Kingdom Hearts Retrospective: The Series So Far

Kingdom Hearts III, that much anticipated game that fans have been waiting fourteen years for, is finally being (officially) released to a worldwide audience on Tuesday (it’s already available in Japan). In the time between Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts III, various spin-off titles and compilations have been released, presumably to keep people in the loop regarding the complicated events of the series and to keep a high level of hype surrounding the long in development sequel.

The biggest hurdle between director Tetsuya Nomura and Kingdom Hearts III was Final Fantasy Versus XIII, a game that was announced shortly after Kingdom Hearts II was released. Up until then, the Kingdom Hearts games didn’t take too terribly long to make; it was only a three year wait between the first game and its sequel, with the handheld Chain of Memories released in between. But development of Versus XIII took up six years of Nomura’s life before he was replaced as director, although he stayed on the project one more year before he was free to concentrate on the Kingdom Hearts series again. In the time since, various high definition versions of the games in the series were re-released while Nomura worked on the final game in the “Dark Seeker” saga, a label that seems to indicate that Nomura intends to keep the Kingdom Hearts series going beyond the final battle with Xehanort.

With the release of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, recently re-released again as Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far, everything that a player needs in order to catch up with the Kingdom Hearts series is available on a single console, the PlayStation 4, but at this point, a player might need to somehow cram 358 days of gameplay over the next two in order to make it in time to begin Kingdom Hearts III. To aid those late to the party, here’s a handy guide to all the (canon) entries in the Kingdom Hearts series. Release dates are Japanese.

 Kingdom Hearts
Originally released: March 28, 2002
Original console: PlayStation 2

This was the game that started it all. There’s not a lot more that can be said than that. Disney plus Squaresoft somehow turned into an amazing franchise of games which are still popular to this day (or else there wouldn’t be so much hype over Kingdom Hearts III).

The game’s basic plot was that darkness was taking over all the worlds in the multiverse, a continuum made up of a lot of Disney worlds partially reproduced alongside a few original worlds meant to play surrogate home to various Final Fantasy characters. To fight the darkness, a young boy named Sora visited these worlds where he destroyed the manifestation of the darkness called the Heartless, as well as did battle with several Disney villains and eventually an original villain who was trying to seek out the ultimate source of darkness. All the while, he was searching for his friends Riku and Kairi while his companions, Donald and Goofy, were searching for King Mickey.

The ending of Kingdom Hearts left things open for a sequel, deliberately dangling several plot points that were intended to be continued if the game did well.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Originally released: November 11, 2004
Original console: Game Boy Advance

When this game was originally announced and released, it was understood that it wasn’t intended to be a part of the series, just a side game that one could skip, even though it was a direct continuation of the plot of the first game.

In seeking King Mickey and Riku, as well as a way back to the Destiny Islands to fulfill his promise to keep Kairi safe, Sora found himself inside a castle that seemed to be erasing the memory of anyone inside it; his levels and abilities were been reset to 0 as a result. The truth of the castle was a bit more complicated, though, and the ending set up yet another level and ability reset for poor Sora, who couldn’t seem to hold onto even a little bit of experience from one game to the next.

The game brought very few new things to the table. It introduced Organization XIII, the group behind the plot of Kingdom Hearts II, and debuted a setting called Castle Oblivion, the origin of which would eventually be revealed in Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep. It also debuted the starting town of Kingdom Hearts II, called Twilight Town. It also experimented with a battle system that didn’t survive beyond the one game. Everything else about the game was recycled from the first. Literally every world explored within the castle was a recreation of all the worlds already explored in the first game, with the exception of any worlds that Disney lost the rights to in the two years that Chain of Memories took to develop.

The game would eventually be remade to join its PlayStation 2 brethren as Kingdom Hearts re:Chain of Memories.

Kingdom Hearts II
Originally released: December 22, 2005
Original console: PlayStation 2

Kingdom Hearts II‘s challenge was apparently that it had to serve not only as the direct sequel to Kingdom Hearts, but it also had to continue the story in such a way that players who missed out on Chain of Memories wouldn’t be lost. How it was eventually done was, the opening of Kingdom Hearts II showed Sora taking on the challenges in Castle Oblivion in a quick summary video that still wouldn’t make a lot of sense to players who were skipping over the Game Boy Advance title. The story then picked up a year later. Due to the year spent apparently undoing the damage Naminé caused in Chain of Memories, Sora once again lost all of his abilities and experience. Naminé must not have been able to restore those.

Kingdom Hearts II introduced an enemy known as the Nobodies, which were the husks left behind by creatures who become Heartless, and revealed the ultimate plan of Organization XIII: they also wanted to gain control of Kingdom Hearts for their own ends. During the course of the game, the various worlds were gradually opened up to Sora, despite having had a good reason to close them off before. Maleficent returned from the dead, setting up a partnership with herself and classic Disney foil Pete, one that would last well beyond the ending of the game. Speaking of, the ending of Kingdom Hearts II also brought Sora’s journey to and end, for he was able to reunite with his friends and return to his home on the Destiny Islands, but a message from the king hinted that Kingdom Hearts III might be in the planning stage…

Kingdom Hearts: Coded
Originally released: November 18, 2008
Original console: Japanese cell phones

…however, instead of exploring the contents of the message in Kingdom Hearts III, Tetsuya Nomura chose instead to reveal in Coded that the message was in relation to an entry in Jiminy Cricket’s journal that was under investigation, and so in Coded, the journal was digitized and a version of Sora was created in the datascape in order to make sense of what was hidden somewhere in the journal’s missing data. This was the excuse for starting Sora back at level one yet again, for this was a data version that didn’t have the real Sora’s battle experience. This was also an excuse to not introduce any new Disney worlds at all and simply recycle from both Kingdom Hearts and Chain of Memories, a decision that led to the replaying of specific worlds twice, once in their original Kingdom Hearts form (albeit modified with “bugs”) and once in their Chain of Memories version.

The game’s ending revealed further story complications, mentioned several characters previously unknown to players, and led to the necessity to train Sora and Riku for what was known as the Mark of Mastery exam. Could that have been the opening needed to lead players into Kingdom Hearts III?

Incidentally, the game was never released in its original form outside of Japan, but was eventually re-released on the Nintendo DS as Kingdom Hearts Re:coded and North America finally got to play the game… after players had already met Ventus, Aqua and Terra, which spoiled the surprise a little.

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
Originally released: May 30, 2009
Original console: Nintendo DS

358/2 Days was a prequel of sorts, taking place between Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II, exploring the lost year between the two games from the point of view of Roxas, who had been introduced in the first few hours of the latter game. This was the first time a character other than Sora was the lead character of a Kingdom Hearts game and yet Roxas’s hidden connection with Sora meant it was technically another reset to nothing.

The game also explained why it took so long before Sora’s memories could begin to be restored, since it took less than a week to actually bring them all back together.

The plot revolved around Roxas helping the Organization towards their goal from Kingdom Hearts II while learning who he and his friend Xion really were, with an ending that led right into the prologue scenes from Kingdom Hearts II that had initially confused players. Worlds explored in 358/2 Days were once again recycled from previous games, including the exceedingly overused Olympus Coliseum.

Neither this game, nor Coded, would be remade for PlayStation consoles but an expanded set of cutscenes for each game were included in the Remix releases. Watching them can be considered a source of free PlayStation Network trophies.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
Originally released: January 9, 2010
Original console: PlayStation Portable

The series returned to PlayStation with a prequel set before the start of the first game in the series. Birth By Sleep told the story of Ventus, Aqua and Terra, three of the characters revealed at the end of Coded. Although the game stayed true to series tropes like having keyblade wielders as protagonists and visiting various Disney worlds, Birth By Sleep was the first truly fresh game in the series since the original one in that it starred someone other than Sora (so it actually made sense that the characters were starting at level one for once) and visited many Disney worlds not previously seen in the series, though to be fair, Kingdom Hearts II also featured some new Disney worlds in among returning ones. That said, this was the sixth game in the series to feature the Olympus Coliseum and at that point, it was ridiculous how many times keyblade-wielders ended up there. It was like the Doctor visiting Earth all the time and somehow always arriving within the borders of the United Kingdom.

Given the trio of protagonists that Tetsuya Nomura wanted to introduce to players, the game was divided into three parts, with each protagonist getting about a third of the game to themselves. They occasionally interacted with each other at various points in the story, which lent it a sort of Rudra no Hihou feel as the storyline of one character would reveal something about the storyline of another and the implication was that all three were needed to give players the full scope of the story. The game also explained the origin and true purpose of Castle Oblivion; whereas at one time, Chain of Memories was considered unimportant to the plot of the series, by the time Birth By Sleep was released, it was quite clear that every spin-off title was required reading, so to speak. At the time of its release, Tetsuya Nomura called Birth By Sleep “Episode 0” as it was considered the prologue to the entire series.

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance
Originally released: March 29, 2012
Original console: Nintendo 3DS

After exploring events prior to Kingdom Hearts II, the story of Kingdom Hearts finally continued, but not in Kingdom Hearts III. Instead, the story picked up in “Kingdom Hearts 3-D“, a cheeky tease from Tetsuya Nomura who must’ve known at that point that players were eagerly anticipating the next proper sequel in the series. In Dream Drop Distance, the excuse to reset Sora back to level one yet again was the Mark of Mastery test mentioned at the end of Coded.

During the game, Riku and Sora were sent into various worlds that for some reason, were never restored when the Heartless were defeated in previous games. Brand new enemies known as Dream Eaters were introduced as well, to go with the “sleeping” motif of the game.

As in Birth By Sleep, several Disney worlds never before seen were included due to the nature of the plot, lending more originality to the series after having spent many years revisiting worlds that had eventually grown old and stale. This was also the first game in the series to not feature the Olympus Coliseum.

Kingdom Hearts χ
Originally released: July 18, 2013
Original console: Internet web browsers (Japan only)

With the story that Kingdom Hearts III intends to tell, many more new characters are by necessity, being introduced to the series. It had already been established that the story of the Dark Seeker extended at least as far back as the original Keyblade War, so Kingdom Hearts χ (pronounced the same as “key”… just in case anyone thought “three fifty-eight days over two” was a bad enough title, at least it wasn’t deliberately formed using Greek letters) took place prior to even Birth By Sleep and became the true “chapter 0” of the series. The game explored what happened to set off the Keyblade War and although it was never made available outside Japan, a version of the game with a story set after the original events was released worldwide for Android and iOS called Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ (still pronounced “key”), then rebranded Kingdom Hearts Union χ (this time pronounced “cross” because reasons).

Previously visited Disney worlds returned in χ as illusions of the future which players had to interact with and battle Heartless in, somehow accumulating a necessary resource called Lux to aid in the fight against the darkness.

A version of the game’s story was included as a series of cutscenes in the PlayStation 4 release Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue.

Kingdom Hearts III
Release date: January 25, 2019
(To be released: January 29, 2019 worldwide)
Original console: PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Despite Wikipedia counting Kingdom Hearts χ, Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ and Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover as three separate releases, they’re essentially all variations on one story. 2.8 also includes an extra, new chapter of Birth By Sleep, but which isn’t long enough to count as its own full Kingdom Hearts game. Let’s just say that if A Fragmentary Passage is a full game, then the original Kingdom Hearts is almost a dozen full games. Many players have been calling it a prologue to Kingdom Hearts III anyway, so essentially, Kingdom Hearts III is the ninth full entry in the series. If a specific pattern holds, Kingdom Hearts IV won’t come out until 17 more spin-off games are developed and released. A significant number of them will not have conventionally written titles.

Kingdom Hearts III will take place shortly after the Mark of Mastery exam and will revolve around various figures associated with light and darkness coming together in one final battle. Sora will likely lose all of his abilities and levels once more, possibly because the Mark of Mastery exam is over although for all we know, Merlin might’ve sneezed while working a spell and accidentally Castle Oblivioned Sora’s head when he really meant to warm his tea.

Kingdom Hearts III will once more feature Disney worlds not yet seen in the series, including several worlds that had not yet existed until after the development and release of Kingdom Hearts II.

Now that the games are all covered, the question becomes, what order should they be played in? There are several possibilities, each with their own pros and cons. On all lists, Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage should be played at some point between Birth By Sleep and III.

Japanese release order

1) Kingdom Hearts
2) Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
3) Kingdom Hearts II
4) Kingdom Hearts: Coded
5) Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
6) Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
7) Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance
8) Kingdom Hearts χ
9) Kingdom Hearts III

The biggest advantage of this order is that it’s the order the games were originally developed in. The biggest disadvantage, though, is that the games came out when they were done, not when they were relevant. 358/2 Days filled in some of the missing plot between the end of Chain of Memories and II, for example. Meanwhile, the original version of Coded was actually released in chapters, so if one was to attempt to play the game with any kind of authenticity, part of the game would have to be played before 358/2 Days, part of it after.

North American release order

1) Kingdom Hearts
2) Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
3) Kingdom Hearts II
4) Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
5) Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
6) Kingdom Hearts Re:coded
7) Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance
8) Kingdom Hearts χ
9) Kingdom Hearts III

Note that the DS remake of Coded is used in this list and the rest of the lists below, since the original version was never released in Western territories.

This order is a little better than the original Japanese order, since 358/2 Days is played immediately after II and can therefore fill in gaps that would most certainly be fresh in everyone’s minds. The problem is, the reveal at the end of Coded is ruined by being played after Birth By Sleep, but to be fair, it was probably ruined in Japan too, since the final episode of Coded was released around the same time as Birth By Sleep, so the only ones really taken by surprise were probably those people living under a rock, so paranoid about spoilers in their game that they literally didn’t read anything on-line, ever, and relied on frequent trips to video game retailers in order to know whether there was going to be another Kingdom Hearts game coming out.

Chronological Timeline order

1) Kingdom Hearts χ
2) Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
3) Kingdom Hearts
4) Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
5) Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
6) Kingdom Hearts II
7) Kingdom Hearts Re:coded
8) Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance
9) Kingdom Hearts III

This order is perfect for players who want to experience the story as it happened in universe. So χ sets up the entire series, Birth By Sleep sets up the Dark Seeker saga, Kingdom Hearts introduces players to Sora, then players can go on from there. Also, for true chronological order, a portion of 358/2 Days has to be played prior to Chain of Memories, up to day 26 when Roxas collapses, not long after several members of Organization XIII are sent on assignment to Castle Oblivion.

That said, the biggest flaw of this order is that it ignores relevance. Birth By Sleep might have taken place ahead of anything Sora was involved in, but it won’t be relevant until after II, despite that most of Organization XIII make appearances as their former human selves. The next time players see them would be in Chain of Memories, when they’re suddenly evil. Basically, spin-off games were usually only developed when they were necessary, so trying to experience newer ones first and then going back to the beginning might not be the most beneficial way to play the series.

Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far order

1) Kingdom Hearts
2) Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
3) Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
4) Kingdom Hearts II
5) Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
6) Kingdom Hearts Re:coded
7) Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance
8) Kingdom Hearts χ
9) Kingdom Hearts III

Note that this is basically the North American release order with the third and fourth games swapped. It retains all the disadvantages of the North American release order while gaining the advantage of 358/2 Days leading directly into II. All the Story So Far order needs is for Birth By Sleep and Re:coded to switch places and it could be considered a “no spoilers” order similar to how Star Wars fans recommend watching Revenge of the Sith after The Empire Strikes Back.

Lazy order

1) Any Kingdom Hearts series summary video on YouTube
2) Kingdom Hearts III

Let’s face it, Kingdom Hearts III is almost out and it’d take at least a month or more to get through the rest of the series first. The plot is intricate and has a reputation for always changing on a dime. For example, Ansem was the villain in Kingdom Hearts. Except that he wasn’t really Ansem, he was just someone who stole Ansem’s name, he was really Xehanort. Oh, and it later turned out that he also stole Terra’s body, so Xehanort didn’t even look like that at first. So for those who feel pressed for time, it’s okay to just watch a video, skip ahead to III and maybe go back and fill in the more intimate details later.

And so, now that Kingdom Hearts III is nearly upon us, the wait begins for Kingdom Hearts IV. See you in 2040 or so!