Before the Kingdom Hearts series rolled around, I was a pretty big Disney fan, and I still am. When Kingdom Hearts came out, I was excited to adventure with all of the Disney characters I knew and loved. But that's the thing, I KNEW the characters and their stories already. The game didn't need to tell me who Peter Pan was, I already knew him. They didn't need to take the time to explain why Hades wanted to off Hercules, I had already seen the movie.

So that got me thinking: Can players enjoy a Disney world in the games even if they have no prior knowledge to the movie it is based off of? Once you take away information from the movies, the worlds seem to have many unexplained plot lines, such as:

-Why does Tarzan act differently from Jane? Did he grow up in the jungle? How did he get there?
-Why doesn't Aladdin just wish for Genie to kill Jafar?
-Why is Mulan taking her father's place in the army?

These and countless other questions are answered in their respective films, but not in the Kingdom Hearts series. So what do you all think? Can someone jump into the series being a Disney virgin? Or are the Disney films so universally well known that the worlds don't need to cover everything for the less than 1% of the world that hasn't seen a Disney movie? Have any of you visited a world that you had not seen the original movie of?

I think it more requires Disney familiarity. You don't necessarily need to know who Quasimodo is. You don't necessarily need to have seen Tron or Nightmare Before Christmas or any of that. What you need, and I think nearly everybody on the planet has this, is some kind of connection with Disney. Even if it's just seeing one of the movies. 

 

I seriously don't think people will question it too hard once they realize what Tarzan is about and I think KH works with it so well that, throughout the course of the series, you don't ask questions like those. 

Edited May 26, 201411 yr by Kaweebo

My boyfriend doesn't have much Disney knowledge and he enjoys it.  Some things are just obvious though, without watching Tarzan you've gotta be living under a rock to not know he was raised by apes.  That's like not knowing the Titanic sank.  With Aladdin I thought all his wishes were stupid in KH.  Instead of "get Jasmine" or "get rid of these guys" after meeting Sora he could done "I wish there were no more heartless".  

 

End series.  

 

Other stuff it doesn't matter really matter to play, Mulan was in the army for the course of the game, her reason doesn't change anything for the player.

 

If anything, being familiar with Disney put some people I know off, i.e. "This game will ruin my childhood memories of Disney by making the characters fight".  

Additionally, if you're familiar with Disney, the plot of the worlds there's very little surprise in concerns to the Disney story lines "Wonder when Ursula's gonna attack now I'm in Atlantica", "How'd they leave out -blah character- from this world!",  "Why isn't that epic scene from -X-, why'd they not include it?" etc.  If anything it gives the player more expectations to be disappointed in.  

Well , you do need to know just a little bit about the Disney worlds but I don't find it like REALLY REALLY necessary . But that might just be me. Personally , the world that I visited and did not know anything about was Space Paranoids . 

The only Disney movie that's in Kingdom Hearts I that I had seen before playing the game for the first time was… Hercules. The only Disney movies that are in KH2 that I'd seen before playing the game were Hercules, Beauty and the Beast, and the Lion King. Not having a childhood, I'd never seen those movies as a kid and being the youngest sibling I never watched my siblings watch any. The only reason I'd seen Beauty and the Beast was 'cause I was in the play production and decided to watch the original movie afterwards.

 

I agree in a small part though; pretty much everybody knows who Mickey Mouse is, even if you've never seen him in anything. Ditto with Donald and Goofy. Even if you haven't seen most of the Disney movies, you've probably heard of their existence subconsciously.

 

Personally, I liked coming at it from the other way: having Kingdom Hearts be my gateway into the Disney universe. I have (since playing the games) watched every Disney movie and short referenced by Kingdom Hearts except for Aladdin II and Chicken Little (but I never summon Chicken Little, so I don't care ). Coming at it from this direction, you get weird stuff like, "oh my gosh who's this weird 'Christopher Robin' kid who's hanging out with Winnie the Pooh," or "wow I totally recognize this backdrop from the game and that chest in the background has some puppies in it." Then you get stuff like 'who's this guy handing out with this other guy,' or 'wow Maleficent moves around a lot when she talks.'

 

In fact, as someone who had hardly seen any Disney anything, I was really impressed while playing KH1 for the first time that they could essentially plop you into any random context it wanted and still be able to get decent story out of it. I hadn't particularly liked Disney (particularly recent-ish Disney when they started budget cuts), and I had never played a Final Fantasy game before, but there was something about Kingdom Hearts that just… clicked.

I barely watched any Disney movies that also came in Kingdom hearts and loved it.

Not really, though it might be helpful. Maybe some familiarity with Disney, at least?

But I hadn't watched Mulan, Tron, Hercules and some movies, but could still enjoy those worlds (except for Tron, I don't like that world : D )

Not really, though it might be helpful. Maybe some familiarity with Disney, at least?

But I hadn't watched Mulan, Tron, Hercules and some movies, but could still enjoy those worlds (except for Tron, I don't like that world : D )

kh2 or 3D Tron world?

kh2 or 3D Tron world?

KH2, 3D Tron was ok.

...I don't really hate it, but can't say I like it either. : D

I find the worlds easier to understand and appreciate with prior knowledge, but they can be enjoyed without it.

If you don't watch Disney movies as much as others then I'd say maybe just to know the whole story. But there's plenty of context clues in the game in order to figure out the gist of each world and character. The only one I didn't really understand was Tron's world from DDD....then again I've never seen Tron Legacy.