This is just one of the many Heartless in the game.note
Ahh, Kingdom Hearts, you have it all: your own page for awesome moments, great soundtrack, a variety of hard bosses, and .... what's missing?Oh, a page for Nightmare Fuel.
What else did you expect from Disney and Square?
Games with their own pages:
- Kingdom Hearts
- Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
- Kingdom Hearts II
- Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
- Kingdom Hearts coded
- Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
- Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance]
- Kingdom Hearts χ
- Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-
- Kingdom Hearts III
In General
- The Japanese version of Axel's kamikaze death was bad enough that it had to be censored for Western audiences. Axel's element is fire, so he essentially burned himself alive.
- Similarly, Axel executing a kneeling Vexen from behind after Vexen begged him to stop in Chain of Memories could be upsetting. The modifications made to that scene in Re:Chain of Memories made it even worse by immolating him on-screen as Sora watched in horror.
- Zexion's death, like Vexen's, was made much more horrifying in Re:Chain of Memories. Instead of having the life drained out of him off-screen, Riku-Replica holds him by the collar as he begs for his life, and the camera watches from behind as he stops resisting and his feet are left to dangle lifelessly.
- Larxene's death isn't as graphic, but when she realizes she's fading away, she starts desperately grabbing at the pieces of her being, trying to keep them in. It may be worse in the Japanese version because her voice actor sounds absolutely terrified while it's happening.
- Nobodies, despite all their claims to feel nothing, often seem as if they actually do have emotions, but only negative ones, such as anger and fear. It turns out, THEY ALL HAD HEARTS.
- Some of the little details in the way dying or pained characters are animated are pretty upsetting upon closer inspection. Among the worst include Roxas involuntarily twitching as Ansem-Riku choked him into unconsciousness, Zexion's feet swaying around like a hanged man's as the life was drained out of him, Riku-Replica looking very much like a corpse when his heart was broken, and Master Eraqus falling forward towards the camera with unblinking eyes when he was killed in Birth By Sleep.
- Deep Jungle was a peculiar case when its villain deaths are taken into account. Sabor's final confrontation ends with the leopard struggling to both stand and see, and then the cat just sort of, gives up and dies, earning you one of its teeth as a trophy. The boss against Clayton ends similarly, only this time it's the Stealth Sneak, and then its full weight crushes Clayton, who still had some of his sense of self left, and they both disappear together.
- There's a section in the End of the World called the World Terminus. You go through, fighting through small sections of the other worlds in the game, all familar areas (The Third District, Rabbit Hole, Agrabah etc). Then you come to Hollow Bastion, and access what is implied to be the freak-lab where most of the Original Generation villains' Start of Darkness happened. Just for context, here's a Let's Play showing said lab.
- In Melody of Memory this room is finally elaborated upon, and it's not pretty. When Radiant Garden was falling to darkness, Xehanort (as an apprentice to Ansem) kidnapped Kairi and put her in one of the pods to send her to another world in search of a Keyblade wielder.
- Other frightening locations include The Heartless Manufactory and the secret basement laboratory operated by Xehanort and his fellow apprentices. The Manufactory is a location in Kingdom Hearts II where the MCP starts mass producing Heartless in order to invade Radiant Garden, and is also, according to KH3D the place some of the original members of the Organization lost their hearts. The basement laboratory contains a prison-like area in which the doors are chained shut, which is implied to be where Xehanort's human test subjects were held, as well as the Chamber of Repose, in which Aqua's armor is placed. Xemnas is not to be disturbed while he is down there, under any circumstances.
- The Heartless as a concept. These shadowy creatures are the result of people losing their hearts to the darkness and essentially becoming zombies that mindlessly attack anyone they find, turning them into Heartless as well. Some Heartless can be deceptively adorable, while others become outright Eldritch Abominations. And that's not getting into the Nobodies - the bodies of strong-willed individuals who lost their hearts to the darkness. They look more like something out of Neon Genesis Evangelion than anything, and though it's possible for them to gain a heart, most are just as instinct-driven as the Heartless. The only consolation is that, if a person's Heartless (and Nobody if they have one) are destroyed, they may come Back from the Dead.
- In many games, there exists a Superboss stronger than any other adversary in the game that serves as a Sequel Hook towards the next game. Why is this so scary? Purely because absolutely nothing about them is explained at the time, leaving the player up against a horrifically-strong foe with absolutely no idea who or what they even are.
- Worse is that several of these bosses are completely silent. They don't even grunt in pain when hit. The Unknown only "speaks" through ominous, vague text appearing on the screen. The Lingering Will communicates through subtitles backed up by nothing but faint, metallic, ghostly moaning. And the Mysterious Figure remains totally silent and retreats by just... fading out of existence. And when pausing the game against the latter boss, the only "tip" the game offers is "? ? ?". Yozora is little better. He has a voice and a name, but the sheer power and mystery remain.
- Even worse? These bosses often appear with little to no warning while the player is exploring. They'll usually only find out what they've gotten themselves into when the boss' introductory cutscene has started playing. At which point, it's far, far too late to back out. So if you happen to stumble across one of these bosses by accident? Expect a fairly-quick trip to the Game Over screen.
