HD remasters have been a popular product for the past several years. Some are completely redone, fixing frustrating game mechanics, improving graphics and smoothing former rough patches. Others are more akin to putting a fresh coat of paint on an aging car. Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far for Playstation 4 is, unfortunately, the latter. Despite this it is packed to the brim with value, bundling one of the most beloved RPG franchises of all time in its entirety, minus the most recent and final entry of the series.
Kingdom Hearts 1.5
The first entry, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 was frustrating in many ways for me.
For one the camera was more of a foe to me than any of the enemies attacking. Regardless of the camera mode used, or whether or not I used auto lock (a feature allowing you to lock onto a single enemy), I always felt like I never quite had a good camera angle. This became even more evident fighting large enemies such as bosses, or in certain worlds that were vertical with lots of climbs and jumps. Three-quarters of the time I was in Azkaban, I couldn’t see what I was doing at all without constant adjustment of the camera as it found itself routinely trapped behind a building or wall.
Cameras weren’t the only part of the game that felt dated. Combat also felt like it should have received an update from Square Enix. Partially as a result of the poor camera, and partially as a result of aged combat engines, you never quite feel “in control” while fighting. It’s mostly button mashing with a healthy dose of “can I see it yet”. Item use requires a play to use the directional pad, in addition to the thumbstick to avoid enemies, and if you’re on the wrong action, you can regularly find yourself trying to counter-attack but not swinging because you were trying to use an item.
Seeing the Disney characters, and experiencing the story helped me overcome some of the faults in KH 1.5. The voice acting is top notch, and the cut scenes are extremely entertaining. Personally, I typically get frustrated at having many cut scenes but with this title, I felt like the combat and constant backtracking was simply a means to the next great cut scene. Seeing some of your favorite Disney characters mix it up with some of your favorite Final Fantasy characters is also a lot of fun. Each cameo perked me up and put a smile on my face.
Other signs of this game’s age show up with poor resolution textures for the backgrounds and many of the world objects. Many textures on scene pieces don’t line up quite right or have a distinct break in the texture where you can see two pieces of geometry come together. That being said, this title does benefit from its association with Disney as it is kept more cartoon animation, which makes the “HD” aspects pleasing to see on character models, specific scenery.
Kingdom Hearts 2.5
Overall, this game was much more enjoyable to play. My biggest complaint about KH 1.5 was that the camera was atrocious which isn’t the case with 2.5. I really felt a huge burden was lifted from me when playing 2.5 as a result of this and found navigation in both combat and out of combat to be smooth and easy. Both the auto camera and the manual camera worked fantastic, which I attribute mainly to the camera pitch and distance from the player to be increased slightly.
Thanks in part to the much-improved camera, combat is much easier and more fun. Constantly taking more damage trying to get to a frequently used item such as a healing potion was the norm for me in KH 1.5. 2.5 adds in a shortcut by pressing L1, which removes the biggest part of this frustration giving you a shortcut to 4 chosen items or spells. Also providing an improved experience is the addition of a quick reversal button when an enemy is open to it by pressing triangle. This made combat much more fluid for me, allowing me to quickly move between targets, and even easily picking off the ones I wanted to focus on.
It was also clear to me that there was more time put into cleaning up backgrounds and textures. Visually 2.5 is also a huge improvement from 1.5. Gone are most of the jagged edges and poor background textures. In many ways, this game would blend in with other modern games with a cartoon aesthetic, though once in a while you can pinpoint a distant housetop that wasn’t updated. There also seemed to be an increased focus on the special effects which left a real impression a couple of times, even when considering them against what more recent titles put out.
Birth By Sleep 0.2
Not enough good things can be said about this entry. Every aspect of the gameplay for this series has been improved upon, and many in huge ways. Playing this game was an immense pleasure for me in every way imaginable. The game world is absolutely stunning. It’s very clear that this was a game made for modern consoles, and not ported to them. Backgrounds are dynamic and full of life. Foreground objects had lighting effects and depth that made them feel as lifelike as a cartoon styled game could. The colors popped and showed their full range of pallet.
Much of the game has a more 
lifelike feeling than the previous entries as well. Character models were much less exaggerated in the hands and feet and had more realistic than cartoon styled texturing. The same can be said for objects within the world. Even the experience orbs and boxes looked phenomenal. The cut scenes really show off how this title was made for the modern console and not simply ported to it.
Combat also improved in a series of ways. Aerial combat was much more fluid and fast-paced, but was still not simply a button mash fest hoping to hit something near you. Thanks to an increased movement speed ground combat also has an increased pace but never felt chaotic even with 20 enemies on the screen at once. The shortcut menu now has two pages of 4 shortcuts up from 1 page in 2.5. In addition to all that, the addition of dodge mechanics early on in the game made the beginning parts much more bearable and made combat a whole lot more fun.
Something not to be missed is the improvement in sound effects and music in Birth By Sleep. The simplest of sound effects such as an attack, jump or footstep is much improved in this over its predecessors. There are often many different sounds at the same time, and they all sound crystal clear and very pleasing on the ears. Music finds itself just as lovely and interesting as with other Kingdom Hearts games but also has a particular layer of polish missing from previous titles. Listening to Aqua thinking to herself is beautiful, especially if we are comparing them to the often irritating (yet well done) voices of Sora and Roxas.
Overall
Taken piece by piece, there’s always going to be something to quibble about in regards to individual titles in this collection. Some may be less robust as others while some may show their age worse. However taken as a complete package, this may be one of the greatest single series collections ever released. Story-wise, there may never have been a more complicated story arc to try and follow, but getting all the games in a single console release makes understanding that story much less difficult. There’s more than enough to keep both the avid Disney fans and Final Fantasy fans entertained. Even those who don’t have an affinity for either are going to enjoy this Action-RPG experience for potentially hundreds of hours.
