In the beginning section at Destiny Islands, Riku and Sora's competitive relationship comes across differently depending on whether the player is superior, equal, or inferior to Riku.
After the final Hercules Cup seed against Hercules himself, he compliments Sora for winning in spite of Hercules not holding back during his battle. However, it's possible that Hercules was fibbing and actually rigged his battlewith "god-like aura disabling barrels" to give the kid a chance to win and motivate him to become stronger.
Donald Duck during the Timed Missions in Olympus Coliseum, if he casts Stop on the last enemy. Stopped enemies don't lose HP until the effect wears off, at which point they take damage equivalent to all the hits you landed on them while they were stopped. Mildly annoying during normal battles, but potentially game-ending when you have a time limit and the final blow has been delayed by several seconds.
Goofy's sometimes uses his standard attack on an enemy you're currently targetting, where he will charge and pushing them out of your way while you're in the middle of an attack and cause you to miss.
Tarzan during the Jungle Slider mini-game, since he's right behind you and blocks your view with his body and spear, making it more difficult to find and collect the fruits and go towards an alternate course without missing a single one.
Jafar is widely agreed to be one of the easiest Disney bosses in the game. The fight against his Genie form is especially anticlimactic, since despite being granted "phenomenal cosmic powers" by his transformation into an "all-powerful Genie", the only attack he'll use for most of the fight is slowly hurling easily-dodged balls of lava at Sora. Additionally, the target of Iago and the lamp is very easy to hit and even easier to combo.
Rock Titan is another notable example. He's the final opponent of the very challenging Hades Cup, which you can only access late in the game. Like in the movie he's also gargantuan, probably one of the physically largest enemies in the game barring the final boss. However, while his attacks deal a lot of damage, he moves very slowly and his attacks are quite easy to avoid. As a result, he's generally considered to be one of the easiest bosses in the game, sometimes even the easiest.
After the slew of tough encounters in Hollow Bastion against Dragon Maleficent and Ansem-Riku, the last boss of the level, Behemoth, is most definitely a pushover. It is incredibly slow, has very little means of actually attacking you beyond an easily-telegraphed-and-dodged homing energy sphere shot, keels over after being hit a few times so you can pummel it some more (this is actually a feint, as it attacks with powerful undodgeable lighting afterwards, but its range is very short and it gives you plenty of time to roll away before the attack comes out), and has a crippling weakness to Gravity magic.
There just hasn't been a world in this series yet that has been able to top this game's visit to Hollow Bastion in awesomeness. Aside from, perhaps, the sheer unnerving beauty (and frequent terror) of End of the World, the game's final world.
Halloween Town is very highly regarded, due to the connections to the cult classic Nightmare Before Christmas, great final boss akin to Shadow of the Colossus, the redesigns for the party to fit with the aesthetics of the film and just the generally charming atmosphere.
In Deep Jungle, one of the bosses is... a huge purple eggplant-looking fruit. The game simply feeds you the message "the fruit looks suspicious", then you're required to destroy it or Heartless will continue to spawn. The best explanation the game offers is Clayton uses it to trap Jane and Terk, but even then, the connection is obtuse/tenuous at best.
The battle with Chernabog is essentially this, since none of the characters comment on him, and he doesn't even get an entry in Jiminy's Journal, but as he's a highly popular character, no one is complaining too much.
Breather Level: The Clock Tower part of Neverland is a Scenery Porn section that has no enemies to fight and few collectibles to find. You can simply fly around and take in the beauty of the design and music that's playing.
The Atlantica level is pretty divisive — since it's the only world that requires a completely different gameplay system to accommodate the underwater setting (can't summon or use special attacks). The split increased since the world was changed for Kingdom Hearts II into an optional musical game; some hated it even more, others preferred the change, and another camp was simply indifferent to it.
100 Acre Wood can be seen as equally divisive, something that would carry over into the sequels. Some fans praise the world for being a nice Breather Episode that temporarily changes the games format in favor of some cute and lighthearted mini-games. Meanwhile, its detractors dislike the world for having dull and often tedious mini-games that are mandatory to unlock specific items and abilities in the game, and hate the innocent storyline that largely differs from the rest of the game.
The live orchestrated music in 1.5 ReMIX divided fans. Some loved it and found it more exuberant and engaging than the original MIDI tracks, while others hated the new music and preferred the original tracks.
Catharsis Factor: You can walk up and smack the Queen of Hearts, causing her to flip upside down. The use of it is that the card soldiers will take longer to get up when defeated and nothing else, but it feels so great to just knock her upside the head.
Despite Dragon Maleficent's reputation as That One Boss, she can be taken down far easier with a magic build that allows usage of Stop and repeated castings of Gravira or Proud Roar due to her weakness to Gravity spells.
Aero magic has it's value in most boss fights but in cases like Ansem-Riku or Ansem himself, it can be a real lifesaver. In the former, Aero magic allows you to get aggressive with Ansem-Riku whose HP is lower than the previous boss, ending the fight quickly. The latter boss's dash attack can be stopped dead in it's tracks, allowing you to easily counter Ansem and do more damage to him, cutting down his HP far quicker.
Common Knowledge: It's often joked that Donald is useless as a party member and suffers from Artificial Stupidity, but more experienced players will tell you that it's not the case in the first game. While he is a Squishy Wizard, his offensive magic is very potent and he is smart enough to use the correct magic against his target. Even the "Donald doesn't heal" joke is more or less discredited as it was discovered you can tweak his AI so he constantly heals and supports the party - making that joke nowadays will more likely get you poked fun at for not knowing how to change his AI.
Difficulty Spike: Once you complete the fourth boss fight in Hollow Bastion, enemies everywhere, including bosses, get a strength boost thanks to their access to the Final Keyhole..
Demonic Spiders: Sniperwild, cousin to the Bouncywild (for all intents and purposes). In order to get its synthesis drop, the Sniperwild must be defeated while remaining completely unseen and this continues until either all five cycles have been defeated or Sora has been spotted. And when Sora gets spotted, the Sniperwilds will stop dropping items experience and money, instead opting to barrage the party with unblockable shots alongside the reinforcements called it.
Ending Fatigue: The final battle is incredibly long, especially in this game where every individual boss battle ("boss" here can include any mandatory battle) gets this annoying twisty slowdown effect once you win. It consists of Ansem, a Darkside, Ansem again (this time without Donald or Goofy), Ansem on the World of Chaos, a horde of Shadows, the World of Chaos' main artillery tentacles, a horde of Darkballs, the World of Chaos' face, a horde of Invisibles and, finally, Ansem on the World of Chaos again in this very order.
Why Chernabog was included. This also applies to his reception in the series — he's regarded as one of the candidates for the series's example Best Boss Ever, at least thematically. When a Fantasia world was announced in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], people had hoped he'd make an appearance. They were not disappointed.
Out of the additional party members, Beast and Peter Pan seem to be the most popular, largely due to the fact that they're the only two who are actually helpful in battle. Ariel is seen as useful too, but her world is pretty divisive among the fans.
Epileptic Trees: The Another Side, Another Story secret ending from the Final Mix version. Fans analyzed this video to death, getting crazy theories out of practically every single frame and setting internet forums on fire. The new Ansem Reports were a big source of Fan Wank as well. Although almost all theories were Jossed, fans never stopped to come up with theories about where the series would go in the next installment.
Event-Obscuring Camera: In the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix re-release, the camera is mapped to the right analog stick to help with the original release's camera issues. But even so, if you happen to have to go into a corner to platform jump the camera will get stuck and you will still have to make a blind jump.
Evil Is Cool: Maleficent was already an example in her film, but ascended to new heights as the leader of the Disney Villains, and turning into her dragon form for a second boss fight.
First Installment Wins: The series goes on and quality is always debated, but the debut installment seems to be destined to be the one everyone will remember the most due to the sheer hype and reaction surrounding the concept and the one with the highest sales (until Kingdom Hearts III rolled around), although Kingdom Hearts II is usually the most discussed and praised with the fandom. It's also fondly remembered for having a comparatively simple (read: understandable) story, whereas later games are seen as having gone off the rails into a nigh-incomprehensibleKudzu Plot where playing every game and spin-off is essential to have the slightest idea what's going on. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate runs with this, with all music tracks and all Kingdom Hearts representation primarily based on the first Kingdom Hearts game, with content from the sequels relegated to alternate costumes and cameos (to the point that Sora's alternate costumes are simply his KHI appearance in different clothes).
Fountain of Memes: Almost everything that comes out of Ansem's mouth is pure gold (or black, because "DARKNESS!"). They just haven't been able to recapture Billy Zane's magic ever since.
Wizards. They love to teleport out of your reach, and to spam their thunder spell which gives them a long moment of invincibility.
Invisibles and Angel Stars, the two new enemy types in End of the World, are each this in their own right. Angel Stars can hit Sora from across the room, can fly out of reach, and can take a defensive stance that blocks all attacks, while Invisibles are very fast sword-wielders that can enter an invincible state where they surround Sora with a ring of fire requiring a carefully-timed Dodge Roll to avoid. Both have tons of HP and require advanced magic like Gravity and Stop to defeat painlessly.
Final Mix introduces a large number of Puzzle Boss Heartless that drop rare synthesis materials when slain correctly. Of these, the most dangerous is the Sniperwild, a purple version of Bouncywild that must be slain without being seen by it to drop its Power Stone. Failure to do this causes an infinite number of Sniperwilds, who will no longer drop their items, to begin spawning and attacking with unavoidable slingshot bullets until you escape the area or die.
Fat Bandits, if you're a lower level, and especially in the Coliseum tournaments. The Stop spells help, but only so much.
Black Fungi, hostile versions of the White Mushroom, emit poisonous clouds which continuously drain your health, and they can turn to stone and make themselves invincible for a period of time. Fortunately, if you defeat them, they give out a large sum of EXP, making them useful for leveling up when you first visit Agrabah (though they are a rare encounter).
Jafar spends most of the first stage of his fight floating just out of reach, which drags out the battle since the player has to wait until he pauses on one of the area's platforms.
If you use a Summon just after doing a combo finisher while the EXP Zero ability is on, the damage of the finisher will be dealt for every hit done by the Summon. This can be used to quickly shred through some late-game bosses, which helps immensely in Speedruns.
When you're fighting Hercules in the Final Mix version, if you parry his charging attack and then defeat him with a combo before he can recover from it, you can hit him over and over again during his defeat animation and the game will think you're still parrying his charging attack, giving you Tech Points each time you hit him. Case in point.
At the endgame, Ansem gives a speech about how Riku, in his desire to leave the islands, ended up causing grave consequences for both himself and his homeland. However, in light of Birth by Sleep and 3Dsetting up Young Master Xehanort as Riku's Evil Counterpart (... maybe), right down to hailing from the Destiny Islands and having the same motivation to escape that prison, as well as revealing that Ansem (or rather, Xehanort's Heartless) had a direct hand in Young Xehanort's Start of Darkness, it wouldn't be out of character for this line to also be making a mockery of Xehanort's younger incarnation.
Ansem: Look at this tiny place. To the heart seeking freedom, this island is a prison, surrounded by water. And so, this boy sought to escape his prison, and he opened his heart to darkness.
Ansem's manipulation of Riku becomes even worse when you remember that Terra—the man tragically fated to become Xehanort (and this game's "Ansem" by extension)—not only made Riku his successor, but promises to someday show him the worlds that exist outside of the Destiny Islands.
Many people back in the day yelled at Ansem's Guardian Entity constantly getting in the way. All this time? They were yelling at TERRA!
The bonus boss fight with the Unknown/Xemnas. The way he fights is by using two red blades, throwing out lightning, quick flashes of movement, an incredible amount of brute strength, and lots of acrobatics. Flash forward to 2013, and Darth Sidious fights the exact same way against Darth Maul and Savage Oppress in The Clone Wars. Maybe now that Disney owns Star Wars, we could see Xemnas face off with Sidious?
One group of Heartless in the Hades Cup, at the 25th seed and just before the rematch with the Opposite Armor, is called "Avengers." Years later, Disney acquired Marvel Comics and now owns The Avengers.
Maleficent tells Riku that "he's like a son to her," and tries to groom him into aiding her to conquer the universe, though Riku ultimately turns against her. A different continuity shows that Maleficent has a daughter named Mal, who also turns against her following a foiled attempt to steal the Fairy Godmother's wand.
Also, the end scene of the first visit to Olympus Coliseum is when Hades tells Maleficent to get lost. The third film reveals that Hades is Mal's father.
Sora replaces Christopher Robin in the Winnie the Pooh world, helping Pooh find all of his missing friends. Flash forward to 2018, and this is the exact plot at the start of Christopher Robin, with the titular character reclaiming his territory!
Inferred Holocaust: The Heartless invasion. Although this fact is pretty heavily glossed over and not really discussed much, it is stated at least once that it has completely destroyed several entire worlds by the time the game starts, presumably killing hundreds of people. The few survivors in Traverse Town are, for all intents and purposes, interdimensional refugees, condemned to spend the rest of their existence well and truly homeless, huddling together and trying to preserve what remains of their culture and civilization. Following the events of the game, the worlds are restored, though the precise details are still not discussed.
The existence of Mickey Mouse in this game in general. Considering his status as one of the central characters in all the later installments, it's hard to believe that his appearance at the end of this game was a big deal back in 2002. Pre-release, he did not appear in any of the promotional material, is completely elusive for the entire duration of the game, and is prominently referred to as "The King" or "Your Majesty" most of the time, which made his identity even more ambiguous. These days, most people are fully aware that Mickey appears in the game and its sequels, the latter of which do nothing to keep his existence a secret.
Sora having Kairi's heart inside of him and the revelation of Kairi being a Princess of Heart. The former has become even more difficult to avoid for newcomers due to the Memetic Mutation that the scene suffers from because of the Narm of Sora realizing that Kairi's "inside" him.
Ansem, the researcher who mysteriously disappeared while studying the Heartless, is actually the true main antagonist (not Maleficent) that has been controlling them the entire game to open the door to Kingdom Hearts. And that's not even acknowledging how complex his character would become in the later games.
The hooded boy that dual wields Keyblades in Another side, Another story being Roxas.
The "Unknown", the secret boss in Hollow Bastion, being Xemnas, the Big Bad of II and Ansem's Nobody. Even trying to search this boss online will casually give you results on who his true identity is.
Low-Level Run: The HD Remix gives you the EXP Zero ability on Proud Mode, which prevents gaining any EXP. Its sole purpose is to allow for a Challenge Run.
Memetic Loser: While Hercules is as strong and heroic as ever in this game, he tends to get jokes thrown his way here thanks to his boss fight, where you can disable his godlike invincibility by throwing barrels at him.
Clayton, after being caught trying to shoot Terk, swore genocide against the gorillas, causing the Heartless to come. By the climax of Deep Jungle's arc, he's succumbed to The Power of Hate, and Tarzan claims "Not Clayton. *&&X% (heart). Not Clayton," signing Clayton's death warrant.
Jafar uses his first wish from Genie to reveal the Keyhole for Agrabah, which puts it at risk of the Heartless destroying it. While Riku had no idea that his actions resulted in the death of his world, Jafar outright knows that his wish amounts to genocide, and does an evil laugh right afterwards.
Chernabog comes right the hell out of nowhere as the last boss at the End of the World prior to the final stretch, but as he's Disney's king of Nightmare Fuel, has "Night on Bald Mountain" as his theme, and is a formidable endgame opponent, making him easily one of the most memorable bosses of the game.
Mickey's appearance at the very end of the story. Throughout the game, it's obvious that he's the king that everyone's referring to and his presence seems to be just out of reach. But when he appears, not only does he one-shot several of the most powerful kind of Heartless you can encounter in the game, but he also has a major role in saving the day!
Xemnas'sEarly-Bird Cameo due to being such a damn enigma, giving no clues as to what he's talking about, and still giving you perhaps the hardest fight of the game. His appearance caused endless speculation and hype for Japanese players who encountered him after already beating the original edition of the game, deftly upping suspense for the future of the series. He also makes a significant impression even on players who have played later games and actually do know what he's talking about. Disappointingly, much like Phantom and Kurt Zisa, you can't refight him once you've defeated him.
Okay, who else got ambushed by Heartless at the Rabbit Hole in Wonderland? You may suspect it when you notice that the save point is the same temporary version in the Rose Garden where you fight the Queen of Hearts...
But the Heartless attack on Destiny Islands is just cruel (at least in the PS2 version). If you dillydally too long in the beachside shack? THE SAVE POINT DISAPPEARS AND THE HEARTLESS ATTACK!!
In general, the constant attacks by Heartless acclimate you to battle, to the point that when you enter a non-save point area and there aren't any Heartless attacking you, it's a real cause for alarm. In Final Mix, this eerie calm usually heralds the arrival of a new, rare type of Heartless.
Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: At some points in Atlantica, it can look as though the developers were going for some Ship Tease between Sora and Ariel; their first scene together has Ariel swimming around him in a way that looks like she's checking him out. Ariel is also the only one of the Disney characters to worry about never seeing Sora again, and they share a couple more intimate scenes together. Kingdom Hearts II rather pointedly has Sora as a Shipper on Deck for Ariel and Eric when the latter shows up.
Polished Port: In contrast to the PS4 port, the Xbox One version benefits from being released three years after it, allowing for it to be the most up-to-date version without any noticeable problems. It also contains Theater Mode as a part of its code instead of it being DLC (which, unfortunately, made 1.5 + 2.5 too big to fit on Blu-ray discs due to now being over 50GB) and allows for skipping of the opening cutscenes that the PS4, PS3 and PS2 versions lacked.
Popularity Polynomial: This game helped bring Maleficent's popularity into real prominence, since Sleeping Beauty was in the process of being Vindicated by History. Notably in the Fantasmic Disneyland show, Maleficent still played second fiddle to the Queen from Snow White. It's thanks to Kingdom Hearts portraying her as the leader of the Disney villains that she saw a resurgence in popularity as one of the most beloved villains in the canon — leading to the Maleficent in The New '10s.
Porting Disaster: The PS4 port included in HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX had a bevy of issues due to its 60fps conversion not being properly accounted for, causing noticeable problems with certain aspects of the gameplay (physics, scripted events, etc.) that were hard-coded to the original PS2 version's 30fps. The most noticeable side effect of this was certain boss battles (Sephiroth, most notably) becoming significantly harder than they should be. Thankfully, the vast majority of these problems were fixed after various patches, making it now lean much much more toward being a Polished Port.
Questionable Casting: Casting Lance Bass of *NSYNC as Sephiroth raised more than a few eyebrows from the Final Fantasy part of the fandom. It's especially jarring since you only hear Sephiroth speak through battle grunts and his voice is so echo-y that you could barely understand him. It begs the question why they even bothered getting a Celebrity Voice Actor.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Peter Pan isn't very well-liked among many fans of his own movie due to his Jerkass tendencies and his rivalry with Hook being caused by Peter's own horrible actions. In the Neverland section of this game however, not only does Peter show little of his worst traits and dedicate himself to Wendy's safety at all times, but he is one of the most useful party members you gain during the first game. Him giving you Tinker Bell, one of the best summons in the game doesn't hurt either.
The Gummi Ship segments are often cited as long, slow, too frequent, and unengaging. And until you obtain the Warp Gummi, you must play them every time you travel to another world, including previous ones. Want to go back from Deep Jungle to Traverse Town so you can buy some more potions? Hope you're ready to play two Gummi Ship segments in a row to get there, and then replay them in reverse to return to Deep Jungle.
Synthesis in Kingdom Hearts was slightly time consuming but the rewards always made up for it. Final Mix has more items that are just as worth it (Crystal Crown), but with the addition of new enemies, have made synthesis twice the pain in the ass. Special mention goes out to finding Power Stones and Serenity Powers.
The unskippable cutscenes. This is particularly unbearable for the battle against Ansem-Riku. The cutscene before the fight clocks in at a whopping two-and-a-half minutes. That means every time you die, you have to wait through that entire two-and-a-half minute cutscene before you can try again. The fight with Clayton is also infamous for its unskippable cutscene. Thankfully, the cutscenes were made skippable in the re-releases that followed.
Trinity Marks are special places where you can obtain new items or open up pathways. The problem is, you can only activate them with Donald and Goofy, which makes the world-specific party members significantly less appealing, since using them means you'll have to go though the world a second time later with Donald and Goofy to find the marks.
Jumping. For some reason, every time Sora lands on the ground after a jump, he goes through a brief but noticable recovery animation that stops you dead in your tracks and takes up a lot of time when you add up all of the jumps to make over the course of the game.
Signature Scene: "I know now, without a doubt, Kingdom Hearts... is light!" The door opening and light shining on Ansem is considered so iconic it was used in opening movies in later games.
Special Effect Failure: A few spots in the 1.5 ReMIX version, particularly in Gummi Ship paths, show that the game wasn't developed with widescreen in mind and can spawn or cull objects a bit too close to the edges of the screen. The issue is less noticeable in the main game, although a few instances still crop up, such as in the Phantom bonus boss's introductory cutscene.
That One Achievement: The "Gummi Ship Collector" trophy in the 1.5 version, which involves getting every Gummi Ship blueprint in the game. For the majority of obtaining the blueprints, this means fulfilling some truly insane mission requirements traveling between worlds with the Gummi Ship, like doing Atlantica's third mission (do not collect items, and get a high score of 260 points or more; it's a Luck-Based Mission if Monstro is first encountered on this route), in a minigame widely considered a Scrappy Mechanic prior to its revamp in Kingdom Hearts II. The 1.5 + 2.5PS4 version made it a bit easier by making it so you "only" need 30 blueprints instead of all of them, but it's still a pain.
"Unchanging Heart" in both the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game. You have to play through the whole thing without ever, not even once, changing the equipment loadout of any character - and yes, that includes slotting items into their inventory. Even on the lowest difficulty, it can be a tall order sometimes to get through all the non-optional bosses with only your starting weapons and no accessories (especially the ones that would be granting you extra AP).
Dragon Maleficent's Tail Spin has her do a full spin around the battlefield, which can be hard to see and deals high damage if you don't dodge at the right time.
During either of the boss battles with Ansem, one sound you'll grow to dread is a shout of "SUBMIT!". This heralds his Guardian taking a swing at you which, if it connects, causes it to possess you, regularly taking out chunks of your health over a long period. And if you aren't careful, you might accidentally hit the periodically-appearing "Freeze" command which takes the place of Attack, rendering you completely helpless for a few moments. And all this while Ansem floats towards you while activating an extremely-painful barrier with taunts of "Come, open your heart". Suffice it to say, you'll want to avoid getting hit by this attack at all costs.
Ansem's dash attack during his second fight is one of his nastier moves due to him zipping across the arena several times, with the last dash having a delay to catch you off guard. Worse still, the attack can be hard to see sometimes due to the camera.
Sephiroth's Heartless Angel reduces your HP and MP to 1 if it successfully hits you. While you can use it as an easy means to deal damage to Sephiroth, you have to be quick about it or Sephiroth will cast the spell and capitalize on your weakness, ensuring a swift end to the fight.
Unknown's Invitation to Nothingness involves an Interface Screw that gradually causes you to lose HP, while you fiddle around in your command menu trying to find the Release command, and hoping that you don't accidently select Shock which either ends in taking damage or dying.note The Shock Command bypasses Second Chance and while Tinkerbell can revive you once, she can't save you a second time. And no, Unknown will not sit there and wait for you to select Release, because he'll still be attacking you relentlessly.
And even then, for years people completely misinterpreted Triton's words by thinking you had to pay attention to what Ursula was throwing into the cauldron and that you have to cast either Fire or Blizzard based on the current color the cauldron's water is. Neither of these are true, what the game actually wants is for you to use any type of magic until Ursula is stunned.
The second Ursula battle is slightly easier, but still pretty difficult. She is now giant-sized and has to be hit up-close. Unfortunately, you also have to deal with lightning strikes that always appear wherever you go, so staying still will end up dooming you and doing attacks up close to her face makes it easier for you to get hit by the lightning.
Dragon Maleficent, one of Hollow Bastion's five bosses. While Maleficent's first fight was considered to be easy, her second fight is much more challenging and is easily considered one of the hardest bosses in the game for good reason. She's the first fight in the game to have 4 health bars when most bosses up to this point may've had 2 or 3 at most, ensuring that the fight will a hefty war of attrition. Most of her attacks are very hard to avoid and do huge amounts of damage on top of that, ensuring that you'll need to take full advantage of the various hiding places in the arena to avoid taking damage. Her only weak point is her head, but not only is that where a lot of her attacks come from, the camera makes it hard to judge angles and distance.
Ansem-Riku, the penultimate Hollow Bastion boss, and perhaps the most infamous of the lot due to his unskippable pre-battle cutscene. His attacks are very fast and tough to avoid, and that's before he starts slinging projectiles on top of that. Get his health down further, and he'll add Dark Aura to his repertoire, teleporting and slashing all over the place, before blanketing the arena in lightning. Not helped by the two-and-a-half minute-long cutscene that plays beforehand which, if you aren't playing one of the later versions, you have to watch from beginning to end every single time you lose. And considering the factors above, you'll likely be seeing it more than once. Despite all of this, the fight at least feels fair compared to the titanic struggle you'd had to endure while fighting Dragon Maleficent.
The middle of the final battle has you take on Darkside again, before going for a second round with Ansem. The first round was hard enough, but not only does the boss now come with some new long-lasting, lightning-fast attacks, he's just as dangerous as he was the first go-around... and you don't have Donald and Goofy to back you up this time. It's not hard to die against him, and the worst part is that if you do, you have to repeat the very slow and drawn-out battle against Darkside before you can get another shot at Ansem.
Atlantica. The world has extremely awkward swimming controls that complicate movement and combat, navigation can be confusing due to the layout, and there are two difficult boss fights against Ursula.
Monstro is a confusing maze of passageways that look nearly exactly the same.
Neverland is a maze world, with bland level design and strange camera placement. The only area that receives any praise is the Clock Tower.
Deep Jungle, mostly due to the constant backtracking you have to do to advance the plot. It is also home to multiple jumping puzzles that require good spatial awareness.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Jasmine proved herself to be a capable Action Girl in the Aladdin TV series, and was pretty proactive in the first film too. Here she's turned into a Damsel in Distress just to prop up the Disney Villains (Jafar captures her easily and we hear her cries for help throughout the Pot Centipede boss battle, and then in the Cave of Wonders while Sora and the others are facing Genie Jafar, Riku captures her off screen.)
Chernabog popping up as a boss in the End of the World was pretty unexpected, especially since he has no connection to another of the other worlds or characters (except to Mickey in a roundabout way, through their shared appearance in Fantasia, which was once considered as a world; the brooms from that movie also appear).
At the time of the game's release, pretty much anyone from The Nightmare Before Christmas was unexpected, while the movie was considered Disney due to it being released through Touchstone Pictures, it was never regarded as a classic like the other worlds in this game or even in the Disney Animated Canon.
Beast's appearance as a party member in Hollow Bastion is meant as a surprise, since Hollow Bastion is a series-original world hyped up as Maleficent's stronghold and it has nothing to do with Beauty and the Beast. Beast's actual world only first appears in II.
The Final Fantasy characters were this for people who came in blind when the game was new. The TV advertisements didn't show them (though some ads in gaming magazines did), so the uninitiated were expecting a Disney game with original characters from Square.
The Woobie: Kairi, who lost her home, family and friends twice(first with Hollow Bastion, and then with Destiny Islands). And then there's the ending of the game. Just watch it and try not to feel for the girl.
The manga
Complete Monster: Ansem, Seeker of Darkness is the Heartless form of Xehanort. Masterminding the Heartless' invasion of several worlds and Maleficent's plan to capture the Seven Princesses of Heart in order to open the Final Keyhole, Ansem Mind Rapes Riku so that he can possess his body. He stabs Maleficent with a Keyblade in order to destroy her once she's no longer of use to him, and then deceives Sora into using that same Keyblade to make what would ultimately be a Senseless Sacrifice, turning Sora into a Heartless and unsealing the Final Keyhole. When Riku's heart fights back from within to stop him from attempting to kill Kairi, Ansem uses his power to banish Riku's heart into the Dark Realm. Ultimately planning to open the Door of Darkness to let darkness consume all existence, Ansem shows nothing but glee towards his destructive ambitions. Returning after defeat as a specter within Riku's heart, Ansem attempts to play the boy's own emotions against him in order to take control of the boy's body once more, vicious to the end. Showcasing no redeeming features and played dead seriously against the manga's usually lighthearted and silly tone, Xehanort's Heartless would do whatever it took to gain ultimate knowledge and power, and to sate his undying hunger for darkness.
Older Than They Think: There’s a short NSFW comic by the infamous artist group Palcomix called “Welcome to Traverse Town” where Sora is seduced by, of all characters, Jessica Rabbit, who apparently works as a prostitute at Traverse Town, but most fans just dismiss it as just another NSFW comic with a pretty generic premise. Cue those same fans’ baffled reactions when they found out that the comic is actually based on a scene from the manga and even the dialogue in the first page is copied word-for-word from it.
One-Scene Wonder: The prostitute who seduces Sora once he arrives in Traverse Town. She only has two panels worth of appearances (and we don't get a very good look at her) before she's killed off by a Heartless but she's definitely well-remembered by people who read the manga if only because of the fact that there's a Disney-approved product that features a prostitute coming onto a young teenage boy so it makes for some good shock value. She even got a couple of fanarts here and there.
◊ Talking to her again would make her say, "Think of this as an adventure!" while sitting in that same position.
