Realm Hearts is the brainchild of Tetsuya Nomura, known for his work on the Final Fantasy arrangement. The main game was initially pitched to Disney by Nomura himself and was advertised as an activity RPG that united the fan most loved characters from the Final Fantasy arrangement into universes populated by a portion of the great Disney establishment.
I have been a Kingdom Hearts fan since its commencement and in the wake of catching wind of the arrival of the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 Remix assortment, I was eager to at last get my hands all in all arrangement and that as well, on only one single stage. Despite the fact that the arrangement has stayed well known till this day, it was sadly dispersed over a wide scope of various equipment making it difficult for the fans to play through the entire arrangement. The initial two mainline games were discharged on the PS2 followed by Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, PSP and Nintendo 3DS side projects that highlighted story which was fundamental to getting a charge out of the full understanding. On the off chance that you passed up them, there is a decent possibility that you would pass up a few key story minutes.
With such wide scope of discharges across different stages, all being fundamental to the story for the game, it was difficult to monitor the story making it the victim of jokes among the fans. Fortunately this issue has been amended to some degree with the arrival of the 1.5+2.5 Remix assortment that spreads practically every game known in the arrangement. Obviously, it doesn’t cover the as of late discharged Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 assortment, which is basically the last bit of baffle in the story before the arrival of Kingdom Hearts 3. All things considered, all in all, this is a strong bundle of games that has the right to be played particularly in the event that you are an enthusiast of the arrangement.
If you haven’t played any Kingdom Hearts game before, then now is the perfect time to jump into the series with this HD remix collection that contains the beginning of Kingdom Hearts. As a whole package, it is worth every penny since not only it contains 4 fully featured games that can easily take you 100+ hours to complete, it also includes two major story sequences taken from games that were originally released on the Nintendo DS handhelds. Their remaster would have taken too much effort but since they were essential to the story of the series, Square Enix decided to remake them as cutscenes instead and they work well enough, clearing confusion surrounding some of the game’s key plot points.
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 Remix contains 4 games, each of which can take upwards of 20 to 30 hours to complete and that is just for the story. If you want to tackle the secret endings and complete the game 100%, you can easily spend more than 100 hours with this collection. The games that are included are Kingdom Hearts 1, Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts RE: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. In addition to these games, the collection also includes cutscenes from Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days and Kingdom Hearts: ReCoded. I definitely felt silly typing all these crazy sounding names but this has been such a particular trait of the series till now that if I don’t see another silly title for Kingdom Hearts 3, I will be disappointed.
This is not the first time the series has received an HD release as they were originally released for the PS3. However this is perhaps the first time the series has shifted to 60 fps. Yes, the remastered games for Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, RE: Chain of Memories and Birth by Sleep, all support 60 fps and to top it off, they also run at Ultra HD resolution of 4K on the PS4 Pro. This is a remarkable improvement over the PS3 version, just by the merit of the 60 fps upgrade. There are also improved load times which make the difference night and day here. The bottom line is that if you are fan of the series and own the whole collection on PS3, it is well worth the upgrade to the PS4 version to experience the definitive version of the games.
Kingdom Hearts is primarily an action RPG and aside from RE: Chain of Memories, the core gameplay is the same across the 3 games featured in this collection. RE: Chain of Memories is an interesting game on its own because it utilizes a card-based combat system where the player is given a deck of cards that can be used to fight enemies or unlock new sections of the map. The deck based system was originally envisioned for the Nintendo Gameboy Advanced and Square Enix had later remade the game for the PS2, making it into a complete 3D experience like the original Kingdom Hearts, but still retaining the card-based combat system. It is a refreshing take on the game’s combat system although one that can also infuriate some of the fans.
