Spread out across over two decades and many different consoles, there are many Kingdom Hearts titles out there, and those who have played them all will understand their quality can vastly fluctuate between each title. Yet, despite this, the series continues to be incredibly popular.
While each game tells its own story, they all contribute to the main overarching narrative to the series and include details that only enrich your understanding of the complete tale. However, the gameplay often differs between titles, giving you a different experience within each entry despite them all sharing the Kingdom Hearts emblem.
Updated March 22, 2023 by Rebecca Phillips: The Kingdom Hearts series shows no signs of stopping any time soon. As you patiently wait for more news of Missing Link and Kingdom Hearts 4, why not take a trip down memory lane to revisit the highs and lows of the series so far? We've updated this list to include games that missing from the original article.
12 Kingdom Hearts: Melody Of Memory
- Release date: October 14, 2020
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC
- Campaign: Roughly 9 hours
Melody of Memory is a rhythm game that takes you on a musical memory lane of the journey so far. It's narrated by Kairi and retells the events of the series up to Kingdom Hearts 3. If you're a fan of rhythm games and the soundtrack of the KH series, you'll enjoy the game, but it doesn't have much else to offer.
However, the game does include exclusive cutscenes that hint at how Sora will be found after his disappearance at the end of KH3. As is tradition for the series, essential information is hidden within a seemingly unimportant game, so even if you're not all that into rhythm games, it's still worth searching up these cutscenes.
11 Kingdom Hearts Union X
- Release date: July 18, 2013
- Platforms: Android, iOS, Fire OS
- Campaign: Roughly 20 hours
While some Kingdom Hearts games have launched on some questionable platforms in the past, now almost all of them can be played on one console. The exception, however, is Kingdom Hearts Union X. Releasing it as a mobile game simply cannot be forgiven for most. Like most mobile games, Union X is largely considered a cash-grab that focuses on draining wallets over interesting gameplay. It's also widely considered the worst Kingdom Hearts game.
Players that have slogged through all 800-something quests are then drip-fed the essential story updates every few months to keep them playing. In the meantime, they are offered nothing but repetitive filler missions and a constantly shifting meta that forces you into spending your money if you hope to keep up.
10 Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded
- Release date: October 7, 2010
- Platforms: Nintendo DS
- Campaign: Roughly 16 hours
With arguably the most uninteresting story in the series, Re:Coded features a data version of Sora who essentially replays the majority of events that transpired in the first game. The story is almost entirely inconsequential and does little to advance the overall narrative of the series. It also bears what can be seen as a detriment being initially limited to mobile.
Re:Coded was first released episodically as a Japanese exclusive before being remade for a wider audience on the DS. However, it was only the cutscenes from this game that made it to the remastered PS4 collection. Without any gameplay to supplement the repetitive and uneventful story, it quickly becomes a chore to sit through, and struggles to hold a candle to the standards of the other Kingdom Hearts titles. That said, it does have the line, "Mickey! It's Riku. They put bugs in him!" so there's always a silver lining.
9 Kingdom Hearts UX Dark Road
- Release date: 18 July 2013
- Platforms: Android, iOS
- Campaign: 40
For a mobile game, Dark Road has a lot of content. It also gives you a completely new insight into the origin story of the series' main villain, Xehanort. You play as Xehanort in his youth at Scala ad Caelum, where he, alongside young Eraqus, must search for the Lost Masters. As you traverse across various Disney worlds, Xehanort begins to question his alignment with the light and looks towards darkness.
Dark Road's strengths lie in its story and unique perspective — before this, Xehanort was somewhat of a mysterious figure, with little known about who he was before his fall to darkness. This game has a great story to tell — it's just a shame it's trapped within a mobile game and microtransactions.
8 Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
- Release date: May 30, 2009
- Platforms: Nintendo DS
- Campaign: Roughly 27 hours
In a similar fashion to Re:Coded, 358/2 Days was cinematically remade for the PS4 and excluded any gameplay. However, unlike Re:Coded, it had an interesting story that was actually important and necessary to understanding a lot of what happens in Kingdom Hearts 2. The only downside was that — for some reason — it was released after Kingdom Hearts 2.
Giving you control of Roxas and fighting alongside members of Organization XIII, instead of against them, was a fun and exciting concept. But this was let down by the repetitive and lengthy missions. The usual fluid, fast-paced combat of previous titles also failed to translate over to the clunkier handheld Nintendo DS. Despite this, the characters and story of 358/2 Days are its saving grace, and the cutscene movie is still just as moving.
7 Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
- Release date: March 29, 2012
- Platforms: Nintendo 3DS
- Campaign: Roughly 23 hours
The Kingdom Hearts series often gets a bad rap for its story being totally devoid of all comprehension and with Dream Drop Distance, this is very much the case. It’s as though the developers didn’t want to risk the story becoming too easy to understand, and so to cement its reputation as a convoluted mess, stretched the boundaries of its coherency with this game.
On top of the bizarre story, there are near-forced interactions with the Dream Eater companions, completely ruining its pacing, which was already difficult enough to keep track of. However, Dream Drop Distance does offer a lot of fun gameplay, but the gameplay alone is not enough to carry the game.
6 Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories
- Release date: March 29, 2007
- Platforms: PS2, PS3, PS4
- Campaign: Roughly 23 hours
The second installment in the Kingdom Hearts series, Chain of Memories saw the greatest departure in terms of gameplay from all other titles, introducing a real-time, card-based battle system. This came as a massive shake-up from the usual free-flowing combat and can be difficult to come to grips with, but once it's figured out, it makes for a uniquely fun and challenging way of fighting.
The story of Chain of Memories is also a good one, introducing a lot of important new characters, being Sora’s first clash with Organization XIII, and setting up for Kingdom Hearts 2. You're also able to take control of Riku for an entirely separate storyline. However, the game’s biggest flaw was again its repetitiveness. It offers no new worlds and its two separate stories are stretched out between revisits to these same worlds. Playing them back-to-back quickly becomes a chore.
5 Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth By Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage
- Release date: January 12, 2017
- Platforms: PS4
- Campaign: Roughly 3 hours
Essentially a prologue for Kingdom Hearts 3, Birth by Sleep — A Fragmentary Passage returned the series to the familiar, fluid combat system of the mainline titles. But this was made even more enjoyable thanks to the graphics and visual effects, which had been elevated to a truly stunning level never before associated with the series.
While most playthroughs only taking around three to four hours, making A Fragmentary Passage undoubtedly the shortest game of the series, yet it still manages to deliver a compelling story that’s meaningful to the entirety of the series.
4 Kingdom Hearts
- Release date: March 28, 2002
- Platforms: PS2
- Campaign: Roughly 29 hours
Despite having the difficult job of blending Disney with Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts kicked the series into gear with an incredible first entry. It opened up fantastic worlds filled with immediately recognizable and relatable characters, all while telling what is probably the most concise story in the series.
For a game that launched in 2002, Kingdom Hearts holds up extremely well. The design of the small worlds does an excellent job of making them seem bigger than they actually are, although at the expense of being perplexingly difficult to navigate. But with a combat system way ahead of its time, and being able to utilize it against classic Disney villains and the instantly-iconic Heartless, this was a game unlike any other. It remains one of the best Kingdom Hearts games.
3 Kingdom Hearts 3
- Release date: January 25, 2019
- Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC
- Campaign: Roughly 29 hours
The incredible visual spectacle and the sheer amount of fun packed into Kingdom Hearts 3 gives it the edge over the first Kingdom Hearts. This game is simply beautiful to behold; the worlds are crafted with as much detail as the Disney and Pixar films they originate from and are some of the best realizations of a movie in a video game to date.
But, with that said, the Kingdom Hearts series has become a victim of its own design. Many of the games suffer from attempting to tie in the story it wants to tell with the narrative of the vibrant Disney worlds. Where the gameplay excels, the story falls short. There’s a distinct lack of meaningful story moments or boss fights throughout the game until you reaches its closing stages. The Re Mind DLC added more to the game, including additional story content and bosses, which helps to elevate KH3 to further heights than it achieved at launch.
2 Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep
- Release date: January 9, 2010
- Platforms: PSP
- Campaign: Roughly 30 hours
The highly gripping, emotional, and surprisingly dark story told by Birth by Sleep makes this game stand out from the rest. Playing as three new characters, you explore worlds set before the events of all other Kingdom Hearts titles, granting a lot of answers while also creating its fair share of questions. The game also shares one of the most heartfelt scenes throughout the entire series.
As you journey through Birth by Sleep and experience the stories of all three characters, the same worlds will be revisited each time. However, the game does exceptionally well to avoid repetition by exploring different areas, fighting different enemies, unlocking unique character-specific abilities, and each time revealing more of the games’ poignant story.
1 Kingdom Hearts 2
- Release date: December 22, 2005
- Platforms: PS2
- Campaign: Roughly 32 hours
While the original release of this game in 2005 may not have ranked as highly, it has since been vastly improved upon with the heaps of post-game content and improvements introduced with the Final Mix version.
Unlike any game, Kingdom Hearts 2 is not without its flaws, but all are easily overlooked. With characters that are easy to become attached to, some of the greatest villains and boss fights throughout the entire series, and a combat system that takes everything from the first game and doubles down, Kingdom Hearts 2 remains the pinnacle of the series so far.