Game Journal: Kingdom Hearts 3-Lining the Pieces Up
Note: There are no spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 3 in this piece. As of writing it, I haven’t started it.
The other day, Patrick Klepek posted a tweet asking for stories from followers on why the Kingdom Hearts series is important to them. I’m a fan of Waypoint, but have never written into them before. This was a topic I felt I could easily say something about though, so I shot him an email. As I was writing it, I realized there’s a bit more to my feelings on these games than my usual response of “I love goofy bullshit”. This was complicated even further after reading Allegra Frank’s review of Kingdom Hearts 3 for Polygon, and the subsequent Polygon Show episode title addressing it.
For the first time in my adult life, I had a deeply angry reaction to seeing her negative impressions of the game, despite not having played it myself. I normally rail against this kind of sentiment because of how toxic and detrimental it can be. Luckily my friend Wheels was there to pop in and help me interrogate why I was reacting the way I was. During that conversation, I was trying to be honest, and cited my distrust of Polygon as a competent outlet of late, and the fact that I generally don’t vibe with Frank’s work. But this conversation and the emergence of that feeling have stuck with me, and as I continue to sit with it, it’s more than that.
We’ll get deeper into this in an upcoming episode of Palin’ Around, but I generally don’t consider myself to be someone who becomes blindly attached to franchises or companies. Despite my love of the first two Dragon Age games, Inquisition didn’t do it for me, and I’ve cooled on the franchise going forward. The same goes for the third installment of the Danganronpa series. I generally pride myself on being able to be deeply critical of the media I love and move on from it when it becomes harmful or loses whatever gave it its luster for me. But Kingdom Hearts seems to be the exception to that rule.
My first KH game was 2. I don’t really remember playing it for the first time, it was just kind of a constant in the backdrop of my childhood. My best friend, Paul, and I played it pretty much every time we hung out. He owned the actual disc and we would trade out memory cards depending on whose turn it was to play. As we got older, the games just kept coming out, though I dropped off games for a while. But when I was ready to hop back in, Paul was there, ready to go, and so was Kingdom Hearts.
When I really think about it, I think that’s the core of my aggressive feelings about these games: deep ties to feelings of comfort and friendship. As we drunkenly iterated over and over again during the Kingdom Bars podcast, friendship is a huge theme of these games. But that theme has bled into my real life for as long as I’ve played them.
Freshman year of highschool there was a boy in my class named Austin who I desperately wanted to be friends with. But as an anxious, socially awkward kid at the end of their emo phase, I didn’t really know how to make it happen. I’d sit next to him whenever I could in hopes that we’d become close through osmosis. It ended up working…kind of. What really got us talking was him overhearing a conversation I was having with another classmate about getting back into Kingdom Hearts. That initial chat led to a friendship that has lasted to this day and extended into Paul’s life as well.
As high school continued, I did everything I could to get my hands on these games as I was catching up, because I wanted to maintain that connection with my friends. I borrowed a DS to play RE: Coded, bought a PSP just to play Birth by Sleep, and split custody of a copy of Dream Drop Distance and its companion strategy guide with Austin because he had a 3DS and I needed to play the most recent game we had been gifted. That strategy guide is still on my bookshelf.
Even as an adult, Kingdom Hearts has been there for me. During my junior year of college I was the most depressed I’ve ever been. On a good day, I could leave my bed, and maybe shower, on a bad one, I was lucky I couldn’t do anything other than lie in bed on my phone as my thoughts got darker and darker. But there was one thing I could do that made some of the constant dread that was pressing down on me retreat, just a bit: playing Kingdom Hearts. On a good day, I could sit on my floor and pour hours into the PS3 port of Birth by Sleep. On a bad day, I’d stay in my bed, clicking through the mobile game until I ran out of whatever currency it uses (it’s been a while).
This franchise has been woven into the fabric of my life for so long that I hadn’t really noticed it. It’s like an extra layer of skin I’ve gotten used to carrying around. The weight of it has become imperceptible, which is why it’s been so uncomfortable to confront it. I can feel that weight now, and it gets heavier each time I have that angry reaction to KH3 criticism. Sure, I can make jokes about how ridiculous and silly these games are, but that’s because I love them so much. Any time I perceive this being done by people who I don’t consider to be “true fans”, I immediately get defensive. Which is a really, really gross feeling.
I hate gatekeep-y, “true fan/real gamer” bullshit. It really only serves to push marginalized folks out of “nerd” spaces that are already hostile to us. Feeling myself fall into that headspace is not something I ever thought would happen, and it honestly makes my skin crawl. I don’t want to be a shitty gamer who lives and dies by a franchise and immediately lashes out at anyone who dares to say something critical or even unkind about it. That’s the exact opposite of what I’ve been trying to be for so long. But I’ve found myself here, and now I have to find a way to get past it, because I won’t let it get the best of me.
Yes, these games are special to me for a variety of reasons. They’ve shaped my life for the better and kept me afloat during what was probably the darkest time of my life. But for all that love and connection, they’re still cultural items mass produced for consumption and profit. I don’t own them, Square Enix and Disney do. Much as I love and appreciate them, the feeling isn’t mutual, so why should I be jumping to their defense over basically nothing. Sora and Riku can’t hear what anyone is saying, and Square and Disney certainly don’t need (or want) me going to bat for them over a game that will surely make them millions. They’ve definitely profited off of my dedication to this series, but that doesn’t ultimately make me anymore worthy of playing this new entry than anyone else.
These are the things I’ve been telling myself as I see my Twitter and podcast feeds fill with Kingdom Hearts chatter after seeing that Polygon review. While my first reaction may still be aggression or snark, I’m doing my best to force those feelings into the backseat as I remind myself that it’s just a game. A game I love, yes. But not one that needs me to be its personal defense force.
