Kingdom Hearts 1 was first released in 2002, and it's only 16 years later that we're finally getting Kingdom Hearts 3. Why so long, Square? They knew we needed all the time to figure out what the heck was going on in this lovable but convoluted mess of a series. If you've lost track of the story, forgotten it, or never understood it in the first place, then don't worry, we got you.
I'm Sydney with the Leaderboard. and today we are going to try to untangle the mess of a story that is Kingdom Hearts. We're going to cover the main storylines from Birth by Sleep, Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, Chain of Memories, Dream Drop Distance, and A Fragmentary Passage. This might seem like a lot, but we're cutting this down from 11 games to 6 to give you the simplified version.
Pray for us, fam. Birth by Sleep In the beginning, there was one world that lay under the blue light of Kingdom Hearts, a kind of heaven for hearts and a source of great power. To access it, you needed the Keyblade, the original weapon that all Keyblades are made in the image of.
The power of the Keyblade is what allows the original Keyblade Masters to make their weapons, by pulling them out from their hearts. How do you even fit that in there? Predictably, there was a great battle to control the Keyblade that came to be known as the Keyblade War. The Keyblade Masters of Light and Dark battled and ended up shattering the Keyblade into twenty pieces, seven of pure light and thirteen of pure darkness.
In the chaos, the world split apart, fragmenting into many disconnected worlds. And this That's why we can't have nice things. Now comes the fairly confusing part Xehanort.
You would think Xehanort is the classic bad guy, a radical that thinks there's too much light in the world and wants to tamp it down with his shade. His goal in life is to forge the Keyblade, restart the Keyblade Wars, and open up Kingdom Hearts to create a world that's equal parts dark and light. Seems simple enough?
Well, it would be, if not for the fact that Xehanort has the power to possess people and create different versions of himself. On top of that, he can travel through time. He's like the Ganon of Kingdom Hearts. Dude is just everywhere. In Birth by Sleep, Xehanort Version 1 is getting older, so he takes on an apprentice, Ventus, to use him as a vessel for his aging heart.
Unfortunately for Xehanort, Ventus refuses to use the darkness to fight. Like any disappointed father, Xehanort loses his patience and whips out his own Keyblade to draw out the darkness from Ventus'heart. The result is a being of pure darkness, Venitas.
Xehanort brings a now-comatose Ventus to Destiny Island to die. But over there, Ventus'heart is mended by Sora's, and Ventus survives. Now, in an awkward spot, Xehanort sends his not-so-dead apprentice to the Land of Departure to be trained as a Keyblade Master. There, Ventus meets his two new BFFs, Terra and Aqua, who are also training to be Keyblade Masters.
Unfortunately for Terra, Xehanort eyes him over, like Voldemort spotting a horcrux, and sizes him up as the new, perfect vessel for his heart. Terra and Aqua both have separate encounters with little children Riku and Kairi. causing Riku to become Terra's Keyblade successor, and for Kairi to be Aqua's.
In the meantime, Benitez merges with Ventus, taking control over him and creating the Keyblade in the process. Ventus, now Benitez, is out of control, but is stopped by Aqua and special guest star Mickey Mouse, also a Keyblade master. It's definitely not weird that Mickey is there.
Throughout the story, Xehanort manipulates Terra to bring out his darkness, eventually challenging him to a final showdown at the Keyblade graveyard. Terra fails Psychology 101 and falls for the trap, releasing all his darkness and beating Xehanort. But that crafty bastard Xehanort uses the Keyblade to transfer his heart to Terra's body.
Welcome to the world, Terra...Xehanort. Meanwhile, Ventus rebels against Benitas'control, causing the Keyblade to become unstable. The blade eventually explodes, putting Ventus into a deep sleep to heal. Aqua locks his body up tight in the newly formed Castle Oblivion, while his heart goes to heal inside Sora like a surprise house guest. Let's just accept that hearts are more mobile than one would expect.
In Radiant Garden, Terra is fighting an internal battle against Xehanort, version 2. Aqua, the real MVP of Birth by Sleep, fights off Terra Xehanort, who then turns his Keyblade on himself and accidentally lets out some of his darkness to drag him down into the Realm of Darkness. Oops. Sure, Xehanort gets away, but he'll come back and bite us in the ass later.
Don't you worry. But by this time, an unconscious Terra Xehanort is falling into the Realm of Darkness. To save him? Aqua sacrifices herself to the darkness.
No, I'm not crying. You're crying. Before Kingdom Hearts 1. Xehanort Version 2 is still alive and is still a dick.
He's discovered by Ansem the Wise, who takes him in as his apprentice. Xehanort has lost his memories, but is still obsessed with controlling the power of darkness and opening up Kingdom Hearts. He discovers a way to extract the darkness from a heart that creates a being known as a Heartless, and as a byproduct, a Nobody. A Nobody is an empty shell of a body without a heart, much like me in college. After betraying Ansem the Not-So-Wise, because of course he does, by banishing him to the Realm of Darkness, Xehanort extracts the darkness out of himself and the other apprentices.
This creates a bunch of Heartless and Nobodies, which sets up the beginnings of Organization XIII. Just a quick aside to clear things up before we jump into the original game. Xehanort's Heartless is called Ansem, and his heartless is called Ansem.
Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, who becomes needlessly confusing later on, while his nobody is called Xemnas, for no reason except to add additional confusion to the storyline. Just to be clear again, there is now a real person named Ansem the Wise, and a completely separate Heartless, also named Ansem. Not the same person.
Thanks, Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts 1 Now back to the main story. We come to the very first game of the series, Kingdom Hearts 1. Looking back, I'm actually nostalgic for a time when I didn't know all about the convoluted background plots.
It was just about a heroic boy increasing the merchandising capital of Disney's franchise characters and saving the world with a giant key. It's now ten years later, after the events of Birth By Sleep, and three best friends, Sora, Riku, and Kairi are living their best life on Destiny Island. One night, the island is attacked by a mysterious force of darkness, separating the three friends.
Our main man, Sora, scores a nifty Keyblade in the ensuing chaos, and ends up in Traverse Town. he meets Goofy and Donald. Those two are looking for King Mickey, who has gone to battle the Heartless, leaving Goofy and Donald to search for the Key.
Hey, Sora's got one of those. So, they decide to join forces to defend worlds from the Heartless and search for Riku, Kairi, and King Mickey. Of course, it wouldn't be a fairy tale without a big bad.
Enter Maleficent, head honcho of the Green Flames of Evil and Sleeping Beauty. She's looking for a way to access Kingdom Hearts, but to do so, she needs the Seven Princesses of Heart. each protected by a fragment of pure light that broke off from the original Keyblade. Together, they can reveal the final Keyhole that will lead the way to Kingdom Hearts.
I'ma let you finish, but Ariel deserves to be one of those Princesses of Heart. After eventually clearing out the Heartless from the various worlds and locking up their Keyholes, the gang finds themselves at Hollow Bastion, Maleficent HQ, and homeworld of Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. As it turns out, Ansem has been puppet-mastering the whole series of events.
In true Ansem fashion, he uses his favorite move, Betrayal It's super effective! He uses Sora's best friend Riku to battle him, only to disappear into the darkness. Riku, now possessed by Ansem, shows Sora Kairi's motionless body. It turns out that her heart got separated from her body during the destruction of Destiny Island and is now residing in Sora.
If you remember, Ventus'heart is also in Sora. I'm not sure how many hearts Sora can fit, but he should start charging rent. To seal the keyhole to Hollow Bastion, Sora releases Kairi's heart from his body.
using Ansem's nearby heart-unlocking keyblade. Both Sora and Kairi's hearts float out of Sora, turning him into a cute little black bug of a Heartless. Is this insulting? Sora's not even the stronger Heartless creatures, he's like a foot-soldier Heartless. Like any good Disney movie, the power of friendship saves the day, and Kairi, the last Princess of Heart, heals Sora with her magic hug to return him to human form.
The group tracks Ansem to the end of the world, where they get ready to battle all of his annoying forms, only to have him mock you by battling Shirtless at the end. After what feels like hours of battling, he still manages to open the Door to Darkness in an attempt to prove that Kingdom Hearts is filled with darkness. Joke's on him, though. What Ansem thought was the source of Ultimate Darkness ends up being a source of light.
And it kills him. Somehow. Inside the Door is the Realm of Darkness.
And oh, Mickey and a non-possessed Riku are here, too. Together, they all shut the Door to Darkness, sealing away any more heartless threats on the worlds. Aqua eventually runs into King Mickey, who has been trying to lock keyholes in the Realm of Darkness.
If Aqua were to leave through one of those doors to light, the darkness will keep escaping into the real world. So she continues to fight the good fight and lock keyholes from the dark side. But we'll get back to her later.
By the end of Kingdom Hearts 1, all three friends aren't much better than when they started. Riku is in the Realm of Darkness, Kairi is back on Destiny Island, and Sora is still without his friends. Cue the Kingdom Hearts theme song, Simple and Clean. The irony of that title is stifling. Chain of Memories Let's backtrack a bit to the ending of Kingdom Hearts 1, when Sora split his heart from his body.
By doing so, he created the byproducts of Heartless, the Nobodies. From his own heart, a Nobody called Roxas was created, and for Kairi's heart, one called Namine. Namine is at Castle Oblivion, which has been commandeered by the now active Organization XIII. In Twilight Town, Roxas is recruited into Organization XIII by Xemnas, Xehanort's Nobody. Organization XIII is made up of Nobodies, which supposedly have no feelings.
but it seems like they're pretty moody about all the betrayal and subterfuge. At this point, the organization is divided between Team Vexen and Team Marluxia of the Cotton Candy Hare. This series really likes names with X in them.
Marluxia's crew sees a chance to use Sora to defeat their rivals and take over the organization. Marluxia lures Sora over to Castle Oblivion, where they can use the captured Naminé memory manipulation powers to incept Sora into taking down Xemnas. On the other side of the pitch, Team Vexen has their own contender, Riku.
or, rather, a Riku replica that Vexen copies from data he obtained on Riku. The Riku copy is sent to fight Sora, while the real Riku, who managed to find himself in Castle Oblivion, fights his way through the castle. Riku eventually succumbs to using the power of his darkness, still lingering from Anima. ...Ansum's last possession, leaving him vulnerable again to Ansum's greedy body snatching. They fight, and Ansum is destroyed, but not before he creepily states that a part of him is still in Riku.
Ugh. Go away, Ansum. Completely oblivious as to what's happening with the real Riku, Sora eventually gets his memories restored by Namine.
There's also this whole subplot happening in Organization XIII, with the people in black hoods who have unpronounceable names, but just know that they end up betraying each other. mostly due to Axel, and they're down five by the end of the game. Got it memorized? 358 Days Over 2 Sum of 358 Days Over 2 takes place after the events of Chain of Memories, and bears heavily on the story of Kingdom Hearts 2. Xion has been made a failsafe Keyblade wielder, in the event that Sora or Roxas can't be used by Organization XIII.
As part of Xion's transformation, she absorbs Sora's memories, as he loses his own in Chain of Memories. Sora's memories also leak into Roxas. Because Shion and Roxas now hold some of Sora's memories, Sora's memory can't be fully restored. To remedy the situation, Shion forces Roxas to defeat her so that Roxas can continue to live and to prevent Sora from being trapped in sleep. After the battle, Roxas returns to the world that never was, intending to set Kingdom Hearts free.
Roxas is attacked by Neo Shadow Heartless, and then Riku appears and helps Roxas battle against the baddies. Immediately after defeating their foes, however, Riku and Roxas decide to duke it out themselves. Roxas initially wins the battle, but Riku releases his darkness and transforms into Ansem, Seeker of Darkness.
Ansem's guardian grabs Roxas and chokes him until he passes out. Ansem the Wise appears on the scene and brings Roxas to a digital version of Twilight Town. Kingdom Hearts 2 So we're all pretty much confused at this point. But not to worry, so are the characters in the game. By this time, Roxas has lost his memory.
and started life anew in a digital version of Twilight Town. Life goes on for Roxas in an endless haze of summer, blue popsicles, and pseudo-voyeuristic dreams of Sora, until one day, Axel, Roxas'old pal from Organization XIII, tracks Roxas down to bring him back to the fold. It's quite an emotional rollercoaster as we learn from Naminé that Roxas'true purpose is to just end up inside Sora. Accepting his fate, Roxas is absorbed, and we say goodbye to an extremely likable character.
Cue those fiery hot Axel tears. Sora awakens with no memory of what happened in Chain of Memories. He's tasked by the sorcerer Yen Sid to defend the worlds against Heartless, Little Silverfish Nobodies, and the Big Lunker Nobodies in Organization XIII.
All cut and dry? Not with Kingdom Hearts. It turns out even the evil factions have evil factions.
The first is Organization XIII, who wants to use Sora's Keyblade to capture the hearts of the Heartless and build the new Kingdom Hearts. That way, they can populate the Heartless voids of the Nobodies so that they can become whole again. But that's all a lie that Xemnas told them. I want to just throw my computer to the floor after reading that. Also, all these Organization XIII nobodies are suddenly confronted by Sora, who just absorbed Roxas out of existence, so they're a bit mad about that.
On the other side is Axel, who seems to be playing a sort of double agent role. Even before this point, Axel and Roxas'relationship causes Axel to distrust the Organization and work on his own plan. The last faction is headed by the recently revived Maleficent. who somehow survives her death in Kingdom Hearts 1 and wants to bring all the worlds under her control. Basic evil villain stuff.
As Sora continues to free the worlds from Heartless and Nobodies, he discovers the digital world of Twilight Town that Roxas had been living in. Unfortunately, due to some sort of invitation mix-up, the world is overrun with Nobodies, and Axel jumps in to sacrifice himself in a blaze of glory. Yes, Axel is there. He misses Roxas, and was following Sora around because he reminded him of his buddy.
Aww. Axel. Before he dies, Axel opens a door to the home of Organization XIII in the world that never was. After scaling Organization Stronghold, the castle that never was, Sora and Riku find Xemnas.
And so, they enter into another soul-crushing battle with all of Xemnas'annoying forms. Xemnas is defeated. Well, for now. And our heroes are rewarded with the Door to Light opening via a heart-to-heart connection between Sora and Kairi. Riku and Sora enter the Door to Light, finding themselves back home on Destiny Islands.
Here, our trio of friends are finally reunited. I'm so happy. Dream Drop Distance The end of Kingdom Hearts 2 is great.
Everything is wrapped up in a neat little bow. But as you've guessed by now, there's no such thing as a happy ending in this fairy tale. It doesn't even matter how hard you try to get rid of him. Xehanort keeps coming back.
So it turns out that by destroying both his heartless form, Ansem, and his nobody form, Xemnas, Xehanort is now able to merge and reconstruct his original form, Master Xehanort. What? Why? Damn it, Nomura! By the same logic, because you've killed the nobodies of Organization XIII, their real bodies have been revived.
Including Axel! Yay! All the members also retain all their memories of being nobodies, which doesn't really make sense either. Anywho, Axel, now called Lee wants to make up for the lost time being a nobody and starts studying to become a Keyblade wielder.
On the light side, in order to face Xehanort, Sora and Riku need to level up their game and achieve the rank of Keyblade Master by undergoing the Mark of Mastery test. Both boys are sent to the previously destroyed worlds that are in a state of deep sleep. Predictably, you'll be going there to unlock some giant floating keyholes. Now things get even more complicated.
Sora and Riku get separated in the dream world. but are still affected by each other. They're in sleeping worlds that look familiar, but also exist in their memories. Their worlds are different, and they cross between them.
Oh, and each world has different realms of dreams that exist at the same time as each other, a kind of multiverse thing. Did you get all that? Don't worry, I'm sure nobody really does. That's why the creatures are so colorful and distracting.
It's to stop you from going insane trying to understand this story. When they get split up, Riku enters Sora's dreams, and Sora journeys to the dream world. In Sora's dreams, Riku defeats the nightmares inside Sora, while Sora goes to lock up some keyholes in the dream world.
We get a lot of reruns of old characters, including Xehanort in all his forms. Amazingly, every form of Xehanort is a dick. There's also a new one now, young Xehanort, who is also a dick.
Remember when I mentioned that Xehanort can travel through time? It turns out that he instructed his younger self to gather 13 incarnations of himself to be the 13 Seekers of Darkness. Why 13, you ask? Xehanort believes that by creating 13 beings of darkness to fight with seven Guardians of Light, he can restart the Keyblade War and recreate the Keyblade, thus opening up Kingdom Hearts and getting all that power inside. After Sora seals up the Dream World keyholes, he finds himself back in the world that never was, home base of Organization XIII.
Here, Sora gets trapped in a dream version of the world that never was, and starts tripping out, leaving his heart vulnerable to Xehanort, who's been eyeing him up as his thirteenth and final vessel. Sora battles Dream Xemnas and manages to win, but his heart is too damaged, and he falls into a coma. Remember Ventus? The pretty boy that Xehanort discarded in Birth by Sleep? His heart has been residing in Sora this entire time.
The moment that Sora's heart fails, Ventus protects it by wrapping it up in Keyblade armor. Thanks, Ven! While Sora sleeps, Riku arrives at the World That Never Was, where Ansem tries to get him to join the Dark Side again. If Ansem ends up being Riku's father, that pretty much confirms a Star Wars world in Kingdom Hearts 3. Predictably, Riku doesn't accept and ends up having to fight a lot of different Xehanorts. After more dream world hopping and nightmare fighting, Sora reawakens to disappointing news.
Only Riku has earned the title of Keyblade Master. Come on, Yen Sid! Sora closed all those keyholes and fell into a coma for your silly quest! 0.2 Birth by Sleep, A Fragmentary Passage With a title just as confusing as the story itself, A Fragmentary Passage is the last game on the timeline before we reach Kingdom Hearts 3. Next time. The spotlight is on our MVP Aqua, who really got the short end of the stick back in Birth by Sleep.
She's been alive the whole time, but she was trapped in the Realm of Darkness. As Xehanort is trying to raise his 13 beings of darkness, so too must the members of the Light raise their seven guardians. By the end of Birth by Sleep, Aqua is left wandering the surprisingly pretty Realm of Darkness. In a world without time and full of scary mirror people, she's left to fight the doubts in her own heart, manifested in real life. It wouldn't be a realm of darkness without huge armies of Heartless blocking her path.
But Aqua battles them, never losing her drive to see her friends Terra and Ventus again. After the events of Dream Drop Distance, Mickey and Riku, now both masters, are both strong enough and head off to save Aqua. In the meantime, as a prelude to Kingdom Hearts 3, a much weakened Sora needs to regain his power for the upcoming fight.
He's sent to visit his old pal Hercules, who'll take him from zero to hero just like that. So that's- everything we could fit into our simplified Kingdom Hearts timeline. I hope you're all caught up for Kingdom Hearts 3. I'm Sydney with The Leaderboard, and thanks for watching.
What are some of your predictions for Kingdom Hearts 3? Let us know in the comments. I'm so curious. Once the new game drops, we'll be putting out an updated timeline with all the new story from Kingdom Hearts 3. Subscribe to The Leaderboard so you'll know as soon as it comes out.
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