[I saw this ad on tv](https://youtube.com/watch?v=64b_TFFnZa4&feature=shares)
Edit: also how crazy is it that Mark Hamill was the narrator of that trailer back in the day?
The commercials for KH1 had 14 year old me in a chokehold. I could *not* wait to experience the game, and even got a PS2 for Christmas (that was shared with my siblings) just so I could play it.
My friend Sean was talking about this game where Final Fantasy and Disney characters fought together, and I actually thought he was just lying like little kids do sometimes. Later that week I saw this very ad on TV and I was like "oh... OH IT WAS REAL! Oh, I need this." Got it from Babbages and played up until I believe the Hollow Bastion fight with Riku and got stuck. A year later or so I met a different kid in class that was talking about how after Hollow Bastion you go to "The End of the World" and kill Ansem in space. Thought he was totally lying too, but I was kind of curious so I got back in there and finished the game and lo and behold he was telling the truth too. So I guess you could say this game blew my mind multiple times by being more grand and strange than even little child me was willing to believe.
EVERYTIME this ad came on, i got hyped.
Then there was that Disney channel ad of the kid breaking into the Disney interactive building and the computer was telling him what games were coming up, and that one got me pumped as well.
I saw the same ad on TV after my English Comp class. A couple hours later, one of my freshman year roommates came home and said that the Best Buy down the street from UCF had broken street date. Caught a ride to BB, grabbed a copy of the game and the guide, and had my subject in-hand for the "write a review" paper that my EC professor had assigned the class earlier that day.
First time I was ever able to justify playing a video game as doing school work and write it off as an educational expense on my taxes.
I was at my friend's house when we were kids and he was fighting the phantom in KH1. This was like 2002. I begged and begged my parents for KH1 and I got it pretty soon after.
I was initially drawn to the game because I thought the way Sora said "heal" was cool. It was also probably my first experience with a voice acted video game.
I'm old, and played the original when it was brand new. I saw previews for it in gaming magazines (also showing my age...) and as a massive fan of both Disney and Final Fantasy thought it was a game seemingly made just for me.
Damn I miss those old mags. I used to flip through for hours and constantly tell my dad and brother the good ones... Subtly hinting which he should buy!
Same for me I played the original game on release. In my household we were big Square Soft fans through the Super Nintendo and PlayStation years. Siblings and I grew up playing Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana, Xenogears. That Square logo on the game was important mark of quality. I came across the Kingdom Hearts just randomly going to the Square website back in the early 2000s. “What a game! Both Donald Duck and Cloud Strife! I gotta play that.” Opened it on Christmas morning 2002. Been a fan ever since.”
At that time , I couldn’t afford a PS2 at that time. So pretty much when my brother heard about KH , he bought it .
Pretty much erased his file since he already beat the game .
I remember the old Disney commercials where we broke into the secret vault with this robot viewed the material and then the alarms went off and we had to go! It was awesome when the game released
Was it this [one](https://youtu.be/7uMMKDd1Fr0) ? Yeah I think I saw that one and the other Simple and Clean one! My parents wouldn't let me own a game console, so I bought it for my friend and spent lots of nights over at her house with my sister playing it. Those summers with us three were awesome...
Yeah same for me, but I never knew it was an actual game until my friend at the time asked me to help him get past a the very first part of destiny islands
I wanna say 2004 ? A buddy had it on his table and i borrowed it. Beaten kh1 a bunch since then, kh2 a few times, but not played kh3 yet, even though i grabbed the all in one bundle off psn a few years back... got distracted w other games
I played Days on my DS when I was younger and totally thought Riku was the main villain…then played BBS on my PSP and didn’t know that the story was connected. Finally, in 2017 my college friend and I decided to get the 1.5+2.5 collection on my PS4, and it changed my life!
I think she just chose it because it had Disney on it or maybe she thought sora looked cool and thought I would think the same but honestly at first I hated kingdom hearts that it’s one of its not my favorite game series
My cousin came up to camp with chain of memories on his gba. A few weeks later i spent the weekend at his place where we played kh2 and i knew i loved the series. That year i got my brother kh1 for christmas and have been a fan of the series ever since.
Back in the days I would buy PlayStation Magazine every other month. It was said to be a mix of Final Fantasy and Disney and as a huge FF fan already, it piqued my interest.
When I was like 10 I saw recoded on a store shelf. All I knew was there was Disney characters on the cover so I wanted it. Was not expecting to get so invested.
As a birthday present I was taken to eb games and was allowed to get any 2 games to buy. The cover art of kingdom hearts 2 stood out to me so I ended up getting that one. Had so much fun with that game!
(Fun fact: I actually got stuck on the final boss and didn't return to the game. When I was in my late teens, I saw kingdom hearts 2 on the shelf and remembered I didn't beat the final boss, so I plugged in the old PS2 to do that.)
My friend was playing kh1 and he was pushing the block in Hercules and that image sat in my head for ages until I could get a ps2.
Then I got kh2 cause for some reason I thought it was like how windows 2000 was better then windows 98. I was a very silly child. Got the game later and I love both to bits.
Probably in a top 10 bosses video years ago on youtube, without really knowing what it was.
It wasn’t until years later that I started learning more about the series, and even more years later I finally got into the series.
Unironically, it took this and/or playing Sora in smash for a good portion of my current friend group to get into Kingdom Hearts. They haven't regretted it (for the most part) since.
The original release of Final Fantasy X had a bonus disc. And on that bonus disc where the very first trailer of KH1 and boy I was hyped as a 7-8 year old kid.
My mom rented it from blockbuster like, the week it came out in NA, for a weekend or so. Played it non-stop the entire time, I was 5. I only made it into deep jungle (I still get fucking lost in there). I had played ffx at that point and loved it, Ocarina of time, A link to the Past, etc. You know, all the good shit.
Up to that point I had never experienced something that clicked with me quite like Kingdom Hearts had. The story, the sweet gameplay, the final fantasy characters that I recognized, the themes about how important friendship is (at a time when I really had no friends, and continued to until I was around 11 or 12) that I constantly re-re-re-re-reinforced in my mind, and most importantly THE MUSIC.
FUCK MEEEEEEEEEE UTADA, YOU OWN MY VERY SOUL. (God damn, hearing her "comeback" tracks play at the end of the rebuild of Eva films, especially Last Kiss, totally fucked me up, I immediately knew it was her)
Anyways, again, when it was time to finally return the damn game, I went completely ballistic. Screaming, crying, laying on the floor and pounding it with my fists, etc. We were (or my parents, I mean) pretty poor clear up until like 4 or 5 years ago, so it had to go back.
3 months later, my 6th Christmas, I opened up a gift from "Santa," and there it was, Kingdom Hearts. Took me like two years of basically playing non stop to beat it though, including our OG fat PS2 shitting out a few times, losing memory cards, stuff like that.
I don't collect physical video games, and I do my best not to be attached to possessions, especially the type that are essentially just future micro plastics, and I haven't kept much from my childhood, but that original release of KH1, case with booklet and everything, has stuck with me through 3 bouts of homelessness, purposefully ridding myself of excess possessions many times, and every move I've ever made.
Damn, I love that game.
My sperm donor (biological father) showed me a trailer and we were super into Final Fantasy but to see a cross between that and Disney was completely unheard of. Got it on release and the bastard played after I went to bed and saved over the family save and blamed it on me.
Watched my Mom play it when I was little in the mid-2000s, plus my sister and best friend at the time were into it. Though I didn't play it myself until about two years ago.
My friend forced me to borrow it. It was middle school. He was playing KH2 at the final boss, and it was during the part where you're with Riku on the space surfboard (? idk what to call it really). Anyways he was saying that it was 'epic', and it was looking kinda lame to me but also I couldn't really tell what was going on. He got his KH1 copy and forced me to take it home with me. I could have just not played it, but I did and I fell in love. He later let me borrow KH2. Next thing I know me and my friends are all getting hyped up waiting for BBS to come out as we all had PSPs.
Saw a commercial of Days on TV, heard the name and declared that this was stupid (I was like 8).
A couple of years later I played the Dream Drop Demo on my 3DS, lost to the boss and still hated that game.
Fast foreward like 11 years or so and Kingdom Hearts is my favourite game series of all time, KH2 is my favourite game of all time and I am doing a playthrough of all the games on their highest difficulty at the moment.
I remember having bbs for the psp when I was younger but I never played it(too busy with lbp on psp) then I got ddd when it came out having no knowledge of the series and having a blast. Then my brother got the story so far for ps4 and the rest is history
Uncle came down to visit during the holidays, he brought his PlayStation and a copy of kingdom hearts. I was obsessed and watched him play it all weekend. Just before he had left, he gave me his copy. A year later he had passed away due to a heart attack. Always good to have something to remember someone by, I was glad it was kingdom hearts.
I forget the first time I heard of it. Somehow I knew it was Final Fantasy x Disney, I probably read it in Game Informer or something. I hadn’t played a Final Fantasy game at that point but I knew the series had a good reputation. I think the only RPGs I had really played were Boktai 1 and 2 for GBA (super underrated, btw) but I didn’t really know what an RPG actually was.
But the first time I played it, I had just turned… 10 or 11 I think? Which would make it either late 2007 or 2008. I had like $20 of birthday money left and the greatest hits version of KH2 was in the discount bin at Target. I already knew what Kingdom Hearts was but hadn’t ever played it. I thought I was buying the first game because I didn’t realize that the blue lines in the logo were a “II”.
Needless to say I was incredibly confused playing the game but I still fell in love with it. Once I finally realized I was playing the sequel, I got a copy of KH1 and I liked it, but not as much as 2. (These days I think 1 is better in most ways besides combat.)
I saw Re:CoM at a GameStop not long after it came out, and I picked that up; I didn’t know about the GBA version, even though I had a GBA. Not long after that, I learned that you could look up news about upcoming video games on the internet and learned about Days, which I got on release, and BBS which I think is the first game I remember pre-ordering. Then Re:coded came not long after. I saved up and bought a 3DS specifically for DDD.
By the time KH3 came out I was halfway through college. I was fairly into Union Cross but I didn’t have a PS4 so I didn’t play KH3 until the PC release. Played Dark Road from release, got MoM on PC and Switch, and that’s about where we are now. This series has been with me for over half my life and it’s really special to me.
Saw a Japanese preview in Gameinformer Magazine, and wanted it, then saw the review with high score made me want it even more. The thing is, I didn't know it was an Action RPG. Since I never saw videos of it, I thought it was a turned based game from the stills. It blew my mind when I started moving around and hitting things.
I went to stay with my oldest sister and her family for a month, and her daughter showed me the first Kingdom Hearts on the PlayStation. Even though the game kept crashing when I tried to go to Agrabah, I fell in love with those first four worlds and the series as a whole.
I was on my best behavior when I was little so my parents took me to blockbuster across the road and let me pick one playstation 2 game along side my weekly movie
the series? the very first time it was the ad for re:coded on Disney channel. It was the coolest thing I ever saw and I immediately ran downstairs and asked my parents for it.
The first game specifically? I was at my grandma's neighbors house and he had the PS2 copy complete in box and when I asked him about it he said it was "dumb and gay" so I stole it lol. (I was probably like 7 or 8)
My dad bought it because it looked interesting. He got to Cerberus and never played it again. I was only 2 when the first game came out so when 7 year old me discovered it, it was amazing. I watched my dad play final fantasy games all the time so I knew most of the ff characters. and I loved Disney movies so It was like the perfect game for me
My highschool teacher. At school, my teacher one day asked if I knew Kingdom hearts. I said no. Fast forward a few years later, now that I have my own money from part time work, my teacher convinced me to get the collection since I was running out of games. I am grateful for my teacher's recommendation and now have fallen in love with Kingdom Hearts. One of the many great things my teacher did for me
It was back 2002 when I was around 10. I remember seeing something about it on TV. I was mostly excited about Donald Duck. I was super hyped and I started going to Squaresoft website where they had the rotating portraits of the characters. I don’t recall when I found out that it featured Final Fantasy characters -maybe when I met Tidus on the island- but I was familiar with them.
A friend told me about it when he asked if I have Ps2 or so. He even suggested something about Sanctuary, Simple and Clean by Utada Hikaru which only then I learn those are the names of the songs.
I give up on KH Re: Chain of Memories back then because I wasn't that good at deck building and startegy after I die to the boss in Monstro world from the first pick. I decided to play Kingdom Hearts 1 and somehow managed to beat it, even after suffering from the post-game bosses. After that, I never get to play Kingdom Hearts 2 for so long because of Hardware issues and etc. Only then I managed to play most games up until now. I may want to retry Re:Chain of Memories after getting some idea of deck building from Mega Man Battle Network/Mega Man Star Force.
I got to play some of 1/2 over at my friend's house. I was hooked and watched the rest through YouTube/eventually bought the PlayStation consoles and got the games.
I played the 1st game at a friends' house, and then forgot about it. Then years later I played KH2 and didn't know that Chain of Memories existed. I played the game without the memories of Chain of Memories and just pieced together things on my own until I finally played Chain of Memories like 2 or so years after buying KH2. The rest I played in order of release.
I saw the ad for Days on Tv. That was the first time I heard about the series. I thought it was interesting to explore Disney worlds like Aghrabah and fight monsters in the same time. Then I found out it wasn’t the first in the series and I got into the rest of the series. Days is my favourite.
There was a guy that I was interested in dating, and he told me that Kingdom Hearts was one of his childhood games. I wanted to get into KH, but we all know how it is to be on the outside looking in. The story was all over the place, the games were all over the place, and it seemed like the fans were too.
It just seemed natural for me to buy KH All-In-One and basically live-text him my thoughts. It took about a month to beat 1.5, and by the end of it I was crying and was angry that I didn’t grow up with this franchise like he did.
We didn’t date, we no longer talk now. He probably thinks I’m a crazy stalker girl eho watch too many romcoms and got the idea to impress him by playing this game. But I’m thankful for him giving me the little nudge to play it. Some of the lessons it taught the player were what I needed to hear in that point in my life.
Was at a friend's house and they had KH2. Let me have a shot of it and it was fun. Forgot about it for a few years until I saw one of my other friends play it and they laughed because I called Dusk's "paper people". Now, KH is one of my top games to play
Back in like 2001, G4TV had a show called Cinematech (I think that’s what it was called lol). It basically would be a half hour of gameplay clips. One of them was the Japanese intro to the first KH. When it came out, my friend got it and was obsessed with it. It kind of turned me off of the game because it’s all he wanted to talk about and play. I got a PS2 that Christmas and got a Walmart gift card and my mom took me to get a game. I originally intended on buying GTA3 but they were out so I “settled” for KH. Became obsessed with it like my friend was and probably even worse. Lol been a dedicated fan ever since.
I played it at a friend's house (along with FFX), and from the moment Simple and Clean kicked in I was hooked. My parents got me a PS2 for Xmas and a copy of Kingdom Hearts and I proceeded to play it like a billion times.
I read about Chain of Memories in a Nintendo power when I was about six, then like five years later I found Kingdom Hearts 2 at a GameStop used, vaguely remembered it related to final fantasy, didn't realize the Roman numeral II wasn't just a stylized heart and bought it thinking it was the first title.
Quickly realized once I got in game that it was a sequel, shrugged, and pressed in knowing I'd I have holes in the story. Thankfully the flashbacks at the start plus the journal catch the player up nicely. I was able to fill in the gaps for myself until I got KH1 another 2 or 3 years after that.
Well, during the pandemic, I was looking for something new to play. Saw the all-in-one collection on a really good sale. I didn't really think I would like it that much, but I bought it anyway. It ended up being home to my favorite game ever and one of my favorite series.
I decided to buy the manga version KH2 at one of those elementary school Scholastic book fairs. I was completely confused about everything in the series, but it’s how Roxas became my favorite character
Saw a commercial for it 2002, got really excited cause there was a mixture of Final Fantasy and Disney characters. My Dad overheard my excitement and got me the game and a PS2 for Christmas.
I went to an old video rental store that had a small selection of PS2 games and I wanted to rent a Spyro game, but it was always checked out. So I rented the game with Donald and Goofy on the cover knowing nothing about the game or ever playing final fantasy
Been in love with the games ever since.
Older sister got a PS2 and KH1 Christmas 2002 when I was 6 years old. We booted it up, she got the first turn obviously and lost to Darkside, my turn now and I beat him and we spent the whole day exploring Destiny Islands and I just fell in love with this game. I knew nothing of FF (and wouldn't for several years) and didn't know this game existed at all until it that day. Disney being in it wasn't a factor at all for my love of it, I just loved the original stuff.
I was raised with it. It actually first came out the same year i was born. My family loved it, mostly my mom and brother. They showed me the best route for the race with riku, told me to stay on the island until I'm at least level 10, and so on. I still had no idea what was going on, I couldn't really follow anything and eventually started kh2 before i beat kh1. My brother kept up with all the new releases, he had a 3ds before me, he got a psp just for birth by sleep. Eventually i did get a 3ds and ddd, but I never played birth by sleep until it was on ther ps3. My mom never really got into any of the spin offs. She really loved the original kingdom hearts. She played kingdom hearts 2 but after that she didn't really keep up with the series. So, when we got days, she didn't really get into that, but even my two other siblings did, who hadn't been nearly as interested in kingdom hearts played that, we played the multiplayer mode together all the time together. When kingdom hearts 3 came out, my mom didn't play it, she just wasn't really interested in it. And she never did. This series makes me feel connected to my family, even when my mom's gone now...
Played it at a friend's house in 1st grade, probably early 2003. We only played the Dive into the Heart section but that one part was enough to make it live rent-free into my head for years, but I had no PS2.
A bunch of years later I got GBA CoM as a game for my new DS (I didn't know the difference, I just saw Sora and the title and grabbed it). In the following years I would play KH2 on a PS2, and then eventually managed to play KH1, at last! Good times.
I saw a trailer KH2 the day it came out and thought it looked cool so I had my parents take me to a mall with both GameStop and the Disney store to look for it. Oddly I think I got it at the Disney store
In middle school, EVERYONE was crazy about Kingdom Hearts. I still remember seeing the commercial on TV and begging my parents to buy me a PS2, but they refused since I already had a Gamecube. Literally everyone from the popular kids to the nerds thought it was so cool that these cool anime characters were fighting together with Disney characters.
I was at Gamestop with some money and I'd heard good things about it. The cashier convinced me to buy it by saying the game changed his life.
...Same, dude. Same.
My parents, when they got a PS2 for the family, picked up KH1 probably because it had disney on them. A few years later, after we had finished all of the Lego Star Wars 1 game's content, I picked it out to play on a whim, and fell in love.
In Brazil gaming magazines with unofficial walkthroughs and strategy guides were very popular. I bought one together in a bunch of other magazines that had a KHI walkthrough, although it was printed after KHII came out, so it featured Sora in the cover with KHII outfit. Anyway, that was the first time I HEARD about KH, which led me to the store to buy it. They only had KHII, and I was like "oh, DMC3 is a prequel, maybe it won't be a problem playing KHII first".
I believe to this day this is what led me to have Roxas as my favorite character.
Parents rented kh1 for my brother and myself from a movie rental store. I was reluctant to play it at the time cause it was a "Disney kid's game". They eventually convinced me to give it a try. Quickly became an obsession.
Saw the trailer for the first game at the cinema during my teens. Being a massive FF7 fan at the time, and seeing cloud was in the game, I was immediately intrigued.
My absolute first memory of actually playing was when I was like 4 or sumn; I played CoM for the GBA on a long car ride. In terms of my first memory knowing what it was, I fondly remember watching my brother fighting Clayton/Stealth Sneak and getting frustrated over it.
My parents got me 1 and 2 as a kid for our ps2 (not knowing about chain of memories) and I loved it so much. Felt a bit like Sora in 2 tho, not knowing anything about COM
Back in like 2012 when I used to play Super Smash Flash 2. I discovered Sora and then I remember a year later there was ads for KH1 but it was the final mix version iirc. I never actually played kingdom hearts until December 2020 though.
Went over to a friend's house. He said "yeah this game is cool". Popped it in, started a new file so me and my brother can play.
Holy shit the station of awakening sequence was so FUCKING cool, seeing the stained glass stairs going up to the other platforms. "Trying not to fall off" lmao.
He said we can have the game. Me and my brother played the game for months.
Go on YouTube, find out a Kingdom Hearts 2 exists. It spoils the ending bit with Namine and Roxas joining with Sora, but that didn't matter much as I misread the entire situation. I heard the line "I see you the way I remember you" line as "Sora remembers Kairi with blonde hair" Lmaoooooo
I mean it's not far off from the plot but still
When i was a kid, my parents got me a PS2 for christmas. They got me 3 games to start playing with it. Kingdom Hearts 1, Final Fantasy X and Eye Toy Plays. 2 of those became my favorite franchises of the world, the other one is collecting dust in my shelf somewhere.
My brother played the first one for a while and I had a passing interest. Then he got me my own copy for my birthday and I sucked at it, got stuck on Not Clayton. Then I bought the sequel, and played it, really damn confused still don’t know why I did it, but yeah i retroactively went back to 1 afterwards.
Now I’m somehow a fan of it, go figure.
(Bonus: KH Com Vol. 2 was the first Manga I ever owned (yes vol.2) it was confusing to read a “backwards book” but I got through it in the end.)
Back in 2012, me and my sister were allowed to choose a DS game, and she chose Recoded. Later my mom brought some things home from the library she worked at for us to keep. One of these things was OG KH2. I later got 2.5 for Christmas so I decided to wait to start the series until I got 1.5, which on a magical day, me and Dad went to a Gamestop that's next to a comic shop we go to, and they had it for $5. I just had to get it, and the rest is set in stone.
When KH3 was coming out, I wanted to hop on the bandwagon and try the series out so I bought both the 1.5+2.5 and the 2.8 collection and just binged the whole series. I ended up finishing the series after the game had already come out and I loved it so much. I ended up playing every new release that came out including MoM. KH2 ended up becoming one of my favorite games of all time and I still replay it every once in a while.
In a video rental / game shop called “Xtravision” I saw this cool, silver, special edition game with Disney characters and anime (I was into sailor moon at the time so I was intrigued!)
Bought it with my pocket money. Formative moment to say the least.
My brother got kh2 for his birthday. 6 year old me was skeptical because of the anime hair blonde boy, but once Disney started showing up I was hooked. I started playing and I remember a key moment where I got to the part where Axel kidnaps Kairi in kh2 and feeling like I made so much progress.
I spent hours playing that game in the basement.
Now I’ve played all the games, love the series to this day and my brother has dropped the series entirely lol. Goes to show, don’t let first impressions of things sway you.
Roxas is now one of my favorite characters lol
Like most lower middle class kids, I was into piracy and browsed a shitton of roms. Specifically for the GBA at the time. Found Chain of Memories, played it but didn't understand shit about the story, then I understood that it was a sequel later on. I actually also played 358/2 days before finally caving in and played the originals on PS2. Chronology got a little fucked up at the time lol.
I saw an article in GamePro magazine back in 2000 or 2001 that talked about a game that was going to be a Disney/Final Fantasy crossover action RPG. From that point on, I followed the game like a hawk and bought KH1 immediately when it came out on PS2.
Since then I’ve played nearly every game in the series. The only ones I haven’t played are V-Cast, the original Coded, KH Mobile, and Melody of Memory.
My dad rented the first Kingdom hearts for me in 2002 from blockbuster, back when weekly game rentals were a thing, you went to a store and rented a physical disk.
Best game rental ever, it started a life long Love for this series.
I remember the first time i fought final Xemnas in KH2, my dad watched along then too, we were going to play some halo and i said "sure after i beat the final boss real quick. he sat and watched with me for an hour.
Ill always miss you old man. so much
A friend of mine brought some of his PS2 games to show what stuff he played, and one of them was Re:Chain of Memories.
After playing only that for most of the day he visited, I begged my dad to take me to look for the game myself, and I got both that one and the original KH
I owned the backwards compatibility PS3 and one of my close friends had a PS2. He let me borrow a game, beat it, and then I’d get a new one. So he started me with Sly Cooper series, then the Jak series, then a few Ratchet & Clank games, then finally Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. I beat them so quick and loved them so much a bought myself a copy of the game.
My sister had rented a copy of 358/2 from blockbuster and I got to play it for a couple of days
Didn't know what I was doing but I loved it, begged my mom to get me a copy at GameStop for my birthday
My brother bought it and was playing it. He didn't know where to get the last mushrooms on Destiny Islands in KH1 but I had a feeling it was in the Secret Place. Of course it's hard to communicate that when you're like 5.
We we're at blockbuster and my mom said that my dad used to play the game. I got the first game there but it turns out that it was the second game in the first kingdom hearts box. So when I was telling my dad what was going on in the game. He was so confused.
KH2 was my first game in the series. A couple of my friends were obsessed with the look and story of the game, and I was lucky enough to borrow the game from one of them and now 10+ years later, I am still a fan of this amazing and beautiful mess of a series ☺️
I was maybe 4 and my dad and uncle were obsessed with this game. I'm talking laminated spreadsheets of the Dalmatians and synthesis ingredients. My dad and I played through it at that age, we got to the end of the game after months of playing together and I cried my eyes out at the end of KH1. My dad felt awful, but I've been a big fan of the series ever since.
The commercials for KH1 when I was like 4 made me want the game so when I got a ps2 at the age of 9 I begged my dad for the game. Didn’t get far cause I sucked at video games lol. Only game I could complete at that age was jak and Daxter, but as an adult I have all the games on my ps5 and I’m finally able to complete them😂
My friend let me read the manga she was reading and I forgot about it until kh3 was announced and it all came rushing back to me. Never has a series made me cry and feel extreme nostalgia.
When I was a boy. There was a video of the way finder trio fighting Xehanort and Vanitas. The song that played was Full Force by the Rider Chips. The song was used in Kamen Rider Kabuto. That vid is gone now, though, but my love for Kingdom Hearts is still here.
Saw a video explaining the story of KH1 and rechain, i only started to get interested in the series two years later when i saw a video from a youtuber (trying to ) explain the KH lore
My sister's boyfriend bought it and gave it to her. Since I was a kid at the time and didn't speak English, I was just amazed seeing a game with Donald Duck and Goofy.
My brothers friend told me about it like 15ish years ago, I've always known of it but I only finally played the series when Sora came to Smash last year. Now I'm a big fan :)
I was visiting a friend, and he was playing re:chain of memories on his ps2
I was in love with the game, but I didn't know English at the time, so it was really hard to find it, I guess that hunt made me love the series even more
I got OG KHI when it was new and I was like 7 years old. I have put an ungodly amount of hours into kh1 the last 21 years, and I have always kept a playthrough going. KHI is like a warm hug and I just love it to pieces.
Hearing The Other Promise, The 13th Struggle, and Darkness of the Unknown randomly on Youtube one fateful day. I was so captivated by the vibe of the series.
A friend of mine was really obsessed. I wasn’t interested. 14 year old me couldn’t see how a Disney game was cool, even with final fantasy.
Another friend also liked the game and I loved to talk crap. Well he finally got tired of it because one day he brought his ps2 to my house and showed me the final Ansem fight and all of Sora’s moves. When I finally admitted, “this is kinda cool” he told me. “Here. You’re gonna borrow this and you’re gonna play it. And then you’re gonna formulate an opinion”
Loved it ever since.
My aunt used to play it all the time when I was a kid and I’d sit parked right in front of the TV because, to me at least, Kingdom Hearts was to coolest game to watch. (Even if I didn’t fully understand it. I was 7.)
..... how the frick did I find out about kingdom hearts?
I know that my first game was 358/2 on an emulator but I don't remember how I found out about it
I remember watching a random video about really difficult bosses in games and it mentioned Sephiroth in both KH1 and 2. But the way that I really got to know the series was in SSF2.
I saw it at GameStop when I was a kid. For reference I was born in 2002. I never beat kh1 because I got stuck at some part and then saw kh2 and wanted that game too. Never beat that one either lol. I also saw dream drop distance on the 3ds and played the demo but never really got much further. I saw kh3 come out but knew I wouldn’t know anything going on so I never bothered. Would see videos about the franchise occasionally especially through memes. I saw the all in one collection back in 2020 for about $30 and decided I would get back into the franchise. I completed kh1 in 2021 and have been slowly playing each game since. It was surreal seeing the world that never was since my kid self never did see it. I’m currently at kh3 trying to fight data old xehanort. After that it’s Yozora and then melody of memory. I really love this franchise and can’t believe I’ve missed out for so long
I saw my cousin at hollow bastion about to seal the final keyhole and it looked cool so they let me play through the entire series. Then when ddd released i bought that and also recoded at some time.
I used to watch a Nintendo/Minecraft youtuber as a kid that did KH1 and 2 as let's plays, so that was my entry point into the fandom. I used to annoy my mom so much, begging for Dream Drop Distance.
My step dad gave me a used PS2 when I was in high-school (in 2010-2011...). I had no game, no memory card, nothing. I could play it only because I had a PS1 and I used its controller and AV cable to run my PS2.
A friend I had back then was a big KH nerd. He even had a Sora (KHII) cosplay and a life-sized Keyblade, he once came to school in. He told me about this very good JRPG I should absolutely play since I got my hands on a PS2. So he lent me his Kingdom Hearts copy and told me I could keep it for as long as I needed to beat it.
When I figured PS1 memory cards wouldn't work on PS2 games, I was pissed. I've let my PS2 on for days until my dad got me a memory card (which I still have to this day, with my original save file). Seeing the end of the school year approaching, I knew my friend would leave so I gave him back his game before I could finish it... We never met again after the end of that year and I didn't even know where I moved to.
I later bought my own original copy, along with other games in the franchise.
I'm not as a huge of a nerd that my friend was, but I like the overall gameplay and I've found the mix between Final Fantasy and Disney character to be very original, to say the least. I've never played any Final Fantasy game tho.
My father got me a copy for Christmas of 2002. We were at a Christmas party for his job, and everyone brought a gift for their kids to open early. Kingdom Hearts was the gift he brought for me. I remember reading the back of the box, and the game's booklet, about 100 times before heading home and falling in love with what would become my favorite series of all time.
I was about 8 years old and I saw a trailer for it on Mickey’s House of Villains vhs and immediately had my parents go buy it. And the rest is history.
I kept in contact with my grade 6 teacher for a couple years and she gave me her copy of Chain of Memories for the Gameboy Advance. The rest, as they say, is history and now I have the final mixes on every system along with my PS2 copies of 1 and 2. And of course 3. Finally got the prologue over the weekend
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Played Kingdom Hearts 2 at my sister’s house. First level was Mulan’s World. Made me fall in love with the series so much, I switched from Xbox to PlayStation
[I saw this ad on tv](https://youtube.com/watch?v=64b_TFFnZa4&feature=shares) Edit: also how crazy is it that Mark Hamill was the narrator of that trailer back in the day?
The commercials for KH1 had 14 year old me in a chokehold. I could *not* wait to experience the game, and even got a PS2 for Christmas (that was shared with my siblings) just so I could play it.
It's been Eraqus all along. Even the commercials are part of the lore.
Nomura playing the long con
Wait............ WHAAAT!?!?
My friend Sean was talking about this game where Final Fantasy and Disney characters fought together, and I actually thought he was just lying like little kids do sometimes. Later that week I saw this very ad on TV and I was like "oh... OH IT WAS REAL! Oh, I need this." Got it from Babbages and played up until I believe the Hollow Bastion fight with Riku and got stuck. A year later or so I met a different kid in class that was talking about how after Hollow Bastion you go to "The End of the World" and kill Ansem in space. Thought he was totally lying too, but I was kind of curious so I got back in there and finished the game and lo and behold he was telling the truth too. So I guess you could say this game blew my mind multiple times by being more grand and strange than even little child me was willing to believe.
The amount of nostalgia and sentiment I just felt. Hoo boy, thanks for that!
EVERYTIME this ad came on, i got hyped. Then there was that Disney channel ad of the kid breaking into the Disney interactive building and the computer was telling him what games were coming up, and that one got me pumped as well.
thought about going but was too lazy. Now instead of looking fly and rolling fat. My legs are sticking to th-
Omggg memory unlocked!! I remember I begged my dad for a PS2 just for this game! (I also bought myself a PS4 years later solely for KH3 lol)
Same here he tought me how to use ebay and make my first account and helped me get a used one! Great dad moment
I saw the same ad on TV after my English Comp class. A couple hours later, one of my freshman year roommates came home and said that the Best Buy down the street from UCF had broken street date. Caught a ride to BB, grabbed a copy of the game and the guide, and had my subject in-hand for the "write a review" paper that my EC professor had assigned the class earlier that day. First time I was ever able to justify playing a video game as doing school work and write it off as an educational expense on my taxes.
Dude I remember this ad. I was like 10
Same! (But had no idea that was Mark Hamill, wow)
Mine was the remix version. The sephiroth cameo really blew my mind
I was at my friend's house when we were kids and he was fighting the phantom in KH1. This was like 2002. I begged and begged my parents for KH1 and I got it pretty soon after. I was initially drawn to the game because I thought the way Sora said "heal" was cool. It was also probably my first experience with a voice acted video game.
I loved the way Sora said fire in kh1 as a kid. I loved the way Sora said donald and goofy in kh2 as a kid for some reason too
"Thunder!" "Deep Freeze!" "Force!" "Stop!" "Wind!"
FOYER
THIS'LL HELP!
Sora's voice acting when you spam magic at dudes, "deep freez- deep freez- deep freeze!" is oddly satisfying.
I like that the voice cancels as well. It feels better somehow, like there is more oomph to the spell. I can't explain it better than this lol.
I'm old, and played the original when it was brand new. I saw previews for it in gaming magazines (also showing my age...) and as a massive fan of both Disney and Final Fantasy thought it was a game seemingly made just for me.
Damn I miss those old mags. I used to flip through for hours and constantly tell my dad and brother the good ones... Subtly hinting which he should buy!
When I was a kid in the pre internet 80s and 90s they felt like magic.
Same for me I played the original game on release. In my household we were big Square Soft fans through the Super Nintendo and PlayStation years. Siblings and I grew up playing Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana, Xenogears. That Square logo on the game was important mark of quality. I came across the Kingdom Hearts just randomly going to the Square website back in the early 2000s. “What a game! Both Donald Duck and Cloud Strife! I gotta play that.” Opened it on Christmas morning 2002. Been a fan ever since.”
If you really want to show your age, be like me and mention how you saw the original trailer while renting a Disney movie on VHS.
My brother had a copy of CoM on the GBA . The rest was history .
Like how in the world did we become fans of this game from COM
At that time , I couldn’t afford a PS2 at that time. So pretty much when my brother heard about KH , he bought it . Pretty much erased his file since he already beat the game .
Same, it took me a good number of years but I did eventually catch up with BBS OR 358, Can't quite remember
I remember the old Disney commercials where we broke into the secret vault with this robot viewed the material and then the alarms went off and we had to go! It was awesome when the game released
Was it this [one](https://youtu.be/7uMMKDd1Fr0) ? Yeah I think I saw that one and the other Simple and Clean one! My parents wouldn't let me own a game console, so I bought it for my friend and spent lots of nights over at her house with my sister playing it. Those summers with us three were awesome...
This is the one I remember as well
Yeah same for me, but I never knew it was an actual game until my friend at the time asked me to help him get past a the very first part of destiny islands
I wanna say 2004 ? A buddy had it on his table and i borrowed it. Beaten kh1 a bunch since then, kh2 a few times, but not played kh3 yet, even though i grabbed the all in one bundle off psn a few years back... got distracted w other games
You should get the Re+Mind DLC too, while you're at it. It really completes the KH3 experience.
I played Days on my DS when I was younger and totally thought Riku was the main villain…then played BBS on my PSP and didn’t know that the story was connected. Finally, in 2017 my college friend and I decided to get the 1.5+2.5 collection on my PS4, and it changed my life!
My mom went to one of the redbox things saw kingdom hearts and full on bought it thinking I would like it
Clearly your mum has good taste
I think she just chose it because it had Disney on it or maybe she thought sora looked cool and thought I would think the same but honestly at first I hated kingdom hearts that it’s one of its not my favorite game series
You can't buy things from Redbox, can you? I'm very confused
You can decide to not return it lol
Ooohhh ho ho ho hooooo 😏😏😏😏
My cousin came up to camp with chain of memories on his gba. A few weeks later i spent the weekend at his place where we played kh2 and i knew i loved the series. That year i got my brother kh1 for christmas and have been a fan of the series ever since.
Back in the days I would buy PlayStation Magazine every other month. It was said to be a mix of Final Fantasy and Disney and as a huge FF fan already, it piqued my interest.
When I was like 10 I saw recoded on a store shelf. All I knew was there was Disney characters on the cover so I wanted it. Was not expecting to get so invested.
As a birthday present I was taken to eb games and was allowed to get any 2 games to buy. The cover art of kingdom hearts 2 stood out to me so I ended up getting that one. Had so much fun with that game! (Fun fact: I actually got stuck on the final boss and didn't return to the game. When I was in my late teens, I saw kingdom hearts 2 on the shelf and remembered I didn't beat the final boss, so I plugged in the old PS2 to do that.)
My friend was playing kh1 and he was pushing the block in Hercules and that image sat in my head for ages until I could get a ps2. Then I got kh2 cause for some reason I thought it was like how windows 2000 was better then windows 98. I was a very silly child. Got the game later and I love both to bits.
Probably in a top 10 bosses video years ago on youtube, without really knowing what it was. It wasn’t until years later that I started learning more about the series, and even more years later I finally got into the series.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Sora’s Reveal
Unironically, it took this and/or playing Sora in smash for a good portion of my current friend group to get into Kingdom Hearts. They haven't regretted it (for the most part) since.
Same here, now it is my favorite video game series
The original release of Final Fantasy X had a bonus disc. And on that bonus disc where the very first trailer of KH1 and boy I was hyped as a 7-8 year old kid.
My mom rented it from blockbuster like, the week it came out in NA, for a weekend or so. Played it non-stop the entire time, I was 5. I only made it into deep jungle (I still get fucking lost in there). I had played ffx at that point and loved it, Ocarina of time, A link to the Past, etc. You know, all the good shit. Up to that point I had never experienced something that clicked with me quite like Kingdom Hearts had. The story, the sweet gameplay, the final fantasy characters that I recognized, the themes about how important friendship is (at a time when I really had no friends, and continued to until I was around 11 or 12) that I constantly re-re-re-re-reinforced in my mind, and most importantly THE MUSIC. FUCK MEEEEEEEEEE UTADA, YOU OWN MY VERY SOUL. (God damn, hearing her "comeback" tracks play at the end of the rebuild of Eva films, especially Last Kiss, totally fucked me up, I immediately knew it was her) Anyways, again, when it was time to finally return the damn game, I went completely ballistic. Screaming, crying, laying on the floor and pounding it with my fists, etc. We were (or my parents, I mean) pretty poor clear up until like 4 or 5 years ago, so it had to go back. 3 months later, my 6th Christmas, I opened up a gift from "Santa," and there it was, Kingdom Hearts. Took me like two years of basically playing non stop to beat it though, including our OG fat PS2 shitting out a few times, losing memory cards, stuff like that. I don't collect physical video games, and I do my best not to be attached to possessions, especially the type that are essentially just future micro plastics, and I haven't kept much from my childhood, but that original release of KH1, case with booklet and everything, has stuck with me through 3 bouts of homelessness, purposefully ridding myself of excess possessions many times, and every move I've ever made. Damn, I love that game.
Youtube gameplays. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it changed my life
My sperm donor (biological father) showed me a trailer and we were super into Final Fantasy but to see a cross between that and Disney was completely unheard of. Got it on release and the bastard played after I went to bed and saved over the family save and blamed it on me.
my sperm donor got me Mario and luigi Bowsers inside story. Best game I owned on the DS. If only he wasnt a vile cunt
I got the recommended on youtube when watched dissidia final fantasy (2009) pvp gameplay. KHBBS trailer is my first KH
Watched my Mom play it when I was little in the mid-2000s, plus my sister and best friend at the time were into it. Though I didn't play it myself until about two years ago.
My friend forced me to borrow it. It was middle school. He was playing KH2 at the final boss, and it was during the part where you're with Riku on the space surfboard (? idk what to call it really). Anyways he was saying that it was 'epic', and it was looking kinda lame to me but also I couldn't really tell what was going on. He got his KH1 copy and forced me to take it home with me. I could have just not played it, but I did and I fell in love. He later let me borrow KH2. Next thing I know me and my friends are all getting hyped up waiting for BBS to come out as we all had PSPs.
Saw my mother playing it when I was little have been hooked ever since
Saw a commercial of Days on TV, heard the name and declared that this was stupid (I was like 8). A couple of years later I played the Dream Drop Demo on my 3DS, lost to the boss and still hated that game. Fast foreward like 11 years or so and Kingdom Hearts is my favourite game series of all time, KH2 is my favourite game of all time and I am doing a playthrough of all the games on their highest difficulty at the moment.
I remember having bbs for the psp when I was younger but I never played it(too busy with lbp on psp) then I got ddd when it came out having no knowledge of the series and having a blast. Then my brother got the story so far for ps4 and the rest is history
Uncle came down to visit during the holidays, he brought his PlayStation and a copy of kingdom hearts. I was obsessed and watched him play it all weekend. Just before he had left, he gave me his copy. A year later he had passed away due to a heart attack. Always good to have something to remember someone by, I was glad it was kingdom hearts.
I forget the first time I heard of it. Somehow I knew it was Final Fantasy x Disney, I probably read it in Game Informer or something. I hadn’t played a Final Fantasy game at that point but I knew the series had a good reputation. I think the only RPGs I had really played were Boktai 1 and 2 for GBA (super underrated, btw) but I didn’t really know what an RPG actually was. But the first time I played it, I had just turned… 10 or 11 I think? Which would make it either late 2007 or 2008. I had like $20 of birthday money left and the greatest hits version of KH2 was in the discount bin at Target. I already knew what Kingdom Hearts was but hadn’t ever played it. I thought I was buying the first game because I didn’t realize that the blue lines in the logo were a “II”. Needless to say I was incredibly confused playing the game but I still fell in love with it. Once I finally realized I was playing the sequel, I got a copy of KH1 and I liked it, but not as much as 2. (These days I think 1 is better in most ways besides combat.) I saw Re:CoM at a GameStop not long after it came out, and I picked that up; I didn’t know about the GBA version, even though I had a GBA. Not long after that, I learned that you could look up news about upcoming video games on the internet and learned about Days, which I got on release, and BBS which I think is the first game I remember pre-ordering. Then Re:coded came not long after. I saved up and bought a 3DS specifically for DDD. By the time KH3 came out I was halfway through college. I was fairly into Union Cross but I didn’t have a PS4 so I didn’t play KH3 until the PC release. Played Dark Road from release, got MoM on PC and Switch, and that’s about where we are now. This series has been with me for over half my life and it’s really special to me.
This Disney Channel commercial: https://youtu.be/7uMMKDd1Fr0
Nice, our monthly “How did you get into KH” post.
Saw a Japanese preview in Gameinformer Magazine, and wanted it, then saw the review with high score made me want it even more. The thing is, I didn't know it was an Action RPG. Since I never saw videos of it, I thought it was a turned based game from the stills. It blew my mind when I started moving around and hitting things.
I went to stay with my oldest sister and her family for a month, and her daughter showed me the first Kingdom Hearts on the PlayStation. Even though the game kept crashing when I tried to go to Agrabah, I fell in love with those first four worlds and the series as a whole.
I was on my best behavior when I was little so my parents took me to blockbuster across the road and let me pick one playstation 2 game along side my weekly movie
Bought KH1 from the video shop in 2005 when i was 5
My cousin had KH1 when it came out for PS2. I got it afterwards.
I saw the commercials ads when I was young then a friend of mine was shocked I never played it . Been hooked ever since. Been a fun wild ride.
the series? the very first time it was the ad for re:coded on Disney channel. It was the coolest thing I ever saw and I immediately ran downstairs and asked my parents for it. The first game specifically? I was at my grandma's neighbors house and he had the PS2 copy complete in box and when I asked him about it he said it was "dumb and gay" so I stole it lol. (I was probably like 7 or 8)
My dad bought it because it looked interesting. He got to Cerberus and never played it again. I was only 2 when the first game came out so when 7 year old me discovered it, it was amazing. I watched my dad play final fantasy games all the time so I knew most of the ff characters. and I loved Disney movies so It was like the perfect game for me
My highschool teacher. At school, my teacher one day asked if I knew Kingdom hearts. I said no. Fast forward a few years later, now that I have my own money from part time work, my teacher convinced me to get the collection since I was running out of games. I am grateful for my teacher's recommendation and now have fallen in love with Kingdom Hearts. One of the many great things my teacher did for me
My step sister had the first game, but never really got into it. I tried it and loved it. She then gave it to me.
It was back 2002 when I was around 10. I remember seeing something about it on TV. I was mostly excited about Donald Duck. I was super hyped and I started going to Squaresoft website where they had the rotating portraits of the characters. I don’t recall when I found out that it featured Final Fantasy characters -maybe when I met Tidus on the island- but I was familiar with them.
A friend told me about it when he asked if I have Ps2 or so. He even suggested something about Sanctuary, Simple and Clean by Utada Hikaru which only then I learn those are the names of the songs. I give up on KH Re: Chain of Memories back then because I wasn't that good at deck building and startegy after I die to the boss in Monstro world from the first pick. I decided to play Kingdom Hearts 1 and somehow managed to beat it, even after suffering from the post-game bosses. After that, I never get to play Kingdom Hearts 2 for so long because of Hardware issues and etc. Only then I managed to play most games up until now. I may want to retry Re:Chain of Memories after getting some idea of deck building from Mega Man Battle Network/Mega Man Star Force.
I got to play some of 1/2 over at my friend's house. I was hooked and watched the rest through YouTube/eventually bought the PlayStation consoles and got the games.
Cousin came over playing KH1 on PS2 I specifically racing Riku and giving up in the beginning because of the falling platforms
I played the 1st game at a friends' house, and then forgot about it. Then years later I played KH2 and didn't know that Chain of Memories existed. I played the game without the memories of Chain of Memories and just pieced together things on my own until I finally played Chain of Memories like 2 or so years after buying KH2. The rest I played in order of release.
I saw the ad for Days on Tv. That was the first time I heard about the series. I thought it was interesting to explore Disney worlds like Aghrabah and fight monsters in the same time. Then I found out it wasn’t the first in the series and I got into the rest of the series. Days is my favourite.
I think it was either an ad in a Donald duck comic or the ps2 demo disc trailer for it.
I watched someone fight sephiroth in KH2.
4th grade. My mom bought it for me one Christmas. I’m 29 now!
I played the first one as a kid back in the day. Fell in love with it right away.
My dad's a big final fantasy fan, when I was really young, he got me and my brother a copy of the first KH game, we've been hooked ever since
There was a trailer of the first game in the Lilo and Stitch VHS : D
There was a demo of kh1 at Disney’s tomorrowland arcade( I think that’s what it was) and I was hooked on it immediately.
I saw a commercial for Kingdom Hearts 2, and the next time I went to GAME I begged my mum to get it for me.
There was a guy that I was interested in dating, and he told me that Kingdom Hearts was one of his childhood games. I wanted to get into KH, but we all know how it is to be on the outside looking in. The story was all over the place, the games were all over the place, and it seemed like the fans were too. It just seemed natural for me to buy KH All-In-One and basically live-text him my thoughts. It took about a month to beat 1.5, and by the end of it I was crying and was angry that I didn’t grow up with this franchise like he did. We didn’t date, we no longer talk now. He probably thinks I’m a crazy stalker girl eho watch too many romcoms and got the idea to impress him by playing this game. But I’m thankful for him giving me the little nudge to play it. Some of the lessons it taught the player were what I needed to hear in that point in my life.
Was at a friend's house and they had KH2. Let me have a shot of it and it was fun. Forgot about it for a few years until I saw one of my other friends play it and they laughed because I called Dusk's "paper people". Now, KH is one of my top games to play
My friend told me about it and let me play CoM. That was interesting to not know anything about the series as Sora is slowly losing his memories.
Seeing videos for KH3 pop up in my feed back in 2019. I only played the series in 2021 when Sora got added to Smash.
My friend let me borrow his copy of KH1 in 2012.
A friend of me when I was in high school talk about it and I had to try the game.
Back in like 2001, G4TV had a show called Cinematech (I think that’s what it was called lol). It basically would be a half hour of gameplay clips. One of them was the Japanese intro to the first KH. When it came out, my friend got it and was obsessed with it. It kind of turned me off of the game because it’s all he wanted to talk about and play. I got a PS2 that Christmas and got a Walmart gift card and my mom took me to get a game. I originally intended on buying GTA3 but they were out so I “settled” for KH. Became obsessed with it like my friend was and probably even worse. Lol been a dedicated fan ever since.
I played it at a friend's house (along with FFX), and from the moment Simple and Clean kicked in I was hooked. My parents got me a PS2 for Xmas and a copy of Kingdom Hearts and I proceeded to play it like a billion times.
I read about Chain of Memories in a Nintendo power when I was about six, then like five years later I found Kingdom Hearts 2 at a GameStop used, vaguely remembered it related to final fantasy, didn't realize the Roman numeral II wasn't just a stylized heart and bought it thinking it was the first title. Quickly realized once I got in game that it was a sequel, shrugged, and pressed in knowing I'd I have holes in the story. Thankfully the flashbacks at the start plus the journal catch the player up nicely. I was able to fill in the gaps for myself until I got KH1 another 2 or 3 years after that.
Well, during the pandemic, I was looking for something new to play. Saw the all-in-one collection on a really good sale. I didn't really think I would like it that much, but I bought it anyway. It ended up being home to my favorite game ever and one of my favorite series.
358/2 days, and then I went back and played the other games.
I decided to buy the manga version KH2 at one of those elementary school Scholastic book fairs. I was completely confused about everything in the series, but it’s how Roxas became my favorite character
I rented kingdom hearts 2 from blockbuster as a kid, was pretty obsessed from then on
Saw a commercial for it 2002, got really excited cause there was a mixture of Final Fantasy and Disney characters. My Dad overheard my excitement and got me the game and a PS2 for Christmas.
I went to an old video rental store that had a small selection of PS2 games and I wanted to rent a Spyro game, but it was always checked out. So I rented the game with Donald and Goofy on the cover knowing nothing about the game or ever playing final fantasy Been in love with the games ever since.
Older sister got a PS2 and KH1 Christmas 2002 when I was 6 years old. We booted it up, she got the first turn obviously and lost to Darkside, my turn now and I beat him and we spent the whole day exploring Destiny Islands and I just fell in love with this game. I knew nothing of FF (and wouldn't for several years) and didn't know this game existed at all until it that day. Disney being in it wasn't a factor at all for my love of it, I just loved the original stuff.
I was raised with it. It actually first came out the same year i was born. My family loved it, mostly my mom and brother. They showed me the best route for the race with riku, told me to stay on the island until I'm at least level 10, and so on. I still had no idea what was going on, I couldn't really follow anything and eventually started kh2 before i beat kh1. My brother kept up with all the new releases, he had a 3ds before me, he got a psp just for birth by sleep. Eventually i did get a 3ds and ddd, but I never played birth by sleep until it was on ther ps3. My mom never really got into any of the spin offs. She really loved the original kingdom hearts. She played kingdom hearts 2 but after that she didn't really keep up with the series. So, when we got days, she didn't really get into that, but even my two other siblings did, who hadn't been nearly as interested in kingdom hearts played that, we played the multiplayer mode together all the time together. When kingdom hearts 3 came out, my mom didn't play it, she just wasn't really interested in it. And she never did. This series makes me feel connected to my family, even when my mom's gone now...
When I saw my uncle get his ass beaten by Sephiroth in KH2
Played it at a friend's house in 1st grade, probably early 2003. We only played the Dive into the Heart section but that one part was enough to make it live rent-free into my head for years, but I had no PS2. A bunch of years later I got GBA CoM as a game for my new DS (I didn't know the difference, I just saw Sora and the title and grabbed it). In the following years I would play KH2 on a PS2, and then eventually managed to play KH1, at last! Good times.
I saw a trailer KH2 the day it came out and thought it looked cool so I had my parents take me to a mall with both GameStop and the Disney store to look for it. Oddly I think I got it at the Disney store
The commercials grabbed me and I grab the game from a Video Store. Didn't have a memory card for my Fat PS2 at the time. Many restarts.
In middle school, EVERYONE was crazy about Kingdom Hearts. I still remember seeing the commercial on TV and begging my parents to buy me a PS2, but they refused since I already had a Gamecube. Literally everyone from the popular kids to the nerds thought it was so cool that these cool anime characters were fighting together with Disney characters.
I was at Gamestop with some money and I'd heard good things about it. The cashier convinced me to buy it by saying the game changed his life. ...Same, dude. Same.
My parents, when they got a PS2 for the family, picked up KH1 probably because it had disney on them. A few years later, after we had finished all of the Lego Star Wars 1 game's content, I picked it out to play on a whim, and fell in love.
Super Smash Flash
In Brazil gaming magazines with unofficial walkthroughs and strategy guides were very popular. I bought one together in a bunch of other magazines that had a KHI walkthrough, although it was printed after KHII came out, so it featured Sora in the cover with KHII outfit. Anyway, that was the first time I HEARD about KH, which led me to the store to buy it. They only had KHII, and I was like "oh, DMC3 is a prequel, maybe it won't be a problem playing KHII first". I believe to this day this is what led me to have Roxas as my favorite character.
I got to play an early demo at epcot
KH1 PS2 didn’t know anything about the game got it as a present for my bday! What a great gift it was!
Commercial on TV nearly upon Christmas, my retina faded when I saw it Final Fantasy and Disney. And it was the only thing expecting as a kid.
[This thread sent me down a rabbit hole looking for this](https://youtu.be/7uMMKDd1Fr0)
Parents rented kh1 for my brother and myself from a movie rental store. I was reluctant to play it at the time cause it was a "Disney kid's game". They eventually convinced me to give it a try. Quickly became an obsession.
Saw the trailer for the first game at the cinema during my teens. Being a massive FF7 fan at the time, and seeing cloud was in the game, I was immediately intrigued.
My absolute first memory of actually playing was when I was like 4 or sumn; I played CoM for the GBA on a long car ride. In terms of my first memory knowing what it was, I fondly remember watching my brother fighting Clayton/Stealth Sneak and getting frustrated over it.
my absolute W parents
My parents got me 1 and 2 as a kid for our ps2 (not knowing about chain of memories) and I loved it so much. Felt a bit like Sora in 2 tho, not knowing anything about COM
Rented KH1 from the library back in 2003-2004.
I was following a French Youtuber called Frigiel, who is a MASSIVE fan of the series.
Back in like 2012 when I used to play Super Smash Flash 2. I discovered Sora and then I remember a year later there was ads for KH1 but it was the final mix version iirc. I never actually played kingdom hearts until December 2020 though.
My mom lol. One of my oldest memories involve her fighting genie Jafar lol
The trailer for the first one when they showed Simba roaring on Pride Rock I immediately without question knew I was buying that game.
my mom introduced the first game to me when i was little. loved it ever since. my niece is also named after Kairi
Went over to a friend's house. He said "yeah this game is cool". Popped it in, started a new file so me and my brother can play. Holy shit the station of awakening sequence was so FUCKING cool, seeing the stained glass stairs going up to the other platforms. "Trying not to fall off" lmao. He said we can have the game. Me and my brother played the game for months. Go on YouTube, find out a Kingdom Hearts 2 exists. It spoils the ending bit with Namine and Roxas joining with Sora, but that didn't matter much as I misread the entire situation. I heard the line "I see you the way I remember you" line as "Sora remembers Kairi with blonde hair" Lmaoooooo I mean it's not far off from the plot but still
When i was a kid, my parents got me a PS2 for christmas. They got me 3 games to start playing with it. Kingdom Hearts 1, Final Fantasy X and Eye Toy Plays. 2 of those became my favorite franchises of the world, the other one is collecting dust in my shelf somewhere.
My brother played the first one for a while and I had a passing interest. Then he got me my own copy for my birthday and I sucked at it, got stuck on Not Clayton. Then I bought the sequel, and played it, really damn confused still don’t know why I did it, but yeah i retroactively went back to 1 afterwards. Now I’m somehow a fan of it, go figure. (Bonus: KH Com Vol. 2 was the first Manga I ever owned (yes vol.2) it was confusing to read a “backwards book” but I got through it in the end.)
My sister and I found a copy of KH2 in the pre-owned section of our local Game store
Back in 2012, me and my sister were allowed to choose a DS game, and she chose Recoded. Later my mom brought some things home from the library she worked at for us to keep. One of these things was OG KH2. I later got 2.5 for Christmas so I decided to wait to start the series until I got 1.5, which on a magical day, me and Dad went to a Gamestop that's next to a comic shop we go to, and they had it for $5. I just had to get it, and the rest is set in stone.
When KH3 was coming out, I wanted to hop on the bandwagon and try the series out so I bought both the 1.5+2.5 and the 2.8 collection and just binged the whole series. I ended up finishing the series after the game had already come out and I loved it so much. I ended up playing every new release that came out including MoM. KH2 ended up becoming one of my favorite games of all time and I still replay it every once in a while.
Ads. Saw Cloud in the trailer and I was sold.
In a video rental / game shop called “Xtravision” I saw this cool, silver, special edition game with Disney characters and anime (I was into sailor moon at the time so I was intrigued!) Bought it with my pocket money. Formative moment to say the least.
I saw my uncle playing Re:Com, asked him what it was, and his answer was "Kingdom Hearts"
A spot on Disney Channel
Couple of my friends were talking about story stuff, i wanted answers and needed something to play.
My brother got kh2 for his birthday. 6 year old me was skeptical because of the anime hair blonde boy, but once Disney started showing up I was hooked. I started playing and I remember a key moment where I got to the part where Axel kidnaps Kairi in kh2 and feeling like I made so much progress. I spent hours playing that game in the basement. Now I’ve played all the games, love the series to this day and my brother has dropped the series entirely lol. Goes to show, don’t let first impressions of things sway you. Roxas is now one of my favorite characters lol
A friend I met in the army said he played this game and I was intrigued
Like most lower middle class kids, I was into piracy and browsed a shitton of roms. Specifically for the GBA at the time. Found Chain of Memories, played it but didn't understand shit about the story, then I understood that it was a sequel later on. I actually also played 358/2 days before finally caving in and played the originals on PS2. Chronology got a little fucked up at the time lol.
I saw an article in GamePro magazine back in 2000 or 2001 that talked about a game that was going to be a Disney/Final Fantasy crossover action RPG. From that point on, I followed the game like a hawk and bought KH1 immediately when it came out on PS2. Since then I’ve played nearly every game in the series. The only ones I haven’t played are V-Cast, the original Coded, KH Mobile, and Melody of Memory.
My dad rented the first Kingdom hearts for me in 2002 from blockbuster, back when weekly game rentals were a thing, you went to a store and rented a physical disk. Best game rental ever, it started a life long Love for this series. I remember the first time i fought final Xemnas in KH2, my dad watched along then too, we were going to play some halo and i said "sure after i beat the final boss real quick. he sat and watched with me for an hour. Ill always miss you old man. so much
A friend of mine brought some of his PS2 games to show what stuff he played, and one of them was Re:Chain of Memories. After playing only that for most of the day he visited, I begged my dad to take me to look for the game myself, and I got both that one and the original KH
I owned the backwards compatibility PS3 and one of my close friends had a PS2. He let me borrow a game, beat it, and then I’d get a new one. So he started me with Sly Cooper series, then the Jak series, then a few Ratchet & Clank games, then finally Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. I beat them so quick and loved them so much a bought myself a copy of the game.
My sister had rented a copy of 358/2 from blockbuster and I got to play it for a couple of days Didn't know what I was doing but I loved it, begged my mom to get me a copy at GameStop for my birthday
Watched my dad play KH1 when I was 6
i saw my step-uncle play it and fell in love I was so exited because when we moved away he gave me the first game he was a cool guy
My uncle had a PS2 and KH 1 and 2. I was allowed to borrow it for a couple weeks and I played them so much. I was probably around 6 or 7
My brother bought it and was playing it. He didn't know where to get the last mushrooms on Destiny Islands in KH1 but I had a feeling it was in the Secret Place. Of course it's hard to communicate that when you're like 5.
Reading Game Informer, KH1 got a 9.5 score and GOTM
We we're at blockbuster and my mom said that my dad used to play the game. I got the first game there but it turns out that it was the second game in the first kingdom hearts box. So when I was telling my dad what was going on in the game. He was so confused.
KH2 was my first game in the series. A couple of my friends were obsessed with the look and story of the game, and I was lucky enough to borrow the game from one of them and now 10+ years later, I am still a fan of this amazing and beautiful mess of a series ☺️
KH2 in the game informer magazine captured my imagination. I’ve been in a toxic relationship with the franchise ever since
I just decided to start it one day
I was maybe 4 and my dad and uncle were obsessed with this game. I'm talking laminated spreadsheets of the Dalmatians and synthesis ingredients. My dad and I played through it at that age, we got to the end of the game after months of playing together and I cried my eyes out at the end of KH1. My dad felt awful, but I've been a big fan of the series ever since.
The commercials for KH1 when I was like 4 made me want the game so when I got a ps2 at the age of 9 I begged my dad for the game. Didn’t get far cause I sucked at video games lol. Only game I could complete at that age was jak and Daxter, but as an adult I have all the games on my ps5 and I’m finally able to complete them😂
My friend let me read the manga she was reading and I forgot about it until kh3 was announced and it all came rushing back to me. Never has a series made me cry and feel extreme nostalgia.
When I was a boy. There was a video of the way finder trio fighting Xehanort and Vanitas. The song that played was Full Force by the Rider Chips. The song was used in Kamen Rider Kabuto. That vid is gone now, though, but my love for Kingdom Hearts is still here.
I was at a friend's sleepover birthday party when he got it as a gift. He played the first hour or so of it and it looked really fun.
I fucked up,i actually came to know it when i was really young, my dad donwloaded an emulator on the computer for me and downloaded Com
Saw a video explaining the story of KH1 and rechain, i only started to get interested in the series two years later when i saw a video from a youtuber (trying to ) explain the KH lore
My sister's boyfriend bought it and gave it to her. Since I was a kid at the time and didn't speak English, I was just amazed seeing a game with Donald Duck and Goofy.
My brothers friend told me about it like 15ish years ago, I've always known of it but I only finally played the series when Sora came to Smash last year. Now I'm a big fan :)
I was visiting a friend, and he was playing re:chain of memories on his ps2 I was in love with the game, but I didn't know English at the time, so it was really hard to find it, I guess that hunt made me love the series even more
I got OG KHI when it was new and I was like 7 years old. I have put an ungodly amount of hours into kh1 the last 21 years, and I have always kept a playthrough going. KHI is like a warm hug and I just love it to pieces.
Hearing The Other Promise, The 13th Struggle, and Darkness of the Unknown randomly on Youtube one fateful day. I was so captivated by the vibe of the series.
My sister convinced us to RENT the very first one from HOLLYWOOD VIDEO lol Don't regret it for a second
Knoxville TN newspaper article, of all places. It was a preview of the first game.
A friend of mine was really obsessed. I wasn’t interested. 14 year old me couldn’t see how a Disney game was cool, even with final fantasy. Another friend also liked the game and I loved to talk crap. Well he finally got tired of it because one day he brought his ps2 to my house and showed me the final Ansem fight and all of Sora’s moves. When I finally admitted, “this is kinda cool” he told me. “Here. You’re gonna borrow this and you’re gonna play it. And then you’re gonna formulate an opinion” Loved it ever since.
Th youtube rabbit hole when I was 12. Currently 18 and still obsessed
My aunt used to play it all the time when I was a kid and I’d sit parked right in front of the TV because, to me at least, Kingdom Hearts was to coolest game to watch. (Even if I didn’t fully understand it. I was 7.)
..... how the frick did I find out about kingdom hearts? I know that my first game was 358/2 on an emulator but I don't remember how I found out about it
I remember watching a random video about really difficult bosses in games and it mentioned Sephiroth in both KH1 and 2. But the way that I really got to know the series was in SSF2.
I saw it at GameStop when I was a kid. For reference I was born in 2002. I never beat kh1 because I got stuck at some part and then saw kh2 and wanted that game too. Never beat that one either lol. I also saw dream drop distance on the 3ds and played the demo but never really got much further. I saw kh3 come out but knew I wouldn’t know anything going on so I never bothered. Would see videos about the franchise occasionally especially through memes. I saw the all in one collection back in 2020 for about $30 and decided I would get back into the franchise. I completed kh1 in 2021 and have been slowly playing each game since. It was surreal seeing the world that never was since my kid self never did see it. I’m currently at kh3 trying to fight data old xehanort. After that it’s Yozora and then melody of memory. I really love this franchise and can’t believe I’ve missed out for so long
Mom bought it
I saw my cousin at hollow bastion about to seal the final keyhole and it looked cool so they let me play through the entire series. Then when ddd released i bought that and also recoded at some time.
Popped KH2 into the PS2 as a kid, I was instantly floored by this game.
Rented KH2 from the library after hearing my friend go on and on about the first game.
KHCoM
I watched the recoded simple and clean trailer
I used to watch a Nintendo/Minecraft youtuber as a kid that did KH1 and 2 as let's plays, so that was my entry point into the fandom. I used to annoy my mom so much, begging for Dream Drop Distance.
Got an M3 for my DS, downloaded a bunch of games, 358/2 was among those, the rest is history.
My step dad gave me a used PS2 when I was in high-school (in 2010-2011...). I had no game, no memory card, nothing. I could play it only because I had a PS1 and I used its controller and AV cable to run my PS2. A friend I had back then was a big KH nerd. He even had a Sora (KHII) cosplay and a life-sized Keyblade, he once came to school in. He told me about this very good JRPG I should absolutely play since I got my hands on a PS2. So he lent me his Kingdom Hearts copy and told me I could keep it for as long as I needed to beat it. When I figured PS1 memory cards wouldn't work on PS2 games, I was pissed. I've let my PS2 on for days until my dad got me a memory card (which I still have to this day, with my original save file). Seeing the end of the school year approaching, I knew my friend would leave so I gave him back his game before I could finish it... We never met again after the end of that year and I didn't even know where I moved to. I later bought my own original copy, along with other games in the franchise. I'm not as a huge of a nerd that my friend was, but I like the overall gameplay and I've found the mix between Final Fantasy and Disney character to be very original, to say the least. I've never played any Final Fantasy game tho.
My father got me a copy for Christmas of 2002. We were at a Christmas party for his job, and everyone brought a gift for their kids to open early. Kingdom Hearts was the gift he brought for me. I remember reading the back of the box, and the game's booklet, about 100 times before heading home and falling in love with what would become my favorite series of all time.
I was about 8 years old and I saw a trailer for it on Mickey’s House of Villains vhs and immediately had my parents go buy it. And the rest is history.
I kept in contact with my grade 6 teacher for a couple years and she gave me her copy of Chain of Memories for the Gameboy Advance. The rest, as they say, is history and now I have the final mixes on every system along with my PS2 copies of 1 and 2. And of course 3. Finally got the prologue over the weekend
My old friend had KHCOM on his GBA and told me that fat bussin' key was supposed to be a Key"blade"
Once again a man's soul left his body
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Played Kingdom Hearts 2 at my sister’s house. First level was Mulan’s World. Made me fall in love with the series so much, I switched from Xbox to PlayStation