Is Kingdom Hearts only popular because of the Disney characters?

[Stats87]

I have a conflicted answer to this

One of the best things about KH was the worlds (especially in the first game) as they were colorful, beautiful and invited exploration, wanting to know what was around each corner. The fact they were based around Disney movies allowed for this to happen. So if the game doesn't have Disney, the question would be whether the worlds would still have this quality.

As for the characters, the Disney Villains were awesome to have but I found Sora/Riku/Kairi interested me the most. Outside of Donald and Goofy, I found the SE/New Characters parts, on average, to be better then the Disney character parts. I have already seen Aladdin, Peter Pan, Beast etc. in these settings before in the movies, so there wasn't as much novelty. (more nostalgia)

So the Disney worlds and settings were a huge plus, but the characters themselves weren't as big of a deal.

However, my initial purchase of KH had nothing to do with Disney and everything to do with the fact it was a Square Enix game. In fact, the Disney inclusion had me go "huh?" and I was a little skeptical. (i'm sure I was not alone in thinking this)

So I guess to answer your question....no...for me anyway.