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As you can see, we've released a major upgrade to KH13! The site is now running the latest version of Invision Community, which comes with a lot of new features, a total revamp of the theme, and a lot of our content sections totally re-done. We will do a proper announcement on socials and everything a bit down the track, but first I just wanted to soft launch it so that people can use it, because there's bound to be a lot of bugs and issues that people discover. It'll also take a day or two for the search index and "activity" lists (eg. on people's profiles) to populate. Let me know if anything else isn't working properly!

none of them. those places have way too many disasters

Destiny Islands has always been my favourite. It hardly ever gets attacked by Heartless or Nobodies, it's beautiful, it's peaceful whilst still having a good community of people and you'd get to hang out with Sora, Riku and Kairi. Plus I want to see what the main island looks like as we've never explored it. Lastly Terra and Aqua indicated that it's a world bathed in warmth and light unlike any other world which makes it sound basically like heaven.

What original Kingdom Hearts world would you like to live in?

I guess I'll vote in my own poll But I'd choose Twilight Town, sea salt ice cream and Le Grand Bistro would ensure I don't have to worry about food, I love the golden hour aesthetic, and it seems like it would be relatively peaceful.

Twilight Town does seem rather nice. but it does get attacked by Nobodies an awful lot

my theory is, and this might sound a little crazy, that it's just a phone

We can hope but it's good to keep expectations low in these types of situations. Like Albert said, it's definitely a possibility, but we don't necessarily have any indications that it will be. I haven't personally kept up with other Square Enix titles all too much lately so hard to say on that front as well. A trailer would be nice and would keep the momentum going though. I still stand by that the reason we got those screenshots was to soften the blow about Missing-Link, I think without that we probably would have seen them at a later time.

I think there is a possibility, but probably not. Recent screenshots lead me to believe that KH4 won't be shown this year at all. I'd like to be proven wrong, but as of now, I don't have any hopes

So I'm currently making a powerpoint presentation for friends about how Japanese Warlord Oda Nobunaga "saved" my marriage. He was a historical figure adapted into many other pieces of media, including a video game called Samurai Warriors Chronicles. I bought the game in 2011 or so but promptly had to return it because my mom thought it was "too violent" so instead I picked up Kingdom Hearts re:Coded. Really weird game to start in the franchise, right? I thought so too. So I played 358/2 Days next and was even more confused but also highly emotionally invested. It was my first game with a real narrative arc and I wanted to know where the rest of that story went. And that brought me here. This was my first taste of online fandom. I fell in love with the franchise, I fell in love with online roleplaying, I fell in love with a person--and that went about as well as any 15 year old's first relationship being online would go in the early-mid '10s. I try not to think about it too much too often lol. So that was a mess, I spent a lot less attention on this site, and ended up redirecting my roleplaying passions towards Google+ of all places. And THAT is where I met someone online (this time at 16!) and somehow, nearly ten years after, that was the person I ended up marrying last year. Ain't that just crazy?

A lot of it has to do with where you were in the world and what age group you fell under. I.E Disney had been a worldwide juggernaut for decades by the time KH1 released, but Squaresoft which hadn't yet become Square-Enix had barely made a dent outside of Japan. Most of the Final Fantasy games which were half of the appeal of the crossover aspect of the game didn't do big sales numbers outside of Japan. Indeed if you were in a country where English is the primary language there was less of a 50/50 chance you were familiar with the characters who appear in KH1 from Final Fantasy and more so a 30/70 in favor that you had absolutely no idea who they were or knew one or two of them at best (in some cases by only appearance rather than anything else). If you were a gamer you might know them from gaming magazines. If you were an especially avid one or specifically drawn in by JRPGs; that's when you would be in the camp that knew who all of them were. Additionally for as popular, beloved, and iconic as the Disney characters at the forefront of KH were by then, Disney has never had a good reputation when it comes to games they had involvement in outside of KH and one or two standalone outliers. Having Disney characters in the game should very much have meant sales tanked rather than the game doing well. So when you come across retrospectives on YouTube or Niconico saying KH being a success is a miracle it really is a more apt statement than it sounds. Of course there are a lot of sales that KH1 got and that the series as it continued still gets from parents who have long been conditioned into blind faith in Disney buying their children the games. Moving into the game itself. If you were a little kid (say 5-8 years of age) you probably only experienced KH1 during its initial release as a result of your older sibling(s) playing it while you watched and maybe just maybe giving you a turn with the controller if they got tired of you pestering them for one. While for some kids that little the story will have gone right over their heads or been hard to follow; others will have been drawn in so strongly they would continue to follow the series when it began receiving sequels and plenty of them are probably still fans today. Regardless it would've been a normal part of the equation to have to sit through any of the cutscenes as it wasn't an industry norm for cutscenes to be skippable yet. Squaresoft/Square-Enix during the PS1 and PS2 eras was one company famous for unskippable cutscenes because they used them as 60% of the appeal of their games. Even when their biggest competitors started to normalize the practice of providing the option to skip cutscenes Squaresoft/Square-Enix remained stubborn about it into the start of the PS3 era. And even where they did decide to cave about it they usually kept the FMV cutscenes unskippable. There's also that one horrendous example of forcing you to experience cutscenes for the best possible outcome in that FFX-2 (originally launched on PS2 in 2003, well into a period where almost every noteworthy competitor for Square had started to include the option to skip cutscenes, in some cases even the FMV ones without any kind of penalty) requires you to sit through pretty much every line of dialogue for 100% story completion in a single playthrough. But anyway, the point I'm trying to horribly make with this particular tangent is that unskippable cutscenes were just a thing that you either raged over and broke more than a few controllers because of, or you used the FMV ones as a bathroom/food break while any regular ones got mashed through if they were placed before a boss fight and you were on your umpteenth attempt to get past an especially difficult one. If the game had new game plus you just mashed through regular cutscenes and did chores/took a bathroom or food break during the FMV ones and during the end credits scroll after your first playthrough. Depending on how engaging you found the gameplay and platforming of KH1 you would finish the game or drop it. Common drop points being the worlds based off of Tarzan and The Little Mermaid, but some people regardless of if they were a tiny 5-8 year old or a mid-late teen (16-19 years of age) or fully fledged adults as young as 21 and as old as 60 have also dropped the game as early as when they got to Traverse Town for the first time because of a lack of a map or synopsis. Even when it comes to Destiny Islands some people just could not figure out how to progress. Those are things that were true way back when and are still true in present day. If you were a teenager playing KH1 when it originally released you were of two camps. You either thought it was lame because of the Disney stuff and you were at the age where children begin to reject Disney or you used it as an excuse to continue to support Disney stuff since it had "mature" characters in it from that one Japanese game series (Final Fantasy), you'd seen picking up traction with other teens and that crossover aspect gave you the perfect excuse to insist that Disney was still acceptable even for teens to the teens who were trying to get you to leave it behind. On the other side of the camp you were an avid gamer playing whatever you wanted and cared little for the reputation of the game, in some cases you picked it up and committed to finishing it specifically because it was being trashed on by others. Impersonal experiences (Hearsay/Memories) and Personal Thoughts/Reflections on Back then: Riku being unbeatable on Destiny Islands and at Hollow Bastion: When people say F this fight it isn't for nothing. Back then you could regularly encounter children at playgrounds during recess or on weekends in the park bragging about getting past Riku in Hollow Bastion or successfully winning against him on Destiny Islands (in both the sparring match and the race for who gets to share the fruit with Kairi). Strategies would be discussed in AIM/MSN chatrooms and on forums for websites that don't even exist anymore or purged the forum pages in question ages ago. But honestly KH1 has multiple bosses outside of Riku that were difficult AF for the original playerbase too. They're just not as meme-worthy today I guess. One of the reasons Atlantica is the way it is in KH2 is because of how much players hated combat in it in KH1 and the negative feedback was thankfully actually taken to heart. The climax of the story/the story in general really: In present day most of the KH fanbase doesn't have many nice things to say about Kairi and that very much originated during KH1's vanilla release. But it wasn't such an egregious issue how she was handled back then. She wasn't very interesting nor did she do much of anything but she served her role. There wasn't much to judge her for one way or the other. The lack of any substantial meaningful time with Kairi was what made it difficult to really call the climax in Hollow Bastion when she and Sora save one another "Emotional". Even so the original version of this game released right after the Disney Renaissance entered its concluding years. More than enough of the players who were indoctrinated by Disney during the 1990s were still in the right headspace to fall hook line and sinker for the storyline's sequences in Hollow Bastion. From people freaking out over Riku being possessed, crying at Sora's sacrifice, cheering at Kairi's hug changing him back in the lobby. It all got the intended reactions from certain players, while others just scoffed/shrugged/looked on in indifference. No-one ever said the writing in Kingdom Hearts is especially deep so, eh. Now to be fair to Kairi, she's not the only character that was considered to be nothing special back then. Sora and Riku may have been hits with players who had been seduced into loving their archetypes through other media, but they were hardly universally beloved or hated characters either when you look at representative characters for the archetypes they filled within the game. Nowadays we see frequent talk online about why Disney doesn't use the KH original characters much in their theme parks and IMHO this is why. As much as the first game was an unexpected critical and financial success the cast of characters made specifically for the game were not considered anything special by the broader general public. To put it in words that IMHO anyone should be able to understand: Sora, Riku, Kairi, and Ansem Seeker of Darkness didn't do for video games what the likes of the most famous characters from Star Wars did for movies. And even if we narrow things down to RPGs both Japanese and non-Japanese these characters weren't revolutionizing gaming the way Donkey Kong, Mario, and Sonic once did and in some cases would continue to do. Kairi wasn't Barbie or a Charlie's Angel, that sort of effect. It was simply a game that did unexpectedly well and as such they decided to make more of them. Further fairness to them when have we ever seen a RPG series that is strictly based in storytelling rather than gameplay where the same cast of characters gets reused outside of Legend of Zelda? Tales, Mana, Final Fantasy, etc etc. They all come with different casts of characters unless they're doing direct or near future sequels. The ending: There was so much outcry for a sequel to Kingdom Hearts because of the way it ended. I do not have a single memory of anyone being satisfied with the way it ends. I am glad I live in a dimension/timeline where the game got not one but multiple sequels. Because of how far the character of Riku would come in particular. One of my favorite memories from chatrooms and forums about KH1's ending is peoples reactions to Simple and Clean. There was one person who yelled in all caps about how unfitting the song was for the final scenes because its score sounds so uplifting. I think the person must've been a j-pop anti or something similar because they went off on a tangent about "anime BS." in the same forum for several pages. Other Stuff: "I bought this because the cover is really eye-catching." - There were so, SO MANY people in the chatrooms and forums back then who said this. There was a neighbor of mine who had a twelve year old son who she got the game for and when she saw him fighting on Destiny Islands against the heartless on the night of fate she took the disc out and returned the game the next day. Ah the days when parents were so uppity about video game violence. Extra Tidbit: It's not from the days of KH1's initial vanilla release, but from circa the original release of Birth By Sleep. This can probably still be found online if enough digging is done. Around this time there was an uptick in people posting online about discovering new scenes in KH1 if they did certain worlds in different orders than what the game wanted them done in. I thought it was cute how excited some people were at discovering the alternate scenes. Dunno if that was really worth mentioning or not, but thought I'd share anyway. A Confession of Sorts: I'm sure I've mentioned it over the course of my posts on here but I've never played through KH1 from start to finish. I usually quit during the Tarzan world because of the way the camera interacts with the navigation through the world. But even when I've had the luxury of someone completing that world for me I always end up stopping at some point later. Even with the collections I went straight to Re:CoM and KH2FM instead of bothering to ever play through KH1FM where control of the camera is a lot better. Gameplay wise I'm very familiar with the bosses of KH1 in its vanilla form due to being around to help out friends with their attempts to get past them. Even today though, KH1 regardless of version is the KH game I'm the least familiar with as it pertains to the ins and outs of the game itself. GBA Chain of Memories, Days, Re:Coded they've all seen start to finish runs from me at some point in my life since they came out. KH1 if I ever did, I have no memory of it. I do however remember that the first time I ever got to see it through to the end was via a group effort between myself and three of my cousins. And as I already mentioned the ending was not satisfying. Thank you to all that is mighty that Chain of Memories and KH2 happened! PS: An outsider's perspective on what reaction to KH1 might've been like from the Japan side. If you've ever seen compilation videos of Let's Players/Streamers reacting to the Final Fantasy characters in KH1 or to Sephiroth in KH2 on YouTube, I would hazard that is probably quite close to what Japan based players would've reacted like to said characters when KH1 and KH2 first came out, less so in present day where Square-Enix has severely damaged its relationship with its consumers more or less worldwide and Japan in contrast to external territories has had plenty of time to get over how "cool" and "awesome" and "amazing" the golden era Final Fantasy characters are. Suffice it to say the US, UK, and Canada, etc have way more appreciation for FF7R than Japan ever will because of how few people outside of Japan really got to experience the perceived greatness of the original FF7.

I wanna run that shit back

The Square Enix Japan e-Store has revealed a Kingdom Hearts Light Up Mage's Staff now available for pre-order based on the signature weapon Donald Duck wields throughout the series. The item is set to release January 24, 2026 for ¥9.900 (approximately $66.59 USD). For fans outside of Japan looking to purchase, the item is also available through Aitai Kuji. You can take a closer look at the Light Up Mage's Staff in the gallery below Will you be adding this item to your Kingdom Hearts collection? Let us know in the comments below! View full article

Following the conclusion of the Kingdom Hearts Second Breath concert, fans began to share new pamphlet artwork illustrated by Shiro Amano, who many will recognize as the artist for the games' many manga adaptations. The original Organization XIII is depicted playing various instruments. Additionally, Masahiro Sakurai, prominently known for the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. franchises, attended the concert and tweeted a photo of a newly illustrated conductor Sora, also present in the pamphlet. Another piece of significant information related to the concert is a vague statement made by Tetsuya Nomura. One of the concert's attendees and a highly reliable Kingdom Hearts community member, aibo, shared the following account of Nomura's arrival, translated by our team's Ryuji: Many fans are panicking over this exchange. However, there are several different tonal interpretations of whether this monumental series change was negative or positive. Due to the inherent uncertainty of this situation and the lack of official clarifications, it's best to keep an open mind and try not to dwell on it. You can view the new Kingdom Hearts Second Breath concert artwork via our gallery below. The Organization XIII artwork was shared by @princessxemnas: View full article

David Gallagher, the voice behind Kingdom Hearts' Riku, has been streaming on Twitch for some time now, and just yesterday at the time of writing, has just completed his journey of playing through Kingdom Hearts for the first time! Starting on July 17th, the playthrough was streamed on Twitch, with the VOD's uploaded onto YouTube for everyone who missed the stream to see. David was noted to have enjoyed his time with the game, and intends to engage with the secret bosses, and other optional content before moving onto the next game. Here you can find a playlist of all the videos chronicling his journey through the first Kingdom Hearts: David also has an Instagram, and TikTok, with his offical Twitch being avaliable here, so be sure to give him a follow across his platforms! Which Kingdom Hearts title are you looking most forward to see David play? Let us know your excitement down in the comments! View full article

Xion's death

Definitely fake No trailer, no updates besides some barely developed screenshots besides that mickey shot

Sora is definitely in love with himself 💀

sora is straight, just ask his girlfriend kairi and his boyfriend riku

https://tenor.com/view/oh-boy-here-we-go-again-oh-dear-omg-alright-then-gif-20490490

Max Goof for kh4

Sorry for the super late response to the Kairi convo but I've always been an advocate of a bigger push for her (sorry using wrestling terms again). I still think they should do a side game with Kairi and two party members for her. There are a couple of options I'd be 1000% behind. Max (Goofy's son) and an unknown third (never managed to come up with one. Feel free to throw some suggestions out there). Or... there was one time several years ago I saw fan art on DeviantArt of Kairi and her two party members being the other two members of The Three Cabelleros (the red chicken and the green parrot for those who don't know who they are. See DuckTales reboot). I'd be 1000% behind that as well Longer response than I thought I'd give lol

cant wait for Silent Hill f

In an announcement on both the Japanese and Global Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link official accounts on X, the Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link development team has shared a message on the decision to cancel the development of the game. You can read the full announcement message below: While the news may be difficult the message does reassure fans that the Kingdom Hearts series will continue, and that the team is hard at work on Kingdom Hearts IV. How do you feel regarding Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link's cancellation? Let us know in the comments below! View full article

That's possible too. I doubt they'll just throw away the story completely, especially as it promised to answer every unanswered question we had!

takes a drag and blows some smoke rotary phones huh? Heh...haven't seen them in a long time

I recently showed one of my rl acquaintances FF7 Remake and the Aerith + Tifa scene in the wall market arc where Aerith turns into chairith and then he told me that he thinks that Tifa and Aerith are hot and that he will buy the game

You have an active social life, school and hot German friends to hang out with shut the firetruck up 😭 firetruckin pasty European boy with your 5.8 out of 4.0 GPA where everyone is a philosophy ot psychology major MUST BE NICE TO HAVE NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE you asshole. 😭

MMO's are just ponzi schemes to get gamers to not leave their houses and become the blob people from WALL•e.

Did I sound like I was insulting Sakura? She's known for her damsel-in-distress trope and I was using her as an example of how Kairi could've broken away from it. What, you don't get the context? Why so butt-hurt with simply omitting facts about Sakura? "Survived characters like Kairi", What does that mean? Typo? "Backpedaled" - See there? This nerfing is why Kairi fans are tired. They're being stereotypical and judgmental when they see Kairi not succeeding again, sure. But do you really blame them after 20+ years of exhaustion? They want Kairi to have some progress. Re:Mind was perfect and it should've been integrated in MoM. But no, writing can't help but hate on her again. If you don't know how Kairi fans are really feeling, maybe try to think before you speak. "Tired of waiting" - Exactly. All Kairi fans are. They aren't waiting any longer. "Continue developing her" - It's no longer a development, it's an unnecessary drag-out.

Women don't have to be as physically strong as men, raw animalistic strength is not the only kind of strength that matters or the only value or trait that matters. Many of the disney princesses highlight that. It's odd OP brings up the disney princesses but can't see that. Cinderella's value as a character isn't her beating up armies single-handedly but who she is as person, and how she overcomes the crappy situation she was dealt.

They should have made her playable in kh2. I really wanted to see the village of destiny islands.

https://tenor.com/view/santorini-beautiful-beautiful-scenery-scene-gif-20519091

(Granted the ai specified "in the KH context" but) lmao Google ai says FF7 ain't shit 🤣

https://tenor.com/view/mickey-mouse-kingdom-hearts-gif-22302847

progress, if anyone is interestedalso if it's not the right channel or you don't want me posting this please tell me idk

Various Kingdom Hearts themed pet merchandise are now available for pre-order from the Square Enix Japan e-Store. The items range from leashes, beds, pet apparel, toys, and bags all inspired by the Kingdom Hearts series. Each of these items can be viewed along with their product pages and prices below. The items are set to release September 4th, 2025. Square Enix initially announced the line of pet goods in April of last year. Kingdom Hearts & Pets Monogram Bandanna - ¥2,200 (~$14.95 USD) Kingdom Hearts & Pets Monogram Reversible Cafe Mat - ¥4950 (~$33.64 USD) Kingdom Hearts & Pets Monogram Pet Leash - ¥9900 (~$67.26 USD) Kingdom Hearts & Pets Framed Bed - ¥9350 (~$63.49 USD) Kingdom Hearts & Pets Monogram Pet Bed - ¥6996 (~$47.49 USD) Kingdom Hearts & Pets Walking Bag - ¥4950(~$33.64 USD) Kingdom Hearts & Pets Dog Wear - ¥7700(~$52.30 USD) Kingdom Hearts & Pets Paopu Fruit Rope Toy - ¥2970 (~$20.17 USD) Will you be picking up any of these items for your pets? Let us know in the comments below! View full article

It’s actually completely fine as a stand alone thread. The ML general chat thread(as well as other general chat threads) only exist to allow folks to participate in the discord server’s discussions as a way to bridge communities on both server and site. These are much more casual and short form discussions and aren’t treated as traditional forum topics. On topic though - the communication or lack thereof surrounding the game is definitely concerning. I don’t know if scrapped is the way it’s going but would agree if/when it releases the playerbase may taper off relatively quickly, while there’s still interest in it seems like a lot are put off by the fact that it’s mobile and gacha. I do hope we see something of it eventually but am not holding my breath if not.

One Heart was great

It's a perfectly fine film. Nothing special, nothing so bad that it deserves the hatred it amassed before its release.

Speak for yourself, my dream eaters were actually hella good LOL

Kingdom Hearts Halloween Town themed coats, jackets, and hoodies for both men and women are now available for pre-order from the Square Enix Japan e-Store. The apparel features Sora, Donald and Goofy as they appear in the Halloween Town world, alongside other Halloween Town themed motifs featured in the game. Each item is set to release February 1st, 2025. The Nylon Coat is priced at ¥23,000 (~148.85 USD) the Blouson Jacket at ¥29,700 (~190.87 USD) and the Long Hoodie at ¥19,800 (~122.10 USD). You can take a look at each of the items in our gallery below, alongside their respective product links: Kingdom Hearts Halloween Town Nylon Coat - Men's Kingdom Hearts Halloween Town Nylon Coat - Women's Kingdom Hearts Halloween Town Blouson Jacket Men's Kingdom Hearts Halloween Town Blouson Jacket Women's Kingdom Hearts Halloween Town Long Hoodie Which of these items would you like to add to your wardrobe? Let us know in the comments below! View full article

That sounds good for me. I think this is a great idea. I am sure content creators and other people well versed in this kind of stuff will have a field day with this. I also find it really interesting to compare beta assets to release version assets to compare how much they have changed over time and stuff like that. I am sure this build will prove to be irreplaceable in the future!

Thanks for the reminder.

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Wind Waker is beautiful. ;v;

Fi from Skyward Sword confirmed to be playable in Hyrule Warriors: