Kingdom Hearts fans are having heated debates about magic keybinds

Kingdom Hearts 3 Sora and Donald
(Image credit: Square Enix)

Kingdom Hearts fans are currently in the middle of a very passionate debate about what button is best for which magic shortcuts.

If you've played Kingdom Hearts 1 and Kingdom Hearts 2, you'll already be familiar with the concept of command shortcuts. To save Sora from flicking through the magic and item menus in the heat of a battle, players can instead assign things like magic and potions to a button on the controller. For argument's sake, we're talking about when Kingdom Hearts released the first time around on PS2, so your options are X, Circle, Square, or Triangle. 

For many, including myself, X was always the go-to for the magic ability Cure; which would give Sora back some of his HP if he was on his last legs. It turns out, however,
that there are some people out there that actually prefer to use other buttons. This has actually come as quite a shock and caused a divide within the Kingdom Hearts community. It seems that most fans go for X, some go to Triangle, and some unhinged individuals go for Square or Circle. 

The majority of this debate has taken place on Twitter. As one tweet reads: "If cure isn't X you are one of the following: Odd, strange, weird." Another chimed in the discussion with: "The only time Triangle is acceptable for cure in Kingdom Hearts is when you are playing Birth by Sleep or Dream Drop Distance" - two of the spin-off games in the series. 

The tweets have since got a little bit more personal though. As pointed out by Team Triangle, it makes sense to apply Cure to the green PlayStation button as the color of the item matches. Although this makes sense in theory, one fan has responded to this by bringing the PS5 into the discussion, which doesn't have any colored buttons on it at all. 

Another just went straight for the jugular by making a chart that gives each of the shortcut buttons their own personality types and frankly calling each of them out in their own way. 

See more

For the record, the best shortcut setup is X for Cure, Square for Thunder, Triangle for Fire, and Circle for Blizzard. I will not be taking any questions at this time. 

We'll probably be waiting to find out the result of this discussion long after Kingdom Hearts 4 has released.  

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.