Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Review

[{GJ}Riptide]

Kingdom Hearts 1.5 is an HD collection of the first 3 Kingdom Hearts games. Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (kingdom hearts 1) and the first 2 gameboy games in the kingdom hearts timeline, Kingdom Hearts Re:chain of memories and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days later.

Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: PS3
Genre: Action RPG
Release Date: September 10 2013
Original release dates: KH1- September 16 2002, KH:RCOM November 11 2004, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 May 30 2009

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix

Story

Kingdom Hearts follows the journeys of 3 young teenagers who dreamed of getting off their island and seeing other worlds. The main protagonist Sora, his bestfriend Riku and his crush Kairi. One day there's a storm on the island and when Sora goes to save the raft the 3 of them built he runs into the heartless. After finding Riku, Riku tells him that the door to other worlds is open and he's not afraid of the darkness. Riku then opens his heart to darkness and disappears. Sora is now chosen to be the wielder of the keyblade and given the strength to fight the heartless. After he finds Kairi she also disappears and soon after so does Sora's whole world. The heartless are born from the darkness, evil, in people's hearts. Someone is using them to destroy all worlds. After meeting some new allies Sora learns he must travel to different worlds sealing their keyholes, locking them away from the heartless, and find the person responsible. All while trying to find his 2 closest friends. While Sora has his agenda so do the badguys. Maleficent is using the heartless to find the 7 princesses of Heart, whom all together hold the guy to unlocking Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts is a long emotional journey of war, love, hate and friendship. It will make you laugh, cry and have that dumbfounded shocked look on your face. Personally I think it has one of the most beautiful endings in videogame history.

Gameplay

Although it is from the makers of Final Fantasy, the combat is NOT turned based. Full on action packed battles that test how well you use Sora's abilities and your reflexes. It wouldn't be a Kingdom Hearts review if i didn't tell you about the Disney aspect of it. Most worlds you visit, fighting the heartless, are worlds you have seen in Disney movies. Movies such as Nightmare Before Christmas, Aladdin and Hercules. Now if you get past the teenage arrogance thinking "disney is for kids", and look at it from a creative view, it's brilliant. Every world is meant to be drastically different with different ways of life, why not have them be disney. With the disney heros also come disney villains such as Hades, Maleficent, Captain Hook etc. Every new world has new types of heartless that resemble their world. The higher level you are the better abilities you get. Theres also many different keyblades for you to collect. Kingdom Hearts delivers on the Big Fight atmosphere when a boss fight is in the works, especially the last boss.

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories

Story

The biggest world wide complaint when Kingdom Hearts 2 came out was the huge amount of story that wasn't explained and took place inbetween 1 and 2. For people who don't play gameboy they missed out on so much plot detail concerning kingdom hearts. Thanks to 1.5, we now get to experience it. COM takes place literally right after the 1st game. Sora and company are drawn to this place called Castle Oblivion and are met by a stranger in a black trench coat. The further they go into the castle the more of their memories they lose. Sora must fight his way through heartless while getting constantly tested by Organization 13, to find the truth about castle oblivion. What Sora doesn't know is his old friend is also in the castle trying to save him before it is to late.

Gameplay

Now here comes my issue with COM. It doesn't have the same gameplay mechanics as the first game. Instead it uses a cross over of card based gameplay and realtime action. It's weird, unnecessary and takes away from the game. It might of worked on the gameboy but does not crossover to console well. When I found out about Kingdom Hearts 1.5 i prayed they gave us COM with gameplay from kingdom hearts 1, but I cried in disappointment.

358/2 Days Later

Now this has been subject to controversy since 1.5 came out. Instead of giving us the full game, they made 358/2 days later into a movie. We get to see all cutscenes and off camera dialog that explains what happens. A lot of people were mad because they wanted the game, I was too until I watched it. After spending 3 hours watching it, i loved it and thought it was genius. It is delivered in such a creative way that it's perfect and really tells you a story. You really get to learn the story of several important characters that you really never did by playing kingdom hearts 2, like Roxas, Axel, Saix and Xenmas. It also introduces the fan favorite character, Xion. This is such a moving and tragic story of a boy who doesn't know where he belongs, a girl who doesn't understand herself and a man who must chose between past relationships and current friendships.


Final Score: 9/10
I love Kingdom Hearts. In my mind, video games is a form of story telling like movies or theater, and no other franchise on any system tells a better story then kingdom hearts. Owning kingdom hearts 1 on ps3 is worth the $30 alone, since it's the final mix version that was previously only released in japan it contains extra cutscenes, boss battles, keyblades and more then in the original. Chain of memories and 358/2 days later are so important for kingdom hearts fans who only played the console versions. If you enjoy RPG's and story telling, go buy this.