There are games that you can keep going back to, time after time. Games that never seem to lose their appeal; that retain the same essence of fun they always did. True classics like the MegaDrive Sonic games can be played in all their glory, regardless of what equipment you own, because they’re available on damn near everything nowadays. Up until recently, the same couldn’t be said of one of my favourite games: Kingdom Hearts.
Look at any games review website on the internet that’s been around long enough and you’ll find articles singing the praises of Kingdom Hearts. It blended the wonders of a plethora of Disney characters and worlds with the RPG genius behind the likes of Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger and Legend of Mana. Despite my initial scepticism – because wasn’t I meant to be too old for Disney stuff? – I found myself loving every minute of it. The game was less about immersing me in a kids movie and more about re-imagining the experience from a new perspective. What if all the Disney villains were to band together? What if they had an unstoppable, world-destroying army of darkness – literally shadows – to aid their schemes? The story of Kingdom Hearts takes everything that was great about Disney movies and removes enough of the cliché and childishness to make it awesome for all ages.
Now sure, I had my PS2 set up and connected to my TV, but the game was not designed with widescreen in mind. It came into existence before 16:9 was the standard, meaning I either have a squashed screen or the edges cut off from the top or sides of the picture. Even coupled with the slightly fuzzy look the game develops in the transition from SD to HD, I could probably cope. The major issue for me is the controls. It seemed perfectly acceptable to me at the time that you should control the camera movement with the L2 and R2 buttons. The right stick clearly deserves to be dedicated to menu control, so you can easily run and select commands at the same time. Except nowadays, my brain is hard-wired a different way.
In third person games such as Kingdom Hearts, the right analog stick is for camera control. This is not up for debate. I get frustrated enough in games like Grand Theft Auto 4 where you cannot invert the X-axis for the right stick – it becomes a million times worse when I have to adjust to not using the stick at all. Every time I move in battle or turn a corner, I’m confronted with a jarring reminder that this game was designed too long ago for me to properly enjoy it. Like TimeSplitters 2, with its ass-backwards movement and look controls, it would take me hours of frustration to re-acquaint myself with basic gameplay.
What Kingdom Hearts needed was the Sonic treatment; an updated version for current control systems and televisions. It got just that in the form of Kingdom Hearts – HD 1.5 ReMIX.
ReMIX was released as a PS3 exclusive on the 13th of September. It provided me with everything I needed to enjoy playing the game again, so that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. However, the sheer amount of content means that I can’t claim to have played enough of it to give it a full review. It’s not something I’m about to rush, either… so consider this an “initial impressions” piece.
First of all, let me describe the scope of this re-release. In Japan, they were lucky enough to get what you might call a “special edition” of the original Kingdom Hearts. It was called “Final Mix” and was released some time after the first game. It included a lot of bonus and cut content that we in the UK and US never got to see, alongside some bug fixes and gameplay improvements. Remember, this was a time when console games couldn’t simply be patched after release – there was no DLC to get the extra cut-scenes and you had to work around any bugs. The first thing that’s great about ReMIX is that we finally get to play Final Mix over here in the West.
But that’s not all. Before Kingdom Hearts II was released on PS2, Square-Enix made a game called “Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories” for the Game Boy Advance. Indeed, it was this very game that made me buy that console. It continued the story where Kingdom Hearts left it, but moving from PS2 to GBA meant some sacrifices in gameplay. Instead of a 3D Action RPG, we got a 2D Card-Battle Action RPG Thing. Yes, that’s about as close as I can come to describing it. It was weird but excellent in its own right, retaining the amazing Kingdom Hearts storyline.
Of course, Japan got a bloody re-done version on the PS2, didn’t they? That’s right; kicking off the first of many strange titles, “Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories” was a complete re-make of the GBA title in the original Kingdom Hearts PS2 graphics engine. It came complete with voiced cut-scenes and even more bonus content. It was released as part of the “Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+” bundle in Japan, but was once again denied to us poor Western fans… until now. The second thing that’s great about ReMIX is that we can finally play Re:Chain in its remastered form!
On top of that, we have the addition of all of the cut scenes and movies from the DS game, “Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days”, which many may not have played. I would count this as a bonus, except that the original intention was to include it as a third, complete game; fully re-done, just like the first two titles. The only consolation is that it – along with every other piece of content – has been remastered in HD. Since the development team actually lost all of the original assets for Kingdom Hearts, they had to re-do a lot from scratch. As part of this process, they also re-recorded a lot of the original music using proper instruments, as opposed to relying on the synthesised tunes created by the PS2’s on-board sound chip.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Like I said, I’m barely 12 hours into the first game at the moment. I know it’s excellent, because I played the original, but ReMIX does more than apply some spit and polish to an ageing classic.
The control issues I mentioned are no longer a problem. The camera is now correctly bound to the right analog stick; I can move freely and concentrate on immersing myself into the game without having to think about how I view the world. And what a world… everything is in sharp, vivid high-definition. Every model and texture that I’ve seen has been lovingly re-crafted to stay true to the original while ensuring smooth transition to today’s high resolution widescreen televisions. My only gripe would be the change from having the X key as the primary interaction button – now it’s Triangle. It’s another one of those moves that probably makes a lot of sense on paper, but took a little getting used to. Other than Sora and Riku’s eyes being a damn-sight freakier than I remember them, I have no complaints.
Having not progressed too far into the game as yet, I’ve only seen a smattering of the Final Mix bonus content. Some things are pretty evident, such as the new title screen and difficulty settings, but changes to skill progression, enemy difficulty (and colour, in some cases) has probably passed me by. It’s been long enough since I’ve played the original that I’m almost coming to the game with fresh eyes. I’m at that wonderful point where I know the gist of the plot, but the details have become hazy enough to excite me again as I rediscover them.
If you’re a long-time fan of Kingdom Hearts and you’re wondering if you should shell out the cash to buy this game, I can heartily recommend it already. There’s really no comparison to the original’s graphical fidelity and control scheme for starters, and the bonus content just keeps coming. Never mind that the Special Edition came as an actual book – not bundled with one, the game is actually INSIDE the book – but you even get a bonus dynamic PS3 theme for each of the games you complete. Full trophy support is also included, of course, but that’s secondary to me.
If you’re new to Kingdom Hearts and want to jump on board, now’s the perfect time. If this game does well, there’s every chance we’ll see another HD ReMIX for Kingdom Hearts II, possibly even including Birth By Sleep and Re:coded – two other Kingdom Hearts games that weren’t released on the “home consoles”. Though the game still shows its age with its platforming (which can be annoyingly clunky at times) and frequent zone changes, there’s so much to love about the original game that I would recommend it even without all these improvements. If you love Disney and RPGs – especially Final Fantasy – then you’ll love Kingdom Hearts. And the cameos from Cloud, Squall, Aeris / Aerith, Yuffie and Cid (to name a few).
As I progress through the games on offer, I will return with more detailed reviews of each. All I can say with certainty for the moment, however, is that I’m loving every minute of ReMIX. It’s a game that I’ve wanted to exist for many years and now that it’s here, I’m going to play the hell out of it. If you own a PS3, take a look at the videos on YouTube. Listen to some of the amazing music. See how your childhood can be brought back to life without making you feel like a child. Get this game, because it’s brilliant. You might even end up loving it almost as much as I do.
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A twenty-something gamer from the North-East of Scotland. By day, I’m a Computer Technician at a local IT recycling charity, where I fix and build PCs. Outside of that, most of my time is spent either sleeping or gaming, which I try accomplish in equal amounts.
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