Nyheter
Is Donald Good at Healing in Kingdom Hearts? An Investigation
S
Sarah LeBoeuf
The Kingdom Hearts series puts players in the oversized shoes of Sora, an original character who finds himself on a journey between worlds like Aladdin’s Agrabah and Winnie the Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood. He’s joined by a couple of familiar faces in Royal Knight Goofy and Wizard Mage Donald Duck, who serve a kingdom ruled by none other than Mickey Mouse. Since its 2002 debut, Kingdom Hearts has always left players with more questions than answers: What the heck does Kingdom Hearts mean? How did a spiky-haired kid from a remote island get wrapped up in this dimension-hopping mystery? And is it just me, or is Donald Duck really terrible at his job?
A Brief History of Donald Duck in Kingdom Hearts“We weren't all collectively hallucinating,” said Kingdom Hearts expert Alexa Ray Corriea. “Donald is, in fact, bad at his assigned job.”
As the author of Boss Fight Books’ Kingdom Hearts II, Corriea quite literally wrote the book on the Kingdom Hearts sequel, which launched in most territories in 2006 after an excruciating—or so we thought at the time—four-year wait. (It would be another 13 years before Kingdom Hearts III saw the light of day.)
But let’s back up a bit. Arguably one of the most recognizable fictional characters in the history of media, Donald Duck made his first appearance as Mickey Mouse’s buddy and comedic foil in the early 1930s. Prone to temper tantrums and incomprehensible rants, Donald’s distinct personality only grew over the course of hundreds of film and TV appearances. He even starred in a number of video games throughout the 1980s and 1990s, such as Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers.
Then came Kingdom Hearts, which reimagined the everyman Donald Duck as a court wizard and loyal servant to his king, Mickey Mouse. Though Donald can cast a variety of magical spells, his primary function in battle isas a healer who’s ostensibly supposed to keep Goofy and Sora alive. Whether or not he’s actually good at his job has been a matter of debate for over 20 years.
Despite the magical makeover, one thing remained constant: Donald’s attitude. The original game manual describes the duck as “A feisty, impatient magician,” though Corriea uses slightly different words to describe him.
“I don't know who hurt Donald or if Nomura has some certain feelings about Donald,” she said, but she admitted that she "cannot begin to fathom" why he’s so cantankerous throughout the series.
Cam Hawkins, on the other hand, has fonder feelings for Mr. Duck. As the creator of the Unlocking Kingdom Hearts podcast, which he co-hosts with Corriea, Hawkins has spent a considerable amount of time playing the games in the series and analyzing their content.
“I like Donald. He's a hothead, but he cares about his friends more than anything at the end of the day, and that's what matters to me,” Hawkins said.
So how can two of the series’ biggest supporters and content creators hold such night-and-day opinions on one of its star characters? As it turns out, this is a common theme.
The Donald Debate: Bad AI or User Error?Now we come to the crux of the Donald issue: Is he actually bad at healing? This appears to be the most polarizing question among the entire Kingdom Hearts playerbase, and considering how convoluted some of the running storylines have gotten, that’s an impressive feat. In a very un-scientific Twitter poll conducted in early June 2023, I asked my followers how they felt about Donald Duck in Kingdom Hearts. I was surprised to find that the responses were almost evenly split between “He’s an excellent healer” and “rarely does his job,” with the former just barely edging out the latter.
This split is amplified throughout the far corners of the Kingdom Hearts fandom. Hawkins stated that even though he’s “ride-or-die Goofy,” he further stated: “I will have Donald in my party simply because he can heal me. Sorry Goofy, I still love you more.” Corriea, on the other hand, opined the following: “He's bad at healing. He takes too long, or fires off too late, or his AI makes him prioritize casting offense over healing.”
Donald’s artificial intelligence programming lies at the heart of this debate. Players can customize his actions to a degree; they can choose whether to prioritize offensive or defensive magic, or load his inventory with potions so he always has healing tools on hand. Whether or not that customization improves Donald’s performance is another story entirely. Corriea’s opinion is clear: “I have never been able to rely on Donald for healing in any Kingdom Hearts game, full stop.”
Issues with the supporting characters’ AI were noted as far back as 2002, and Goofy hasn’t been exempt from criticism, either. In a GameSpot review of the first game published in September 2002, reviewer Greg Kasavin wrote, “It's nice having company throughout most of the game, but these two (and the others who'll join you) are basically there just to draw some of the enemies' attacks away from you and provide occasional healing. You can customize their behavior in battle, but you'll still often have to fend for yourself.”
Of course, that was over 20 years ago. Video games have evolved significantly since then, allowing for much more complex design and AI. Surely, Donald must have improved over the course of the past two decades—right?
A Duck’s ProgressionEven in an industry where games can take many years to develop, the wait for the third core game in the Kingdom Hearts series was exceptionally long. Kingdom Hearts III was first teased at Sony’s E3 2013 press conference, and as someone who was in the room where it happened, I can testify that the immediate response was one of overwhelming excitement. Of course, if we’d known then that it would be another six years before the threequel saw the light of day, the response might have been more muted.
That’s not to say that the series was dormant in the decade-plus between the second and third numbered games. Square Enix released a number of spin-offs, a Japan-only browser game, a now-defunct mobile game, and “remixes” that bundled together remastered collections of the various entries. But as longtime Kingdom Hearts fans know, it’s just not the same, which made Kingdom Hearts III one of the most anticipated games of the 2010s.
In the lead-up to Kingdom Hearts III, which was released in January 2019, series creator Tetsuya Nomura addressed the technological advances made possible on newer hardware, including the supporting characters’ AI. “In terms of AI, Donald and Goofy will be acting more upon their own thoughts in various situations, while better reflecting their own personalities. I believe that you’ll feel a major step up from past Kingdom Hearts games up until now,” he told Siliconera in October 2013. Almost five years later, GameSpot reported that Kingdom Hearts III would have “more intricate enemy AI,” which didn’t directly address the Donald problem, but indicated that progress had been made.
Did these efforts pay off? As with everything related to Kingdom Hearts, the answer depends on who you ask. According to Game Informer, KHIII redeemed the heroic duck, taking him from “punchline” to “actually useful on the battlefield.”
“Watching Donald perform his grand magic made me appreciate his role on the team more than I did in previous games, and it made me forgive those fleeting moments where he couldn’t heal me,” Game Informer’s Hunter Wolfe wrote in February 2019. The article praises Donald’s new set of skills, which included “three flashy attacks” that devastate enemies. These attacks are useful, but are Donald’s days as a healer gone? Not according to Hawkins.
“I thought he was well-balanced leading up to Kingdom Hearts III,” he said. “Also, you can choose how often he uses his different types of magic.” However, with that said, Hawkins did admit that Donald had problems in the past. “You could definitely tell in Kingdom Hearts III that Square Enix heard fans' outcry and made Donald much more aggressive as a healer. If Sora's health was even remotely low and Donald had the ability to heal, he would.”
Of course, Corriea disagrees, even joking that Donald’s shortcomings were put there to troll fans. “Part of me thinks this was a mistake in KH1 and 2, and then everyone talked about it so much the developers just kept it, and now it's part of his personality,” she said.
Perhaps the problem is that Donald haters need to collectively level up their skills. “I think the harder the difficulty you play, the more useful he becomes because he can heal,” Hawkins explained. Though he did later add the following: “He can also die a lot easier on Proud or Critical difficulties, so it is definitely a risk regardless.”
The Future of Kingdom Hearts (and Donald Duck)Twenty-one years after Kingdom Hearts brought together classic Disney icons, Final Fantasy characters, and an original RPG storyline like something out of my dream journal, the Donald debate shows no signs of abating. Countless forum discussions have been waged over the years, with fan sentiment seemingly equally split between praising Donald and condemning him. Square Enix announced Kingdom Hearts IV in April 2022, which was somewhat surprising, given the lengthy wait for KHIII. Though a release date is still presumably a long way off, it’s never too early to speculate about the next numbered game in the series, and what it might mean for Donald Duck.
“I think if he only has healing and elemental magic that's fine, as long as there is a good variety of team-up attacks with Sora and Goofy to make combat more diverse,” Hawkins said.
It should come as no surprise that Corriea’s opinion is pretty much the exact opposite: “Let's get Chip and Dale out here or something. Goofy can stay though.”
Though he hasn’t addressed what (if any) changes will be made to Donald’s abilities in Kingdom Hearts IV, Tetsuya Nomura is definitely looking at fan feedback—even when it contradicts itself. As he told Game Informer in 2022: “For example, in Kingdom Hearts II we introduced the reaction command system. I felt like fans didn't take to it well, and it wasn't that popular. So in Kingdom Hearts III, we took that system out, but then fans said, 'Why’d you take it out?' So now we’re considering bringing it back in Kingdom Hearts IV.”
So, to cap off a long-winded answer to our initial question: Is Donald Duck bad at healing? We’ll let Square Enix have the final say: “You can rely on Donald to cast a much-needed Cure spell and bring you back up to fighting strength… OK, let’s be honest, you can’t always rely on it, but when it happens, you’ll feel such a wave of relief that you’ll feel nothing but appreciation for the marvelous magical mallard.”
If the announcement trailer is any indication, Donald will continue to play a significant role alongside Sora in Kingdom Hearts IV, but there’s no telling when that will be. As one commenter joked: “2050 is going to be one hell of a year.”
You can get caught up on the Kingdom Hearts series so far on the Epic Games Store. Meanwhile, the wait for KHIV continues.