A Legend Retold: Final Fantasy 3’s influence on the Kingdom Hearts series
by Ryushikaze October 5, 2010 0 commentsIf you give an Onion Knight a Keyblade, will he unlock the door to Disney?
I vote yes
I’ve said this many times before, often jokingly, but not without a truth to the matter. Final Fantasy 3 and the Kingdom Hearts series are amazingly similar, and the more of the series I play, the more I am convinced that Kingdom Hearts is Final Fantasy 3 with Disney added, that the two games, when you get right down to it, are telling the same story, not that this is a bad thing. Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress and George Lucas’s Star Wars: A New Hope are the same story, but each is told in a way that makes each telling unique and worthwhile.
Light and Dark
The most blatant aspect in which Final Fantasy Three and Kingdom Hearts are the same is their duality of Light and Dark. While other Final Fantasies have had Light and Dark as antagonistic forces, Final Fantasy Three was the first to treat both forces as both opposed and necessary forces. At the end of Final Fantasy Three, your four warriors of Light must gain aid from four warriors of Darkness to oppose the Cloud of Darkness, with the understanding that they too had stood fast against a similarly destructive force of light one thousand years ago.
Similarly, in Kingdom hearts, Sora is initially fighting against the forces of darkness, only to discover that his foe isn’t darkness, but those who would use the darkness for ill purposes. Much like the Onion Knights of Final Fantasy Three, his ally at the very end, helping him defeat the destructive force of darkness is another ally utilizing the powers of darkness for good rather than evil.
Recently, in the prequel game Birth by Sleep, many times the point ‘where there is light, there is darkness’- that the two forces are necessary consequences of each other, with true power coming not from either extreme, but the joining of the two- is reinforced.
In neither game, despite the association of Darkness with negativity, is the darkness itself evil, merely those who choose to use it selfishly. While Kingdom Hearts has not presented a light using antagonist or light as a destructive force as Final Fantasy Three did, both possibilities still exist within the greater cosmology of the world.
In both Final Fantasy Three and Kingdom Hearts, the idea that too much light is just as bad as too much darkness is present, with both worlds having historical events based around the problems of excess light, FF3’s Abundance of Light requiring the aid of the Dark Warrior to curtail, and Kingdom Heart’s Keyblade War.
Kingdom Hearts has taken the Duality of Light and Dark presented in Final Fantasy Three and fleshed it into a complex metaphysical cosmology the discussion of which could fill an essay in its own right.
Friendship
In addition to Light and Dark, a major theme of both games is that of friendship, of having a positive effect on those people’s lives you come in contact with, and the positive effect they have on yours.
In Final Fantasy 3, this is most apparent near the end, when four allies of the Onion Knights are summoned to save the Onion Knights from a trap they are caught in by taking their place, something they willingly do because the Onion Knights are their friends.
Though Kingdom Hearts has no purely equivalent scene, it focuses just as much, if not more, on friendship. Sora’s motivation in the first game, in addition to protecting the light, is to find his friends, a goal he keeps and focuses on more in the sequel. The majority of his upgraded keyblades are earned along with the friendship of others, or upon reuniting with old friends, such as Oathkeeper and Oblivion, representing Kairi and Riku respectively.
In other Kingdom Hearts games, such as Chain of Memories, 358/2 and Birth By Sleep, the driving motivation of the heroic characters always includes their friendship with other characters driving them to greater heights.
In 358/2 Roxas, Axel, and Xion all betray the Organization in the name of their friendship.
In Birth By Sleep, not only are the main characters Terra, Ventus, and Aqua motivated by their friendship and gain new keyblades as they forge new friendships, but the Dimension Link system is quite literally their friendships granting them powers in battle.
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“It started with Xande. He was pissed off that he wasn’t granted immortality by his teacher like his fellow students Unei and Doga were, so he tried to manipulate the darkness into destroying everything so he could recast the world to his liking”
No.
Zande wanted to freeze time, and live forever. That’s all.
It was the Cloud of Darkness who wanted total destruction, and used Zande as a pawn to help her/it.
The Dark Warriors explain all that, at the final dungeon.
[Inconspiculous Whistle] I don’t know WHAT you’re talking about….
Seriously, good catch. I remembered immortality was his goal, but I guess I should have tried harder to confirm his methods before going to print (It is quite hard to find clips of FF3, and my nearest save to Xande is right on the other side of the fight.
That was an interesting read. Admittedly, many of the parallels were lost on me considering I didn’t get very far in FFIII, but still. It’s always interesting to see recurrant themes in a body of work.
As they say, “good artists borrow, great artists steal.” Don’t remember the exact quote, but you get the gist of it 😛
Fun read, insightful observations. Though you should have mentioned that Dissidia’s Onion Knight is yet another clone of Sora/Roxas in appearance. =P
I figured it went without saying, honestly. I think it’s the start of the rumor I have heard that Dissidia was supposed to be a Kingdom Hearts Fighting game before Disney Nixed the idea.
Their physical similarities are actually secondary to the similarities of their personality and mannerisms/ fighting style. Two fictional characters acting alike is a lot bigger sign in my mind than them looking alike. It helps, but only when everything else is there.
Sora is way cooler than Luneth.
Also, I would submit that Kingdom Hearts is The Bouncer remixed.
Sion Barzahd
Sora
I’m not judging between the heroes, just noticing the similarities
And Sion is Sora’s Cousin. Sora gets all his clothes from Sion’s hand me downs.
With numerous games in every style, you may never
get bored and you may at all times have a new problem waiting for you.