A Legend Retold: Final Fantasy 3’s influence on the Kingdom Hearts series

The narrative similarity of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy 3 is strikingly similar. While Kingdom Hearts has the far more fleshed out story, it still follows the same basic narrative structure as Final Fantasy 3 did so long ago.

Both stories begin with a clueless hero falling into a generally contextless dungeon, as they ascend the dungeon towards a goal. This serves as both games’ training ground, culminating with a boss battle, with a disembodied voice speaking to the heros of their journeys to come, starting off the plot only as a consequence of the first successful fight.

From this, we get a plot split into two major arcs- one corresponding to Kingdom Hearts 1 and the start of Final Fantasy 3 to the reclamation of the Water Crystal, and the other corresponding with Kingdom Hearts 2 and the latter half of FF3.

The first arc of Final Fantasy 3 begins with a departure from the Onion Knight’s homeland, travelling from place to place in search of the Crystals, to reinvigorate their light and stop the spread of the encroaching darkness, and the plans of those who are trying to use it for their own ends. Along the way, the heros visit many strange lands, and near the end of the arc, they fight Hein, an evil sorcerer bent on conquest who has twisted the Elder tree into a fortress serving his own ends. After this , the heroes adventure into the outer world, already consumed by darkness, in hopes of finding the crystal and restoring its light to drive away the darkness. The arc ends with the restoration of the light, but with the death of the Onion Knight’s ally Aria and their falling into a slumber for several weeks.

The story of the first Kingdom Hearts properly begins with Sora’s departure from his homeland. After this, he travels from world to world to stop the spread of the heartless and the darkness they bring, and to find the light to restore the lands lost to darkness. Near the end of the game, Sora and his allies must fight Maleficent, an evil sorceress bent on conquest who has twisted the land of Hollow Bastion into a fortress for her own ends. After this, Sora makes his way into the remnants of worlds lost to the darkness in the hopes of finding the light of Kingdom Hearts and recovering the lost worlds. This concludes with the loss of his friend Riku, and a short time later, his falling into slumber for a year.

The second Arc of Final Fantasy 3 begins with the Onion Knights awakening to find the world changed considerably since they were last awake. During this arc the Onion Knights make several new allies, continue to fight against the machinations of their foe, including saving a Kingdom from the manipulations of Garudia, an airbound servant of Xande. Through meeting those who knew Xande long ago, they discover his true motivations, and make an ascent through the ludicrous Crystal Tower before their friends help them to enter the realm where their final battle lies, a battle they only win via the help of allies aligned with darkness.

The arc of Kingdom Hearts 2, likewise begins with the awakening of Sora and his discovery of new antagonists. He makes a number of new allies and fights against the machinations of new and old villians, including ending the machinations of Xaldin, an airbound minion of Xemnas. Through meeting one who knew Xemnas and Xehanort long ago, Sora learns of his opponents true nature and his true goals. After making an ascent through the ludicrous and impossibly architectured Castle that Never was, being reunited and aided by his closest friends to help him enter the realm where the final battle lies, a battle he only wins via the help of Riku, his best friend aligned with the darkness.

To be fair, the story of Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 presented here does not include the totality of the events of those two games, only those which correspond with the plot elements of Final Fantasy 3. But that so many elements of the NES game have direct parallels should be sufficient to show that like ‘The Magnificent Seven’ is to ‘The Seven Samurai’, the plot of Kingdom Hearts is a retelling, a reimagining of the plot of Final Fantasy Three.

Of course, the story of Kingdom Hearts has already gone far beyond the original scope of Final Fantasy 3 with its side stories and prequels, and its story is hardly complete either, with Kingdom Hearts planned to continue Sora’s tale further into the future. So if Kingdom Hearts is Lucas’s A new Hope to Kurosawa’s Hidden fortress, we can only hope that Kingdom Hearts 3 or whatever they call the continuation of Sora’s tale will be as worthy a continuation to the retelling as Empire Strikes Back.