I remember first seeing Kingdom Hearts advertised around the store Target (Do they have that else where around the world besides Australia?). I remember thinking to myself, 'oh my goodness, what a gimmick'. I had never played Final Fantasy before and had no idea they were in the game until I bought it. Even then the characters of FF meant nothing to me because I didn't understand their history. (I only got into Final Fantasy having played Kingdom Hearts). I remember being infuriated by the sheer thought that Disney would promote, what seemed to me at the time, as an opportunity to reap in the dough. Mind you, I had loved Disney as a child, but I was going through the period where I thought Disney was a 'kiddie thing' (I love it to death now
).
Anyway, I was on a walk with two of my best mates when one of them got a call from her dad. He told her there was a garage sale on around from her house and they were selling heaps of video games. Needless to say we power walked our way to her house (we had been on a long walk) and round then went around the corner to the house having a garage sale and low and behold, she purchased Kingdom Hearts 1. I can't remember if I had advised her to get it, or if I had resented her for getting it, but we went straight back to her place and started playing it. I remember her parents buying us hot chips for lunch as we were all glued to the screen. One of my friend's friends came over and I remember she couldn't stop laughing at Sora's massive shoes. And then I felt guilty. I felt guilty for resenting the game so much because I was captivated by the stain glass window of Princess Aurora and Snow White. I had fallen in love with KH and every opportunity I had, I would go to her house to watch her play it (I didn't have a PS2 at the time).
I hated the theme song originally, but now I love it and Utada Hikaru is my favourite singer!
I eventually bought a PS2 a couple of years ago in July from Dick Smith Electronics. It was an impulsive buy and the first time I had spent that much money on something worth about $288 AU (Then more money on memory cards and so forth). Needless to say, the first game I bought was Kingdom Hearts and I loved actually playing it for the first time myself. It was torture that night, because we had to go out to dinner and I couldn't play KH for very long that day...
Time went on, and when I went on a trip to Melbourne, I bought Chain of Memories for my Gameboy Advance SP. I remember playing it in hotels late at night. If we went out for dinner, I would anxiously sit throughout dinner waiting to get to the hotel to play it.
I reserved my copy of KH2 about a year before it came out. Members who have been here for a long time would know of my angst waiting for KH2. I would try and inform them of what I knew about Australia's release date, getting my brother, who would get very shitty with me, to ring EB Games every two weeks to see if a release date had been revealed yet. I got the game a couple of days before it came out, having received a mesage on my home phone during the day whilst I was at school. It was Tuesday and the game was supposed to be released on the Thursday. My little September Keira Knightley calender is still in my room, stuck to my computer, highlighted in blue the day I got KH2. My friend's mother, the mother of the one who got KH, actually drove me to pick up KH2 that very day which was sweet of her.
Since then, I have been a dedicated KH fan, loving the interaction between characters and just indulging in what is such a deep storyline. In year 8, I actually had to create a prayer booklet, having to write about someting important in my life everyday for a month and writing a prayer. My first journal entry was on KH1, and I wrote prayer about how sometimes we can be like the heartless and stuff. Really cute.
I am also an avid FF fan now, my favourite game of the series being FFX. I borrowed that first from my mate who had bought KH from the garage sale. I remember vowing to never play the game again having died the very first time trying to get out of Zanarkand. The very next night I played it again and loveed it
. I then purchased it years later as PS2 games were dying out and I wanted this classic in my collection. Anyways, that's another story.
I hope I haven't bored anyone with my story. I just wanted to vent my memories because I cherish those Kingdom Hearts ones heaps. Yay for KH!
