Gaming fans perusing Twitter today might be surprised to see that Kingdom Hearts 2 is a trending topic on the popular social media website. Earlier this month, Sora from Kingdom Hearts was trending as well, as fans speculated he was coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
One quick look at the trending hashtags will clue fans in that the reason Kingdom Hearts2 is trending on Twitter is because today is the game's 15th birthday. It's almost hard to believe that one of gaming's most treasured sequels is over a decade old.
For anyone out of the know, the Kingdom Hearts series is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. The franchises utilizes an amalgamation of characters from Disney films as well as those from Square Enix's Final Fantasy series, while also introducing unique characters of its own. The first Kingdom Hearts game released in 2002 on the PlayStation 2 to incredible acclaim both critically and commercially, which resulted in 2005's Kingdom Hearts 2 as well as a number of spinoffs spanning multiple consoles and generations. The series recently saw the release of the long awaited Kingdom Hearts 3, as well as the cross-platform release of a rhythm-based game titled Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory.
While the lore of Kingdom Hearts might be largely expansive and sometimes confusing, the series and its spinoffs have garnered a rabid fan base of dedicated gamers. Not only that, but the charming mashup of Disney favorites duking it out alongside Sora as he meets popular Final Fantasy characters is a crossover that was certainly unexpected in the first place, but even more unexpected was how well this mashup worked. The fluid combat system makes gaming newcomers feel at ease while veterans should be able to pull off some neat tricks once they nail it down.
The future of the series is a bit unclear right now, if only because fans were just treated to two new games, but the next generation of consoles could certainly mean huge things for the possible Kingdom Hearts 4. With Disney consistently releasing content and Final Fantasy continuing to get new games, the Kingdom Hearts series has tons of room to grow and continue past what Square Enix has already released.
With series director Tetsuya Nomura's plans to drastically change the world of Kingdom Hearts in the franchise's future, it is clear that the series isn't going away any time soon. In any case, Twitter users celebrating the 15th birthday of Kingdom Hearts 2 spells out just how popular the series has become.
Kingdom Hearts 2 is available for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 as part of the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 +2.5 ReMIX collection.