Worldly Weekend: Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX

Full Disclosure: This article will serve as the "main" review for Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix, as I have no interest in importing the original version.

And so begins our journey into the world of Kingdom Hearts remasters. For the uninformed, the three we'll be reviewing are three-course meal packages -- two upgraded ports and a cinematic feature "retelling" the story behind one of the handheld spinoffs -- designed for the purpose of uniting the series onto one console in PlayStation 3 (barring Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, which exclusively released for PlayStation 4 and would later be repackaged in Kingdom Hearts - The Story So Far on the same console). Given my peculiar relationship with this bizarre franchise, I simply cannot ignore reiterations that've hooked new fans, and so here we are.

In this case, we are reviewing Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX. Putting aside the series' latest in bizarre names, this first collection contains the "Final Mix" upgrade of the original Kingdom Hearts, PlayStation 2's Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories remake of the Game Boy Advance game, and a movie version of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. As you may recall, I have conflicting feelings on all three: the first one's an aged, wannabe masterpiece that's more of a bizarrely enchanting freshman project, Re:Chain of Memories is an inferior remake worth only for 3D novelty, and 358/2 Days' pretentious presentation can't mask its identity as mediocre product. For the weathered Kingdom Hearts fan as myself, barring the first-ever release of Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix in the West, this is not an especially enticing purchase, particularly when considering 1.5 ReMIX has been repackaged into two further collections:  Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX and Kingdom Hearts -The Story So Far-.

Worldly Weekend: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

You know what? I'm skipping ahead. I don't have to play Kingdom Hearts: re:Coded to know it's utterly expendable to the series at large and that it was only designed for capitalizing upon the brand.  The latter's particularly indefensible upon having the arduous displeasure of watching its movie adaption in Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD ReMIX, wherein I was begging, pleading for the bloated mess to end. We'll get to that when the time comes, but needless to say, I have very little interest in repeating my trauma with something so mercenary.

Anyway, here we are with 2012's Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance for 3DS. Commemorating Kingdom Hearts' tenth anniversary, it's only fitting that a) this would be the very last game to (finally!) utilize the original graphical engines and b) this would be the first in a line of games paving the way to Kingdom Hearts III. In fairness, I cannot recall if the latter was an explicit decision (the "lineup" bit, I mean), but it certainly exists now: there's the mobile Kingdom Hearts χ (which I haven't bothered with, and apparently will have key references in Kingdom Hearts III; groovy) and 2/3rds of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue: the playable Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage (the very end of which directly leads into Kingdom Hearts III's opening) and Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover. (A cinematic adaption of the aforementioned mobile game, which further convinced me it wasn't bothering with.)

Worldly Weekend: Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP)

And so along comes the second title in Kingdom Hearts' never-ending flood of side-games, this time on a console I have absolutely no interest in owning. As mentioned in an earlier review, I was only able to play Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep on a PSP lent by a buddy at college, and have since purchased the remaster contained within PS3's Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX. There are, I am certain, other good games on the system. Great games. Amazing games. But for the life of me, I cannot bring myself to care about it, and so I suspect this will be the one and only PSP review we'll see on here for some time. Perhaps my other Worldly Weekend retrospectives will eventually lead me to cross paths with Sony's handheld once more, but for now, I'm afraid you'll have to make do with this one article.

Regardless, I dub Birth by Sleep as a side-game with some mighty hesitation there, and that's for two reasons: a) Birth by Sleep is absolutely essential in comprehending the Kingdom Hearts story from here on out, and b) it's easily the series' best since Chain of Memories; actually, that probably remains the case. Not that it doesn't fumble in that typical Kingdom Hearts manner -- that, and while I hate to keep dragging the PSP, I heavily question its existence on the platform -- but we'll get to those problems when they come. For now, let's get into the good stuff.

Worldly Weekend: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

Note: Merely discussing the content of this game -- or even just looking at the below cover -- paves way for some early spoilers regarding Kingdom Hearts II. If you're planning on going into the series blind, you'd best skip ahead.

And so begins not just Kingdom Hearts further wedging itself into the realm of indecipherable names, but spawning what remains its biggest folly: an endless line of "bridge" games consisting of side-stories, prequels, and pseudo-sequels, all for the purpose of either divulging a particular interim  between certain games or setting the stage for Kingdom Hearts III. Be it the fault of a developer (Square-Enix) caring only to capitalize upon a successful brand or the burgeoning over-ambition of a short-sighted director (Tetsuya Nomura), it's vital to discuss why, exactly, this direction was problematic, beginning with the most obvious reason: it's been eleven years since the first three spin-off games (358/2 Days, Birth by Sleep, and Re:coded) were announced, and we're only just getting Kingdom Hearts III this year. Whoops.

This past decade's worth of wasted time and frustration is more than enough for fans to jump ship, especially when factoring in cost: over the next six years, engaging in the full Kingdom Hearts experience required the purchase of a Sony PlayStation 2, a Nintendo DS, a Sony PSP and a Nintendo 3DS. Being an episodic series, this is not like Final Fantasy's individualized entries where one can simply pass, say, Final Fantasy IX on PlayStation and pick up Final Fantasy X on PlayStation 2 without missing any context; nay, you must at the very least engage in Birth by Sleep and Dream Drop Distance to make any sense of the series hereafter, and for the most dedicated of Kingdom Hearts fans, that potentially means shelling out cash for systems you don't particularly want (or, in my example, you're lucky enough to know someone at college who's willing to let you borrow their PSP and copy of Birth by Sleep).

Worldly Weekend: Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories (PS2/PS3)

And so begins Kingdom Hearts's foray into befuddling names. Admittedly, Re:Chain of Memories is hardly as ridiculous and pretentious as the goofy titles we'll become acquainted with down the road; if anything, I'll grant the "Re:" here actually makes sense -- the involved prefix meaning it's another attempt at a previous title -- but its sudden intrusion before the subtitle has always irked me. Still, it's of little consequence.

Really, what I find more fascinating is the brisk turnover between the original Game Boy Advance game and this remake for PlayStation 2: for those not aware of the dates involved, the original Chain of Memories launched at the very end of 2004, while this 3D remake -- a bonus game packaged alongside the Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix re-release in Japan -- released in Spring of 2007 (it received a standalone American release at 2008's end). I struggle to think of any game redone in such a short span of time, and I am never not impressed by this probable record and at Square-Enix's brilliant marketing strategy (what, KH2 with additional features isn't enough for you? Okay, then here's a GODDAMN 3D REMAKE OF A GAME BOY GAME)