The Kingdom Hearts series is filled with all different kinds of colorful enemies between the Heartless, Unversed, and Nightmares, with Nobody’s being similarly designed, but slightly more uniform in color. However, while these cartoony enemies mesh into the Disney themed worlds, many feel as though they are built with Square Enix’s monster designs in mind, except for the multi-themed Toy Soldier.
These Heartless, which debuted in Kingdom Hearts 2, are one of the few enemies directly based on the Disney movie their world is dedicated to. In this case, it would be The Nightmare Before Christmas and the Tim Burton created toys that Jack winds up delivering to children during the climax of the film.
As a result of this attitude toward design, the Toy Soldier is a unique example of why players still consider the 15 year old Kingdom Hearts 2 to be the best in the series, and one of the best games on the PS2. These specific Heartless are possibly the most cartoony creatures to appear in the game, and, importantly, are one of few enemies that change how they look in around the world. This is an effect based on Nightmare Before Christmas’ world being based around both a Halloween Town and a Christmas Town, with drastic shifts from one section to the next.
The rising action that leads to the climax of Nightmare Before Christmas involves Jack Skellington teaching the denizens of Halloween Town how to make Christmas presents, with the joke being that they only know how to make scary things. This is explored both through the song “Making Christmas” and the following montage as Jack delivers these presents to horrified children that are expecting pleasant gifts from Santa. One of these toys includes a Jack-in-the-Box toy that has a jack-o’-lantern as the jumping surprise and chases a child down a hall all the way to their parents room.
This Jack-in-the-Box toy’s design is the one that the Toy Soldier Heartless is seemingly based on, that is to say that this is the only toy that appears that seems to be referenced in the enemies that appear in the game. The designs on the box of the Toy Soldier are similar to the designs on this toy from Nightmare Before Christmas, especially when it comes to the alternate version in Halloween Town. It should be noted that these are often counted as two different enemies, especially when perusing Kingdom Hearts 2 Heartless lists either in the in-game journal or the various wikis.
The variant of Toy Soldiers in Halloween Town are referred to as Graveyards in Jiminy’s Journal, though the two enemies essentially behave and look similar enough that they appear to be reskins of each other. Seeing as how no other Heartless in Kingdom Hearts 2 get similar reskins, even as they appear in multiple worlds, these two enemies are made even more unique by being so similar to each other. However, these two alternate designs of each other perfectly reflect the two areas that they can be found in, especially with the characters that live inside of the box.
Both of these Heartless have the same type of Jack-o’-lantern heads from Nightmare Before Christmas inside of them, but they also each have their own specific secondary character hiding inside. The Graveyard for one has a ghost and tombstone that pop out and attack with little blue orbs, while the Toy Soldier uses a little toy soldier that fires a gun from a distance. It’s their distinct flair that compliment each other and the two separate areas they exist in that comes together so well to make both the Toy Soldiers and Graveyards so memorable.
A Kingdom Hearts sequel is reportedly in development.
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