Simple and Clean: A Kingdom Hearts Podcast

Is there really a lore-critical Kingdom Hearts game that was only available on mobile phones exclusively in Japan? Sort of! Today we’re covering the plot of Kingdom Hearts Coded, the often-neglected entry to the franchise that follows Mickey and a data copy of Sora as they attempt to debug Jiminy’s Journal, recover what was lost there when Naminé messed with it, and uncover the meaning of the myst...

Our good friend, collaborator & divine enigma Bex Taylor-Klaus drops by, despite never having played a Kingdom Hearts game before, to talk all about their favorite Disney movie: The Nightmare Before Christmas! The inclusion of this cult-classic holiday fairy tale, a favorite of alternative 90s kids everywhere, brings nuance and depth to its handful of appearances in Kingdom Hearts. And that’s...

There’s a brand new trailer out for Kingdom Hearts 4! Four years since our last look at any new footage, there’s finally something new for all of us to obsess over. And wow, what a trailer it was - with plenty of juicy story details, our first solid look at the combat systems, and  reveals of characters new & old (and some that are somehow both?). Who are all of these people? We’ll pore o...

Take a drive with us along the Information Super-Highway - today we’re talking all about Data! In addition to everything else it’s doing, Kingdom Hearts also has full-on Matrix-style simulations. Those simulations are pretty useful for hiding secrets - like people you don’t want to be found, or secret malevolent forces you’d throw away the rest of the universe to contain. Could one of those secret...

It’s her, it’s she: the Mistress of All Evil! Sometimes, in a story as complicated as Kingdom Hearts, you need a villain who’s just in it for the vibes, y’know? And Maleficent is willing to curse a girl’s entire life just because she wasn’t invited to her birthday party, so she easily fits the bill. But just because it’s easy to describe her motivations doesn’t mean they’re any less biting: her pr...

Although there’s plenty of friendly faces on the list of Summons that appear in Kingdom Hearts, the mechanic itself is never quite as impactful as its Final Fantasy counterpart. When a mechanic that started as begging the Gods for aid is reduced to Just Another Little Guy, it makes a whole game system feel small... Are the Summons worth seeing, even if you’ve got other flashier toys in your toy bo...

Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning - today we’re talking about Neverland and all things Peter Pan! The flighty boy who stands in our culture as a symbol of a refusal to come of age, sure, we all had crushes on Peter as kids (...right?). But Peter only glances lightly through the KH story, and while Neverland does contain one of the most moving moments in Sora’s journey when he...

We’re joined by game critic Matt Gosper (host of kindred podcast Trails Through Trails ) to answer a really tough one: What is a JRPG? So much more than just “an RPG made in Japan,” it’s a genre of games with dense, expansive storytelling, crunchy stats-based gameplay, gorgeous visuals, a rich cultural & technological history, and a long legacy of burrowing deep into the hearts of its fans. It...

Conscience, chronicler, and constant companion: today we’re covering Jiminy Cricket! Set adrift from his homeworld, his charge lost to the belly of a space whale, Jiminy takes on a new quest: recording the story of the Keyblade wielders as they battle Xehanort and the forces of Darkness. Though he may not say much in cutscenes, as the keeper of the Journal (which you often need to “complete” in or...

As the second movie in their catalog, Disney’s Pinocchio lays the groundwork for a lot of Disney’s works yet to come, and since its release its characters & images have transcended their origins to become iconic pieces of the wider Disney tapestry. Is that why pieces of Pinocchio’s world are scattered all across the Kingdom Hearts universe, but it took until the 7th game of the series to see t...

Kingdom Hearts is made up of all of the things sitting in the middle of the Venn diagram between “Disney” and “Final Fantasy,” and written in bold text & underlined right in the center is the word “MAGIC.” But what do these two radically different sources mean when they each say “magic?” Well, one is a rigorous system of codified elemental effects… and one is a vibe where a dream is a wish you...

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland are colorful, whimsical, surreal, delightful… heck, they’re positively frabjous! Sora’s adventures there? Decidedly more contained. Today we’re discussing the Kingdom Hearts level based on Disney’s Alice in Wonderland - specifically a pretty small, boxed-in section of it. There’s so much thematic harmony between Alice’s journey through Wonderland and Sora’s through...

Game writer and narrative designer Aysha Farah tumbles down the rabbit hole with us to talk all about metatextuality in game narratives. As a medium that fundamentally includes an element of the player’s control of the narrative, video games are a fascinating way to explore our relationships to storytelling - and the way Kingdom Hearts relies on its own nature, re-contextualizing versions of some...

Twilight Town is a bustling burb bathed perpetually in a perfect orange glow, and don’t you just want to watch that sunset on that clocktower forever? The halfway point on the Twilight Road to Nightfall (and the Road to Dawn), a story about the interplay between the forces of Light and Darkness revels in the enormous and deep story moments they’re able to tell in this otherwise sleepy-looking plac...

We put the controller in the talented hands of artist, podcaster and game connoisseur Julian Mundy for a deep look at KH’s combat. We know the story is deep, the characters are rich and the aesthetics are iconic, but how does it actually feel to play the Kingdom Hearts games? As one of the primary modes of interaction with the object itself, each game’s combat mechanics contribute so much to shapi...

Kingdom Hearts has always flown in the eye of a swirling storm of rumors. It’s been a part of the fandom going back as long as we can remember - and honestly, to a certain extent, that’s probably how the game devs want it! But with wild rumors come wild (and even sometimes impossible) runaway expectations. In the first half, we’ll examine the role of the KH rumor mill in our beloved community: How...

We welcome writer, illustrator, YouTube artist & podcaster Caldwell Tanner onto the pod to pour over the unaired Kingdom Hearts animatic pilot! Hot on the heels of the release of the first game, Disney ordered the creation of a pilot episode for a potential KH animated series. But in 2003, anime and Japanese media had not quite taken hold in the US - and so unlike the games which take so many...

The son returns! Game master and podcaster David Tilstra’s back, and boy is he winnin’ son! David had high praise for the first Kingdom Hearts game even though it’s been over 20 years since its release. So, rather than squander that goodwill on a card-based battle system, Mayanna’s brought him right to the good stuff: Kingdom Hearts 2. What’s David’s favorite new world? What does he think about th...

As passionate fans of a media property, sometimes all you want is to be able to display that love in your house, or on your body to others. But for Kingdom Hearts fans, the search for cool merchandise was a long and often fruitless one for many years. The merch landscape has changed drastically in the years since Kingdom Hearts first released, and where in our childhoods we often had to resort to...

The epic quest of Kingdom Hearts takes Sora, Donald, and Goofy through space, hopping from world to world. But how are they like, physically doing it? Enter the Gummi Ship, the blockiest ride since the Scion xB . The Gummi Ship is a staple feature of the major console installments, giving these big marquee games a sense of size and scale that handheld consoles simply can’t contain while also givin...

It’s bigger, it’s badder, it’s popping off all over the place!! Kingdom Hearts 2 attempts to expand upon its predecessor in every fathomable direction. Sora, Riku & Kairi are back and have never looked better, Jack Sparrow’s weirdly-more-realistic face is oddly endearing, Mulan and Tifa and Tron and Yuna Rikku & Payne (it’s showtime girls) are all here, and not only is Mickey Mouse fully i...

He may wield the element of fire, but Axel might just be the coolest character in this (or indeed, any) game series! Long red spiky hair, piercing green eyes, a smirk that makes teens swoon, and a heart that literally grows in front of your very eyes… no wonder Saïx can’t get over him. Step with us through the story as Axel goes from fun-loving street teen to wild scheming assassin - and then, som...

Where once shone a beacon of light among the many worlds, now stands an empty fortress upon a shattered landscape. Its inner workings, once dedicated to the betterment of all through the study of science and magic, are now twisted to suit Xehanort’s dark schemes, leaving a gaping wound in the skin of the world. Can those who were forced to flee the Hollow Bastion return, and restore it to its form...

We welcome our friend Julia Schifini aboard to get a rundown of Organization XIII, the meanest mugs this side of the Dark Meridian. We’ll get the lowdown on their plan (replacing the hearts they once gave up for dark powers), we’ll break down the stats all 14 members (yes, that’s right), we’ll learn how this motley crew works together (and how they don’t), and maybe we’ll learn where they all get...

As Sora’s Nobody, Roxas has a lot to live up to. He’s got responsibilities at work, he’s got a mysterious destiny he never asked for, he’s figuring out what emotions are, and he’s got no memories of who he used to be, even though everyone else seems to know him. All he wants is to sit on the clocktower in Twilight Town, and eat sea-salt ice cream with his friends! Can we just let a boy have friend...