Birth by Sleep: Future Masters, Shaded Truths, Terra, The Tumbling, Black Powder, Unbreakable Chains, Dismiss

Kingdom Hearts: Night of Fate, Shrouding Dark Cloud, A Very Small Wish, A Piece of Peace, Blast Away! -Gummi Ship III-, Scherzo Di Notte, End of the World

358/2 Days: Mystic Moon, Critical Drive, At Dusk, I Will Think of You..., Fight and Away, Vector to the Heavens, Another Side -Battle Ver.-, Dearly Beloved -KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 Days Version-

Chain of Memories: Struggle Away, Just Wondering, Piccolo Resto, The Fight for My Friends, Destiny Islands, Scythe of Petals, Lord of the Castle

Kingdom Hearts II: Lazy Afternoons, Cloudchasers, The Encounter, Sinister Shadows, The Other Promise, Riku, Darkness of the Unknown

Dream Drop Distance: TWISTER -KINGDOM MIX-, Rinzler Recompiled, L'Oscurità dell'Ignoto, The Dread of Night, L'Impeto Oscuro, My Heart's Descent, The Eye of Darkness

Coded: Dearly Beloved -KINGDOM HEARTS Re:coded Version-, On the Debug!!, Wonder of Electron, No More Bugs!!, Wonder of Electron -Bug Ver.-, No More Bugs!! -Bug Ver.-, Pretty Pretty Abilities

Kingdom Hearts III: Heart of Mystery, Shrouding Dark Cloud -Gigas Blast-, Anger Unchained, The Encounter -Metal Charge-, Aqua -Dark Dive-, Dive into the Heart -Destati- (Third Revival), Dark Domination

Re:Mind: Cavern of Remembrance -KINGDOM HEARTS III Version-, The 13th Dilemma -Xigbar-, The 13th Struggle -Luxord-, L'Impeto Oscuro -Young Xehanort-, Vector to the Heavens -Xion-, Link to All -Lights of Destiny-, and last, but ultimately not least, Nachtflügel!

Growing up with this series has been part of what has shaped me into the person I am today. I could talk your head off for hours about both the high points and low points of this franchise, and you'd easily assume all I like is Kingdom Hearts.

Untrue as that may be, it still is the thing that is, funnily enough, closest to my heart. It is a constant that has remained unchanging, a joy that can help me in my worst moments because of what it has been for me. It's been more than just a game, it's been an experience I can re-live whenever I so please, even more so now that the entirety of it (minus Melody of Memory, for some reason) lives on in my Steam library.

I have been with these games since the first game released in March of 2002 (granted, I likely obtained it around 2003-2004 as I was but a wee babe at the time, but it was surely before the release of Kingdom Hearts II which was in 2005) on the PlayStation 2, the console that kickstarted my obvious addiction to gaming. As someone who is autistic, my special interest is and always has been this series, but it was the gateway into a multitude of other types of games. You may note that a chunk of my games are singleplayer hack-'n'-slashes, as those, relative to Kingdom Hearts, are my favorite genre.

But that's not necessarily defining why I love this series so much, only telling how long it's been with me. However, the fact that it's always been something I can go back to and experience again and again as I get older, rediscovering how themes in them make me feel and even new views on it entirely has been a journey that only this series has accomplished.

And luckily, I have a great group of friends who have put up with my obnoxious ramblings. They hear me as I go on and on about the things I love and the things I despise about these games - from their mechanics and design philosophies to the expansive and no longer simple but originally clean story. As I said, I could go on and on, but this would get far too long far too fast. Just take my word for it when I say just this one thing, the thing that makes it so that the rest of this wasn't even necessary: