It's a bit hard to believe that Kingdom Hearts 1 is already over fourteen years old. Although I no longer follow the series (too many sequels on consoles I don't own) I am still fond of the original game. I want to share some memories regarding this classic with all of you.
I grew up on 90's Disney. I was a HUGE fan of Mulan, Tarzan, Lion King, Hunchback of Notre Dame (sans the gargoyles) and Hercules. Likewise, after 1997, I was addicted to Final Fantasy. I had played Final Fantasy 7 like a hundred times, and Final Fantasy Tactics just as many. I was hooked. One particular day I discover a commercial for a video game I had never heard of, one called Kingdom Hearts. I was perplexed by the game; an RPG with Disney characters? Who comes up with an idea like that?
And then the commercial showed, for but a tenth of a second, an image of a character I knew quite well. It was a character from the game that helped define my tween years (ages 11-13) that I had so obsessed over in my youth. It was mother fucking SEPHIROTH. He was there for a tenth of a second, flashing by so fast that you could have missed him if you blinked. But he was there. And my sixteen year old self became so fucking HYPED for that game, I started counting the days till I could get it.
The original Kingdom Hearts commercial is an example of marketing done right. The commercial doesn't tell you how the game plays, but it DOES tell you ALL you need to know to get hyped: this game has Disney characters, there's some Final Fantasy in there, and it's made by Squaresoft, one of the most respected game companies in the world. The song was memorable, a perfect ear worm that is both soothing as well as mysterious.
The brilliance that was the original Kingdom Hearts was neatly summed up in 20 seconds of footage: it's a pastiche of Disney and Final Fantasy, an idea so ridiculous on paper that NO ONE would think it would work. And yet it did, birthing one of the best selling video game franchises of the 21st century.
I did some thinking, and I finally concluded what Kingdom Hearts did that made its commercial so memorable. It's the familiarity; most anyone knows at least some of the moderns Disney characters, such as Genie from Aladdin or Simba from Lion King, which both appear not just in the game, but in the commercial as well. Second, the commercial takes special care to show not just modern Disney, but classic Disney as well: Donald Duck and Goofy appear, Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, Dumbo, and Bambi all make appearances in the commercial.
It's no surprise that Sephiroth was the sole Final Fantasy character shown in the commercial; not only are the number of Final Fantasy characters in the game minimal compared to the Disney characters, but in all honesty, few people outside of gaming know what Final Fantasy even is. But Disney, that's something most people know; in fact, Disney has been a part of millions of people's childhoods for over 80 years!
That's the brilliance of the Kingdom Hearts commercial right there: putting the Disney front and center ensures that the game will get the right attention. But showing off the original footage, of fire blasts, dark magic, and young boys fighting, also ensures that RPG core audience will know that this is no fluffy game, just because it has Disney in it. All in all, the commercial made the game seem appealing to the widest audience possible.
And that's why this commercial is the best video game commercial of all time: it told people what the game was about, got them hyped for it, and appealed to as wide an audience as possible. Game developers, take notes!
And then the commercial showed, for but a tenth of a second, an image of a character I knew quite well. It was a character from the game that helped define my tween years (ages 11-13) that I had so obsessed over in my youth. It was mother fucking SEPHIROTH. He was there for a tenth of a second, flashing by so fast that you could have missed him if you blinked. But he was there. And my sixteen year old self became so fucking HYPED for that game, I started counting the days till I could get it.
The original Kingdom Hearts commercial is an example of marketing done right. The commercial doesn't tell you how the game plays, but it DOES tell you ALL you need to know to get hyped: this game has Disney characters, there's some Final Fantasy in there, and it's made by Squaresoft, one of the most respected game companies in the world. The song was memorable, a perfect ear worm that is both soothing as well as mysterious.
The brilliance that was the original Kingdom Hearts was neatly summed up in 20 seconds of footage: it's a pastiche of Disney and Final Fantasy, an idea so ridiculous on paper that NO ONE would think it would work. And yet it did, birthing one of the best selling video game franchises of the 21st century.
I did some thinking, and I finally concluded what Kingdom Hearts did that made its commercial so memorable. It's the familiarity; most anyone knows at least some of the moderns Disney characters, such as Genie from Aladdin or Simba from Lion King, which both appear not just in the game, but in the commercial as well. Second, the commercial takes special care to show not just modern Disney, but classic Disney as well: Donald Duck and Goofy appear, Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, Dumbo, and Bambi all make appearances in the commercial.
It's no surprise that Sephiroth was the sole Final Fantasy character shown in the commercial; not only are the number of Final Fantasy characters in the game minimal compared to the Disney characters, but in all honesty, few people outside of gaming know what Final Fantasy even is. But Disney, that's something most people know; in fact, Disney has been a part of millions of people's childhoods for over 80 years!
That's the brilliance of the Kingdom Hearts commercial right there: putting the Disney front and center ensures that the game will get the right attention. But showing off the original footage, of fire blasts, dark magic, and young boys fighting, also ensures that RPG core audience will know that this is no fluffy game, just because it has Disney in it. All in all, the commercial made the game seem appealing to the widest audience possible.
And that's why this commercial is the best video game commercial of all time: it told people what the game was about, got them hyped for it, and appealed to as wide an audience as possible. Game developers, take notes!
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