10 Creepy Things in Kingdom Hearts (KH1)

KH1 definitely felt the most uneasy. There was this big sense of mystery and melancholy; a vast yet empty setting with so many (at the time) unanswered questions. Even the boxart portrayed that foreboding feeling of the characters and the player having to dive into the unknown headfirst. Unlike the later games, the characters didn't have the option of just standing around while Yen Sid explains everything; the player and Sora just have to wing it and pick up scraps of information along the way. As for creepy stuff in the other games, a few things come to mind. Strelitzia's murder (in a series where death is usually either Disney-fied or easily undone) and the way she appeared in Lauriam's dreams is kinda dark. The Keyblade War seemingly being fought entirely by children (no parents ever seen in the game) who either killed each other or were so traumatized that they were sent to a dream world with their memories erased. Most of CoM is creepy. The plot is an abused kid being forced to brainwash another kid by a group of psychopaths who kill each other by the end of the game. Everyone Sora met forgot about him, likely including his own parents, which is a whole other rabbit hole of potential terror (imagine waking up one day and noticing a bunch of photos of a kid you've never met and a child's bedroom in your house when you don't remember having kids). Namine's entire short existence was child abuse and she ended up hating herself. Repliku originally had his own personality and was fine with himself until Larxene forced Namine to break his mind and heart. Xion's whole existence, Roxas living an entire fake life in the span of a week and losing it, and the whole purgatory segment in 3 are also big ones. (Yay, I get to meet a dead child and the ghost of a woman with postpartum depression in my Disney game)

The most "creepy" aspects of Kingdom Hearts, in my opinion, would be: - The experiments Ansem the Wise and his apprentices performed on people, particularly children (for example Subject X, Kairi). The Reports in KH3 even states "the wails and screams of humans could be heard echoing into the night" - KH2 and Union X/Chi: living in a simulation (like the Matrix), where everything and everyone is not real - maybe even yourself, without you knowing. This, I think, is one reason why KH2's intro is so memorable, despite its long duration. - The Keyblade Graveyard: the fallen Keyblade wielders, the destruction of the land that used to be. All that history, and some of which we probably don't know. There is a lot of sadness there. - Losing memories, having false or no identity, FADING ENTIRELY FROM EXISTENCE. Possessing the body, soul and mind of another person, for different purposes. - The Beta trailer for KH1 has surprisingly dark themes - "Destati" is among the darkest soundtracks in KH franchise for the lyrics alone - As you mentioned in this video; the emptiness of it all, the lack of people, End of the World etc. - The Final World; talking to the Stars (souls/hearts) of the dead as they linger in Purgatory or Limbo, listening to their regrets and sorrows. This one - "my dear, beloved burden" giving the idea of a mother dying during childbirth - struck me while playing KH 3 for the first time. A 26 year old man shedding tears whilst playing 'a children's game' <--- Add that to the creepiness :P I could go on, but then I'd sit here until the end of my summer vacation

Interesting fact: you could hear a owl hooting outside Merlin's house in the original kh1, there was a drop water sound too but these sound effects was removed in the remix version, i don't know why tho cuz i think it's creepy but cool.

I've been playing this game for 15 years now and I never knew about the painting thing

I used to think Sora had died after the fall of Destiny Islands, and he was trapped in a sort of afterlife in Traverse Town. There was something about the mood of the world, the guy eaten by Heartless, the eternal state of night, music and just the fact everyone had lost their worlds. Made TT seem like some sort of purgatory

I feel like there's a kind of horror that can only be experienced in media for children

I so agree with this list! People will complain about the original Kingdom Hearts and it's 'clunky' control scheme... but honestly, as polished as the storytelling has become in the modern titles- it's missing something. No matter how deep Nomura dives off the edge into the themes of existentialism and destiny, the convolution can make things a bit too murky to appreciate. The simplicity of the original game really left enough dark/serious undertones out in the open for us to ponder and be slightly disturbed about. I miss that feeling from a Kingdom Hearts game.

The issue of worlds not having very many people in them is addressed in KH: Dark Road. (Spoilers) When worlds come back from the realm of darkness and/or sleep in stages. First small bits of the world, then buildings, then people, and finally then does time move in the proper way. So all the world's in KH1 and even 2 that have so few residents is due to that process.

This is for the game that establishes so well for me what darkness is. I know Kingdom Hearts characters love to say Darkness Darkness Darkness, but this is the game that made Darkness feel threatening and real.

The Xemnas secret boss it's insane, the atmosphere of all these scenes gives me chills

I think it's kind of creepy that the Hotel has pictures of different worlds, including The End of the World.

Kh1 has that uneasy almost dreamlike feeling of shadow of colossus. It’s such a strong yet subtle thing even though you can’t really put your finger on it. Weirdly those games are the only examples of this feeling I can think of and Im not sure if it was a product of their time or unintended and just happened to be this way due to hardware constraints. A mystery I’m happy never solving because I love that sense of not knowing what’s going on or why I’m there alone

I noticed a very creepy design choice with the Darkball heartless. If you look at it through the journal with it looking straight at you, you notice that the "face" of it is very humanoid with a very human looking nose and eyes. It might sound weird but it freaks me out

They make a whole game to explain why Mickey doesn't wear a shirt in Kingdom Hearts 1 Where is the game that explains the ghost Hotel owner who psychically communicates about paintings?

I'm glad this showed up in my reccs. I love it when people discuss KH1, it's got such a weird sort of melancholy atmosphere to it. Something that slowly went away until it completely disappeared with KH3. 1. When I first played KH1 and the Phantom popped up (the original dark color version) I got so freaked out I quickly turned off the game. I don't even remember how I got the balls to fight it lmao. 2. I never noticed the castle in the corridors nor the fact that it's remnants of destroyed worlds. I just knew it looked so unsettling. 3. That heartless logo freaked me the hell out because it was just so...big.

The Xemnas boss fight was crazy because he foreshadowed Roxas by saying Sira was incomplete

I used to think the shop keeper was a heartless and the guy by the door was his nobody.

As a kid, i've always had this theory that the phantom boss was either the heartless of Lord Ombra from the Peter Pan book series, or at least inspired by it

Kingdom Hearts 1 will always be the scariest game to me in the KH series (notice: not the darkest but the scariest. There's a difference). It was always so eerie to play and you felt like someone was always watching you...even you as like the player...but no one ever was. I thought maybe it was because I was 5 when I first played KH1 (I'm 21 now), so I replayed it last year (Final Mix 🤗) and it was still eerie and creepy to me... You just always felt so alone while playing it. You're separated from your family, home town, and friends. You're in this weird area and have no clue about what is happening to you. You have no magic and like 1 potion to heal yourself while you're surrounded by--what felt like--thousands and thousands of heartless that are very powerful (at the time they felt like it). You were so weak at the time, which is understandable because you just got your Keyblade. Everything looked darker compared to the brighter contrast on other KH games. Even when you meet Donald and Goofy, you first feel distanced from them. Yeah they were nice, but they made it clear to you that they are there for Mickey's request/mission and not really you, you. So, we just stay focused on finding our friends and after both objectives have been cleared, you both will go on your separate ways, never seeing each other again (of course they are our friends now and we feel WAAAAY more comfortable around them). Like when Riku gets the Keyblade, they prove this point by straight up abandoning us (yes they come back but at the time, we didn't know that). It hurt me as a kid when Riku came up to us in Traverse Town, only for him to leave us "alone" again with technically still strangers even after us telling him that we were looking for him. We are alone yet again. Yeah there are other scary, eerie stuff in KH1 (some you hit in the video) that always terrified me as a kid. Like how ghostly Kairi looked and flew through our arms; it made you question what happened to her to make her look that way and what did she see? What did that door do to her? Why did she fly through our arms and why the wind? Or when we first encountered that BIG shadow heartless where we see our large shadow and then it lifts from the ground and transforms. I was terrified of my shadow for YEARS after seeing that lol! I was scared of ants too because I thought that ants looked like shadow heartless and I felt powerless because I didn't have a Keyblade lol. And the secret reports and so much more 😩 You just felt alone, weak, powerless, confused, and felt like a loss of control...

"I've been to see him... He looks a lot like you.."