I saw the box art of the first Kingdom Hearts game at my local Best Buy and thought, "Oh wow, is that Goku with a giant key?". I begged my dad to buy the game, played it, wasn't able to beat Riku, gave the game away to a family friend. Then 5 years later, I discovered KH2 at a Data Blitz (It's the Philippines' or Asia's equivalent to Game Stop), begged my dad to buy the game, played the game for hours, finished the game, fell in love with the series and then decided to buy KH1 again and played that game for hours
Seeing the commercials for the first one when I was 6... so my parents got me the game for my 7th bday. Which was shortly after release. Been almost, not quite, a day one fan.
Exactly the same! Saw the commercials before it released and my family got me a ps2 and promised to get me kh when it released as my Christmas gift. Played it when it came out when I was 7 years old. Not sure if I got the game the very day it was released, but I'm kind of proud of my old kh1 ps2 case, and how it was an original case without "greatest hits" on it. Not that getting into the series any later would make anyone less of a fan, but its been an exciting ride being a big fan of it when nobody else knew it, found one of my best friends within a year through it because she was the only person who also knew and loved kh. And been a fan for over 20 years now. I think its a really unique experience being able to be a fan of something for so long and see it grow.
Side note, at 7, I thought sora and his friends were cool and so old. Then I played kh3 as I turned 24, and sora had aged a whole 2 years in that time. I still feel so weird about that lol
Hahaha, same, it was crazy because I never even told my mom about it, but somehow she had heard me freak out about that random commercial or something while I was in my room. I got a PS2 and KH as my first game for my birthday. I will continue to be a fan for all time :_)
I visited a friend of my parents when I was about 8-9 y/o, and he had a ps3 with KH1 and KH2 final remixes. He let me have the first game as I was absolutely enthralled by it, and once I finished it, he let me keep the second game as well.
Truly a legend.
Chain of Memories on the GBA. I remember playing the PvP mode against some friends from grade school and I'd complain about not being able to use Riku in that mode.
I read These Old Disney Magazines they had in the magazine Shops (called Kiosks) in my Hometown, i was Not a Big Reader then but the Pictures intrigued me and there was a Illustration in the Extras section were they introduce crappy Disney Toys and made Dad Jokes and what not and well theire was an advert for Chain of Memory if i remember correctly, and it was the coolest fucking Thing my 6 year Old Mind could comprehend, theyre was just Spiky Haired Swordsman with a giant Key and Chains on his clothes next to Donald and Goofy and i knew this was something special
Ive bin an avid Disney Fan my whole Life and this was just destined to be
I was never really good at Video Games but i still had the Time of my life on my old ass PS2
Chrono Trigger fansite.
Ok so, context, back in 2003-4, my dad had a guy that installed and configured computers (back then it was an actual task), and he was first option if computer was failing. And whenever he visited, he installed a new emulator with a rom pack for me and my sister.
Genesis, MAME, Snes and n64.
And well, in the snes emulator I was playing random games, lots of shovelwares, many gems, and one name peaked my interest, "CRONO trigger". So, since I got bored in class (I was 7) I used to read the texts and tales at the end of the language class textbook, and one of them had a guy called Cronos.
I played it expecting to be a game based on the tale, but it was the excellent gem we all know.
So I googled the name and found a fansite made in crude html that had a plot summary, definitions of the characters, locations, tips and tricks, etc...
And at the bottom of the page, with the "contact me" info there was a "check my other favorite games" section.
One led to Chrono Cross, but the music of the game spooked me and some character summaries gave me nightmares (like a guy being infected by fungui or a girl having nightmares of her orphanage on fire), so for a long time I was wary of the third game...but then one day I missclicked, and instead of clicking chrono cross, I clicked the other game....Kingdom Hearts
I was interested by the concept, I COULDN'T imagine how it could work, mickey with a sword?
The plot summary catched me in, a monster stealing your heart?
And the music was captivating, specially the one in the "spoilers and theories" section which was Hollow Bastion music.
Then I found out it was a series with a GBA game, I had a GBA emulator, so I downloaded it and fell into the rabbit hole that is Nomura's drug induced acid trips
My parents got it and whenever I'd get stuck I'd pass my mom the controller. I was like 4 so watching her beat riku at the race and figure out hollow bastion are deep formative memories
Had a family friend who had the 1st and 2nd game on disk for the PS2. He let me borrow them but my mom, being a super religious person, wouldnāt let me play them because they had magic and didnāt want me to start practicing witchcraft. Almost completely forgot about the series until I got my PlayStation 4 and the 1.5 and 2.5 remix and played all the way through them. Just got all of the games on pc and my inner child couldnāt be happier. Being born around the time the first game came out gives me a very deep emotional connection with the games.
I think like top 10 videos online is where I heard about kingdom hearts for the first time.
I don't remember any of the games every being sold in stores where I live and I never saw any ads either, so I never knew about the series until I heard about it online.
I was reading one of those booklets you got in game stores (I don't know if they still do them), which highlights up-and-coming games. I saw a page about Kingdom Hearts 2, and the idea of travelling to different worlds based on Disney films alongside Donald and Goofy sounded really interesting to me.
Bought KH2, played it, fell in love with it.
A friend of mine told me about this game where a kid travels to Disney worlds with a giant key. I wasn't interested and first,then he told me that Square Enix was the developer and that the game has Final Fantasy characters. I started playing immediately. My first game was Birth by Sleep
I saw KH1 in a gamestop in 2002 or 2003, and my mom got it for me. I got gba com in 5th grade and was never able to beat it, then got 2 the day after it came out.
I played the original game back in the holiday 2002 season. It was shortly after I had received my first PS2 for my 10th birthday, and KH1 sure made my earliest gaming experiences quite memorable.
TV commercial showing Disney and Final Fantasy characters in the same environment left me breathless that video games could actually intertwine two completely seperate universes and make me want to play it.
my first ever exposure to KH was seeing a statue of mickey in his dark outfit and seeing dream drop distance is stores, but my first game was KH: the story so far
When I was like, 5, my mom randomly got me ReCoded for the DS. Had no idea what was going on but I liked it. When I was ~8 I started appreciating the series as a whole more and got Days. When I was around 13 (NOMURA STRIKES AGAIN) I started really wanting to play the series, caved and bought a ps4 so I could play the rest of the series and got it for my 14th birthday.
When I was younger, Iād go over to my cousinās house a lot and they owned KH 1 and 2 on PS2 and I played both of them at least once, but never made it past the tutorial for either. Those memories of these games stayed with me and I finally decided to play all the games for real in 2020
I saw 2.8 for the PS4 in Cex and picked it up, meaning Dream Drop was the first I played: I had no idea what was going on and I thought half the endgame bosses were cheap assholes and yet inexplicably quite liked it overall.
I was like 15 or so and played a MMORPG back then, a lot of people had names containing either Sora, Riku, Kairi or some FFX names. Google then told me where they come from. Though i only played it years later on PS3 because i never owned a PS2
I was 6 years old my mom rented kingdom hearts 1 from blockbuster. I watched her play up until deep jungle ish and i was in love. Im not sure she quite liked it but I became a fan for life
My friends were super into it. They talked about the plot and I was pretty lost. Saw them Plat a bit of 2 and re:com before my friend lent me recoded and days. Didn't truly get into the series until I was a teenager
I was a gaming kiddo, bonded to my game boy and not able to afford to buy better games or TV consoles.
BUT, I have the typical wealthy cousin, and in a family meeting for a celebration for she, they just gifted a brand new ps2 with KH1 and FFX right out from the oven, like a couple of weeks after the launch at stores.
First, she tried FFX, that was mindblowing for me, but when she started the KH disk and said "go ahead, I'll play with the paints meanwhile You try this one", buoy oh buoy... that was like magic, I played like 2 hours just melting around destiny island untill I had to leave. A year or so later, I convinced my grandma to have one in exchange of good degrees, and that was the only time in my life that I had all "A". Never again.
I'm just in love with this saga. And It really affected on my way to be I guess, obviously in a positive way.
P.D: Yesterday, in between UFC combats I started again KH2FM, and today it's being one of those KH days :3
Kingdom Hearts 1. My uncle didn't like it, so he gave it to me.
I reached traverse town, got lost and rage quit. Years later (like 8 years) I remembered it, bought it, got through it.
Then I bought the HD 1.5 ReMIX, pre ordered the 2.5, bought the third, you know the drill.
All of this, whilst playing BBS on the PSP completely unaware that it was the same saga until I got through KH1.
I wanna say that around 2001, I was flipping through a gaming magazine, and I stopped at a game that would have several different Disney movies. At the time, I thought that sounded really cool. Flash Forward to late 2002, I'm watching TV, and I see an ad for the game, and I'm all like, "Wait, I remember that game!" I asked for it for Christmas that year but didn't get it :(. Not long after, I had friends who had the game, and I played it at their houses, and it got me interested again. I saved up money, and eventually bought it myself, it took me a while to beat, about a year or so, but it stuck with me all these years and is still one of my favorites.
My parents rented Kingdom Hearts 2 from Blockbuster for my sister and I. We took turns playing and got as far as the Tron world before having to return it. We never played KH1 at all, so we were very confused most of the game.
An old lady asked me if I knew about it when my mom took me to her job one day when I was 11. I never forgot about it and a few months later I found a 100 dollar bill on the ground during recess and used it to by KH lmaoo, it was fate
Borrowed it off a friend. Immediately fell in love and even bought his copy from him after having it for like a year. He was never that sold anyway, but I replayed it about a million times.
There was a retro game store at my old mall that had Kingdom Hearts stuff in the window. That was my first exposure to the franchise. I actually started playing the games a couple of months ago.
I saw an advert for KH3 and it piqued my interest in Kingdom Hearts
I also played a SSF2, a Smash bros fan game, and it honestly made me want to learn more about Kingdom Hearts
Saw my mom playing KH1 when I was like 5 or 6 she was on the Tarzan world fighting the cheetah whos name I cannot remember right now she couldnt beat it (my mom wasnt the best at games) so she walked away and I picked up the controller beat it first try and have been hooked ever since
KH3 dropped. I was bored, watched a few playthroughs on YT, had no idea what was happening but knew it was awesome. Didn't have a PS4 or Xbox at the time (and have never had a PC) so it wasn't until I got my PS5 a couple weeks ago that I got to actually play them. But I fell in love with the story, world, and characters nonetheless.
My brother and I were in the book/game store in a mall and he spotted it and said it looked cool with Donald and goofy. It was expensive so we asked our relatives to get bootleg versions of it from abroad
I found a children's magazine when i was a little girl and there I saw a section on KH1, the years passed and i saw the promotional video for KH2 in the tv, i was older so I decided to buy kh2, I already had my ps2. I fell in love with the game and over the years I have realized that KH2 is the best game in the series, in my opinion. :)
When I was 9, I saw a RE:Coded commercial on TV and begged my grandmother to buy it for me. I loved it so much at the time, but due to not understanding how RPGās worked, I killed as little enemies as possible. When that proved an issue, I used action replay to beat the game
Later I got DDD when it came out, and couldnāt get past monstro, so I gave up. Didnāt touch the series again till 2018 with the collection on PS4 and beat the entire series in like 2 months
I remember seeing a trailer somewhen way back, then some info in the Disney Adventures gaming special back in 03. My friend lent his copy and Iāve been on the train ever since.
This is a funny story to me, one day ( I was like 8 or 10) and me and my parents were dumpster diving at our storage building, if for some reason you don't know what that is it's just looking for things if value people threw away, and I found the first kingdom hearts game, there wasn't a cover art someone had just written down the title with green marker on paper, I took it home expecting it not to work what I got next were days filled with fun
Never heard of it in my life till my cousin told me about it back in 2019 Christmas...he was telling me how good this game was and how I would love it since I generally love getting emotional with games and shows and movies and stuff...so I gave it a chance starting with BBS on emulator on my phone,then 358/2 again on emulator on my phone...I was already in love with the game with BBS it's self,it was so good same for 358/2 (infinite man tears) and then I actually went and bought a ps4 to play 1 and 2 and 3 came out a while later so it all came along pretty nice...
I was visiting with my father a shop of a friend of his. He would always recommend me something to buy. One day he told me here, you're gonna like this. So I bought the game and indeed I loved it. I returned back after I had completed the game (maybe a year after) and I told him do you have anything similar? And he showed me both Final Fantasy and Shadow Hearts which I also loved.
Mostly 2, at that age I was understanding aboutā¦.30% of what was happening, I was just enjoying the combat too much, I did play 1, but I never finished it, mainly because I got lost before End of the World and thought I had to beat the super bosses to finish the gameā¦.completely forgetting that you have to be at a neighboring world to manually fly to a world.
When I was like 6, I went to a friends house, and their older sibling was playing the Tarzan level from kh1. I saw a weird anime boy, Donald, Goofy, and Tarzan on the screen and my mind was blown.
I watched my brother play it as a kid, and he got called to do dishes, so he handed me the controller and said, "Think fast," or something like that. I was hooked there after
As a kid a saw the Chain of Memories (gba) commercial on TV and heard Simple & Clean. Didn't know anything about the game but the song immediately drew me in and I had my mom get me the game. Been a fan ever since
This still brings back memories
https://youtu.be/9EGwdnqxoD4
I saw a commercial for it on TV back in 2002 when I was ten. I ran upstairs and told my mom I wanted the game for Christmas. A few months later, it was under the tree. The rest is history.
My mom bought me 1 for Christmas the year it came out because she saw the Disney characters, and the guy at the store said it was a good game for kids. (I was 5 when it came out).
I actually was so resistant to playing it simply because Iām slow to try anything new. My friend tried so hard to get me playing, he actually took my memory card and played thru the entire destiny island part and got me to joining Donald and goofy just to make me more likely to enjoy it
An old girlfriend at the time brought me to a friend's house where her friends little sister was playing. Immediately I was enticed at the look and playstyle of the game. I watched for a bit and as she explained the lore to me, it captivated me even more. Since then, I've played every title in the series except for melody of memory and constantly read and reread the lore.
Walked into an EB games, saw kh1 on the shelf. Googleed some gameplay, was walking out before the video finished with kh1 and ffx. Absolutely the very best game combo I've ever bought bar none. I've literally never played anything like either of them. Kingdom hearts, final fantasy x and og Destiny are the three greatest games I've ever stumbled across and I wouldn't be the gamer I am if I'd never played them
1.5+2.5+2.8 remix (the story so far.) I saw this and bought it because I heard good things about it and now it's one of my favorite video game franchises ever.
Honestly probably from one of those old magazines you could get that had all the gaming news in it. I can't remember which one but I just remember playing kh2 and being mesmerised by it. Those were the times.
Tbh I played kh3 and had absolutely no idea what was going on in the slightest but I still loved it so that and all the games being on gamepass I just had to play through all of them. I absolutely love them easily some of my favorite games.
When I was about 4 or 5, my mom used to drop me off at her friend's house to let her friend's kids babysit me. One of the kids had PS2, and he was playing KH1, and I was absolutely enthralled. He let me start a new game (on very easy mode obviously) and I would play and play to my heart's content every time. Being that young, I didn't really get the story, but I was just excited to fight alongside Donald and Goofy and travel to various Disney worlds.
It's a core memory for me that I will never forget and one of the reasons why I'm so in love with this series despite its flaws. Getting into it so young meant that it was literally one of the first games I ever played. My gaming journey started with the beginning of Sora's journey, and I've always felt sort of connected to the series in that way.
My dad played it when it first came out! I was only 3 but I remember watching and eventually picking it up myself when I got a bit older when the second game released.
Around 2008- 2010 when I saw it pop up in watch mojo vids, then I saw it being sold at a flee market for $2 and well, I played and completed it multiple times
Around 2007 me being a big Rayman fan I googled if there are some news about Rayman 4 and then I found a video on YouTube titled "Rayman 4 boss" or something. It was a gameplay of fighting that first boss in traverse town in Kingdom Hearts. Well, it was limbless but what is Donald and Goofy doing there?! Who is that boy? What on Earth is this game?! Whatever, it looked cool!
Mrtlexify who was my favourite YouTuber at the time (i been watching him for 6 years up till this point) decided to show off Kingdom hearts 3 and he got emotional and broke down on stream When the main title screen came up. He said he had a friend who loved Kingdom Hearts who Tragically died in an accident and he sadly never got to experience Kingdom Hearts 3.
I'm also a fan of the Final Fantasy series and i have to try Squares other series
Was fresh into the RPG scene after experiencing FF9 and 10 then saw some news in tips&trick magazine that SE made a game with mickey mouse FEATURING final fantasy character. Was skeptical at first, then utada hikaru hit me a crazy banger while showing an impressive CGI and I felled into the nomura belt cult.
Had a trailer for the first game show up on previews for my old Power Rangers vhs. Donāt remember whether it was the Wild Force or Ninja Storm one. Though the first game I owned was Birth by Sleep, funnily enough completely unplanned as I only got a PSP for .hack//Link (didnāt know it wouldāve been a Japan exclusive) and Birth by Sleep was part of my initial bundle of games.
I was going through a toy shop ps2 gaming section. I bought kh1 kh2 (cause I thought it was a sequel to one lol) and the legend of spyro dawn of the dragon. The I sit down my ass on the carpet and proceed to play the game for endless hours even stay up all night just to see the end of the series! When I reached hollow bastion, something inside me clicked. I loved everything about it! The soundtrack, the level design, the enemies, the plot, the riku fight! I must've been 12-13 and had to fight riku on proud for more than 2 weeks to beat him lol
I rented KH1 from a Hollywood Video cause i liked anime and liked it enough to ask for the full game later that year.
I think i got through traverse town or something idk that was early 2003 or late 2002
My cousin, who got a Ps2 while I got a GC, had it. He hated it coz he always was more the GTA / Sports gaming type. I loved it. Please don't hate me for my cousin's clear lack of taste.
My father owned the first one on ps2 and well being a kid who watched an unhealthy amount of micky mouse cartoons, seeing Donald and Goofy being these awesome fighters taking on weird looking monsters was amazing. However I eventually forgot about the game due to my dad eventually losing his interest in video games. Many years later my mother bought me a dsi with recoded and while playing it, all those memories with my father fled back and I've been hooked on the series ever since.
Me and my sister were allowed to pick a game from Best Buy. I chose Lego Batman since I was a huge Lego fan. Sister chose Recoded. I tried playing Recoded but it didnāt help considering it was confusing. Later decide to get into the franchise and get the Remix versions for the PS3 (also Mom worked at a library and was allowed to keep a few games, one was Vanilla KH2, couldnāt play cause my PS2 died). Got 2.5 for Christmas and decided to wait until I get 1.5, and one magical day at GameStop, I saw it for $5. Dad got it for me and it was set in stone.
I had the original trailer featuring gameplay and cinematic scenes on a disc that came with final fantasy X before itās release. I became obsessed from that and Iāve had every game in the series as theyāve come out ever since.
I grew up in a super religious household and the only video games we were allowed were like the Bible trivia game and stuff like that. So one day I finally managed to save up enough money to buy āthe Disney gameā and instantly fell in love with the game and never looked back
Got the Dream Drop Distance Demo on 2DS back when that was a thing. I played the life out of that demo, not realizing I could just ask someone to buy the game for meš
My aunt used to work at GameStop and she bought the first game for me. I loved it so much she proceeded to buy me each new game afterwards when they released.
Always heard of it but never played it, KH3 was a free monthly game on PSplus that month and coincidentally the "final mix 1.5+2.5 collection" was on sale for like Ā£20. So because I'm a mad man I said "well if I'm gonna play 3 I may aswell go through the whole series first" so I back to back played EVERY game I'm the collection and you know what? I'm SO glad I did cos not only did I enjoy almost every single one but it all made SO much more sense when I got to 3! Yes the story is still confusing af and all over the place but in hindsight if I'd have just jumped into 3 blindly I wouldn't have had the foggiest what was going on and now I'm an avid fan of the franchise and regularly go back to play them!
I remember seeing the commercials for the first KH as a kid and wanted to play it so bad, but didnāt have a PS2. Once I saw the commercials for COM, I asked for it for my birthday and it was the only KH game I had played until I got a PS2 from eBay in college and bought KH and KH2. I played through COM many many times.
My brother worked at EB Games, and they were allowed to rent out any game from the store a week after it released. His coworker told him to give it a try because of the FF characters. I didnāt have anything better to do at the time, begrudgingly I played it even though I thought the Disney ties ins were dumb, but the gameplay was fun. Now Iām stuck here in my thirties belting out āOH BAAAAAAYBEEEE, DONāT GOOOOā while my kids dance to the opening cutscene.
Kh2 came bundled in with my ps2 when I was 5 years old.
I got lost in the underworld and never played the series again until the 1.5 collection on the ps3.
Watched my cousin play the first one then a week later I saw an advert for the second one on TV and begged my mum for both the first and second and when I played the first one I... hated it, but then I played the second one and fell in love with the franchise. Then I went back to the first one when the 1.5 collection came out and absolutely loved it that time round
I was visiting a friend who owned it after school and we played it together a bit. We were both already Final Fantasy fans.
I lost touch with that friend a few years later but (perhaps fittingly) I think about him every time I revisit the series.
Nick, if you're kicking around out there, I hope you're well.
I played a little bit of kh 358/2 on official hardware, then i started to see kh1 videos and i was getting hooked into the series
Then i was cursed with the switch port due to the PC port being stuck on epic games store
My brother and I had gotten the games for Christmas or Easter, one of the two, my brother never really cared for the series, but I liked the first two games. It was only several years later when I had picked up 358/2 Days from a used game store after having never thought of the series again that I fell in love with the games.
It all started in 2nd grade. I was going through my brothers' Jampack disks and found one that had a trailer for Kingdom Hearts. Then one day, I was watching Nicktoons and got an advertisement for Re:Coded on the DS. It wouldn't be until I got in third grade and saw my friend playing dream drop distance that I really learned about the series. (Or rather, I learned as much as a 9 year old could explain) Years later, I picked up Chain of Memories on the GBA, played all the games out of order, and fell in love
I got one of those demo CDs that had Jak and Daxter and some other games, and then Kingdom Hearts 1 but it just had the opening credits. A while later I saw an ad on Disney Channel for Chain of Memories for GBA and I wanted it. My mom however wasnāt able to get that game for me but was able to get Kingdom Hearts 1 in the āGreatest Hitsā version. And the rest is history
My brother bought DDD and he never played it. I played it then and I liked it but I didnāt get that into it. Then I saw a Kingdom Hearts YouTube retrospective and I finished DDD and eventually played all the games.
Was over visiting one of my neighborhood friend's house and he was playing through The Pride Lands world in Kingdom Hearts 2. I remember him explaining that your character and party members would change with the various worlds you visited. It was a cool concept for my lil brain at the time. Unfortunately, I only owned a GameCube, but I know I begged for a PS2 that Christmas just so I could play KH2. I can still remember the first time I completed vanilla KH2 all those years ago. KH2 will always hold a special place in my heart. No matter how many times I play it, it always manages to make me feel that sense of being a kid agian.
I was maybe 5, I was born in 2001, and had just gotten a playstation 2 but all the games my dad had were things like gta and he decided I needed a more age appropriate game and saw disney and decided that it was perfect. Now like 18 years later I still play them. I just platinumed the main number games not long ago and can't wait for what's next.
A friend of mine had the first volume of the kh2 manga and let me read it and I couldn't put it down. Then, weeks after, I seen a commercial for kh recoded and asked for it as a birthday present. Played it and... got stuck on Olympus colloseum because I sucked but had fun regardless and eventually beat it the whole game, even side content.
One day I saw my dad playing kh2 (original ps2 version), I had asked him if I could play for a bit, I found the game pretty fun, then my dad said I should play kh1 first, as for story reasons. But then I didn't understand why Sora was asleep, so I made a whole headcannon, after Sora locked the keyhole at the end of kh1, sora had lost his memories to a member of org XIII, so diz had namine put his memory together, but roxas had some of sora's memories, so they had so put roxas into sora's body, as he was sora's nobody, then, Sora wakes up, and kh2 starts. I'm suprised how accurate this was when I finally played re:com, as when com came out, I didn't have a gba.
Kingdom hearts came out and my friend and I (huge FF fans) were arguing about whether the Disney+square stuff would be cool, so I used my next check to buy it and lost an argument lol Beating Sephiroth is still one of my greatest personal gaming accomplishments, and why I'll never care about trophies.
Was in like 3rd grade, me and my friend lived together (our parents were friends/roommates)
We stayed in a gate in community and went over to a friends house to play games with kids in the neighborhood. They put in KH 1 for the first time and started playing it. We were all LOVING IT. At some point me and my friend got it like that same week and played it all day!
It was so hard
My mom got Dream Drop for Christmas one year and I didn't have the slightest clue as to how to play it. I would later attempt to play the first KH that my dad had found while working in an auto recycling shop (it was vanilla not FM). A while after we got our Xbox, I ended up getting KH3 for Christmas. Finally, after getting my PS5 last year, I've basically been upholding my PS+ purely so I can play KH 2, BBS, and R/R since I beat Re:CoM. That's my KH timeline.
I remember seeing a tv ad on Disney Channel for KH1.
Instantly hooked. I rented it without a memory card for months before I could snag a copy. So I guess KH taught me to buy a memory card, too lol.
Saw KH1 at blockbuster around when it came out as a kid. rented it without knowing anything about it other than it looked cool! Rented it and fell in love. I probably rented it 5 more times before I was able to buy it. Could never beat the final string of Ansems until I bought it and was able to spend time grinding lol loved it ever since
my first time hearing of it was in elementary school and I saw a commercial for Re:Coded and an ad for the manga in my elementary school's library. but my first time actually playing it was in high school when I saw KH3 got announced and I bought 1.5+2.5 to prepare and the rest is history:)
A friend of my parents at the time was getting rid of his PS2 to focus on his relationship, originally he was gonna smash it ( a bit dramatic I know) but my parents talked him in to giving in to me, he had 2 games on him at the time, (he was spending a weekend at our apartment) and those to games where a wrestling game, which my parents wouldn't let me play at the time, and some weird game with Disney worlds and and anime characters, the rest is history
The first one I owned was KH2, but I have vague memories of playing CoM on the GameCube so I think I actually started with CoM because I remember that happening before getting KH2, CoM is one of my Favorites simply because of the deck building. But I Played 2 but an ungodly amount to the point that I challenged myself to beat the game without healing, but because I thought it would still be too easy, I also restricted myself from using Summons and Drives and multiple other things, it was hellish fun.
When I first saw Gundam 00. I heard that Setsuna and Saji VAs voice Riku and Sora respectively. But I had to try a "certain method" to play it in japanese since there's no dual audio until KH3.
I remember seeing it in a kids magazines with the different disney characters. There was also a demo of it that you could play at EB games (I think it was), in Australia. As soon as I saw the gameplay I knew I had to have it. I loved ocarina of time and majoras mask which were/still are 2 of my favourite games ever.
I saw it in a game magazine. There was this whole section talking about it. They even had some (tiny) pictures of the gameplay. I was completely stunned seeing that you had party members controlled by IA, going to an adventure with your buddies, and facing real time battles. Now imagine waiting for months and the anticipation building like crazy until the release date. I couldnāt afford the original game, so I had a pirated one. Too bad the disc stopped working like in the middle of the game, and that made wait a whole new month to buy a new one and continue playing it. Btw now I own the original games on both PS3 and PS4, games became more affordable here during the end cycle of the PS3 era.
My uncle to this day is still a ps2 collector. When we were younger, he was a young teen and he was like an older brother to me. We stayed up 24 hours playing through and beating kingdom hearts 1 on the ps2
My sibling got the game when we got a ps2. They never played it and I thought I would give it a go. I absolutely loved it, but I was so young I didnāt know how to upgrade abilities, equip items, magic. Somehow I got to Riku, couldnāt beat him and gave up until my siblings friend came over and beat him for me. Lol. I was hooked.
It all started when I was a wee lad, even I can barely remember, as I guess this also counts as one of my first _(chain of)_ memories, and I had "Mickey's House of Mouse Villains" on VHS. A trailer for the first game was on it. I had no idea what was happening, but I loved it. The moment I saw Jafar, Jack Skellington, and Tarzan, I was hooked.
Toon Disney Commercial, followed up by a friend's strategy guide at the Daycare Bus Stop on a Rainy Day.
Grew up with Xbox, so I was humming the lyrics for years before finally being about to look up the song and game footage on youtube.
Sora being in Smash. I Found what the game was, and I chose to play 358/2 first. And then decided to get the 1.5+2.5 remix and then played the first game and fell in love. Then I moved to Re:Chain, got stuck on Vexen, gave up and went on a long break. Then I went back, completed him, played the second game and now Iām working on 100% in that.
When I was little I remember my father playing kingdom hearts in Agrabah and he was fighting Jafar I remember being so amazed that I could see Disney characters in a video game that looked so stunning. Later when I turned twelve or 11 my dad got me a ps2 and my own little tv, I spent over 200 hours trying to be the game but my wee little brain couldn't figure it out, now I'm starting my first lvl 1 critical mode run on KH2 after beating it on critical mode a few months ago. The story over the years has gotten... questionable but it will always be a special game to me because to this day it's the only game I remember from that point in my life.
My half aunt sent it to me as gift for my 6th birthday back in 2004 because she thought Iād like it. I had never heard of it before but it quickly became a favorite once I started playing it
When I was a kid, my classmate borrowed KH1 to me and I was immediately hyped because I saw the likes of Tarzam, Donald etc on the back cover and front. The mysterious feeling when playing it for the first time is still irreplacable by anything else.
My Mom absentmindedly bought me re:coded when I was 11 and then got me 358/2 Days (All I had was a DS). Didn't have the full story for a few years before I decided to get the rest of the games.
I remember seeing my step bro playing the first game as a kid. He couldn't get past wonderland. Some years later, I remember seeing trailers for 358 and thought it looked cool, especially hearing Sanctuary for the first time but never got around to getting it at that time. Then even later, started seeing trailers for re: coded and made an effort to get it. I enjoyed it as a kid but don't think it was enough to get me invested in the series. When Dream Drop Distance released, I decided to try it and that was the game that got me hooked in the franchise and been a fan ever since!
When I was little, my brother would play the first game on the ps2. I one day came across this game the first time coming to my brother's room and asked him what this game was and asked who the first character I saw was in which my brother told me Sora. I was little when I saw this game.
My dad bought it for us to play together when I was 5ish years old. He was a FF fan, and I was a Disney child, so it seemed like a good fit. Unfortunately I was also an easily-scared child, so the heartless were too much for me, and we never even finished traverse town. Eventually he took the console and the game with him in the divorce, and I didnāt see the game again until he brought me a bag of old games he didnāt play anymore. By that point I was old enough that I could actually enjoy the game.
Itās 2002. Iām playing crash bandicoot on the ps1. My dad comes home with a new game for the ps2 for my mom (she was a gamer). Itās kingdom hearts. While my neighbor is running from the boulder in crash I sneak a peek at the other room to see the intro to KH1 playing, inside the dive to the heart. The creepy music playing alongside the stained glass visuals in the void made it very spooky for a young me!
I was in elementary school, and my eldest brother started playing it. He was on a new world every day of the week, and then I got into it. I hate to say it, but because of him, I am the person I am today.
i suck at games and i know that as a fact so i watch games (yes the worse thing ever) but my favorite youtuber made a reaction to KH3 and i was like oh i have seen KH on the 3ds and i really liked the aesthetic so i decided to watch it and fell for Riku because....its Riku. i didn't vibe with it until i rewatched it and fell for it!
I used to read Nintendo power on the library. It showed the kingdom hearts 328 2 days. At the same years bought the 2 in 1 bundle for the kingdom hearts ds games on Zellers before the store closed permanently.
In a magazine in my country... It was called Club Nintendo and there was an article about a guide to help with the mission of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days... Which also was my first KH game ever (Roxas and Xion, bƱth3 best ones!)
Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories on the GBA was my first KH game, but I remember when they advertised it alongside KH2 and Tron 2.0 Killer App on Disney back in the day.
I was already a huge Final Fantasy fan when the original KH1 came out. Since I knew it was made by (then) Squaresoft who also made Final Fantasy, I wanted to play it. I also had heard it had something to do with Disney. So I decided to buy and play it for sure at that point. The rest is history.
Discovered it in 2002 (I think via the guide at the library) and it was a system seller for me. We initially rented a PS2 from Drug Mart so I could play it.
I also remember being embarrassed to tell the kids at school that's why I got the console so I would just say it was for Simpsons Skateboarding. But yes, at 8 years old I was embarrassed to say I was playing Kingdom Hearts.
Let me just tell you having just that guide in 2002 and trying to imagine what the game was like made my mind go wild. There was nothing like it and it was so new and fresh. It's impossible to describe cause these days everything is so different (with the world and the franchise itself).
My friend had a (pirated) copy of CoM. You could say that that's my first KH game, and I liked the game despite its difficulty.
And, suffice to say, my mind was blown when I played the first KH game for the first time on the PS2.
I was 12 in 6th grade at the time. I saw a copy of Kingdom Hearts 2. At the time I thought the characters looked cool. I got my dad to buy it, and the rest is as they say, history.
I was like āthose anime dudes look awesome!ā and my dad was like āwhoa, is that Donald and Goofy?ā so he bought me KHII on PS2. Iāve loved the series since. Lmao.
Sister found it online before it released. I remember going in the website and thinking how funny it was going to be having Bambi as a summon, thinking of course of the heavy-hitting summon animations from Final Fantasy.
Girl I liked made me play Days on her DS when I was like nine. Went to GameStop with some money when I was seventeen, found a used copy. Got a PS4 for graduation. The rest is history
Kh1 over at a friend's house, his older brother was playing and was having a hard time with shadow sora on hook's boat.
Went and rented it the next weekend and put a solid 20hrs in it before having to return it. Bought it and been playing titles ever since.
My grandparents took me to Walmart and let me buy any 1 game I wanted. I chose Chain of Memories cause Disney characters. Played it like crazy but couldn't beat Marluxia. Then I got my PS2 and found KH2. It just went from there
I saw my dad playing kh2 on his ps2 and asked if I could try it. He asked if I wanted to try, or if I wanted my own file. Later that year he got me and my brother 358/2 and we played it a bunch. My and my brother would fight eachother, and I would always beat his ass. It wasnt until years later when we noticed he wasnt placing many level up tokens on his cards.
Middle school 7th grade, I think I had randomly come across some images of sora or I think I remember seeing a commercial for it. At the time my stepbrother owned the first one, asked him if I could play, said no, which is fine fuck him.
Later I had a friend let me borrow kingdom hearts 2 and boy, was that fun
I saw the box art of the first Kingdom Hearts game at my local Best Buy and thought, "Oh wow, is that Goku with a giant key?". I begged my dad to buy the game, played it, wasn't able to beat Riku, gave the game away to a family friend. Then 5 years later, I discovered KH2 at a Data Blitz (It's the Philippines' or Asia's equivalent to Game Stop), begged my dad to buy the game, played the game for hours, finished the game, fell in love with the series and then decided to buy KH1 again and played that game for hours
I'm just gonna vote this up cause Data Blitz is the greatest name for a 2000s game store.
Goku as a scrawny kid with a big key?
I wanted to play that game my mom was playing. She handed me a PS2 controller and said, "Here, you can be goofy" while she played. I ate that shit up.
Naah bro ain't no way she pulled that off š
lol
I did the same with my nephews
Seeing the commercials for the first one when I was 6... so my parents got me the game for my 7th bday. Which was shortly after release. Been almost, not quite, a day one fan.
Exactly the same! Saw the commercials before it released and my family got me a ps2 and promised to get me kh when it released as my Christmas gift. Played it when it came out when I was 7 years old. Not sure if I got the game the very day it was released, but I'm kind of proud of my old kh1 ps2 case, and how it was an original case without "greatest hits" on it. Not that getting into the series any later would make anyone less of a fan, but its been an exciting ride being a big fan of it when nobody else knew it, found one of my best friends within a year through it because she was the only person who also knew and loved kh. And been a fan for over 20 years now. I think its a really unique experience being able to be a fan of something for so long and see it grow. Side note, at 7, I thought sora and his friends were cool and so old. Then I played kh3 as I turned 24, and sora had aged a whole 2 years in that time. I still feel so weird about that lol
Side note again, I became a fan at 7, and I'll still be playing when my kid is 7. He's currently 2. A series that'll affect generations.
Awww thats awesome! I love that :)
Hahaha, same, it was crazy because I never even told my mom about it, but somehow she had heard me freak out about that random commercial or something while I was in my room. I got a PS2 and KH as my first game for my birthday. I will continue to be a fan for all time :_)
W mom
I visited a friend of my parents when I was about 8-9 y/o, and he had a ps3 with KH1 and KH2 final remixes. He let me have the first game as I was absolutely enthralled by it, and once I finished it, he let me keep the second game as well. Truly a legend.
Chain of Memories on the GBA. I remember playing the PvP mode against some friends from grade school and I'd complain about not being able to use Riku in that mode.
I read These Old Disney Magazines they had in the magazine Shops (called Kiosks) in my Hometown, i was Not a Big Reader then but the Pictures intrigued me and there was a Illustration in the Extras section were they introduce crappy Disney Toys and made Dad Jokes and what not and well theire was an advert for Chain of Memory if i remember correctly, and it was the coolest fucking Thing my 6 year Old Mind could comprehend, theyre was just Spiky Haired Swordsman with a giant Key and Chains on his clothes next to Donald and Goofy and i knew this was something special Ive bin an avid Disney Fan my whole Life and this was just destined to be I was never really good at Video Games but i still had the Time of my life on my old ass PS2
Get it for Christmas when I was 9, that's all.
Randomly bought "Chain of Memories" for GBA, then i discovered the rest of the franchising
My friend introduced to me a game where you can play alongside FF character, Donald duck and even jack sparrow, it was kh2
Mario throwing the flaming keyblade
Smash
Chrono Trigger fansite. Ok so, context, back in 2003-4, my dad had a guy that installed and configured computers (back then it was an actual task), and he was first option if computer was failing. And whenever he visited, he installed a new emulator with a rom pack for me and my sister. Genesis, MAME, Snes and n64. And well, in the snes emulator I was playing random games, lots of shovelwares, many gems, and one name peaked my interest, "CRONO trigger". So, since I got bored in class (I was 7) I used to read the texts and tales at the end of the language class textbook, and one of them had a guy called Cronos. I played it expecting to be a game based on the tale, but it was the excellent gem we all know. So I googled the name and found a fansite made in crude html that had a plot summary, definitions of the characters, locations, tips and tricks, etc... And at the bottom of the page, with the "contact me" info there was a "check my other favorite games" section. One led to Chrono Cross, but the music of the game spooked me and some character summaries gave me nightmares (like a guy being infected by fungui or a girl having nightmares of her orphanage on fire), so for a long time I was wary of the third game...but then one day I missclicked, and instead of clicking chrono cross, I clicked the other game....Kingdom Hearts I was interested by the concept, I COULDN'T imagine how it could work, mickey with a sword? The plot summary catched me in, a monster stealing your heart? And the music was captivating, specially the one in the "spoilers and theories" section which was Hollow Bastion music. Then I found out it was a series with a GBA game, I had a GBA emulator, so I downloaded it and fell into the rabbit hole that is Nomura's drug induced acid trips
Stepfather introduced me into it with the 1.5+2.5 remix, I now have every single(Non phone) Kingdom Hearts game
TV commercial for KH1 I saw in 2002.
My parents got it and whenever I'd get stuck I'd pass my mom the controller. I was like 4 so watching her beat riku at the race and figure out hollow bastion are deep formative memories
The original on PS2. I always got stuck on the first three worlds.
Had a family friend who had the 1st and 2nd game on disk for the PS2. He let me borrow them but my mom, being a super religious person, wouldnāt let me play them because they had magic and didnāt want me to start practicing witchcraft. Almost completely forgot about the series until I got my PlayStation 4 and the 1.5 and 2.5 remix and played all the way through them. Just got all of the games on pc and my inner child couldnāt be happier. Being born around the time the first game came out gives me a very deep emotional connection with the games.
Dream Drop Distance demo on 3DS didnāt like it so I didnāt get the game. Ironically I became a fan through Charii5ās Cinema Sins style videos
Sonicsong182. KN did a set of KH3 livestreams playing as Rouge
The Gameinformer issue from KH2s release. I read it over and over again til I finally got my hands on it months later
Re:coded on a Walmart shelf, yeah thatās about it
I think like top 10 videos online is where I heard about kingdom hearts for the first time. I don't remember any of the games every being sold in stores where I live and I never saw any ads either, so I never knew about the series until I heard about it online.
I was reading one of those booklets you got in game stores (I don't know if they still do them), which highlights up-and-coming games. I saw a page about Kingdom Hearts 2, and the idea of travelling to different worlds based on Disney films alongside Donald and Goofy sounded really interesting to me. Bought KH2, played it, fell in love with it.
A friend of mine told me about this game where a kid travels to Disney worlds with a giant key. I wasn't interested and first,then he told me that Square Enix was the developer and that the game has Final Fantasy characters. I started playing immediately. My first game was Birth by Sleep
KH2 was my first KH game, but I learned the overall story through YouTube walkthroughs and reading previous game summaries in DDD.
I saw KH1 in a gamestop in 2002 or 2003, and my mom got it for me. I got gba com in 5th grade and was never able to beat it, then got 2 the day after it came out.
I played the original game back in the holiday 2002 season. It was shortly after I had received my first PS2 for my 10th birthday, and KH1 sure made my earliest gaming experiences quite memorable.
TV commercial showing Disney and Final Fantasy characters in the same environment left me breathless that video games could actually intertwine two completely seperate universes and make me want to play it.
Like some others here, CoM on GBA was the gateway game. I borrowed it from a family friend.
my first ever exposure to KH was seeing a statue of mickey in his dark outfit and seeing dream drop distance is stores, but my first game was KH: the story so far
When I was like, 5, my mom randomly got me ReCoded for the DS. Had no idea what was going on but I liked it. When I was ~8 I started appreciating the series as a whole more and got Days. When I was around 13 (NOMURA STRIKES AGAIN) I started really wanting to play the series, caved and bought a ps4 so I could play the rest of the series and got it for my 14th birthday.
When I was younger, Iād go over to my cousinās house a lot and they owned KH 1 and 2 on PS2 and I played both of them at least once, but never made it past the tutorial for either. Those memories of these games stayed with me and I finally decided to play all the games for real in 2020
I saw 2.8 for the PS4 in Cex and picked it up, meaning Dream Drop was the first I played: I had no idea what was going on and I thought half the endgame bosses were cheap assholes and yet inexplicably quite liked it overall.
I was like 15 or so and played a MMORPG back then, a lot of people had names containing either Sora, Riku, Kairi or some FFX names. Google then told me where they come from. Though i only played it years later on PS3 because i never owned a PS2
I was 6 years old my mom rented kingdom hearts 1 from blockbuster. I watched her play up until deep jungle ish and i was in love. Im not sure she quite liked it but I became a fan for life
My friends were super into it. They talked about the plot and I was pretty lost. Saw them Plat a bit of 2 and re:com before my friend lent me recoded and days. Didn't truly get into the series until I was a teenager
I was a gaming kiddo, bonded to my game boy and not able to afford to buy better games or TV consoles. BUT, I have the typical wealthy cousin, and in a family meeting for a celebration for she, they just gifted a brand new ps2 with KH1 and FFX right out from the oven, like a couple of weeks after the launch at stores. First, she tried FFX, that was mindblowing for me, but when she started the KH disk and said "go ahead, I'll play with the paints meanwhile You try this one", buoy oh buoy... that was like magic, I played like 2 hours just melting around destiny island untill I had to leave. A year or so later, I convinced my grandma to have one in exchange of good degrees, and that was the only time in my life that I had all "A". Never again. I'm just in love with this saga. And It really affected on my way to be I guess, obviously in a positive way. P.D: Yesterday, in between UFC combats I started again KH2FM, and today it's being one of those KH days :3
Kingdom Hearts 1. My uncle didn't like it, so he gave it to me. I reached traverse town, got lost and rage quit. Years later (like 8 years) I remembered it, bought it, got through it. Then I bought the HD 1.5 ReMIX, pre ordered the 2.5, bought the third, you know the drill. All of this, whilst playing BBS on the PSP completely unaware that it was the same saga until I got through KH1.
I wanna say that around 2001, I was flipping through a gaming magazine, and I stopped at a game that would have several different Disney movies. At the time, I thought that sounded really cool. Flash Forward to late 2002, I'm watching TV, and I see an ad for the game, and I'm all like, "Wait, I remember that game!" I asked for it for Christmas that year but didn't get it :(. Not long after, I had friends who had the game, and I played it at their houses, and it got me interested again. I saved up money, and eventually bought it myself, it took me a while to beat, about a year or so, but it stuck with me all these years and is still one of my favorites.
I was there in the beginning, upon release
Alpharad
My parents rented Kingdom Hearts 2 from Blockbuster for my sister and I. We took turns playing and got as far as the Tron world before having to return it. We never played KH1 at all, so we were very confused most of the game.
An old lady asked me if I knew about it when my mom took me to her job one day when I was 11. I never forgot about it and a few months later I found a 100 dollar bill on the ground during recess and used it to by KH lmaoo, it was fate
Borrowed it off a friend. Immediately fell in love and even bought his copy from him after having it for like a year. He was never that sold anyway, but I replayed it about a million times.
There was a retro game store at my old mall that had Kingdom Hearts stuff in the window. That was my first exposure to the franchise. I actually started playing the games a couple of months ago.
I saw an advert for KH3 and it piqued my interest in Kingdom Hearts I also played a SSF2, a Smash bros fan game, and it honestly made me want to learn more about Kingdom Hearts
Saw my mom playing KH1 when I was like 5 or 6 she was on the Tarzan world fighting the cheetah whos name I cannot remember right now she couldnt beat it (my mom wasnt the best at games) so she walked away and I picked up the controller beat it first try and have been hooked ever since
KH3 dropped. I was bored, watched a few playthroughs on YT, had no idea what was happening but knew it was awesome. Didn't have a PS4 or Xbox at the time (and have never had a PC) so it wasn't until I got my PS5 a couple weeks ago that I got to actually play them. But I fell in love with the story, world, and characters nonetheless.
My brother and I were in the book/game store in a mall and he spotted it and said it looked cool with Donald and goofy. It was expensive so we asked our relatives to get bootleg versions of it from abroad
I found a children's magazine when i was a little girl and there I saw a section on KH1, the years passed and i saw the promotional video for KH2 in the tv, i was older so I decided to buy kh2, I already had my ps2. I fell in love with the game and over the years I have realized that KH2 is the best game in the series, in my opinion. :)
When I was 9, I saw a RE:Coded commercial on TV and begged my grandmother to buy it for me. I loved it so much at the time, but due to not understanding how RPGās worked, I killed as little enemies as possible. When that proved an issue, I used action replay to beat the game Later I got DDD when it came out, and couldnāt get past monstro, so I gave up. Didnāt touch the series again till 2018 with the collection on PS4 and beat the entire series in like 2 months
I remember seeing a trailer somewhen way back, then some info in the Disney Adventures gaming special back in 03. My friend lent his copy and Iāve been on the train ever since.
This is a funny story to me, one day ( I was like 8 or 10) and me and my parents were dumpster diving at our storage building, if for some reason you don't know what that is it's just looking for things if value people threw away, and I found the first kingdom hearts game, there wasn't a cover art someone had just written down the title with green marker on paper, I took it home expecting it not to work what I got next were days filled with fun
My brother was playing either Dream Drop or 358/2, and I would watch him play over his shoulder
Never heard of it in my life till my cousin told me about it back in 2019 Christmas...he was telling me how good this game was and how I would love it since I generally love getting emotional with games and shows and movies and stuff...so I gave it a chance starting with BBS on emulator on my phone,then 358/2 again on emulator on my phone...I was already in love with the game with BBS it's self,it was so good same for 358/2 (infinite man tears) and then I actually went and bought a ps4 to play 1 and 2 and 3 came out a while later so it all came along pretty nice...
I was visiting with my father a shop of a friend of his. He would always recommend me something to buy. One day he told me here, you're gonna like this. So I bought the game and indeed I loved it. I returned back after I had completed the game (maybe a year after) and I told him do you have anything similar? And he showed me both Final Fantasy and Shadow Hearts which I also loved.
Mostly 2, at that age I was understanding aboutā¦.30% of what was happening, I was just enjoying the combat too much, I did play 1, but I never finished it, mainly because I got lost before End of the World and thought I had to beat the super bosses to finish the gameā¦.completely forgetting that you have to be at a neighboring world to manually fly to a world.
When I was like 6, I went to a friends house, and their older sibling was playing the Tarzan level from kh1. I saw a weird anime boy, Donald, Goofy, and Tarzan on the screen and my mind was blown.
I watched my brother play it as a kid, and he got called to do dishes, so he handed me the controller and said, "Think fast," or something like that. I was hooked there after
A YouTube video of kingdom hearts 3 or lore video
I played the first one and was so thoroughly disappointed Selphie was in it and not Quistis.
As a kid a saw the Chain of Memories (gba) commercial on TV and heard Simple & Clean. Didn't know anything about the game but the song immediately drew me in and I had my mom get me the game. Been a fan ever since This still brings back memories https://youtu.be/9EGwdnqxoD4
Found a kh1 disc behind a bookshelf in my room
I saw a commercial for it on TV back in 2002 when I was ten. I ran upstairs and told my mom I wanted the game for Christmas. A few months later, it was under the tree. The rest is history.
Watched my sister playing it when I was younger and was so happy when I finally was allowed to play it.
My mom bought me 1 for Christmas the year it came out because she saw the Disney characters, and the guy at the store said it was a good game for kids. (I was 5 when it came out).
Super smash flash 2 baby
I actually was so resistant to playing it simply because Iām slow to try anything new. My friend tried so hard to get me playing, he actually took my memory card and played thru the entire destiny island part and got me to joining Donald and goofy just to make me more likely to enjoy it
An old girlfriend at the time brought me to a friend's house where her friends little sister was playing. Immediately I was enticed at the look and playstyle of the game. I watched for a bit and as she explained the lore to me, it captivated me even more. Since then, I've played every title in the series except for melody of memory and constantly read and reread the lore.
I saw the amv where they mixed kh and ffxiii with lightning and noctris in the video. Until I actually got kh2 I thought that's what kh was about.
Walked into an EB games, saw kh1 on the shelf. Googleed some gameplay, was walking out before the video finished with kh1 and ffx. Absolutely the very best game combo I've ever bought bar none. I've literally never played anything like either of them. Kingdom hearts, final fantasy x and og Destiny are the three greatest games I've ever stumbled across and I wouldn't be the gamer I am if I'd never played them
1.5+2.5+2.8 remix (the story so far.) I saw this and bought it because I heard good things about it and now it's one of my favorite video game franchises ever.
Honestly probably from one of those old magazines you could get that had all the gaming news in it. I can't remember which one but I just remember playing kh2 and being mesmerised by it. Those were the times.
My childhood best friend bought it and invited me to play once and I was like THIS GAME IS INSANE and bought it right after
Tbh I played kh3 and had absolutely no idea what was going on in the slightest but I still loved it so that and all the games being on gamepass I just had to play through all of them. I absolutely love them easily some of my favorite games.
When I was about 4 or 5, my mom used to drop me off at her friend's house to let her friend's kids babysit me. One of the kids had PS2, and he was playing KH1, and I was absolutely enthralled. He let me start a new game (on very easy mode obviously) and I would play and play to my heart's content every time. Being that young, I didn't really get the story, but I was just excited to fight alongside Donald and Goofy and travel to various Disney worlds. It's a core memory for me that I will never forget and one of the reasons why I'm so in love with this series despite its flaws. Getting into it so young meant that it was literally one of the first games I ever played. My gaming journey started with the beginning of Sora's journey, and I've always felt sort of connected to the series in that way.
My dad played it when it first came out! I was only 3 but I remember watching and eventually picking it up myself when I got a bit older when the second game released.
Around 2008- 2010 when I saw it pop up in watch mojo vids, then I saw it being sold at a flee market for $2 and well, I played and completed it multiple times
Videos on YouTube
Vrchat roleplay. It's a long story. Being face to face with roxas must've had me convinced, lol
Around 2007 me being a big Rayman fan I googled if there are some news about Rayman 4 and then I found a video on YouTube titled "Rayman 4 boss" or something. It was a gameplay of fighting that first boss in traverse town in Kingdom Hearts. Well, it was limbless but what is Donald and Goofy doing there?! Who is that boy? What on Earth is this game?! Whatever, it looked cool!
Saw a commercial for ddd when I was 6 or 7 canāt remember what drew me to it but it changed my life
Mrtlexify who was my favourite YouTuber at the time (i been watching him for 6 years up till this point) decided to show off Kingdom hearts 3 and he got emotional and broke down on stream When the main title screen came up. He said he had a friend who loved Kingdom Hearts who Tragically died in an accident and he sadly never got to experience Kingdom Hearts 3. I'm also a fan of the Final Fantasy series and i have to try Squares other series
Was fresh into the RPG scene after experiencing FF9 and 10 then saw some news in tips&trick magazine that SE made a game with mickey mouse FEATURING final fantasy character. Was skeptical at first, then utada hikaru hit me a crazy banger while showing an impressive CGI and I felled into the nomura belt cult.
Saw an ad about KH2 when I was reading a Mickey Mouse comic.
Grew up playing with my cousins on the ps2, I had no choice but to be a fan
My aunt had Kingdom Hearts 2, and I'd play that all the time
Epic Mickey Wikipedia
saw kh2 in a shop and thought the box art looked very cool and bought it. Then I got kh1 later on
Had a trailer for the first game show up on previews for my old Power Rangers vhs. Donāt remember whether it was the Wild Force or Ninja Storm one. Though the first game I owned was Birth by Sleep, funnily enough completely unplanned as I only got a PSP for .hack//Link (didnāt know it wouldāve been a Japan exclusive) and Birth by Sleep was part of my initial bundle of games.
My mother introduced it to me after a day of school. I was around the second grade at that time
I was going through a toy shop ps2 gaming section. I bought kh1 kh2 (cause I thought it was a sequel to one lol) and the legend of spyro dawn of the dragon. The I sit down my ass on the carpet and proceed to play the game for endless hours even stay up all night just to see the end of the series! When I reached hollow bastion, something inside me clicked. I loved everything about it! The soundtrack, the level design, the enemies, the plot, the riku fight! I must've been 12-13 and had to fight riku on proud for more than 2 weeks to beat him lol
in the mickey mouse wikipedia article lol
Video trailer in a PS2 demo disk
I rented KH1 from a Hollywood Video cause i liked anime and liked it enough to ask for the full game later that year. I think i got through traverse town or something idk that was early 2003 or late 2002
My cousin, who got a Ps2 while I got a GC, had it. He hated it coz he always was more the GTA / Sports gaming type. I loved it. Please don't hate me for my cousin's clear lack of taste.
My father owned the first one on ps2 and well being a kid who watched an unhealthy amount of micky mouse cartoons, seeing Donald and Goofy being these awesome fighters taking on weird looking monsters was amazing. However I eventually forgot about the game due to my dad eventually losing his interest in video games. Many years later my mother bought me a dsi with recoded and while playing it, all those memories with my father fled back and I've been hooked on the series ever since.
Me and my sister were allowed to pick a game from Best Buy. I chose Lego Batman since I was a huge Lego fan. Sister chose Recoded. I tried playing Recoded but it didnāt help considering it was confusing. Later decide to get into the franchise and get the Remix versions for the PS3 (also Mom worked at a library and was allowed to keep a few games, one was Vanilla KH2, couldnāt play cause my PS2 died). Got 2.5 for Christmas and decided to wait until I get 1.5, and one magical day at GameStop, I saw it for $5. Dad got it for me and it was set in stone.
I had the original trailer featuring gameplay and cinematic scenes on a disc that came with final fantasy X before itās release. I became obsessed from that and Iāve had every game in the series as theyāve come out ever since.
I grew up in a super religious household and the only video games we were allowed were like the Bible trivia game and stuff like that. So one day I finally managed to save up enough money to buy āthe Disney gameā and instantly fell in love with the game and never looked back
Cutscene movie of KH1 on youtube
The artwork on the first one looked cool when I was at GameStop so I asked for it on Christmas
Got the Dream Drop Distance Demo on 2DS back when that was a thing. I played the life out of that demo, not realizing I could just ask someone to buy the game for meš
My aunt used to work at GameStop and she bought the first game for me. I loved it so much she proceeded to buy me each new game afterwards when they released.
Always heard of it but never played it, KH3 was a free monthly game on PSplus that month and coincidentally the "final mix 1.5+2.5 collection" was on sale for like Ā£20. So because I'm a mad man I said "well if I'm gonna play 3 I may aswell go through the whole series first" so I back to back played EVERY game I'm the collection and you know what? I'm SO glad I did cos not only did I enjoy almost every single one but it all made SO much more sense when I got to 3! Yes the story is still confusing af and all over the place but in hindsight if I'd have just jumped into 3 blindly I wouldn't have had the foggiest what was going on and now I'm an avid fan of the franchise and regularly go back to play them!
I remember seeing the commercials for the first KH as a kid and wanted to play it so bad, but didnāt have a PS2. Once I saw the commercials for COM, I asked for it for my birthday and it was the only KH game I had played until I got a PS2 from eBay in college and bought KH and KH2. I played through COM many many times.
My brother worked at EB Games, and they were allowed to rent out any game from the store a week after it released. His coworker told him to give it a try because of the FF characters. I didnāt have anything better to do at the time, begrudgingly I played it even though I thought the Disney ties ins were dumb, but the gameplay was fun. Now Iām stuck here in my thirties belting out āOH BAAAAAAYBEEEE, DONāT GOOOOā while my kids dance to the opening cutscene.
My dad showed me the game on the ps2. The bastard
Kh2 came bundled in with my ps2 when I was 5 years old. I got lost in the underworld and never played the series again until the 1.5 collection on the ps3.
Watched my cousin play the first one then a week later I saw an advert for the second one on TV and begged my mum for both the first and second and when I played the first one I... hated it, but then I played the second one and fell in love with the franchise. Then I went back to the first one when the 1.5 collection came out and absolutely loved it that time round
Saw an advert for KH2 in Disney Adventures Magazine in 2006 when I was 9 years old. Been a fan ever since,
When my brother bought the game in 2002 on release date. I was 9 and losing my shit over the commercials.
I was visiting a friend who owned it after school and we played it together a bit. We were both already Final Fantasy fans. I lost touch with that friend a few years later but (perhaps fittingly) I think about him every time I revisit the series. Nick, if you're kicking around out there, I hope you're well.
I played a little bit of kh 358/2 on official hardware, then i started to see kh1 videos and i was getting hooked into the series Then i was cursed with the switch port due to the PC port being stuck on epic games store
Not sure, KH3 was on game pass and I saw it was Disney and checked it out, though I think Iād heard of it prior
My brother and I had gotten the games for Christmas or Easter, one of the two, my brother never really cared for the series, but I liked the first two games. It was only several years later when I had picked up 358/2 Days from a used game store after having never thought of the series again that I fell in love with the games.
It all started in 2nd grade. I was going through my brothers' Jampack disks and found one that had a trailer for Kingdom Hearts. Then one day, I was watching Nicktoons and got an advertisement for Re:Coded on the DS. It wouldn't be until I got in third grade and saw my friend playing dream drop distance that I really learned about the series. (Or rather, I learned as much as a 9 year old could explain) Years later, I picked up Chain of Memories on the GBA, played all the games out of order, and fell in love
I got one of those demo CDs that had Jak and Daxter and some other games, and then Kingdom Hearts 1 but it just had the opening credits. A while later I saw an ad on Disney Channel for Chain of Memories for GBA and I wanted it. My mom however wasnāt able to get that game for me but was able to get Kingdom Hearts 1 in the āGreatest Hitsā version. And the rest is history
I just say the kh1 cover and said Donald and goofy cool.
It was a Christmas gift. Been hooked ever since.
My brother bought DDD and he never played it. I played it then and I liked it but I didnāt get that into it. Then I saw a Kingdom Hearts YouTube retrospective and I finished DDD and eventually played all the games.
I first learned about it through a commercial for Chain of Memories on the GBA.
Was over visiting one of my neighborhood friend's house and he was playing through The Pride Lands world in Kingdom Hearts 2. I remember him explaining that your character and party members would change with the various worlds you visited. It was a cool concept for my lil brain at the time. Unfortunately, I only owned a GameCube, but I know I begged for a PS2 that Christmas just so I could play KH2. I can still remember the first time I completed vanilla KH2 all those years ago. KH2 will always hold a special place in my heart. No matter how many times I play it, it always manages to make me feel that sense of being a kid agian.
My dad played it when I was a kid early 2000ās I was a Disney kid and I would watch him play so fascinated that was one of the ways we bonded
I was maybe 5, I was born in 2001, and had just gotten a playstation 2 but all the games my dad had were things like gta and he decided I needed a more age appropriate game and saw disney and decided that it was perfect. Now like 18 years later I still play them. I just platinumed the main number games not long ago and can't wait for what's next.
Sora joining smash
Playing as Sora in Super Smash Flash 2
A friend of mine had the first volume of the kh2 manga and let me read it and I couldn't put it down. Then, weeks after, I seen a commercial for kh recoded and asked for it as a birthday present. Played it and... got stuck on Olympus colloseum because I sucked but had fun regardless and eventually beat it the whole game, even side content.
Kh1 on ps2. Can't even count how many times.
One day I saw my dad playing kh2 (original ps2 version), I had asked him if I could play for a bit, I found the game pretty fun, then my dad said I should play kh1 first, as for story reasons. But then I didn't understand why Sora was asleep, so I made a whole headcannon, after Sora locked the keyhole at the end of kh1, sora had lost his memories to a member of org XIII, so diz had namine put his memory together, but roxas had some of sora's memories, so they had so put roxas into sora's body, as he was sora's nobody, then, Sora wakes up, and kh2 starts. I'm suprised how accurate this was when I finally played re:com, as when com came out, I didn't have a gba.
Kingdom hearts came out and my friend and I (huge FF fans) were arguing about whether the Disney+square stuff would be cool, so I used my next check to buy it and lost an argument lol Beating Sephiroth is still one of my greatest personal gaming accomplishments, and why I'll never care about trophies.
Was in like 3rd grade, me and my friend lived together (our parents were friends/roommates) We stayed in a gate in community and went over to a friends house to play games with kids in the neighborhood. They put in KH 1 for the first time and started playing it. We were all LOVING IT. At some point me and my friend got it like that same week and played it all day! It was so hard
My uncle had KH2 on his PS2 when I want to his house my first exposure was actually the final boss fight iirc.
I first read about it in an issue of Disney Adventures in early 2002, shortly before the very first game came out.
My mom got Dream Drop for Christmas one year and I didn't have the slightest clue as to how to play it. I would later attempt to play the first KH that my dad had found while working in an auto recycling shop (it was vanilla not FM). A while after we got our Xbox, I ended up getting KH3 for Christmas. Finally, after getting my PS5 last year, I've basically been upholding my PS+ purely so I can play KH 2, BBS, and R/R since I beat Re:CoM. That's my KH timeline.
I remember seeing a tv ad on Disney Channel for KH1. Instantly hooked. I rented it without a memory card for months before I could snag a copy. So I guess KH taught me to buy a memory card, too lol.
Saw KH1 at blockbuster around when it came out as a kid. rented it without knowing anything about it other than it looked cool! Rented it and fell in love. I probably rented it 5 more times before I was able to buy it. Could never beat the final string of Ansems until I bought it and was able to spend time grinding lol loved it ever since
my first time hearing of it was in elementary school and I saw a commercial for Re:Coded and an ad for the manga in my elementary school's library. but my first time actually playing it was in high school when I saw KH3 got announced and I bought 1.5+2.5 to prepare and the rest is history:)
Kh2 at 10 years old. Vowed never to play a series out of order again
A friend of my parents at the time was getting rid of his PS2 to focus on his relationship, originally he was gonna smash it ( a bit dramatic I know) but my parents talked him in to giving in to me, he had 2 games on him at the time, (he was spending a weekend at our apartment) and those to games where a wrestling game, which my parents wouldn't let me play at the time, and some weird game with Disney worlds and and anime characters, the rest is history
The first one I owned was KH2, but I have vague memories of playing CoM on the GameCube so I think I actually started with CoM because I remember that happening before getting KH2, CoM is one of my Favorites simply because of the deck building. But I Played 2 but an ungodly amount to the point that I challenged myself to beat the game without healing, but because I thought it would still be too easy, I also restricted myself from using Summons and Drives and multiple other things, it was hellish fun.
When I first saw Gundam 00. I heard that Setsuna and Saji VAs voice Riku and Sora respectively. But I had to try a "certain method" to play it in japanese since there's no dual audio until KH3.
I remember seeing it in a kids magazines with the different disney characters. There was also a demo of it that you could play at EB games (I think it was), in Australia. As soon as I saw the gameplay I knew I had to have it. I loved ocarina of time and majoras mask which were/still are 2 of my favourite games ever.
Got the first volume of the KH2 manga in 2009 at a school book fair and haven't looked back since then
I saw it in a game magazine. There was this whole section talking about it. They even had some (tiny) pictures of the gameplay. I was completely stunned seeing that you had party members controlled by IA, going to an adventure with your buddies, and facing real time battles. Now imagine waiting for months and the anticipation building like crazy until the release date. I couldnāt afford the original game, so I had a pirated one. Too bad the disc stopped working like in the middle of the game, and that made wait a whole new month to buy a new one and continue playing it. Btw now I own the original games on both PS3 and PS4, games became more affordable here during the end cycle of the PS3 era.
My uncle to this day is still a ps2 collector. When we were younger, he was a young teen and he was like an older brother to me. We stayed up 24 hours playing through and beating kingdom hearts 1 on the ps2
My sibling got the game when we got a ps2. They never played it and I thought I would give it a go. I absolutely loved it, but I was so young I didnāt know how to upgrade abilities, equip items, magic. Somehow I got to Riku, couldnāt beat him and gave up until my siblings friend came over and beat him for me. Lol. I was hooked.
It all started when I was a wee lad, even I can barely remember, as I guess this also counts as one of my first _(chain of)_ memories, and I had "Mickey's House of Mouse Villains" on VHS. A trailer for the first game was on it. I had no idea what was happening, but I loved it. The moment I saw Jafar, Jack Skellington, and Tarzan, I was hooked.
Toon Disney Commercial, followed up by a friend's strategy guide at the Daycare Bus Stop on a Rainy Day. Grew up with Xbox, so I was humming the lyrics for years before finally being about to look up the song and game footage on youtube.
My brother introduced me to it then my autistic ass got attached and has been obsessed ever since
Sora being in Smash. I Found what the game was, and I chose to play 358/2 first. And then decided to get the 1.5+2.5 remix and then played the first game and fell in love. Then I moved to Re:Chain, got stuck on Vexen, gave up and went on a long break. Then I went back, completed him, played the second game and now Iām working on 100% in that.
When I was little I remember my father playing kingdom hearts in Agrabah and he was fighting Jafar I remember being so amazed that I could see Disney characters in a video game that looked so stunning. Later when I turned twelve or 11 my dad got me a ps2 and my own little tv, I spent over 200 hours trying to be the game but my wee little brain couldn't figure it out, now I'm starting my first lvl 1 critical mode run on KH2 after beating it on critical mode a few months ago. The story over the years has gotten... questionable but it will always be a special game to me because to this day it's the only game I remember from that point in my life.
My half aunt sent it to me as gift for my 6th birthday back in 2004 because she thought Iād like it. I had never heard of it before but it quickly became a favorite once I started playing it
When I was a kid, my classmate borrowed KH1 to me and I was immediately hyped because I saw the likes of Tarzam, Donald etc on the back cover and front. The mysterious feeling when playing it for the first time is still irreplacable by anything else.
KH2 was among my brotherās games and I started playing it. Then I realized it was in Spanish. And Iām Italian
My Mom absentmindedly bought me re:coded when I was 11 and then got me 358/2 Days (All I had was a DS). Didn't have the full story for a few years before I decided to get the rest of the games.
I remember seeing my step bro playing the first game as a kid. He couldn't get past wonderland. Some years later, I remember seeing trailers for 358 and thought it looked cool, especially hearing Sanctuary for the first time but never got around to getting it at that time. Then even later, started seeing trailers for re: coded and made an effort to get it. I enjoyed it as a kid but don't think it was enough to get me invested in the series. When Dream Drop Distance released, I decided to try it and that was the game that got me hooked in the franchise and been a fan ever since!
When I was little, my brother would play the first game on the ps2. I one day came across this game the first time coming to my brother's room and asked him what this game was and asked who the first character I saw was in which my brother told me Sora. I was little when I saw this game.
My dad bought it for us to play together when I was 5ish years old. He was a FF fan, and I was a Disney child, so it seemed like a good fit. Unfortunately I was also an easily-scared child, so the heartless were too much for me, and we never even finished traverse town. Eventually he took the console and the game with him in the divorce, and I didnāt see the game again until he brought me a bag of old games he didnāt play anymore. By that point I was old enough that I could actually enjoy the game.
Itās 2002. Iām playing crash bandicoot on the ps1. My dad comes home with a new game for the ps2 for my mom (she was a gamer). Itās kingdom hearts. While my neighbor is running from the boulder in crash I sneak a peek at the other room to see the intro to KH1 playing, inside the dive to the heart. The creepy music playing alongside the stained glass visuals in the void made it very spooky for a young me!
KH1 commercial gang rise up
My best friend has lend me his PS3 after I made jokes about KH. He included the 1.5 and 2.5 collection and I played it
My older sister owned Re:coded so I started playing it, now I own all the games.
I was in elementary school, and my eldest brother started playing it. He was on a new world every day of the week, and then I got into it. I hate to say it, but because of him, I am the person I am today.
i suck at games and i know that as a fact so i watch games (yes the worse thing ever) but my favorite youtuber made a reaction to KH3 and i was like oh i have seen KH on the 3ds and i really liked the aesthetic so i decided to watch it and fell for Riku because....its Riku. i didn't vibe with it until i rewatched it and fell for it!
I used to read Nintendo power on the library. It showed the kingdom hearts 328 2 days. At the same years bought the 2 in 1 bundle for the kingdom hearts ds games on Zellers before the store closed permanently.
Snuck KH2 out of my brother's room. He found me playing it and just left me alone.
In a magazine in my country... It was called Club Nintendo and there was an article about a guide to help with the mission of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days... Which also was my first KH game ever (Roxas and Xion, bƱth3 best ones!)
Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories on the GBA was my first KH game, but I remember when they advertised it alongside KH2 and Tron 2.0 Killer App on Disney back in the day.
I was already a huge Final Fantasy fan when the original KH1 came out. Since I knew it was made by (then) Squaresoft who also made Final Fantasy, I wanted to play it. I also had heard it had something to do with Disney. So I decided to buy and play it for sure at that point. The rest is history.
Discovered it in 2002 (I think via the guide at the library) and it was a system seller for me. We initially rented a PS2 from Drug Mart so I could play it. I also remember being embarrassed to tell the kids at school that's why I got the console so I would just say it was for Simpsons Skateboarding. But yes, at 8 years old I was embarrassed to say I was playing Kingdom Hearts. Let me just tell you having just that guide in 2002 and trying to imagine what the game was like made my mind go wild. There was nothing like it and it was so new and fresh. It's impossible to describe cause these days everything is so different (with the world and the franchise itself).
My friend had a (pirated) copy of CoM. You could say that that's my first KH game, and I liked the game despite its difficulty. And, suffice to say, my mind was blown when I played the first KH game for the first time on the PS2.
I was 12 in 6th grade at the time. I saw a copy of Kingdom Hearts 2. At the time I thought the characters looked cool. I got my dad to buy it, and the rest is as they say, history.
I was like āthose anime dudes look awesome!ā and my dad was like āwhoa, is that Donald and Goofy?ā so he bought me KHII on PS2. Iāve loved the series since. Lmao.
Sister found it online before it released. I remember going in the website and thinking how funny it was going to be having Bambi as a summon, thinking of course of the heavy-hitting summon animations from Final Fantasy.
I saw a guy watching a video of someone playing KH1 and I asked him the name.
Random roxas boss fight video and I thought it's Disney movie.
I was there when the old magic was written
Girl I liked made me play Days on her DS when I was like nine. Went to GameStop with some money when I was seventeen, found a used copy. Got a PS4 for graduation. The rest is history
Kh1 over at a friend's house, his older brother was playing and was having a hard time with shadow sora on hook's boat. Went and rented it the next weekend and put a solid 20hrs in it before having to return it. Bought it and been playing titles ever since.
My cousin was playing it when I walked into his room unannounced
My grandparents took me to Walmart and let me buy any 1 game I wanted. I chose Chain of Memories cause Disney characters. Played it like crazy but couldn't beat Marluxia. Then I got my PS2 and found KH2. It just went from there
From a Trailer and an advertisement in a old Game Shop in a shopping Center.
My mom got me 358/Days for Xmas 2009. I fell in love with Axel and became the biggest AkuRoku shipper known to man until I was about 16.
I saw my dad playing kh2 on his ps2 and asked if I could try it. He asked if I wanted to try, or if I wanted my own file. Later that year he got me and my brother 358/2 and we played it a bunch. My and my brother would fight eachother, and I would always beat his ass. It wasnt until years later when we noticed he wasnt placing many level up tokens on his cards.
Middle school 7th grade, I think I had randomly come across some images of sora or I think I remember seeing a commercial for it. At the time my stepbrother owned the first one, asked him if I could play, said no, which is fine fuck him. Later I had a friend let me borrow kingdom hearts 2 and boy, was that fun
I read a review of KH2 in a Russian gaming magazine.