STORY
Revisiting the story of the first KINGDOM HEARTS
The events later games assume you remember, in order. The three choices in the final act in particular are the foundation everything after is built on.
Synopsis — no spoilers
Sora, Riku and Kairi live on Destiny Islands, and are building a raft to see what lies beyond it.
The night before they leave, a storm swallows the islands and the three are separated. Sora wakes in an unfamiliar town holding a key-shaped weapon called the Keyblade, and meets Donald and Goofy, who are searching for someone of their own.
The three travel between worlds as those worlds fall to darkness, each of them looking for the person they lost. The places they visit are Disney worlds, and the journey moves through the lives of the people who live in them.
Beyond this point, the article covers how the journey ends and what happens in its final act.
Safe after KINGDOM HEARTS
Departure — Destiny Islands
Sora, Riku and Kairi are building a raft to leave the islands. Their reasons differ. Sora wants the three of them to go together. Riku wants to know what is out there. That gap becomes the spine of the conflict.
On the night of the storm the islands are swallowed by darkness. Riku reaches out and takes the hand darkness offers him; Sora, in the same moment, is given the Keyblade. Two people, one night, two different answers.
The shape of the journey — keyholes and Heartless
Sora meets Donald and Goofy in Traverse Town and begins moving between worlds. Each world has a Keyhole; darkness enters through it and the world collapses. Sora's job is to seal them.
That structure has a cost. He arrives to close a Keyhole and leaves once it is closed, and the promises he makes along the way stay behind in those worlds. The theme of coming back, which KH2 and everything after keep returning to, starts here.
In parallel, Riku is working alongside Maleficent, searching for Kairi. The goal is the same — get your friend back — and only the means differ.
The three choices in the final act
**First.** At Hollow Bastion, Riku chooses to give his body over to darkness — greater power, he reasons, to save Kairi. He loses his body for it, and spends much of the series paying that debt down.
**Second.** When it emerges that Kairi's heart is inside Sora, Sora turns the Keyblade on himself. It returns her; it costs him his humanity, and he becomes a Heartless. Kairi is the one who brings him back. The rescuer and the rescued swap places.
**Third.** At the door at the end of the world, Sora and Riku close it from opposite sides. Riku stays on the far side, and so does King Mickey — someone had to remain inside for the door to shut.
That is where the first game ends. Kairi returns to the islands; Sora sets out again to find Riku and the King. The series begins from that deliberately unresolved ending.
Where this goes next
Chain of Memories picks up immediately after the door closes. It is about Sora's memories, and KH2's opening does not make sense without it.
It is also where you find out what Riku was doing on the other side. On the strength of the first game alone, his story simply stops mid-sentence.
SOURCES
- In-gameKINGDOM HEARTS (main scenario)— Destiny Islands, Hollow Bastion, End of the World