5 Things We Can Really Do Without In Kingdom Hearts 3

“The Darkness”

I know, Darkness and Light are going nowhere. But after replaying the first title a few years back, I realized what a stark contrast existed between how these concepts were treated in the first game and how they are now. In the original Kingdom Hearts, Darkness and Light symbolized the inner turmoil and potential of humankind, and their capacity to do evil and good. Sora’s powerful proclamation at the end, that “Kingdom Hearts…is light!” was a statement of hope that even in the cruelest of hearts, a speck of good still existed, was a meaningful, if optimistic, statement about human nature. But that all went to flooey when the spin-offs and sequels started.

Now, Darkness and Light have been reduced to this weird, vague concepts that don’t really mean anything. We get a lot of speeches about them, but we don’t really know what they are. Darkness might be evil, or it might not be. It’s kind of a place, but also a state of being, or a deity of sorts. Kingdom Hearts (the location, I think) is even vaguer in how it’s defined. The characters treat all these things as tangible, realistic locales and things, but then the next second give a dramatic speech where they stand as metaphors. Is the Door to Light a real, physical place, or a manifestation of hope in hearts? I just don’t know anymore.

I’m tired of hearing about “The Darkness.” I don’t know what it means to walk in “Twilight” (like, straddling good and evil? How is that ideal?), and I’m really concerned that Kingdom Hearts actually contains physical, beating hearts. Cut the bologna, Square Enix.