Yeah, you’ll still have to wade through that sluggish Roxas opening of Kingdom Hearts II, but past that point you’ll have a very enjoyable, and visually stunning, reunion with Sora, Goofy, Donald, Terra, Aqua and Ventus. So I’d certainly urge all of you Kingdom Hearts fans to pick this up, as it does HD justice to two beloved games in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix is a superb effort that delivers some of the best games the series has to offer, and reminds us why we’re still excited for what lies in store in the next chapter of the franchise.
KINGDOM HEARTS HD 2.5 REMIX is a fun expirence with better grphices and faster load time, but although the ps4 took the throne for the fastest load time it is still a great way to play this amazing series, a must have for any fan of the series or even a fan to japenese role playing games, as it is has one of the best gameplay in kingdom hearts 2 and amazing story overall. great port but I would suggest having the ps4 port but if not then it is the second best to get.
The two best games in the franchise with some minor other content. I reviewed both games already. So here is the result.
Kingdom Hearts 2
Be warned: Parts of the story left you puzzled if you did not play 358/2 Days and Chain of Memories. The game does a poor job in explaining things in this regard (Not a problem for the rest of the story). In our times it is no problem to look things up on the internet. I must warn you again if you want to play the games instead: 358/2 was on the Nintendo DS only (There is a feature in Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix which is basically a movie) and Chain of Memory has a terrible battle system that even drove of hard core fans (Was a mayor complaint by many / I tried the game multiple times but could not adapt to it properly). Back to Kingdom Hearts 2. They improved nearly everything. The graphics are better and the music is fantastic. I want to praise Hikaru Utada for the opening theme song. It was so good that I restarted the game immediately to listen to it again. The battle system is now top notch and they added the drive system which gave you additional powers for a limited time. Tip: It doesn't look like a big improvement first but you get impressive results when you level it up, even new abilities which can be used in the normal form. The game has the best variety of worlds in the franchise (Tied with Kingdom Hearts 3),that are now bigger with more room for exploration. They took also great effort for the boss battles. There are many memorable battles that get you to your limits on higher difficulties (You can always grind levels to overpower the bosses). The addition of the Nobody's and the Organization was also a strength of the game. I like the variety of the characters and their individual motivations. You have also more Final Fantasy characters with many good (badass) scenes. Our main characters are always as lovable and driven as before. For story purposes I will say the game delivers a good performance. With the most awesome parts in the Hollow Bastion world where you get highlight after highlight (Most awesome part in the whole franchise). The other worlds are also pretty good and have story lines that get you attached very well. Overall this was my favorite game in the franchise, tied with Birth by Sleep.
Birth by Sleep:
It was amazing what they did on the PSP. The graphics and the soundtrack were impressive. The characters and stories are a welcome addition to the franchise. We have Terra, Ventus and Aqua. Each one has an individual story arc which are connected and a final arc where all three met. You chose in which order you play the adventures. Recommendation was Terra, Ventus and Aqua (Would stay with it because of spoilers because some parts are connected). Terra is the strongest and most durable but also a bit slower. Ventus is the fastest but not as strong / durable as Terra or Aqua. Aqua is in the middle and has the best (magic) abilities. They changed the battle style and gave us the Command Deck. You chose / equip abilities you then can use in battles (Start with 3 and can be increased up to 8). You get new abilities during your adventure and can create new ones by fusion. I like this a lot. You can always experiment with new abilities or are exited about new ones. There are of cause special abilities and some only a single character can use (or 2 of 3). Then we have the Command Style. It is basically the foundation were your deck is placed. When the style gauge is filled you get increased stats and abilities for its duration including strong finishers. Again there are special ones and unique ones for each character. Same goes for Shot-locks. You enter a first person mode and aim for enemies until the gauge is empty. Now you fire energy projectiles at them. The battle system is quite interesting and rewarding. For the world and stories: We get new worlds and interlinked arcs which I cant spoil. There are many good and creative ideas in this game. The friendship between the characters is truly remarkable and a virtue of the story. The story itself is a tale of self discovery, friendship, exploration and shows some of the events that became important for the later games (It is the first game in the timeline approx 10 years before Kingdom Hearts 1). Of cause there are a lot of cameos. It does a very good job in foreshadowing some events. Then there are the mini games. Instead of the Colosseum Arena which was not finished back then you get the Mirage Arena with a lot of challenges. You have the excellent Command board game. It was so good that I skipped to it a lot of times. There is a racing game were you see the differences in the characters (Terra is clunky). There is the Ice-creme beat (I hate that game) and the Fruitball Beach-volleyball game which is enjoyable funny. Overall this was surprisingly good and is considered one of the best games on the PSP and in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.
With a huge amount of contents, full of extraordinary worlds to explore and properly repolished, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix is a great collection. A masterpiece for fans.
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX offers up a plethora of new content, along with beautiful audio and visual upgrades, making it a shining example of what HD collections should be like.
Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD ReMIX is the perfect way to wait for Kingdom Hearts 3. Square Enix has done a great job on both the graphics and the gameplay, adding the compatibility with the second analogue stick for Birth By Sleep, the 16:9 aspect ratio and, above all, letting the European fans to enjoy the Final Mix version of both the games.
Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix 7/10 - Kingdom Hearts 2 showed sometimes sequels can work. The game once again continues on with Sora and his friends Donald and Goofy. The games story once again retell's altered versions of the Disney worlds set throughout the game. The battle system is practically identical to the previous main title with the inclusion of a "Drive Guage" that allows Sora to transform into a special character; usually in the style of new clothing and allows the player to utilise unique attacks and abilities that can decimate the playing **** music maintains its unique style like the original and is molded well with the game. Overall a enjoyable game. For the trophy hunters; a platinum for this game is quite easy to achieve.
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep 4/10 - Birth By Sleep is a prequel to the original game. and by prequel we are talking biblical age. The game introduces new characters and the story revolves around the beginning of everything. There is no Disney characters in this one and the game forces you to replay the game multiple times to see each characters involvement in the story. The story itself isn't very gripping and the game is over relatively quickly. The battle system yet again is similar and doesn't really explore anything new. This title was a big let down for the Kingdom Hearts games you are used to. For the trophy hunters; getting a platinum is is no real accomplishment. However is rather annoying as you need to replay the game a number of times.
Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded provides a story purely in a cut scene format and is not technically classified as a game.
Combining all scores this title has been rated as a 6/10.
Combining both games
I'd like to go off and say right at the start that Kingdom Hearts is one of my favorite video game series, I am not reviewing the games as they are, I will, however, review the porting job done in Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, which is awful. It definitely feels like they didn't test this game, because this game is riddled with bugs. I've played (and still own) the original Kingdom Hearts 2 FM, and I know that it shouldn't take 5 seconds to go into a drive form, or I know I should be able to spam the reaction command on the final boss. Really, I feel like the only reason why this game is so much buggier than the original's is the fact that the game isn't installed to your HDD, instead it's being played off of the blu-ray, which blu-rays have notoriously bad load times compared to DVDs. It takes so much more time to load into another level and "anything" in this game, it's shockingly bad. And somehow, they managed to make the load times worse than the Japanese release of this game (2.5), which is an amazing feat in itself.
In other words, I love this game, but I hate this port, it's awful, just because of crap load times.
i really wish they could come up with a new kingdom hearts game instead of rehashing the old ones over and over and over. i mean they have a whole universe to play with, new protagonists are not out of the question