Has there ever been a better mix of contrasting elements as pineapple and cheese? On one hand we have the lovely creaminess of everyone’s favourite dairy product (and those who disagree are plain wrong), whilst on the other there’s the tangy, juicy piece of pineapple to add a bit of zing. The bods at Square Enix and Disney have obviously been attended plenty of finger buffets recently, as taking inspiration from all this cocktail stick loveliness they’ve decided to throw together some of their most loved characters in one video game.

Whilst not being quite sure which is pineapple and which is cheese, the blend of the two initially seemed a little strange when the first media of the game began to leak out from Japan some time ago. Would the game be a true RPG with Mickey and crew joining up with Cloud, Squall and the like for some turn-based battling? Perhaps an adventure game with Zidane and Tidus hopping about in Neverland trying to fight Captain Hook? What we’ve actually ended up with is a game made up of both genres, with a whole bunch of famous characters and locations for people to explore.

The game starts on the Destiny Isles with the game’s hero, Sora, being invited by his friends Riku and Kairi to help build a raft to leave for new shores. During the night, a huge storm envelopes the island and the three friends are enveloped by darkness, at which point Sora receives a mysterious sword called the Keyblade. He awakens in a new world and meets Goofy and Donald Duck, at which point he must journey to find out the significance of his new weapon and his role in saving the world from a terrible menace.

To achieve this, you have to control your band of three heroes across a range of different Disney worlds to free them from the aforementioned mischief and advance the plot. Throughout your time with Sora and co you’ll visit Tarzan’s jungle, Aladdin’s Agrabah and Halloween Town from Nightmare Before Christmas amongst others, each giving you the option to use the hero of each area as a member in your team. The range of different venues and characters is a joy to behold, and even the most stonehearted of gamers will be able to afford themselves a grin now and again.

Controlling Sora is primarily an adventure-styled process, with enemies being fought in real-time via hammering the X button to slash away with your weapon, or using one of the other buttons to cast spells that you’ve assigned to them. Goofy and Donald are controlled by AI throughout, with the former being a traditional warrior and the slightly camp duck being a mage. Although you can alter the tendency to attack and defend, you’ll soon come to realise that Sora is the main damage dealer and the others will tend to die depressingly frequently, leaving you to either revive them or fight it out alone.

The fighting itself is initially quite exciting and fulfilling, but quickly is starts to become somewhat of a bore. This is made all the more of a problem by the sheer amount of enemies dotted around, leaving you no option but to hack and slash your way around to get from one location to another. By introducing magic and then summons it’s obvious that Square tried to implement a tactical element in the combat, but it still comes down to being a task to see how quickly you can press various buttons to continually slash at your foes.

If we’re going to be negative, another point of disappointment is the inclusion of the Gummi Ship stages in the game. These transpire during the points where the player is shuttling Sora, Donald and Goofy from one Disney world to another, and attempt to introduce somewhat of a Lylat Wars element to the game. Instead, each stage is hugely easy, and can be completed with even the basic Gummi Ship, which is something that makes the whole option to customise it and build your own somewhat superfluous. These stages break up the game in what is a rather unwanted manner, and soon you’ll find yourself sitting in front of them wishing the tedium was over so you could get back to some adventuring.

Buy hey, that’s enough of the bad stuff. Despite the above points, Kingdom Hearts is still a good game. The story twists its way through a number of scenes, cleverly using both Final Fantasy and Disney characters to weave an intriguing plot. Talking of characters, there’s also plenty of cameos from a number of our favourite Final Fantasy chaps and chapettes along the way too, with Sora coming across Squall and Yuffie to name but two. Meeting up with them is a pleasing moment for Final Fantasy fans, although the voice acting some are given perhaps doesn’t quite fit in with how you imagined each to sound.

In true Square fashion, the quest is also littered with side adventures for you to undertake. The two foremost of these are the Coliseum and 100-Acre Wood, with a cast of Hercules and Winnie The Pooh characters smattered across each as appropriate. Whilst the former sees you battling against a number of often familiar opponents in order to win a selection of fighting tournaments, the latter sees players picking up torn pages from a story book as they fly across the world on their quest, which allows them to interact with a chapter and help Pooh find his friends.

You can’t help but enjoy Kingdom Hearts, really. There’s so much vibrancy and care in each different area of the game that you’ll soon overlook the repetitive combat and the insipid flying sections. Advancing through the game and finding the wide variety of familiar characters and settings is a thoroughly pleasurable experience, and the vivid, Disney-gone-three-dimensional graphics mixed with a mixture of Disney and Final Fantasy tunes is a warm, welcoming game environment.

It’ll last you, too. There’s easily 20 hours to be had with Kingdom Hearts, and if you decide to undertake all the optional quests you’ll be adding at least another 5 to that. With a sequel already planned and a number of spin-offs also in the works, this could very well be the first in a sweeping, epic series of collaborations between two of the most creative companies in the world. With a little bit of polish and tweaking, it could be every bit as good as anything either have released to date.