Wow... even if I only played KH2 as a kid, this still feels kinda nostalgic to me for some reason. But I too learned English because of KH. You see, my country (Brazil) doesn't have English as a official language, so 95% of the people here doesn't speak or understand English. Games by that time didn't come with a Portuguese translation or something, so I didn't understand anything of the game. Then, when I finally got a computer, I saw videos of KH2 with Portuguese subtitles and started to see it over and over... Now, I can finally write, read and understand English. Still need to get better on speaking, but that's a small issue. Thanks to this marvelous franchise, I can see videos and play games without any translation. Really liked your video, you have my subscription. I hope to see more KH videos from you
That's so cool! To think that someone could start to learn another language thanks to video games is truly amazing and speaks to the power and legitimacy of the medium.
@@RegularPat It's actually more common than it seems. Here, if you don't have money to learn English the "right way", you need to find another way. Movies and games are normally how we learn basic English because of the interest in understanding these types of media, and from there you just need to try your best to get better...
I know I still have a few, one was for skyward sword and that impacted my ability to play that game a lot. Although I think I went about figuring out everything in kingdom hearts just through shee trial and error and the insistence that everything in traverse town had a chest or secret of some kind especially that little bell in the hotel that makes a guy say “no vacancies”. I spent so many hours trying to figure out a way to make him open the door to the ocean and desert rooms.
We were raised to expect a world full of pay phones, CRTs, and cursive but got one with smartphones, OLEDs, and minions. We weren’t ready. Jokes aside, maybe my birth year is why I connect so much with KH1 despite not having played any of the series since I was a kid (yet watch YT content of it like I’ve played them all). It captures this odd “in-between” feeling where Sora can wear early 2000’s zipper fashion while walking around old Disney properties from the 50s. Or how he can hop in his gummy ship and fly around space only to land in a place where old fashion sea travel is still handled by wooden ships. Almost everything is always somewhat “in-style” in kingdom hearts which captures that feeling of clashing technology late 90s / early 2000s and the almost exponential shrinking of the world that has steadily come with it. That or I’m reading way too far into this children’s game where the corporate mouse shows kids his nipples.
I've seen the 95-00 spot be called a "zillenial" where you identify with the millennials, but are considered part of gen Z by alot of people I'm 97 myself, but I think the idea of generations is an outdated idea, things are moving too fast to give a 10-15 year span a single name
I thought that this was a great video due to the uniqueness of the topic. Personally I feel like the availability of topics like that are somewhat limited but if you could put out more like this, I'd be for it
I've had a similiar experience with game manuals instead of Strategy guides. I used to go through them so many times looking at the artwork and stuff... Too bad they're a thing of the past now :(
Oh man I LOVED strategy guides. I was born in 2000 so I got kind of the tail-end of them, but as someone who didn't own a Wii or DS but desperately wanted to play Nintendo games, strategy guides were my go-to for experiencing games I couldn't actually play. They may be kind of an outdated way of getting game help nowadays, but there's something special about them. Fangamer has actually made a few; they made an incredible guide for the Mother 3 Fan Translation with hundreds of pieces of custom art and the Earthbound travel guide, which is a STELLAR love letter to EB that pretends that it's a travel guide for the world of Earthbound. It's a rad book for any fan of the Mother series, and it doubles as a great guide too. I'd love to see a resurgence of them from indie games or something since you know they tend to go the extra mile with that kind of stuff.
This video speaks to my soul. I had this guide since before I had a PS2. As a kid my parents loved to take me and my brother to the bookstore, and while they inexplicably spent their whole time there in the magazine section, we would look at anything interesting in the nearby sections - superhero encyclopedias, comics, and ... video game guides. When we discovered this amazing book containing pictures of beloved Disney characters and mysterious dark monsters, we were immediately enchanted and on every return visit my brother and I would go straight to the shelf and pull it down to pore over together. Eventually we talked our parents into buying it for us even though they didn’t understand why we would want a guide to a game we didn’t have. Needless to say when we finally got a PS2, Kingdom Hearts was the first game we got our hands on. Also ... yes, I did play PK: Out of the Shadows as a kid! I haven’t thought about that in years. I 100% got it just because I saw it advertised in the KH guide book. All I remember is that Donald Duck starred as a Duck Dodgers-esque superhero with a voice that sounded more like Gex than Donald, and you fight an alien invasion in a simplistic linear platformer with about 3 hours of gameplay that even my 8-year-old self was bored by.
I shit you not: I got the "PK out of the shadows" game (for the gamecube) on my birthday back in the day, but finished it like the day after so my mom told me I should go to Gamestop to trade it in. And wouldn't you know it - the game I got instead was Kingdom Hearts 1. The game itself was pretty mediocre from what I remember. A passable beat 'em up kind of thing (I beat it a long time ago so yeah).
The PK game is definitely mediocre, but I highly recommend the comic book series it's based on! It's definitely in my top 5 best comic books! I recommend reading it in the original Italian, if you speak it. I can't vouch for the English translation.
Man, I’ve got so much to say about this one! It started out as just talking about the guidebook, I swear! But then, uhh. It got pretty long, and it basically turned into an essay on why I love this series, so sorry about that. But I really just kinda wanted to share my experience, since you’ve been so generous to share your own story for all of us to see. So here it is. ~~~~ Man I love this book. Mine is beat up and creased in almost the exact same way as yours. I can’t tell you how many times it’s been flipped through by my family.... So the way I was introduced to KH was through my father. I remember shopping at the grocery store with him one day, I was probably about 6. He asked me “who’s your favorite Disney character?” “Goofy!” I replied. He smiled. “I think I’ve got a great game for us to play together”. So up until this point in my short life, my experience playing video games was limited to Pac-Man and Dig-Dug, played on one of those Jakk’s Pacific “Namco Classics” plug and plays (another experience that I think was pretty exclusive to us “Z-lennials”). So imagine how it felt for me to watch my dad boot up Kingdom Hearts for the first time. My mother had given my dad a ps2 as a Father’s Day gift. Being that they were both massive Disney Fans, and my father played a lot of Final Fantasy 7, KH was a natural choice for his first game on the system. He and my mother would put me to bed, then work through the game between the two of them, and that guide book was probably the only thing that kept them sane. You can still see the little check marks they made beside every single treasure. I’m glad the random GameStop employee had suggested they buy it, because there’s no way they would have finished it without it. Anyway, back to the present, where kingdom hearts 2 had just come out. My dad sat me down in front of our clunky CRT in the basement and started up a new KH1 save file for me. I was absolutely mesmerized. I’d never seen anything like it, literally. I remember being enamored by the opening, though I doubt I really understood any of it. And then, I had to make choices! Swords and Shields! Fears and Desires! I was floored. To me, up to that point, games were like arcades, something to fiddle around with in your tiny wooden rocking chair while the grownups were talking. And now this one was talking to me! It wanted me to reflect on myself. That’s some heavy shit for a 6 year old. I do remember feeling like a god when I beat that darkside in the station of awakening though. Then I got to destiny islands. Wow. Even going back now all these years later, there’s still something so wonderful about it. I of course had no idea who the final fantasy kids were, so in my eyes they were just as important as Riku and Kairi. I could reliably beat Tidus, and I always felt a little guilty about beating up Selphie. But then Wakka would put me in my place. He absolutely wrecked me every time, and after what felt like an entire afternoon, I had to give my dad the controller. After he beat down Wakka, I watched him take on Riku. And he lost. My mind was blown. My father, who was clearly in my eyes the greatest Kingdom Hearts player in the universe, just got beaten by this kid with baggy pants. I was amazed. Clearly, this was someone who deserved my respect. Even though I’m far older than him by this point, I still look up to Riku to this day. I don’t think I got very far beyond the islands. I remember wandering traverse town and collecting trinities, so maybe I stopped there. I still get weird flashbacks of stuff elsewhere in the game, but it’s all pretty hazy. I can only surmise that I must have watched my dad play through the rest. I must have, because I felt this thorough familiarity with traverse town. I do remember playing CoM on my DS with a game it slot. I adored it, until one day I was stuck in the car on a trip to Disney world. For whatever reason, I was stuck in Monstro, and I didn’t really fully grasp the mechanics, I was still to young. I wandered in there for what felt like hours, with the long car ride making me a pretty sick. I gave up on it after that. To this day, whenever I hear the Monstro field theme, I get a bit queezy. I don’t think I ever got to playing KH2. I remember seeing my mom clear out all the bolt towers in the throne room of Disney castle, and I felt an amazing sense of scale. Look how tiny she was compared to those grand columns and towering enemies! There was an item called a tent: that meant that this hall was big enough to go camping in! That’s crazy! Since then, KH has always felt extremely “grand” to me, and I think these tiny memories of my parents playing and doing their grown up things in these games helped to sell that idea. Another big thing I remember was looking though these guidebooks. The KH1 one always interested me, but I remember obsessing over the the gummi ships and the drive forms in the KH2 stats section. Those blew my mind! I also remember really wanting to know more about Namine, I don’t think I ever made the connection that she was the girl from CoM. The last game I seriously played was Days. Holy crap. That game hit me hard. I was going through the woes of middle school, and that awkward struggle for identity and losing your friends resonated with me on an incredible level. I don’t think I had any knowledge of the plot as a whole, as I’d been too young when I played the early games to remember much. But boy oh boy was I ever interested in Days. I played and re played every mission that I could, to the point where when I played KH2 for the first time years later, I already had Twilight Town memorized. That melancholy nostalgia it tries to evoke on its own was doubly effected by my own idealized memories of the place. I had the guide book for that game too, and I loved looking at all the detailed weapons info for the entire Organization. It even bled into my real life. It’s the only time I think I ever role played. My friend and I would pretend we were in organization 13 while we fought with cardboard swords on his trampoline. Good memories. It took me about a few months of on again off again playing to beat days, and in the end it broke me. By the time I reached the final battle, I’d fallen out pretty seriously with my RP friend, and most of my other friends were going through serious home life issues that no child that age should have to think about. I felt guilty about having a comfortable life and a good family around me. I sort of resonated with Xion about feeling guilty having her friendships while Sora was kept asleep. In all, I felt pretty lonely. So when it came to that final moment, it shattered me. I’d stayed sitting in my grandmother’s hot car, refusing to come in until I’d finally beaten this game. I was so close. And then I did it. I killed Xion. I’d killed what felt like one of the only friends I had in the world. I’ve cried at a video game exactly twice. The second time was a single manly tear when I first saw the title screen for KH3. As for the first time, I bawled my eyes out over Days. I shut my DS and just sobbed in the car for probably half an hour, until my grandmother begged me to come inside and get into the air conditioning. I put on a tough face (gotta look tough for grandma). Then I went to my room and collapsed on my bed in a fit of tears. I just felt so powerless. Poeoole may laugh, but to a kid it was all extremely distressing. Finally, that evening I reopened my DS, and I played the deep dive segment. I felt the absolute rage of Roxas. Having not played 2, I had no idea that Xion wouldn’t make it through Days. I felt totally betrayed and miserable, no many how many neo-shadows I purged. After that, I kinda fell off the games. I remember seeing the trailer for BBS, and wondering why Roxas was hanging out with this new crew in the desert. But I never owned a psp, so I just never played it. I think I got DDD for my birthday one year, but I never made it out of traverse town. And that’s how it stood for years. That is, until late high school, when one day in December I saw a game reviewer I watched, AntDude, was doing a KH retrospective. I watched a little bit, and I got this sudden desire to revisit it all. So I drug out my old, dusty PS2 and booted up KH1. From the moment I heard Dearly Beloved fade in, I knew I was hooked. A simple move of the cursor brought back those wonderful clicks and chirps, and instantly it all came back to me. I beat that game in 3 days, guidebook in hand. The next day, I took my savings bought a used PS4, and a few weeks later I received all the collections for Christmas. I haven’t looked back since.
Dude this hits incredibly hard! (First of all, you best believe I also had one of those Namco classics bundles.) I love hearing about how people get into the series because you always see a bit of yourself in each scenario. Everyone's got these specific stand-out memories that are unique to them and yet they're always so relatable to your own experience. And oh man, did Days come out at the peak of middle school angst or what lmao. Related hard to that. I just feel bad that you have a conditioned negative response to the Monstro music lol, I love that track so much. Thank you for sharing man, and I'm glad there are other people out there who had this book in hand at all times haha
Oh, my god, I played PK: Out of the Shadows when I was really young and to this day I still grapple with the dilemma of whether or not I imagined the whole thing, so thank you for validating my reality.
This was great, your videos always impress! They strongly convey the wonder and delight you had for the series as a young being of pure instinct that very clearly is still present in you today. Keep doing what you're doing, excited for the KH3 vid!
Aaah, a man of my own culture. Also also, thanks for making this. It was a wonderful argument of how our generation shaped its thoughts and motivations through games compared to reading. 11/10 agree. Subscribing now bye
Ah yes, the intro for World of Chaos being "a ship is lost at sea without its captain" is something I'll never forget. Just... what does that even mean?
There was something so exciting about this book when I first got it. In fact, I owned the guide weeks before I could afford the game and reading it spoiled parts of the story for me, but I have fond memories of kicking my feet up on the recliner and reading it after dinner as a kid.
Something about also getting the strategy guide for every video game you received is really wholesome and sweet. Like that's a degree of investment in your kid's hobbies that most parents don't go to.
I remember back in June of 2005 when I was 13, my original copy of KH1 got so scratched up it stopped working after three years of being pretty much the only game I played. I asked my grandma to buy me a new one and she got me the strategy guide along with it. Not because I needed it but because she saw it came with a sticker poster. She died a month later. I think that's part of why I latched onto Kingdom Hearts so much because that's one of the last memories I had with her.
So many memories of borrowing my friend Jake’s copy of this guide in second grade and reading it over and over! I never had a PS2 growing up so didn’t play through the main games until two years ago.
This book was literally my life as a 7-year-old. I honestly would not have beaten the game without it. But honestly to this day, I don’t think many strategy guides are more jam-packed with helpful insights than this one, even apart from the story mode. Even now as I know literally everything about the game with the back of my hand, I often go back to it just because it’s so well-crafted. And I kind of hate how much you unknowingly called me out in this video, as I too most often used books like this to trace over characters and call myself an artist lol. And the Riku sword/Keyblade thing plus the Heartless fodder bosses are things that have legitimately lived rent free in my head since 2003.
I once Took a quick look into the strategy guide for Kingdom hearts birth by sleep and flipped to a random a page and accidentally saw Vanitas’s face reveal. Sad that I was spoiled for such a thing
I still have the Wind Waker strategy guide in my closet, I would bring it to school every day to show it off, even though I was hardstuck in the first visit to Hyrule Palace as a kid.
Great as always pat! I was typing up a comment, and it sort of spun out fo control into a mini essay on my experiences with this game as a kid. I can post it if you’re interested, but I didn’t want to bombard you with a few paragraphs out of nowhere.
So my intro to kingdom hearts was actually through watching my grandma and my aunt play the games since I was five. My aunt would play the game while my grandma would read the guidebook, the exact guidebook you are looking at in this video. It’s so nostalgic but sad for me to see that book. My grandma passed away a few years ago and my aunt hasn’t played the game since. I miss that old book marked up in highlighter. I miss helping my grandma read it when her eyesight got bad. I attribute my love for kingdom hearts from my grandma and aunt. They made it so that these games were part of my entire life. And now I’m able to play through all the games and it makes me so very happy. So I guess I just wanted to say thank you for making this video!
@@bradenarcader1476 certainly his writing feels that way at least, but with an even more irreverent tone and a lot more dorkiness. I really love Pat's style of making videos, he's carved out a really good niche for himself, and at this point I'd probably be down for watching pretty much anything he puts out.
I never got the chance to play the game in 2002 when it came out because I didn't own a Playstation. One of my friends used to lend me this guide in class and I read it probably 20 times cover to cover! I was so happy when I got my hands on a PS2 so I could play the vanilla version like 16 years later! This is so nostalgic.
For anyone interested, PK is an AMAZING comic book series by a bunch of Disney artists from Italy who wanted to do a bunch of experimental cyberpunk stuff with Donald Duck. I highly recommend it. I think the English title is Duck Avenger. And about the game, PK Out of the Shadows, that's sort of infamous among us fans, because as PK was becoming a massive success here in Italy, Disney decided to try and export it internationally, so they forced the authors to close down the series and to reboot it with a more "America-friendly" format, as well as a videogame to introduce new audiences to it.
WOW! I completely forgot about this strategy guide. Brings back so many memories! I invested hours into this strategy guide, just like I did playing KH1. Thank You So Much for Making This Video! Nostalgic!
That ending segment was brilliant. I remember owning the guide to Pokemon Emerald and it having a similar effect on me. Pokemon actually taught me the word "aplomb" and I don't I've ever needed to use it since then.
Oh my god. I had this same book. So many memories of just looking at this back when I was a kid back in 2006/2007. As soon as I saw that selphie, wakka, and tidus page, I almost cried. I remember so much of this book. Oh my god.
Fun fact, this is what actually got me into Kingdom Hearts, my cousins were looking at this at our uncle’s house for a big family get-together. I saw Parasite Cage and Pinocchio and I thought it looked cool. I talked my dad’s ear off about it and he asked their dad if it was “appropriate” for me, and was told “yes.” I was given the game when I was five years old. I sucked at it, but I still enjoyed the game.
rw:the Heartless lettering for each boss in that guide book was what i found interesting,i mean you can actually do the whole alphabet and do some lettering aswell and almost known for the guide to give us some tidbits on the "fun facts" for almost each character,also to top it all off people who wrote for the guide atleast they were able enough to tell us how we defeat sephiroth aswell and tbh this guide you have was the start for me to know all about the FINAL FANTASY series .
I just bought this strategy guide to see what I missed out on as a kid playing kh1- and it’s been a LIFESAVER, and a really sweet look into the past ;w;
Old video but I loved the strategy guide for KH1 as a kid. I first discovered KH1 when my uncles ex girlfriend (Not ex at the time) visited from out of state and brought KH1 and the guide with her. I loved watching her play the game and have vivid memories of Destiny Islands and Wonderland. She left both here, but it took me a few years to actually play the game for myself, but I feel like I remember reading through the strategy guide for fun before getting to play the game for myself, and used the guide my entire time through the game. KH then quickly became one of my favorite series of all time. Sometimes I wish I could tell my uncles ex that I love that series she showed me all those years ago, but there's no real way I can contact her that wouldn't be awkward, plus my uncle and his current wife would likely be very upset if I did that, so sadly it's best I don't...
Wow! Even if the German version of the book is less black and without stickers (it was just simple and clean *badum tzz*), memories of my childhood came back. I'm only 2 years older than you and man we went both to that journey and it shaped our creativity. :3
Yes darren Shan Cirque du freake nice! And yes I used to love strategy guides growing up! They were just so much more than just a guide it made the world of the game feel so much more expanded and just drew you in even more!
How did you not go into the fact that the guide's section on the Sephiroth boss fight lists his attack phrase as "Sin Harvest" instead of "Sin Heartless Angel"? Seriously though, love your videos man. So incredibly relatable to all my thoughts on the series and my experiences growing up with it.
I never bought the guide, and I'm kicking myself for it, BUT I saw it and was like "oh, this is the game with that amazing song in the commercial" and the art was so cool, I loved looking at it in Borders. Yeah, I said Borders.
Love the video👌 you have a wonderful way of explaining how amazing games like kingdom hearts are or how much hard work went into strategy guides like that one are. My friend had the 358 days strategy guide and it was sick so I'm glad to see their are still people out there who appreciate the little things like that and realize the value in them Aslo I loved the random nicktoons unite reference lmao I got it for Christmas as a kid and lost my mind when I could play as Danny phantom
That Pokemon Player's Guide you show at @3:10 had stickers as well. My copy of that guide was to me what this KH1 guide was to you. I brought it everywhere and read it like a book until the cover fell off. But it had the same idea as the 99 puppy stickers where you'd put a Pokemon's sticker next to its entry in the dex after you caught it, but I just put the Scyther on my red Game Boy pocket.
So cool. This was a good topic, I cant think of anyone else thats already done something like this. Strategy guides were the shit. We're about the same age so I can relate to pouring over the books with my friends in school. I remember bringing the Ocarina of Time, Starfox Adventures and Megaman X Command Mission ones specifically pretty often. Sadly I got rid of most of mine. The only ones I still have are the Zelda and Starfox ones I mentioned, Melee and OG Kingdom Hearts II, all purely for nostalgia.
Oh man a Melee guide?! Melee's like in my top 5, that's awesome. I have the one for Brawl, I think it's in the video for a sec, and it was...fine lol. They rank all of the characters and it's predictably and laughably off
Spot on analysis man ('m just a tad younger than you and also fall into that weird Gen Z "cutoff" era ). The way you described generational curiosity and discovering the strategy guide hype was too real lol. Personally, my favorite aspect of the guide was meticulously scanning the boss sections.
On the topic of learning new words from KH... I remember back in 2009, I asked my mum what "Lea" meant. Saïx calls Axel that for the first time in 358/2 Days, so I had no idea that it was actually his real name and not some random word that he decided to use.
Yes! My brother and I played KH and Dragon Quest 8 growing up, and we learned so many words like equipped, medicinal, etc. KH also taught me how to write dialogue in a grammatically correct way. I also didn't read books growing up, and all of my creativity comes from the games I've played throughout my life.
i just felt nostalgia about a strategy guide that I never had, well in all honesty, I didn't even knew it existed up until now. well I guess that calls for a play-through of KH1 and KH2.
Your experience with KH1 and mine are so scarily similar. Even down to this guide (I had two as well one that got swallowed by a storm at grandpa's lol). I think that's why I like your content so much. Watching your videos inspired me to go back and do something I've literally never done in my 12+ playthroughs of the first game so today I beat The Phantom and The Ice Titan for the first time in my life and I dedicated both victories to you haha going for Sephiroth next who I've also never beaten.
I adored that guidebook, I’d bring it to school and read it so I could prepare myself for the next section of the game. Towards the end of its life there were pages ripped out, the cover was torn and stained, etc. I wish we had taken better care of it and I wish I still had all my old guidebooks
I love the end bit about not reading books for fun or assigned for school but man did I read the shit out if my Breath of Fire 3 and Final Fantasy 7 strategy guides and even my mother and aunt were always like look at him always with his nose in those game books aww Meanwhile my dad was like WTF you havent read Brian's Winter and Stuart Little for summer reading yet?!
I bought this when I got my original copy of KH1 and a PS2 memory card in the used section at a Blockbuster in 2004. I still have most of whats left of it and use it to play KH1 to this day.
I'm super late to comment on this but back then I loved reading through my guide of Pokemon G/S/C (even though it only covered the second half of the game ^^), looking at all the artwork and the detailed descriptions. The internet wasn't really around much back then, we certainly didn't have any at home. So I couldn't look this stuff up online. The second part of the book had a walkthrough of Final Fantasy IX and while I never actually played the game even though I bought it like almost 2 decades later for my collection I was so intrigued by the cool bosses it had
Just found out your channel and I'm really enjoying this type of content. I'm from Spain and here we had a similar but different KH1 Strategy Guide but I share the same feelings you were talking about in this video, really nostalgic. I'm definitely subscribing for more of this :)
Video Games have drawn art in the form of character models and backgrounds, they have stories like books or movies, they have voice acting like tv or movies, they have soundtracks like movies. If all of those individual pieces can be considered art then there’s no reason video games can’t be considered it either.
Fun fact: Each main title KH game cover depicts an important area from the next main title game. The KH1 cover shows The World That Never Was from KH2, also seen in the KH1 secret movie. The KH2 cover shows The Land of Sea and Sky from KH3. And KH3's cover seems to be depicting Shibuya which we expect to see in KH4.
5:18 I never noticed that thing about Riku. It reminds me of the cover art for Fire Emblem Awakening. It shows the majority of the characters moving downward and the a character from the future instead moving upwards and it even hides other character pertinent visual cues (I'm looking at you Kellam)
I appreciate the takeaway of how games are also literature. I’m going for my degree in creative writing rn but it kinda feels weird being one of the few who isn’t really into books and prefers more visual forms of storytelling like movies, games, manga and anime. Anyways, it feels nice to know someone else views storytelling and the importance of it in other mediums like how I do.
I also started the series around age 7, my older brother and his friends would play the game while I watched. We had the guide also and we got PK out of the shadows. Took me about 3 years to beat as a kid. I beat it in under 2 hours when I was an adult.
One of my most prized possessions is a Game guide for Pokemon platinum by grandmother picked up for Christmas. I Didn't own a DS at the time, she just saw "pokemon" and got it. I fell off pokemon before i put any real time into the DS games. But that guide book like 700+ pages of a game i was half/half about is one of those, If my house is burning down im running in to get my dog, and that guide.
I'm younger than you and yet you remember your childhood much better than me lol. Being born early 2001 I'm not sure if I qualify for millennial status but I feel like I should through proxy because we were poor-ish so I grew up playing stuff a couple years after they came out and I have many memories of blockbuster and united video visits. I never did own a strategy guide I think, but I'm pretty sure they were around, the closest I came is my nan buying me those weird mini gaming magazines for kids that usually came with some cheap toy and the cheats for a newest lego game lol. My man yeetus vanitas went all in on the personal deets so since we're all having a kingdom hearts to heart I'll share that I grew up without a father, and a mother who was depressed and trying her best not to kill herself (don't worry I'm not beat up about it lol, as odd as I'm sure that sounds to literally anybody else) and 3 brothers so there wasn't exactly a lot of money for extra stuff. I owe all of my gaming memories as a child to my nan who bought me a ps2 and probably thought Kingdom Hearts was a nice thing for a child to play since y'know Disney and all that. Basically while I wasn't fending for myself on the streets of New Zealand South Auckland I didn't really have a role model or anybody telling me what is or isn't wrong. And I can't exactly chronicle out my experience playing each Kingdom Hearts game for the first time since I don't remember all of it lol but I will say I think the Kingdom Hearts series, 1 and 2 in particular were one of the few sources I had growing up to actually teach me what it meant to be a good person, or what to really value. This is all a verbose and messy way of saying I honestly believe a large part of who I am today is thanks to those games, like a weird nebulous parent who taught me the power of friendship and what really matters in life. I'm incredibly different from who I was back then (tends to happen when you triple the amount of hours you've spent living) but even today I still hold friendship and love as the most important things to me, and even when I'm depressed I always feel a hope in my heart that I will find what I strive for in life. Another way you could put it, is that the heart may be weak, and sometimes it may even give in, but thanks to Kingdom Hearts, I've learned that deep down there's a light that never goes out. ...Just went to watch the last KH1 cut-scenes again and I'm reminded by just how damn metaphorical that game's writing is lol. My favourite story in all of KH is a tough pick and I'm not sure it would go to KH1, but in terms of theming and messages it imparts to players it is second to none in my opinion. I'm going through a rough patch in my life at the moment and I wanna thank you for drawing my attention to this stuff again, I overthink things like the best of them but talking about Kingdom Hearts brings me back to what really matters, and reminds me that maybe, some things are that simple. Yes even when being serious about my life I can't resist turning it into a reference, it's a blessing and a curse.
Hey thanks for sharing, Jamie. People underestimate the power that games can have in influencing a young person's development in positive ways; people always either focus on the negative or manifest the negative when it's not there. Like I was saying in the vid, they have the potential to teach not just words, but in this case, even morals and values. Thanks again for sharing and I hope that rough patch smooths out.
@@RegularPat I agree, and yeah I'm pretty good at sharing, some may even say I over share but I swear I was only following other comment's suit! lol if you're not careful you're going to have to rebrand as the Kingdom Hearts themed therapy channel
It was weirdly nostalgic to see a kh guide that doesnt have any of the final mix stuff.
Haha i know right, i’ve become so used to the re-colors
rw:true BB.
There are two versions of the same guide??? 🤤😶😀
Wow... even if I only played KH2 as a kid, this still feels kinda nostalgic to me for some reason.
But I too learned English because of KH. You see, my country (Brazil) doesn't have English as a official language, so 95% of the people here doesn't speak or understand English. Games by that time didn't come with a Portuguese translation or something, so I didn't understand anything of the game.
Then, when I finally got a computer, I saw videos of KH2 with Portuguese subtitles and started to see it over and over...
Now, I can finally write, read and understand English. Still need to get better on speaking, but that's a small issue. Thanks to this marvelous franchise, I can see videos and play games without any translation.
Really liked your video, you have my subscription. I hope to see more KH videos from you
That's so cool! To think that someone could start to learn another language thanks to video games is truly amazing and speaks to the power and legitimacy of the medium.
@@RegularPat It's actually more common than it seems. Here, if you don't have money to learn English the "right way", you need to find another way.
Movies and games are normally how we learn basic English because of the interest in understanding these types of media, and from there you just need to try your best to get better...
4:03 why is no one talking about this? This is comedy gold right here
lmao i have to admit i do love that bit
I burst out laughing
My favorite part 🤣
I love this part.
It honestly never fails to make me smile.
bro your mom is the coolest, i would've loved to get a bunch of strategy guides with my games
i'm gonna tell her that Goose Teeth thinks she's cool
@@RegularPat and No One agrees for the same reason.
I know I still have a few, one was for skyward sword and that impacted my ability to play that game a lot. Although I think I went about figuring out everything in kingdom hearts just through shee trial and error and the insistence that everything in traverse town had a chest or secret of some kind especially that little bell in the hotel that makes a guy say “no vacancies”. I spent so many hours trying to figure out a way to make him open the door to the ocean and desert rooms.
“Oh no! The B O O K.”
1996 really is the weird interstitial year where you don’t know which generation you lie in.
it really is lol. having both VHS and DVD as a kid was another thing that I feel like we have along with people in the few years around us
We were raised to expect a world full of pay phones, CRTs, and cursive but got one with smartphones, OLEDs, and minions. We weren’t ready.
Jokes aside, maybe my birth year is why I connect so much with KH1 despite not having played any of the series since I was a kid (yet watch YT content of it like I’ve played them all). It captures this odd “in-between” feeling where Sora can wear early 2000’s zipper fashion while walking around old Disney properties from the 50s. Or how he can hop in his gummy ship and fly around space only to land in a place where old fashion sea travel is still handled by wooden ships. Almost everything is always somewhat “in-style” in kingdom hearts which captures that feeling of clashing technology late 90s / early 2000s and the almost exponential shrinking of the world that has steadily come with it. That or I’m reading way too far into this children’s game where the corporate mouse shows kids his nipples.
I mean, the cusper range for millenial and gen z is around 1994-1999 sooo (also varies heavily based on where you grow up).
I've seen the 95-00 spot be called a "zillenial" where you identify with the millennials, but are considered part of gen Z by alot of people
I'm 97 myself, but I think the idea of generations is an outdated idea, things are moving too fast to give a 10-15 year span a single name
I have felt the same way my whole life! 1996 is like the lost generation. We are always swept under the rug.
I thought that this was a great video due to the uniqueness of the topic. Personally I feel like the availability of topics like that are somewhat limited but if you could put out more like this, I'd be for it
Thanks! Was fun to do something different. I'll probably stick to the traditional format more often but I'm glad you guys enjoyed this deviation here!
I've had a similiar experience with game manuals instead of Strategy guides. I used to go through them so many times looking at the artwork and stuff... Too bad they're a thing of the past now :(
Ugh, too true. That's what ya looked at in the car ride home from getting the game! Now they're soulless sheets of paper, v sad.
I swear I looked through the manuals more than I played the games
Oh man I LOVED strategy guides. I was born in 2000 so I got kind of the tail-end of them, but as someone who didn't own a Wii or DS but desperately wanted to play Nintendo games, strategy guides were my go-to for experiencing games I couldn't actually play. They may be kind of an outdated way of getting game help nowadays, but there's something special about them. Fangamer has actually made a few; they made an incredible guide for the Mother 3 Fan Translation with hundreds of pieces of custom art and the Earthbound travel guide, which is a STELLAR love letter to EB that pretends that it's a travel guide for the world of Earthbound. It's a rad book for any fan of the Mother series, and it doubles as a great guide too. I'd love to see a resurgence of them from indie games or something since you know they tend to go the extra mile with that kind of stuff.
This video speaks to my soul. I had this guide since before I had a PS2. As a kid my parents loved to take me and my brother to the bookstore, and while they inexplicably spent their whole time there in the magazine section, we would look at anything interesting in the nearby sections - superhero encyclopedias, comics, and ... video game guides. When we discovered this amazing book containing pictures of beloved Disney characters and mysterious dark monsters, we were immediately enchanted and on every return visit my brother and I would go straight to the shelf and pull it down to pore over together. Eventually we talked our parents into buying it for us even though they didn’t understand why we would want a guide to a game we didn’t have. Needless to say when we finally got a PS2, Kingdom Hearts was the first game we got our hands on.
Also ... yes, I did play PK: Out of the Shadows as a kid! I haven’t thought about that in years. I 100% got it just because I saw it advertised in the KH guide book. All I remember is that Donald Duck starred as a Duck Dodgers-esque superhero with a voice that sounded more like Gex than Donald, and you fight an alien invasion in a simplistic linear platformer with about 3 hours of gameplay that even my 8-year-old self was bored by.
I shit you not: I got the "PK out of the shadows" game (for the gamecube) on my birthday back in the day, but finished it like the day after so my mom told me I should go to Gamestop to trade it in. And wouldn't you know it - the game I got instead was Kingdom Hearts 1.
The game itself was pretty mediocre from what I remember. A passable beat 'em up kind of thing (I beat it a long time ago so yeah).
The PK game is definitely mediocre, but I highly recommend the comic book series it's based on! It's definitely in my top 5 best comic books! I recommend reading it in the original Italian, if you speak it. I can't vouch for the English translation.
Man, I’ve got so much to say about this one! It started out as just talking about the guidebook, I swear! But then, uhh. It got pretty long, and it basically turned into an essay on why I love this series, so sorry about that. But I really just kinda wanted to share my experience, since you’ve been so generous to share your own story for all of us to see. So here it is.
~~~~
Man I love this book. Mine is beat up and creased in almost the exact same way as yours. I can’t tell you how many times it’s been flipped through by my family....
So the way I was introduced to KH was through my father. I remember shopping at the grocery store with him one day, I was probably about 6. He asked me “who’s your favorite Disney character?” “Goofy!” I replied. He smiled. “I think I’ve got a great game for us to play together”.
So up until this point in my short life, my experience playing video games was limited to Pac-Man and Dig-Dug, played on one of those Jakk’s Pacific “Namco Classics” plug and plays (another experience that I think was pretty exclusive to us “Z-lennials”).
So imagine how it felt for me to watch my dad boot up Kingdom Hearts for the first time.
My mother had given my dad a ps2 as a Father’s Day gift. Being that they were both massive Disney Fans, and my father played a lot of Final Fantasy 7, KH was a natural choice for his first game on the system. He and my mother would put me to bed, then work through the game between the two of them, and that guide book was probably the only thing that kept them sane. You can still see the little check marks they made beside every single treasure. I’m glad the random GameStop employee had suggested they buy it, because there’s no way they would have finished it without it.
Anyway, back to the present, where kingdom hearts 2 had just come out. My dad sat me down in front of our clunky CRT in the basement and started up a new KH1 save file for me. I was absolutely mesmerized. I’d never seen anything like it, literally. I remember being enamored by the opening, though I doubt I really understood any of it. And then, I had to make choices! Swords and Shields! Fears and Desires! I was floored. To me, up to that point, games were like arcades, something to fiddle around with in your tiny wooden rocking chair while the grownups were talking. And now this one was talking to me! It wanted me to reflect on myself. That’s some heavy shit for a 6 year old. I do remember feeling like a god when I beat that darkside in the station of awakening though.
Then I got to destiny islands. Wow. Even going back now all these years later, there’s still something so wonderful about it. I of course had no idea who the final fantasy kids were, so in my eyes they were just as important as Riku and Kairi. I could reliably beat Tidus, and I always felt a little guilty about beating up Selphie. But then Wakka would put me in my place. He absolutely wrecked me every time, and after what felt like an entire afternoon, I had to give my dad the controller. After he beat down Wakka, I watched him take on Riku. And he lost. My mind was blown. My father, who was clearly in my eyes the greatest Kingdom Hearts player in the universe, just got beaten by this kid with baggy pants. I was amazed. Clearly, this was someone who deserved my respect. Even though I’m far older than him by this point, I still look up to Riku to this day.
I don’t think I got very far beyond the islands. I remember wandering traverse town and collecting trinities, so maybe I stopped there. I still get weird flashbacks of stuff elsewhere in the game, but it’s all pretty hazy. I can only surmise that I must have watched my dad play through the rest. I must have, because I felt this thorough familiarity with traverse town.
I do remember playing CoM on my DS with a game it slot. I adored it, until one day I was stuck in the car on a trip to Disney world. For whatever reason, I was stuck in Monstro, and I didn’t really fully grasp the mechanics, I was still to young. I wandered in there for what felt like hours, with the long car ride making me a pretty sick. I gave up on it after that. To this day, whenever I hear the Monstro field theme, I get a bit queezy.
I don’t think I ever got to playing KH2. I remember seeing my mom clear out all the bolt towers in the throne room of Disney castle, and I felt an amazing sense of scale. Look how tiny she was compared to those grand columns and towering enemies! There was an item called a tent: that meant that this hall was big enough to go camping in! That’s crazy!
Since then, KH has always felt extremely “grand” to me, and I think these tiny memories of my parents playing and doing their grown up things in these games helped to sell that idea.
Another big thing I remember was looking though these guidebooks. The KH1 one always interested me, but I remember obsessing over the the gummi ships and the drive forms in the KH2 stats section. Those blew my mind! I also remember really wanting to know more about Namine, I don’t think I ever made the connection that she was the girl from CoM.
The last game I seriously played was Days. Holy crap. That game hit me hard. I was going through the woes of middle school, and that awkward struggle for identity and losing your friends resonated with me on an incredible level. I don’t think I had any knowledge of the plot as a whole, as I’d been too young when I played the early games to remember much. But boy oh boy was I ever interested in Days. I played and re played every mission that I could, to the point where when I played KH2 for the first time years later, I already had Twilight Town memorized. That melancholy nostalgia it tries to evoke on its own was doubly effected by my own idealized memories of the place.
I had the guide book for that game too, and I loved looking at all the detailed weapons info for the entire Organization. It even bled into my real life. It’s the only time I think I ever role played. My friend and I would pretend we were in organization 13 while we fought with cardboard swords on his trampoline. Good memories.
It took me about a few months of on again off again playing to beat days, and in the end it broke me. By the time I reached the final battle, I’d fallen out pretty seriously with my RP friend, and most of my other friends were going through serious home life issues that no child that age should have to think about. I felt guilty about having a comfortable life and a good family around me. I sort of resonated with Xion about feeling guilty having her friendships while Sora was kept asleep. In all, I felt pretty lonely. So when it came to that final moment, it shattered me. I’d stayed sitting in my grandmother’s hot car, refusing to come in until I’d finally beaten this game. I was so close. And then I did it. I killed Xion. I’d killed what felt like one of the only friends I had in the world.
I’ve cried at a video game exactly twice. The second time was a single manly tear when I first saw the title screen for KH3.
As for the first time, I bawled my eyes out over Days. I shut my DS and just sobbed in the car for probably half an hour, until my grandmother begged me to come inside and get into the air conditioning. I put on a tough face (gotta look tough for grandma). Then I went to my room and collapsed on my bed in a fit of tears. I just felt so powerless. Poeoole may laugh, but to a kid it was all extremely distressing. Finally, that evening I reopened my DS, and I played the deep dive segment. I felt the absolute rage of Roxas. Having not played 2, I had no idea that Xion wouldn’t make it through Days. I felt totally betrayed and miserable, no many how many neo-shadows I purged.
After that, I kinda fell off the games. I remember seeing the trailer for BBS, and wondering why Roxas was hanging out with this new crew in the desert. But I never owned a psp, so I just never played it. I think I got DDD for my birthday one year, but I never made it out of traverse town.
And that’s how it stood for years. That is, until late high school, when one day in December I saw a game reviewer I watched, AntDude, was doing a KH retrospective. I watched a little bit, and I got this sudden desire to revisit it all. So I drug out my old, dusty PS2 and booted up KH1. From the moment I heard Dearly Beloved fade in, I knew I was hooked. A simple move of the cursor brought back those wonderful clicks and chirps, and instantly it all came back to me. I beat that game in 3 days, guidebook in hand. The next day, I took my savings bought a used PS4, and a few weeks later I received all the collections for Christmas. I haven’t looked back since.
Dude this hits incredibly hard! (First of all, you best believe I also had one of those Namco classics bundles.) I love hearing about how people get into the series because you always see a bit of yourself in each scenario. Everyone's got these specific stand-out memories that are unique to them and yet they're always so relatable to your own experience. And oh man, did Days come out at the peak of middle school angst or what lmao. Related hard to that. I just feel bad that you have a conditioned negative response to the Monstro music lol, I love that track so much. Thank you for sharing man, and I'm glad there are other people out there who had this book in hand at all times haha
I still have this guide. It's a bit worn from the years, but still in good condition.
I actually had a KH2 guidebook and had a laugh when it said to spend most of the time in the Sephiroth fight running from him
Oh, my god, I played PK: Out of the Shadows when I was really young and to this day I still grapple with the dilemma of whether or not I imagined the whole thing, so thank you for validating my reality.
This was great, your videos always impress! They strongly convey the wonder and delight you had for the series as a young being of pure instinct that very clearly is still present in you today. Keep doing what you're doing, excited for the KH3 vid!
Aaah, a man of my own culture.
Also also, thanks for making this. It was a wonderful argument of how our generation shaped its thoughts and motivations through games compared to reading. 11/10 agree. Subscribing now bye
Ah yes, the intro for World of Chaos being "a ship is lost at sea without its captain" is something I'll never forget. Just... what does that even mean?
There was something so exciting about this book when I first got it. In fact, I owned the guide weeks before I could afford the game and reading it spoiled parts of the story for me, but I have fond memories of kicking my feet up on the recliner and reading it after dinner as a kid.
been binge watching your videos. just wanted to say that you crack me up, man. love the channel; always great vibes, good humor, and good content.
Something about also getting the strategy guide for every video game you received is really wholesome and sweet. Like that's a degree of investment in your kid's hobbies that most parents don't go to.
I remember back in June of 2005 when I was 13, my original copy of KH1 got so scratched up it stopped working after three years of being pretty much the only game I played. I asked my grandma to buy me a new one and she got me the strategy guide along with it. Not because I needed it but because she saw it came with a sticker poster. She died a month later. I think that's part of why I latched onto Kingdom Hearts so much because that's one of the last memories I had with her.
So many memories of borrowing my friend Jake’s copy of this guide in second grade and reading it over and over! I never had a PS2 growing up so didn’t play through the main games until two years ago.
"Look at deep jungle. This thing is longer than 0.2." 8:20
That was a great burn!
This book was literally my life as a 7-year-old. I honestly would not have beaten the game without it. But honestly to this day, I don’t think many strategy guides are more jam-packed with helpful insights than this one, even apart from the story mode. Even now as I know literally everything about the game with the back of my hand, I often go back to it just because it’s so well-crafted.
And I kind of hate how much you unknowingly called me out in this video, as I too most often used books like this to trace over characters and call myself an artist lol. And the Riku sword/Keyblade thing plus the Heartless fodder bosses are things that have legitimately lived rent free in my head since 2003.
I once Took a quick look into the strategy guide for Kingdom hearts birth by sleep and flipped to a random a page and accidentally saw Vanitas’s face reveal. Sad that I was spoiled for such a thing
I still have the Wind Waker strategy guide in my closet, I would bring it to school every day to show it off, even though I was hardstuck in the first visit to Hyrule Palace as a kid.
i want that. love me some WW
Great as always pat! I was typing up a comment, and it sort of spun out fo control into a mini essay on my experiences with this game as a kid. I can post it if you’re interested, but I didn’t want to bombard you with a few paragraphs out of nowhere.
I live for paragraphs, contrary to the message in the video. If they're on the Internet, I'm 10x more interested.
Regular Pat coming right up, I’ll paste it onto the main tree, so it’s easier to read
So my intro to kingdom hearts was actually through watching my grandma and my aunt play the games since I was five. My aunt would play the game while my grandma would read the guidebook, the exact guidebook you are looking at in this video.
It’s so nostalgic but sad for me to see that book. My grandma passed away a few years ago and my aunt hasn’t played the game since. I miss that old book marked up in highlighter. I miss helping my grandma read it when her eyesight got bad.
I attribute my love for kingdom hearts from my grandma and aunt. They made it so that these games were part of my entire life. And now I’m able to play through all the games and it makes me so very happy.
So I guess I just wanted to say thank you for making this video!
That joke about The Great Gatsby felt like a classic Scott the Woz bit.
A lot of his skits give me scott the woz vibes
@@bradenarcader1476 certainly his writing feels that way at least, but with an even more irreverent tone and a lot more dorkiness. I really love Pat's style of making videos, he's carved out a really good niche for himself, and at this point I'd probably be down for watching pretty much anything he puts out.
I never got the chance to play the game in 2002 when it came out because I didn't own a Playstation. One of my friends used to lend me this guide in class and I read it probably 20 times cover to cover! I was so happy when I got my hands on a PS2 so I could play the vanilla version like 16 years later! This is so nostalgic.
For anyone interested, PK is an AMAZING comic book series by a bunch of Disney artists from Italy who wanted to do a bunch of experimental cyberpunk stuff with Donald Duck. I highly recommend it. I think the English title is Duck Avenger.
And about the game, PK Out of the Shadows, that's sort of infamous among us fans, because as PK was becoming a massive success here in Italy, Disney decided to try and export it internationally, so they forced the authors to close down the series and to reboot it with a more "America-friendly" format, as well as a videogame to introduce new audiences to it.
WOW! I completely forgot about this strategy guide. Brings back so many memories! I invested hours into this strategy guide, just like I did playing KH1. Thank You So Much for Making This Video!
Nostalgic!
God I felt like I was the only person who cared this much about the KH1 strategy guide. Mine is also water-dipped and missing the Donald page!
The Yellow Opera "boss fight" will always be my favorite part of the video.
I remember sharing the stickers in the back with my friends as a keep sake for all of us........ None of us are friends anymore 😢
That ending segment was brilliant. I remember owning the guide to Pokemon Emerald and it having a similar effect on me.
Pokemon actually taught me the word "aplomb" and I don't I've ever needed to use it since then.
I find your commentary to be never lacking in intrigue and interest. Massive fan!
Broooo nostalgia. This was a real trip down memory lane.
Oh my god. I had this same book. So many memories of just looking at this back when I was a kid back in 2006/2007. As soon as I saw that selphie, wakka, and tidus page, I almost cried. I remember so much of this book. Oh my god.
Fun fact, this is what actually got me into Kingdom Hearts, my cousins were looking at this at our uncle’s house for a big family get-together. I saw Parasite Cage and Pinocchio and I thought it looked cool. I talked my dad’s ear off about it and he asked their dad if it was “appropriate” for me, and was told “yes.”
I was given the game when I was five years old. I sucked at it, but I still enjoyed the game.
For me it was the kh2 guide that I beat up going over it over and over and over. I loved these strategy guides so much
Yoooooooo!! My wife just played through KH1 for her first full time since childhood and I got to pull this bad boy out! I love it so much!
Thank you so much. I had such a terrible day at work and your hilarious self picks me up without fail every time.
rw:the Heartless lettering for each boss in that guide book was what i found interesting,i mean you can actually do the whole alphabet and do some lettering aswell and almost known for the guide to give us some tidbits on the "fun facts" for almost each character,also to top it all off people who wrote for the guide atleast they were able enough to tell us how we defeat sephiroth aswell and tbh this guide you have was the start for me to know all about the FINAL FANTASY series .
I just bought this strategy guide to see what I missed out on as a kid playing kh1- and it’s been a LIFESAVER, and a really sweet look into the past ;w;
Old video but I loved the strategy guide for KH1 as a kid. I first discovered KH1 when my uncles ex girlfriend (Not ex at the time) visited from out of state and brought KH1 and the guide with her. I loved watching her play the game and have vivid memories of Destiny Islands and Wonderland. She left both here, but it took me a few years to actually play the game for myself, but I feel like I remember reading through the strategy guide for fun before getting to play the game for myself, and used the guide my entire time through the game. KH then quickly became one of my favorite series of all time. Sometimes I wish I could tell my uncles ex that I love that series she showed me all those years ago, but there's no real way I can contact her that wouldn't be awkward, plus my uncle and his current wife would likely be very upset if I did that, so sadly it's best I don't...
Seeing that Fire Red and Leaf Green strategy guide brought back memories.
Wow! Even if the German version of the book is less black and without stickers (it was just simple and clean *badum tzz*), memories of my childhood came back. I'm only 2 years older than you and man we went both to that journey and it shaped our creativity. :3
Yes darren Shan Cirque du freake nice! And yes I used to love strategy guides growing up! They were just so much more than just a guide it made the world of the game feel so much more expanded and just drew you in even more!
had this guide as a kid too, wow the memories from seeing those pages
0:35 oh hey it's the strategy guide for Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
How did you not go into the fact that the guide's section on the Sephiroth boss fight lists his attack phrase as "Sin Harvest" instead of "Sin Heartless Angel"?
Seriously though, love your videos man. So incredibly relatable to all my thoughts on the series and my experiences growing up with it.
I never bought the guide, and I'm kicking myself for it, BUT I saw it and was like "oh, this is the game with that amazing song in the commercial" and the art was so cool, I loved looking at it in Borders. Yeah, I said Borders.
Looking at your Collection of Guidebooks i realized we had basically the same childhood and game tastes
Love the video👌 you have a wonderful way of explaining how amazing games like kingdom hearts are or how much hard work went into strategy guides like that one are. My friend had the 358 days strategy guide and it was sick so I'm glad to see their are still people out there who appreciate the little things like that and realize the value in them
Aslo I loved the random nicktoons unite reference lmao I got it for Christmas as a kid and lost my mind when I could play as Danny phantom
That Pokemon Player's Guide you show at @3:10 had stickers as well. My copy of that guide was to me what this KH1 guide was to you. I brought it everywhere and read it like a book until the cover fell off. But it had the same idea as the 99 puppy stickers where you'd put a Pokemon's sticker next to its entry in the dex after you caught it, but I just put the Scyther on my red Game Boy pocket.
I say if it made you cry or burst out in excitement it is a work of art
So cool. This was a good topic, I cant think of anyone else thats already done something like this. Strategy guides were the shit. We're about the same age so I can relate to pouring over the books with my friends in school. I remember bringing the Ocarina of Time, Starfox Adventures and Megaman X Command Mission ones specifically pretty often. Sadly I got rid of most of mine. The only ones I still have are the Zelda and Starfox ones I mentioned, Melee and OG Kingdom Hearts II, all purely for nostalgia.
Oh man a Melee guide?! Melee's like in my top 5, that's awesome. I have the one for Brawl, I think it's in the video for a sec, and it was...fine lol. They rank all of the characters and it's predictably and laughably off
@@RegularPat Same, Melee was so great. I gotta get my hands on Ultimate. Yeah Brawl had a lot of issues, balance being one of them lol
Spot on analysis man ('m just a tad younger than you and also fall into that weird Gen Z "cutoff" era ). The way you described generational curiosity and discovering the strategy guide hype was too real lol. Personally, my favorite aspect of the guide was meticulously scanning the boss sections.
Yeah I was personally obsessed with the character bios and everything in the front lol
This whole channel is like the Kingdom Hearts version of Cybershell
Subbed
Strategy guides just...hit different. I still have my KH Days/bbs guides.
oh my god seeing all your strategy guides just made me remember tak and the power of juju
On the topic of learning new words from KH... I remember back in 2009, I asked my mum what "Lea" meant. Saïx calls Axel that for the first time in 358/2 Days, so I had no idea that it was actually his real name and not some random word that he decided to use.
One of my favorite Regular Pat videos.
seeing this video made me bust out my super old kh1 manual and wow. manuals back in the day had such a certain scent to them. nostalgic for sure
Yes! My brother and I played KH and Dragon Quest 8 growing up, and we learned so many words like equipped, medicinal, etc.
KH also taught me how to write dialogue in a grammatically correct way. I also didn't read books growing up, and all of my creativity comes from the games I've played throughout my life.
i just felt nostalgia about a strategy guide that I never had, well in all honesty, I didn't even knew it existed up until now. well I guess that calls for a play-through of KH1 and KH2.
Your experience with KH1 and mine are so scarily similar. Even down to this guide (I had two as well one that got swallowed by a storm at grandpa's lol). I think that's why I like your content so much. Watching your videos inspired me to go back and do something I've literally never done in my 12+ playthroughs of the first game so today I beat The Phantom and The Ice Titan for the first time in my life and I dedicated both victories to you haha going for Sephiroth next who I've also never beaten.
I adored that guidebook, I’d bring it to school and read it so I could prepare myself for the next section of the game. Towards the end of its life there were pages ripped out, the cover was torn and stained, etc. I wish we had taken better care of it and I wish I still had all my old guidebooks
Oh my god that guidebook collection is enviable
Plus one just for the dubbed voice-over of Sora freaking about the (BOOK) left out in the storm
Two things that stick out to me in the guide are calling Kurt zisa the agrabah weapon and the misnomer of sin harvest
I really enjoyed this, I was 9 when the game was new and when I had this guide! Might go get a copy now for nostalgia haha
Glad you liked it! I ought to get my hands on a new copy myself, maybe one that's not missing the Donald page
I love the end bit about not reading books for fun or assigned for school but man did I read the shit out if my Breath of Fire 3 and Final Fantasy 7 strategy guides and even my mother and aunt were always like look at him always with his nose in those game books aww
Meanwhile my dad was like
WTF you havent read Brian's Winter and Stuart Little for summer reading yet?!
I bought this when I got my original copy of KH1 and a PS2 memory card in the used section at a Blockbuster in 2004. I still have most of whats left of it and use it to play KH1 to this day.
This strategy guide is one of my prized possessions!
I'm super late to comment on this but back then I loved reading through my guide of Pokemon G/S/C (even though it only covered the second half of the game ^^), looking at all the artwork and the detailed descriptions. The internet wasn't really around much back then, we certainly didn't have any at home. So I couldn't look this stuff up online.
The second part of the book had a walkthrough of Final Fantasy IX and while I never actually played the game even though I bought it like almost 2 decades later for my collection I was so intrigued by the cool bosses it had
I’ll never forget try to use the KH1 strategy guide for various required reading assignments in like 2nd grade
0:43 absolutely loved this joke
Video games, especially Kingdom Hearts are true art and literature!
Just found out your channel and I'm really enjoying this type of content. I'm from Spain and here we had a similar but different KH1 Strategy Guide but I share the same feelings you were talking about in this video, really nostalgic. I'm definitely subscribing for more of this :)
Video Games have drawn art in the form of character models and backgrounds, they have stories like books or movies, they have voice acting like tv or movies, they have soundtracks like movies.
If all of those individual pieces can be considered art then there’s no reason video games can’t be considered it either.
Fun fact: Each main title KH game cover depicts an important area from the next main title game. The KH1 cover shows The World That Never Was from KH2, also seen in the KH1 secret movie. The KH2 cover shows The Land of Sea and Sky from KH3. And KH3's cover seems to be depicting Shibuya which we expect to see in KH4.
5:18 I never noticed that thing about Riku. It reminds me of the cover art for Fire Emblem Awakening.
It shows the majority of the characters moving downward and the a character from the future instead moving upwards and it even hides other character pertinent visual cues (I'm looking at you Kellam)
I appreciate the takeaway of how games are also literature. I’m going for my degree in creative writing rn but it kinda feels weird being one of the few who isn’t really into books and prefers more visual forms of storytelling like movies, games, manga and anime. Anyways, it feels nice to know someone else views storytelling and the importance of it in other mediums like how I do.
Boke:
"Poorly cared for"
Woke:
"Well used and very loved"
I used to love reading the manuals that came in the box to learn about the characters or weapons or whatever
Honestly would love to see more of the drawings and notes from the rainstorm book.
I also started the series around age 7, my older brother and his friends would play the game while I watched. We had the guide also and we got PK out of the shadows. Took me about 3 years to beat as a kid. I beat it in under 2 hours when I was an adult.
Lol I didn't get a phone until 14. I remember the days before the internet.
One of my most prized possessions is a Game guide for Pokemon platinum by grandmother picked up for Christmas. I Didn't own a DS at the time, she just saw "pokemon" and got it. I fell off pokemon before i put any real time into the DS games. But that guide book like 700+ pages of a game i was half/half about is one of those, If my house is burning down im running in to get my dog, and that guide.
I'm younger than you and yet you remember your childhood much better than me lol. Being born early 2001 I'm not sure if I qualify for millennial status but I feel like I should through proxy because we were poor-ish so I grew up playing stuff a couple years after they came out and I have many memories of blockbuster and united video visits. I never did own a strategy guide I think, but I'm pretty sure they were around, the closest I came is my nan buying me those weird mini gaming magazines for kids that usually came with some cheap toy and the cheats for a newest lego game lol.
My man yeetus vanitas went all in on the personal deets so since we're all having a kingdom hearts to heart I'll share that I grew up without a father, and a mother who was depressed and trying her best not to kill herself (don't worry I'm not beat up about it lol, as odd as I'm sure that sounds to literally anybody else) and 3 brothers so there wasn't exactly a lot of money for extra stuff. I owe all of my gaming memories as a child to my nan who bought me a ps2 and probably thought Kingdom Hearts was a nice thing for a child to play since y'know Disney and all that. Basically while I wasn't fending for myself on the streets of New Zealand South Auckland I didn't really have a role model or anybody telling me what is or isn't wrong. And I can't exactly chronicle out my experience playing each Kingdom Hearts game for the first time since I don't remember all of it lol but I will say I think the Kingdom Hearts series, 1 and 2 in particular were one of the few sources I had growing up to actually teach me what it meant to be a good person, or what to really value.
This is all a verbose and messy way of saying I honestly believe a large part of who I am today is thanks to those games, like a weird nebulous parent who taught me the power of friendship and what really matters in life. I'm incredibly different from who I was back then (tends to happen when you triple the amount of hours you've spent living) but even today I still hold friendship and love as the most important things to me, and even when I'm depressed I always feel a hope in my heart that I will find what I strive for in life. Another way you could put it, is that the heart may be weak, and sometimes it may even give in, but thanks to Kingdom Hearts, I've learned that deep down there's a light that never goes out.
...Just went to watch the last KH1 cut-scenes again and I'm reminded by just how damn metaphorical that game's writing is lol. My favourite story in all of KH is a tough pick and I'm not sure it would go to KH1, but in terms of theming and messages it imparts to players it is second to none in my opinion. I'm going through a rough patch in my life at the moment and I wanna thank you for drawing my attention to this stuff again, I overthink things like the best of them but talking about Kingdom Hearts brings me back to what really matters, and reminds me that maybe, some things are that simple. Yes even when being serious about my life I can't resist turning it into a reference, it's a blessing and a curse.
Hey thanks for sharing, Jamie. People underestimate the power that games can have in influencing a young person's development in positive ways; people always either focus on the negative or manifest the negative when it's not there. Like I was saying in the vid, they have the potential to teach not just words, but in this case, even morals and values. Thanks again for sharing and I hope that rough patch smooths out.
@@RegularPat I agree, and yeah I'm pretty good at sharing, some may even say I over share but I swear I was only following other comment's suit! lol if you're not careful you're going to have to rebrand as the Kingdom Hearts themed therapy channel
@@fuchsia3538 Well at that point I might have to start charging lmao
I remember the Birth by Sleep guide straight up couldn’t give a strategy to defeating Mysterious Figure.
It gave a strategy that like afaik only one guy on youtube actually used (shotlocks) lmao
He read a series of unfortunate events
I like this guy more and more 👌
Great video, love the channel man!
That yellow Opera was a menace...
So many memories of having this guide xD
0:29 WII ARE THE CHAMPION
5:03 fully agree with that I even have a poster of kh1's cover picture