What Kingdom Hearts games are canon?

The Kingdom Hearts series spans a long line of games from the PS2’s Kingdom Hearts to the rhythm-action game Melody of Memory. However, are all these Kingdom Hearts games canon?

Is every Kingdom Hearts game canon?

Almost every Kingdom Hearts game is canon, including the main entries, spin-offs and recent mobile entries. In fact “spin-offs” like Birth By Sleep and 358/2 Days from the PSP and DS should be considered important titles in the series. If you don’t play them, Kingdom Hearts 3‘s storyline will confuse you, especially towards the end.

The HD collections include almost every entry in the series. They let you catch up on the deep storyline of the franchise. The DS games 358/2 Days and Re: Coded have a movie adaptation instead of full-on gameplay. You do get a rough overview of the events with a movie that takes place in Kingdom Hearts: Unchained X‘s storyline in the 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue set. However, they don’t give a full overview of what occurs in prior mobile titles. Hopefully, that gets solved in the future as those games aren’t playable anymore.

Even the rhythm-based Melody of Memory leads up to the events of Kingdom Hearts 4 as Kairi searches her memories for answers on how to find Sora. Riku makes an important decision at the end of the game, for example, so it’s essential to play despite the drastic gameplay change.

Even the DLC Kingdom Hearts 3 Re Mind is important to play. It gives us more details about what happens to Sora and lets you explore Scala Ad Caelum, the main world prevalent in the upcoming Kingdom Hearts: Missing Link. The DLC also has us take on a new mysterious antagonist named Yozora, voiced by Dylan Sprouse (Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Beautiful Disaster).

Which Kingdom Hearts game isn’t canon?

The only Kingdom Hearts game that doesn’t take place in the series is the often-forgotten Kingdom Hearts V-Cast. Released in 2005, it was available through Verizon’s mobile service, according to Seeker of the Lost. In this game, Sora crashlands on Swashbuckler’s Island and tries to find his friends Donald and Goofy. Not much happens in this game story-wise, and neither publisher Square Enix nor Tetsuya Nomura seems to have worked on this title.

It has long been unavailable to the public as the V-Cast service from Verizon was taken down in 2012. From the gameplay shown in Seeker of the Lost’s video, it doesn’t seem like we’re missing much.