quite as magical as this simple, but heartfelt, story about friendship.

1: Kingdom Hearts 2

Yes, I am among those who still insist that KH2 is the best game in the franchise, even if I’ve since become more aware of its flaws.  Back then, all fans really wanted was more adventures with Sora, Donald, and Goofy through Disney worlds.  And that’s exactly what we got.  In the process, the lore was expanded, and we got original villains in the form of Organization XIII, a group of emotionless Nobodies, what’s left of those who had lost their hearts to darkness.  (Yes, the Organization was originally introduced in CoM, but I had no idea CoM existed at this point!)

Yes, I will admit that KH2 is not perfect.  This is the game where the story started to get just a bit more complicated (why do there need to be two guys named Ansem?), though it was still pretty manageable at this point.  The writing also went downhill (interactions with Xigbar and Demyx were particularly weird and didn’t feel like natural conversations), and the worlds offered less room for exploration and platforming, as the various “rooms” began to feel more flat and linear.  The game was also very easy, especially considering how challenging KH1 could be.

I think what made KH2 so amazing in my eyes was that the product we got as a whole greatly outweighed the flaws.  While the combat in KH1 was challenging, it was also barebones, and KH2 expended on it with reaction commands (which could make the combat too easy, but it could also require some skill when you needed to react quickly) and Drive forms, which made Sora stronger and allowed him to wield two Keyblades, among other things.  I also loved the story and the expansion of the lore, including the addition of Nobodies (again, this concept was introduced in CoM, but explained in KH2).  I loved that slow, but emotional, opening with Roxas.  I loved that worlds were split into two parts, keeping your visits to a manageable length that prevented them from overstaying their welcome.

In all honesty, my love for KH2 is just hard to explain.  The game just has a good feel to it.  It’s fun to play.  The lore hadn’t gotten too complex, and they hadn’t added too many characters yet.  I just feel like KH2 was the perfect balance of expanding on what made the first game great, while also existing at a time before things got too confusing.  I loved the game when it was first released because it continued the story of another game that I loved.  And I love it now because it reminds me of a time when the story of Kingdom Hearts was, dare I say it, simple and clean.  No time travel.  Only one Organization.  Characters weren’t ancient Keyblade wielders from the distant past.  (I mean, I liked it better when I thought the Organization was just a bunch of unfortunate people who had lost their hearts and were now desperate to get them back, through any means necessary.)  And no old man Xehanort, who was apparently some mastermind with some impossibly complex plan and motivations that I can’t help but feel change between entries.  KH2 was from a simpler time, and I’ll always find comfort in that.

Summary: KH2 did an excellent job building upon what made the original game so special.  Yes, the Disney worlds weren’t quite as well incorporated into the story as the first game, and exploration had been downgraded.  Nevertheless, the good outweighed the bad, as the game managed to expand the lore with Nobodies and Organization XIII while still keeping the story fairly easy to understand.  KH2 represents the good, ol’ days.  Sometimes, I almost wish the series had ended here….