BEDA 16 Indulge me please.

Evening!

Whether you're a fan of a good story, video games, or Disney in general, this post is most defiantly relative to your interests. Over the course of this day, I have been re-engulfed with a past love of mine, a certain video game series, Kingdom Hearts. Now, I don't know your opinion on video games, but I incline you to read this, regardless.

To me, Kingdom Hearts is more than a game, it's a story, more like a novel, an "interactive" novel. It starts off with a boy on an island, Sora, with his two best friends, another boy, Riku, and a girl, Kairi. The game's imagery is strictly Light and Darkness. In the beginning of the game, on their island, darkness starts to consume the world, quite literally, and Sora is the only one able to fight it off. He is the key to the door to the light. The chosen one. He wields a key, to fend off the darkness. So, the island is consumed and his friends are lost. As the game goes on, you visit other worlds saving them from darkness, alongside your cute Disney friends, Donald and Goofy. The worlds you visit, are familiar ones, from Disney movies like, Aladdin, Hercules, etc. But, what's interesting to me, at least, is not that the game is mixing Disney with combat, but that in the game's universe, your job is to protect these inevitably good natured figures from darkness. Since we were kids, we've associated these characters with good, and in this game you defend their existence by upholding that. It's a way of reliving, even PROTECTING your childhood.

What I always remember about the game, isn't the gameplay, weapons, or Disney aspects, but it's the pure narrative the game tells. Kingdom Hearts is a hybrid of Final Fantasy (a very popular video game series) and Disney, but the characters made uniquely for the game and the connections between them are far much more interesting, emotional, and compelling. I've never cried while playing a video game, but this one made me cry on countless occasions. The character's emotions are fueled by love and hearts, but not in superficial ways like we are so used to, but pure love and connectivity. It's beautiful. I feel this way about all of the games in the Kingdom Hearts series (4, approaching 5)

**SPOILER ALERT **

(Ending of Kingdom Hearts Spoiler Skip this paragraph if you don't want to be spoiled)

At the ending of Kingdom Hearts, Sora rescues Kairi, and she goes back to the island, until Sora finds Riku, and finds a way to return. I always find myself thinking about Kairi in the course of Kingdom Hearts 2, going back to normal life, while she wonders where her friends are, if they're alive, and if they're even winning.

This is what gets me excited about NANOWRIMO. My story will be about a trio of friends, Two boys, one girl. It will be about them all planning to leave their town, and only two of them leave. The main guy will stay in the town, and struggle. Now that I have extremely basic plot, I need to start thinking about setting, character names, and further plot details.

That is why I love Kingdom Hearts, thank you for reading. Tell me what you think in comments.