Which Kingdom Hearts game do you think is the hardest to beat?

For me, that is definitely "'Kingdom Hearts 1'" since its gameplay feels rigid compared to the smoothness of "'Kingdom Hearts II'" and "'Kingdom Hearts III'".

(I imagine a lot of players would say "'Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories'" as their answer for this question, yet I found that game to be plenty of fun to play. As someone who has mastered four RTS games, this KH Title felt pretty basic in comparison and simple requires some strategy to complete.)

I agree with @SoraDaxjer28 that most users would likely select Chain of Memories as it is probably very polarizing to jump from the gameplay of the rest of the series to that of this installment. I also found CoM fun and very enjoyable. Going for the platinum however was not enjoyable. Especially on Ps3, where they make you do the game 6 times (Fixed on Ps4) and level Sora and Riku to 99 for the platinum. (I gave up because it wasn't worth it, especially when better ports were out at the time I went back to try to achieve them)

I think a more interesting topic would be which KH game was the most difficult to complete. Where the base game isn't too difficult to beat in most KH games, attaining completion can be an arduous task. Defeating the Lingering Will on KH2, Yozora on KH3, some of the optional missions in 358/2 days, etc. I can think of a lot more contenders for which is the most difficult in this case.

As much as I love KH1, I do have to admit that for a first playthrough KH1 is the hardest to beat

It's the only game in the franchise that has game philosophy from the late 90's/early 2000's, anyone that isn't used to it at first is going to find the game hard

Hell, just look at the copious amount of tweets of people saying KH1 sucks because they got stuck in Wonderland/Deep Jungle (not going to lie, those 2 worlds on a first playthrough can be a huge pain if you don't pay attention to cutscenes), if the first game had the information bar telling them where to go, they probably wouldn't complain so much

In terms of most difficult to complete, yeah no KH1 ain't it (unless you're going for Platinum on PS3, in which case may your heart be your guiding key)

@Weedanort That didn't cross my mind the first time I was weighing this out, but I wholeheartedly agree. I think the 2000s to mid 2010s was the sweet spot between outright telling you what to do and allowing you to figure it out on your own. After that, a lot more games started being a little too upfront about what you had to do. But back to the original topic, I definitely got a bit lost in Deep Jungle on my first time around. I could see players getting lost in both worlds.

I didn't know that it was so infamous in that regard on socials as I don't use them anymore. When I did browse the KH Reddit in the past I saw a good bit of people have gripes with how the gameplay felt aged though. I wonder if those players jump into KH2 or just give up on the series when they hit that point.

Speaking of aged gameplay, The worst part about the Platinum for Ps3 KH1 was the Gummi Ship blueprints. It took me years to go back and platinum due to that one trophy alone.