Do I wish certain games were remade instead of just turned into overview cinematics? Sure, of course I do but this is such an amazing product to release at an incredible price-point for what you get and makes the nightmare of trying to figure out the order of the Kingdom Hearts games much easier lol. These reviews are just in the order they games show up on the wiki page I'm looking at to make sure I don't overlook any of them, this isn't a recommended play order. Apologies for the long "review"

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix:

The original game really captured something unique and special. Its able to tell a cohesive story and successfully made the bat shit crazy idea of mixing disney and final fantasy work. Yes the controls are a tiny bit clunky but infinitely better than the original ps2 release (moving the camera with L2 and R2 was a fever dream) but the combat still holds up great and although the platforming is uh...there, the sense of exploration and level design are amazing.

5 / 5 Stars

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories

A bit of the black sheep of the family, CoM completely swaps the combat system of the first game and replaces it with a card system that involves making a deck of cards that represent attacks or spells, then you can chain (haha) them together in order to make attack combos. This was done originally for the Game Boy Advance and although that copy of the game has some charm that didn't translate 1:1 to this 3D version, this is still a great remake. I actually really enjoy CoM's card combat system for what it's worth but I think it does overstay it's welcome a little and by the end of the game I'm ready to move on from the cards. And the randomized generated rooms you pass through can feel pretty repetitive eventually as well. Storywise, CoM is surprisingly dark for a Kingdom Hearts game and really goes to some deep places and frankly I welcome it with open arms. Very cool to see the transition the characters are forced to go through and how they respond to manipulation.

4 / 5 Stars

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (HD cinematic):

This is the start of KH doing some whacky shit with it's game names lol. I have never played the original game on the DS and I hear that at certain times this cinematic doesn't live up to the original's story but my review here is as someone who has only watched this cinematic and the story is great. It gives you a look behind the scenes at some of the "bad guys" you were fighting in KH2 and turns the character of Roxas from an interesting mystery into a straight tragic figure and I think a lot of people's favorite character. Some super sad moments that actually manage to be sad in spite of the lovely cheesy dialog this series is known for is pretty impressive as well. Wish this was a remake of the actual game but just getting this was still awesome of Square Enix imo.

4 / 5 Stars

Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix:

Kingdom Hearts II is likely the majority of series fans' favorite game and I can completely understand why. The combat is a masterpiece and still 100% holds up today and the story has some incredible moments (specifically the 1000 Heartless scene). The game really feels like a triumph in a lot of ways but isn't perfect. In my opinion KH2 started the tradition of disney world tourism where you're mostly just going there to hang out and watch part of the movies happen rather than it actually being super important to the overall plot, but those worlds are still fun. Honestly the biggest sin of KH2 is that it completely abandoned the interesting level design and secrets of KH1, with most worlds just being literal chained together straight hallways you fight through. I wanted to score KH2 a 4.5 because I don't quite like it as much as KH1 which I gave a 5 to, but if I stop comparing them against each other and just rate KH2 based on how much I enjoy it, the score is easy.

5 / 5 Stars

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Final Mix:

Another game that takes us away from the primary cast of the first game, Birth follows three keyblade wielders from years before the first game investigating strange creatures of darkness starting to show up on different worlds. This game also shakes up the combat system (again probably due to being released on a handheld originally) and now uses a deck of "commands" that have cooldowns and you cycle through. It does feel like a new iteration of the card system that CoM came up with and I think I'm in the minority here but I actually like it a little less personally. Storywise through Birth is a very interesting game and you effectively play through it three times, each from the perspective of the different characters involved. The main purpose of this game's story is to setup so much of the behind the scenes lore and characters that the series will want to shift to focusing on going forward, including introducing the Big Bad for all the games up and through KH3. Overall I enjoyed the plot a lot and liked learning new things about the world, even if not every single moment of the game hit perfectly.

4 / 5 Stars

Kingdom Hearts Re:coded (HD cinematic):

Again, I never played the original Coded but it doesn't seem like I missed very much honestly. This cinematic doesn't live up to the quality of the Days one and overall the events of this game really don't even matter very much to the overall KH story, only coming up here and there. It felt like I was reading a wiki page at times rather than experiencing a chapter of the KH world I hadn't experienced before. Didn't hate it but didn't think very highly of it either. Not sure if I want to give it 2.5 or 3 stars, but I'm a Kingdom Hearts fanboy I guess so I'll round up for this one.

3 / 5 Stars

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD:

Dream Drop is another game that was originally released on handheld and hence, still uses the command deck that Birth introduced, which I didn't love but its fine. Otherwise I have mixed feelings on Dream Drop. Mechanically it has good and bad. There's the command deck, which as a system I don't care much for but it does have some cool moments and attacks you can pull off with it. One of the signature features of the game, dream eaters (effectively little colorful monsters you can play minigames with and act as your party members in this game) have really cool and cute designs but managing them can really feel like a chore when I just want to be playing the game. I love playing as Riku and Sora going through the same adventure but being forced to swap between the two on a timer can really just a halt to the momentum of the game at times. Flowmotion is a new movement mechanic that lets you run up walls and slide around everywhere which feels very freeing, but can be confusing to control at times and totally invalidates any attempt to have platforming challenges.

Then narratively there's also a lot of pros and cons for me. I like the framing of diving into the "dreams of worlds" but the doesn't go into a lot of details about what that means exactly and it leads to a lot of confusion at times. Without spoiling anything there's a new Young character who I think is really cool but he comes at the expense of adding fucking time travel to the series. That's hard for any game to handle well and I can't say KH nails it here and I think that has a lot to do with the games' reputation for having completely incoherent stories (even if that's a little undeserved imo). And I love pretty much all the Riku stuff in this game but wow there are times where I can't stand Sora. I usually love the little knucklehead and he's always been a little slow to catch on when complicated stuff is going on but it's like he has brain damage in this game, it's the dumbest he is in the entire series and as the character you're suppose to relate to the most it can be pretty frustrating at times.

3.5 / 5 Stars

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-:

I think at this point they are trying to make the names ridiculous just to mess with people. This is a super short game that mostly acts as a tech demo for the game engine that KH3 will be using. You play at Aqua, a character from Birth By Sleep (hence that part of the title). Honestly I don't love the look of Kingdom Hearts in the Unreal game engine, everything feels a little too plasticy maybe?, idk. But there are parts of this game that do look insanely good and get me back on board. Where this game excels is the feeling of fluid movement and huge punchy magic. It does a great job at making Aqua seem like she really deserved her title of Keyblade Master and is very approachable mechanically. Also the environments are a lot of fun to explore and very detailed. Even if what you're finding tends to be little silly cosmetic items that kind of clash with the darker despite tone of the narrative. Super short like I mentioned but overall a very fun experience and did a great job at getting me hyped for KH3.

4 / 5 Stars

Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover (HD movie I guess?):

This cinematic is around an hour long and covers the events of the browser game from 2013 which I never played. Like the others I'll throw out that an actual remake of those games as a mainline KH game would have been amazing, but would have taken ages and I understand that this was both easier to make and still great to get at all. This covers the events that happened a very long time before the rest of the games and centers around the characters and events leading up to the Keyblade War, which is something we've seen glimpses of as far back as a secret ending for one of the first games. There's a lot of interesting stuff here and I like most of the characters, but honestly it's primary purpose seems to be to set up things that'll matter more in KH4 and going forward from there rather than answering existing questions I might have had. Still though, a fun experience and it's well put together in my opinion.

3.5 / 5 Stars