Why Aqua is the Best Girl in Kingdom Hearts

Is Aqua the best female in Kingdom Hearts history?

Suffering succotash, a girl in the lead!

Being a female myself must have had something to do with it, or maybe I was just that curious, but I turned from Nomura’s advice and neither started with Terra nor Ven. On the contrary, I was keener to give Aqua’s adventure a whirl on my first playthrough of KH: Birth By Sleep.

A playable female protagonist in KH? Unheard of! In my humble opinion, Kairi should have been playable in KHII from the moment she was granted the all-mighty strength of the keyblade, though I recall that she knew how to raise a weapon about as efficiently as one would a baseball bat, so it might have been for the best.

So well done, Square-Enix, finally I can play as a girl, you have made my day, and not a moment too late.

Will the real magician please stand up?

I’ve gone a long ways now in Aqua’s story…and the gameplay is sensational. I’ve always been partial to flashy, dramatic bouts of magic as an offensive tool, but previous KHs never tapped into it with much depth – you could clear an army if Sora spammed Thundaga. There wasn’t much room for creativity and experimentation. Plus, the MP gauge ran out so fast that
it wasn’t practical to rely much on magic alone.

Aqua has none of those restrictions at all; her magical repertoire is limitless- there is so much you can do and it is highly rewarding to mess around with different combinations of magic during battle or melding. You can render any magic to be innovative and functional.

Like ice? Rain it down on your opponents with Diamond Dust. Like fire? Make Triple Firaga and turn those buggers into crisp. The difference in capability of Sora or Donald vs Aqua is as a chicken and a phoenix.

Making the grade

As a character, Aqua is a cut (no wait, make that two cuts) above Kairi and Namine. It’s not the power alone-although that has much to do with it, but she has a ton of courage, determination and a sense of justice.

Kairi and Namine are brave in their own rights, but they were a little too caught up in their personal problems to pursue the greater cause of saving the world. It didn’t help their causes that Kairi has always been stuck or trapped somewhere and Namine had her conscience to deal with. You could say that if Kairi was more powerful, more grown-up and more in tune with the keyblading world, she might be like Aqua.

Overall, Aqua has a lot of high points and not many weaknesses: she’s not naïve like Sora, not solitary like Riku, not powerless like Kairi and certainly not a mixed bag of angst like Roxas (I still really like Roxas, by the way). As a mature, intelligent and responsible protagonist, she’s appealing as a role model. I wonder if any of this matter as much to a male gamer but to me, she’s a perfectly admirable.

I haven’t gone far enough to know how her story ends just yet (I’ll be reading your comments so don’t say anything I don’t already know!); I sure hope she survives the conflict. It would be really sad to lose such a strong character. If I can’t hope for a better outcome, then I would like Kairi to carry out Aqua’s spirit after everything’s all said and done.

Who is your favourite girl in Kingdom Hearts?

So, what does everyone else think? Has Aqua also impressed you to become your new favourite girl character in KH? Or do you prefer the charms of Kairi, Namine, an FF girl or even someone else?

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“Why Aqua is the Best Girl in Kingdom Hearts” was written by SakuChan, moderator on our KH Community Forums. Each Monday, we publish a Guest Blog from a member of the KH & Gaming Community – also co-ordinated by SakuChan.