As I’ve stated before, one of my big goals with Guiding Key, Kotaku’s year-long Kingdom Hearts replay, is to examine whether or not the things that have become memetic complaints about the series in the community are actually that bad. Later this week, I’ll deliver the first end-of-the-month check-in, where we’ll talk about some of the first game’s Disney worlds like Alice in Wonderland and Tarzan. But today, we’ve reached one of the more maligned parts of this first game. I want to talk about the Gummi Ship, the space-faring vessel Sora and friends ride in as they travel between worlds.
Does it suck? I don’t know that I feel passionately enough about it yet to say that, but the spaceflight sequences are definitely incredibly sauceless, lacking any real weight and peppered with dreadfully dull combat encounters. And even though you can upgrade your ship with Chip and Dale, there’s not a whole lot of reason to your hands too dirty, is there?
Hm. Maybe the Gummi Ship does suck, at least a little. I’m still early in this replay and haven’t yet had to use it all that many times. The trips between worlds will get far more dangerous as Kingdom Hearts goes on and maybe more engaging, but in the handful of back-and-forths I’ve done thus far, it feels like pretty antiquated padding of a sort that future games would try to avoid. Kingdom Hearts II and III double and triple down on the world-crossing mechanic, but at the very least, the space between Disney movies becomes more frantic and involved. Does that make it good? To be determined. We’re not at those games yet.
The thing I had forgotten about is just how deep the Gummi Ship mechanics of this game go, as if Square Enix expected fans to spend a lot of time customizing and optimizing their spaceship. In an attempt to RPG-ify space travel, Gummi Ships have stats, and can be built with gummi blocks Sora finds. Sorry to Xzibit, but Sora was pimping his ride long before MTV was hosting your show in 2004. But even if you’ve got the sickest-looking and performing ship in all of Disney Land, the actual flying around and shooting is bland at best, tedious at worst.
The odd part of all of this, and this has been a theme of some of the early segments of playing Kingdom Hearts again, is that the game makes the Gummi Ship a nuisance only for a few hours of play, rather than for the entire game. The Warp-G gummi block, as the name implies, lets you warp back to worlds you’ve already visited after you finish one of the initial worlds. This cuts Gummi Ship levels by more than half, meaning you’ll only have to do them when heading to a new place.
Another example of Kingdom Hearts inconveniencing you just long enough to be annoying before it offers a solution is the Guard Armor boss fight in Traverse Town. The boss can pull off some pretty powerful attacks that can knock Sora on his ass, attacks which a dodge roll would be pretty handy for dealing with, but you only get one after you finish the boss fight. Sure, Sora can jump his famously floaty jump, but it’s hardly useful for actually getting out of the way when a big suit of armor is swinging a haymaker in your direction. Also, I know “Donald doesn’t heal you” is a meme but you’re telling the magical bird who’s powerful enough to cast Zettaflare in Kingdom Hearts III can’t spare a Cure for me while I’m being chased by creepy monsters I can’t dodge? And then there’s the Stock mechanic, in which you have to equip potions before a fight to use them in battle. That’s crazy.
Looking at this list of early complaints, it’s fair to say some of this is simply the result of Kingdom Hearts being a nearly 25-year-old game. Gating action game staples like a dodge roll behind an unlock feels like a choice a lot of games wouldn’t make today for quality-of-life reasons, and I’m willing to forgive Kingdom Hearts for the crime of being old. In a way, it’s an interesting challenge to play something that feels this archaic, at least assuming it doesn’t become too much of an obstacle in the coming days. I certainly hope there are no notoriously frustrating Disney worlds for us to talk about later this week when we do our monthly check-in!
Follow along with Guiding Key, Kotaku’s year-long Kingdom Hearts replay:
- Kingdom Hearts: October-December 2026
- Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories: January 2027
- Kingdom Hearts II: February-April 2027
- Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Re:Coded: May 2027
- Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: June 2027
- Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance and A Fragmentary Passage: July 2027
- A watch through of the unplayable mobile games Kingdom Hearts Union χ Dark Road: August 2027
- Kingdom Hearts III and the Re:Mind DLC: August-October 2027
- Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory: November 2027
- Kingdom Hearts IV: Late 2027