I played this as part of the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 HD Collection that was released on the PS4 on March 28th 2017!
To see my Review of Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, click here!
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As of earlier this week I successfully cleared through one part of the massive Kingdom Hearts HD Collection as mentioned at the start. So I figured why not review each separate part instead of waiting on me completing all of it entirely. Plus 2.5's contents I feel will be spent a lot longer time wise. Kingdom Hearts 1.5 specifically takes you back to the start of the franchise with the entries that made it popular in the first place. Much like 2.8, KH 1.5 contains two full fledged HD ports and a movie comprised of cutscenes for another game. I figure why not start with the easy part and that's the latter part of this set. The movie belongs to the 3DS spin off 358/2 Days which follows Roxas' 1 full year spent in Organization XIII. All the clips are remastered in HD quality and the voice acting is pretty fantastic as well. In-between cutscenes are journal like entries that depict moments which I can only assume are the spots where you'd be playing the game. I watched the movie in one full sitting and it surprised me as to how long it was. Be prepared to strap in for a good 2-3 hours! I pretty much also remembered how the story played out here despite having not played the game in so long.
The obvious meat of this collection are the 2 full fledged HD ports of Kingdom Hearts and the PS2 port of Chain of Memories. Starting with the first, Kingdom Hearts is actually the Final Mix extended version which only saw release in Japan not long after the original was launched. Americans got the chance to play this due to importing Japanese versions of the PS2. For me personally, I wasn't a huge fan of the first game even when I played the original, but I'd like to think this run was much better than on the PS2 version. KH1 follows the story of Sora, Riku and Kairi as they get thrusted into a huge adventure all when the Keyblade chooses Sora.
Once Sora meets up with Donald and Goofy, they go visit world after world to stop the Heartless invasion and figure out just what's going on. Their travels take them to famous Disney locations such as Wonderland, Halloween Town, Agrabah and several others! Depicted as an Action-RPG, the combat consists of you attacking enemies with the Keyblade which you can upgrade to various versions which affect your strength and magic. As does accessories in addition to providing stat boosts and elemental resistances. While attacking you can hit the triangle button to utilize a combo finisher which takes up a certain amount of MP. These moves themselves have to be equipped and take up a specified amount of ability points.
Your party consists of Donald and Goofy but can soon change upon visiting other worlds. They can be customized as well in terms of gear and their actual behavior (SO PLEASE HEAL ME DONALD). Stuff like item consumption by them though is kind of useless since your teammates use items up so dang fast! Summons are also present but I didn't really find myself using them a lot in my journey. The differences I found in the Final Mix version are very subtle but I found interesting if it's any consolation. There are of course a few hidden bosses but also all the enemies have a color swap from their original design. Yup, even the bosses! Oh and magic spells can be assigned to shortcut combinations with the trigger buttons! The story was solid and remains unchanged and the environments were gorgeous even with the graphical upgrade. Screw Deep jungle though and anyone who says it's an ok world is wrong.
The other game included in 1.5 is an HD port to Chain of Memories which was the first sequel/spinoff in the Kingdom Hearts franchise. Most notably in this port is the inclusion of voice acting but only in the hallway cutscenes. Set directly after the events of KH1, CoM has Sora, Donald and Goofy trying to figure out how to find the King and Riku. They soon stumble upon the dreary Castle Oblivion and within it, the masters known as Organization XIII. Sora and Co. must travel through the castle in order to continue with their search. However, the castle plays upon the trio's memories from the first game so you end up going through most of the worlds from the first game. Combat however is drastically different and described as "card-based action". You are quipped with a deck of cards consisting of attack cards, magic cards and item cards. Each of these have a defining value of 0-9 with the higher value being more effective. Playing a card which beats out an opponent's value is known as a card break which leaves them open for a nice combo. Course you're also susceptible to it as well. 0 value cards are unique in that they can beat any value but are also easy to break.
In this case, it's all about timing. Cards themselves have a CP cost which you can level up by a decent amount upon leveling up. The other areas of improvement include HP and learning new moves known as sleights. A sleight is a move comprised of 2-3 cards which you can stock and use all at once during battle. These take on a combined value and are usually very high. However they're VERY vulnerable to a 0 value card. I found myself enjoying the combat much more though frustrations at boss battles did occur. Sora's not the only one you get to play as in CoM though! Upon completion of his story, you unlock the ability to play as Riku in a separate story that runs concurrent with the main one. His play-style is vastly different but I think I'll leave the details for you to discover ^_^. Each floor in the game per world has a set layout and you can change each room upon meeting their criteria. Each map card has a different effect so you effectively dictate how you want to play/level up.
In comparison to 2.8, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 has a lot more to offer in hoping to keep you guys satisfied for awhile. The JP exclusive version of the first game, a solid port of CoM with great added voice acting, and a movie to an entry that was more or less interesting combat wise but I did enjoy this background story to learning more of the Organization's methods (at that point, I know their ultimatum). Fans of the franchise looking to return to this colorful world for a more modern time frame can't really do wrong with this collection. People looking to try it out won't find a perfect setup to be honest. Say what you will about the confusing story, playing this will help understand it at a slow pace.
Should you Play this Game?
Yes! There's lots of reasons why the Kingdom Hearts franchise is still enduring to this day with the waited release of the third main entry. Fans new and old can definitely find something with full fledged games and a solid movie to watch in their downtime. Both of the full games hold up pretty well in my eyes and you'll no doubt find an interesting and engaging story.
