Well, in the midst of the 2021 Winter Storm (where my hometown of Seguin got to see snow stick around since 1985), I was able to finally sit down and finish Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memories on my PS4. I even got excited to hear of the news of the Square Enix and Disney crossover video game series finally coming to PC via the Epic Games Store (through a partnership they had with them since the development of both Kingdom Hearts 2.8 and Kingdom Hearts III).
However, the most interesting news involving the series in general came out last year when it was announced that a Kingdom Hearts TV series was being developed for Disney+. Originally, after the success of the first game back in 2002, Disney tried to make an animated series but was cancelled during development. Now, it seems that Disney is letting Square Enix take a go at making a pilot with Epic Games' Unreal Engine.
Honestly, this really excites me, but also worries me. It's not uncommon for a popular JRPG series to get some animated adaptation. The same happened to several of Atlus' Persona games and to Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa. These series tend to tell the story of their adaptation very well, despite cutting around or changing a few things here and there. With Kingdom Hearts, this is definitely a horse of a different color.
Within the main Kingdom Hearts games, you travel to many recognizable worlds based off of different Disney movies while battling enemies. To adapt the entire game series into a television series will take multiple seasons and specials, which would be my first suggestion. Currently, there are around 11 games (which most have been put together into collections, either as full games or cut scene based movies, before the release of Kingdom Hearts III) in the series. There are games that are shorter than others, and many of the bigger games have very specific story elements that need to be kept. So, I suggest a full season for the longer games while giving the smaller games a special.
Though it's unknown how long it will be until we find out when we'll get that television series, we know for a fact to have one retell a major story line like the one told in the Kingdom Hearts series will take a lot of time to create. With Square Enix being heavily involved, I think we're in good hands for now. Meanwhile, while I wait, I may as well replay the series from the beginning once again.
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