Analyzing Pleasure: A study of Kingdom Heart's Hollow Bastion

It is a rare moment of realization when you fall in love with something new. Such a time for me was when as a kid, I discovered at the foot of a Christmas tree my first ever game console in the PS2. With it came a weird game I had never heard about: Kingdom Hearts. Up until then, my experience with games had been limited to my Gameboy color and cereal-box discs running on the family computer. What I was about to discover would change my relationship with the medium of games forever.

From Kingdom Hearts, I always most specifically remembered the Hollow Bastion world. In this article, I will explore the narrative structure of this world from the lens of a model I created: Pleasure. This model and others like it can be found on the sidebar of my blog. Through it, I will explain why I feel this moment was able to leave such a deep impression on me for such a long time.

1. Framing

At this point, Hollow Bastion has been foreshadowed the entire game through visions and memories scattered like raindrops. It is a place shrouded in mystery where all plot-lines seem to converge. Maleficient and Riku who have been framed as the two main antagonists so far, are expected to be met there for a final showdown. The seven princesses of heart, whom it is the hero's duty to save, as well as Kairi, the hero's love interest and the reason why he set on an adventure, are also expected to be found in this world. Hollow Bastion is the first non-Disney world we encounter since the first few hours of the game, we know something major is going to happen here plot-wise. The music has a very distinct feel from anything we've felt before, anticipation is at its peak. This is the 11th hour.

The genius of Hollow Bastion though, lies in its ability to surprise us right from the start and subvert all expectations. Just a few minutes in, and we meet Riku, our rival. Ensues a cinematic in which the hero loses his weapon, the keyblade, mark of the 'chosen one'. Both of his companions then seemingly betray him to join the side of the newly chosen Keyblade-wielder. It is to be noted that friendship is a major theme of the game. The player is left without a weapon and without his friends before even having entered the castle. The message sent is clear: you are not prepared for what lies ahead, all predictions are thrown out the window. You should not expect to anticipate what is to come.

2. Challenge & Restriction

Having lost your weapon, your almost only means of dealing damage to enemies beyond simple magic, you come to rely on your newfound ally, Beast, to protect you in your exploration of the castle. Armed only with a wooden sword, it is reassuring to know that Beast is a quite formidable ally, considering that you are going to spend quite some time simply observing him maw down enemies. This comes in helpful, as just moving around Hollow Bastion is a challenge in and of itself, and the new enemies here are all significantly more challenging than those encountered in the game so far.

Initially unavailable pathways need to be unlocked by the player through story progression and puzzles. This helps frame the vast and complex level design into something more comprehensive at first. It seems to have been a good idea from the developers to have introduced areas progressively instead of giving them all to the player at once. This prevents the player from getting lost while still appreciating the expanse of hollow bastion and unlocking new zones also serves as a means of reward.

Enemies here are tough, and the environment makes them even more dangerous. Large shield-bearers block the narrow corridors while wiverns taunt you off precipices without ledges, requiring extreme precision to fight them. All enemies here have advanced defensive and offensive abilities that the player must learn to fight them effectively.

One interesting sequence in Hollow Bastion is the elevator/arena that you have to pass through once mid-way through the world. During this sequence, the player has to wait for the completion of a multi-part traversal while fighting multiple waves of enemies in a closed space. This is a nice way to create variety and change of pacing while providing a small peak in difficulty. As time compresses, tension expands.

3. Patterns & Repetition

Hollow Bastion is a maze. Not only that, it is a maze with puzzles. Simply moving around requires learning and mastery. As a player, you have to remember complex pathways and sequences of movement to make your way through the level. The puzzles and the huge size of the world compared to others make you stay here longer than in any other part of the game you've visited, which builds a real sense of familiarity at the end of it all, especially considering the player needs to come back to this world a second time after completing it once. It offers a type of engagement with the environment rarely seen elsewhere in the game.

4. Distractions

While a Disney-inspired game, Kingdom Hearts is notorious for its complex, some would say convoluted, storyline. Hollow Bastion is where it all becomes confusing. All plot threads converge in this place, surprises are given left and right, and it seems quite easy for the player to feel overwhelmed. Thankfully, ample time is given to them in-between reveals for them to take it all in and attempt to make sense of it. This is where the vastness of this world becomes a strength, it gives time for the player to think.

Traversing such a big world is not a bore though. While the player is not thinking about the plot, they can engage in completing exploration objectives, solving puzzles to advance and fighting. Unlike other worlds, there are no minigames to be found here, and there doesn't need to be to keep the head of the player busy. One thing to be noted as well is the effort put into creating amazingly beautiful environments for the era of the PS2. It is not hard to simply stop for a moment and take in the view.

5. Accumulation

The experience of Hollow Bastion is less about getting new things and more about getting back what you lost. Besides that, one can argue that unlocking access to the different zones of the level serves as a form of accumulation for that purpose.

This changes the second time the player visits hollow bastion. As part of the acknowledgment, the player is given new magic and multiple new weapons as a reward. In fact, the player obtains in a very short time-span 3 very powerful weapons, when usually they would only obtain 1 for completing a world.

6. Removal & Abstraction

Not only do we come to Hollow Bastion in search of things we have lost, but we keep losing what is most precious to us as we keep getting closer to the goal.

First we lose our trusted companions and unique weapon. This event sets the tone, what we are about to experience in this place goes beyond what we expected, and we were not prepared.

We progressively get back our friends and our weapon and are in the end confronted with the ultimate sacrifice during the scene of the climax.

7. Climax & Release

While Hollow Bastion as a whole could be considered the climax of the game in some aspects, the climax of Hollow Bastion itself gets even deeper.

The last stretch of the first visit to Hollow Bastion builds up with a series of 3 bosses which have so far been built as the main antagonists of the game: Maleficient, Maleficient in her epic dragon form, and then Riku, our rival since the beginning, possessed by the true villain of the game. This follows the traditional sequence of human villain > transformation into the monster > apotheosis of the villain, a beloved trope for good reason. Each of these fights are quite memorable and difficult. I remember struggling on them as a kid more than I had on any other boss fight in the game. This moment was the birth of the difficulty-seeking gamer in me.

Following the defeat of the 3rd and final boss, the hero is reunited with his love interest, lying unconscious on the floor. Then unfolds the scene that marked me forever: the true test of character for the hero, Sora, with a smile, stabs himself in the heart so that he could save his beloved. I won’t go explaining why this works in-universe, but it was quite an unexpected turn of events at this point in the game. Excitement and confusion mingled with revelation overwhelm the player in this instant. All predictions thrown out of the window and still the game is not near done.

What follows is a short sequence which serves as a great example of abstraction: The hero seemingly dead, the player now controls its avatar turned into a critter, moving around the world to find his way back to his friends to be turned human again. It is moments such as this that I qualify as 'spark' and 'challenge' in my Products model (see the sidebar on my blog). Rare moments of surprise that shatter your preconceived notions and turn your paradigms around. This moment is perfectly placed in Hollow Bastion as it gives space for the tension to descend and for the player to understand the recent unfolding of events without being challenged by fights, all the while providing a curious and surprising experience.

8. Aknowledgment

After being reunited with and saved by his friends. The hero leaves Hollow Bastion for now. The player enjoys a nice respite in a familiar other world, long cinematics create emotional catharsis for the quest of the hero, what has been accomplished so far and what remains to be done. The player is gifted a new weapon by his love interest before leaving: Oathkeeper, still my favourite Keyblade to this day for its narrative significance.

The player comes back to Hollow Bastion a second time for a short period to seal the deal. This time, with greater power and mastery of the environment, the player has gained confidence and feels less challenged, with better gear, and after learning enemy patterns and leveling up. After being rewarded even more weapons and new magic, the player makes his way to the last boss encounter of this world: a Behemoth, the largest creature in the game so far, visually impressive, yet not a very challenging fight as we are past the climax and just looking for conclusion.

Having defeated the beast, The hero seals the final seal and leaves Hollow Bastion to prepare going to the final world of the game from which there is no coming back.

Analysis of the narrative structure

After a long build-up throughout the game, Hollow Bastion surprises us right on entry. The removal of fighting capacity is a clever way to introduce a more complex environment and enemies than the player is used to. A great variety in the level design, environment, playing experience, fighting and cutscenes keeps the player engaged, expecting to be surprised and wanting to push further. The second visit to this world serves as a long acknowledgment of the mastery of the player over this at first overwhelming world, for which they are rewarded with greater gifts than anywhere else in the game and the completion of the personal objective of the boy-protagonist before becoming the man-hero that must save the world.

The 5 principles of creating Pleasure: Anticipation, Variety & Flow, Surprise, Growth & Learning, and Reward, are used with great mastery here. To this day, Hollow Bastion is still one of my favourite experiences in gaming.