I'll update this as I progress through the game. I'll keep things simple for now, but give my full impressions when I complete everything. That's probably going to be a while though.
For Reference:
+ = something good
~ = something neutral/something I have mixed feelings about/random note
- = something negative
Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix
[The spoiler contains my thoughts as I played, and my final review of it is underneath.]
+The Game is beautiful in HD. If I hadn't played this before and you told me that this was a PS3 game to begin with, I'd probably believe you.
+I am LOVING the remastered music.
+The voice acting is incredible (I had forgotten how good it was), and a lot of effort went into the lip sync in the new Final Mix only scenes. I was very impressed by this! The game feels more complete than 1.5's 1FM, for this reason alone.
+Starting this and thinking of all the FM content is reminding me that KH2FM is essentially a titanic supergame. There is SO MUCH STUFF to do in this game.
~The changes in Roxas' battle voice clips are kinda weird and threw me off a lot at first, but they're not bad and they fit pretty well. I'm just not fully convinced that there was any point to doing this.
~Some textures look dated, but not as dated as I expected. I probably wouldn't notice them if I weren't looking for them, to be honest. EDIT: As I've gotten farther in the game, I've actually been noticing them less and less.
~Is Proud Mode more difficult than it was before? Or am I just rusty? I've been dying quite a bit...
-Loading times are rather obnoxious. I'll probably get used to it, but it's a bit more jarring than 1.5's loading times were.
-The Loading times are REALLY bad when trying to fight Absent Silhouettes. It's kinda depressing to see my favorite game of all time plagued by such bad loading times.
-Drive load times are worse than I thought they'd be. Like seriously Square, I'd really like for there to be an install data option if it means shorter load times. I have the space on my PS3.
-I've noticed some poorly lip synced moments, but they're few and far between, so it's not really a big deal.
Ah, Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix. As I played this, I was reminded why I consider it possibly my favorite game of all time. There is just so much to like about this game. It's not flawless (nor is it's HD remastering), but I still love it just as much as I have my whole life. The game as a whole is fantastic. Some say that the battle system is outdated, but I'd disagree.I think it plays great, and the sheer amount of content (especially with the final mix extras) is staggering. It is truly a ton of fun.
As for the specifics, let's get the cons out of the way first. The most obvious offender here is the load times. Mostly, it's not too bad if you're not paying attention (although still worse than 1.5's, I think), but the Drive Load times are awful, and the Absent Silhouettes' load times are on the brink of being unacceptable. Also, there's random lag in some odd points, such as the final area of Hundred Acre Woods (I have no clue why). and the whole laser storm thingy in the final battle (I guess I can understand that). It also happens when you're opening certain chests and when you use the change command for your party members. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's pretty distracting, especially because I'm so used to experiencing those things without lag. The one in the final battle in particular really takes you out of the experience, so I was very frustrated by it. Also, I don't recall if it was like this in the original KH2, but there is some pretty distracting lip desync, like Xemnas' speech to Saix before Saix asks to "end the charade," for example. One last con: Atlantica. It's just awful. 'Nuff said.
Granted, no HD collection is perfect. But this one is still great. So let's go over the good now, shall we? Put simply, this game looks amazing. The HD graphics are stellar, and most of the textures hold up well, especially on the main characters. The voice acting is quite good, as usual, and the effort they took to voice and give lip sync to the Final Mix only scenes was great. Most of the music sounds great, and while there were a couple tracks I was iffy about, it was mostly a fantastic re-orchestration of music I've come to know and love. Also I liked that most of the music aimed for a "re-orchestrated" sound, and not a "remix" of the original track. The only exception I noticed is the "Hazardous Highway" remixed track with the extra electric guitar and whatnot, and I freaking loved that remix anyway, so I'll let it slide.
As for the game of Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix in its own right, I may as well take this as an opportunity to go over what I love about it. I'm one of the people who thinks that KH2 is in most ways a superior game to KH1, and overall the best game in the series. I really love the story line; Sora is likeable in that he handles the task of saving the universe, but still shows that he's a silly and immature 15 year old, like when he goes nuts over Santa Claus, talks about wanting to be a pirate, and tickles Tron for kicks. It really makes him seem like a person, and not just some bland character that we only stick with because we have to play as them(cough cough Squall cough cough Lightning cough cough). I like the Organization as villains, because they have a good motive behind them. Most of them honestly believe that what they're doing will bring their hearts back, but they just go about it in a way that makes them villainous, selfish, and dangerous. (obviously we learn in DDD that the top few in the Organization had their own motive, but since that's still a pretty cool motive, I stand by my sentiment on them as a whole.) See, that makes a good villain. We get so many villains in movies and games that are just "hurr i wanna b king" or "hurr i want 2 tak over teh world," and a villain (or villains, in this case) with a more complex motive than that is very refreshing.
The Final Mix content also makes the game that much better. I've played 2FM multiple times on the PS2, but it was still just as enjoyable this time. The extra battles are all great and challenging, and the mushrooms are a fun and very rewarding minigame, but I actually also think that the puzzle pieces are a very underrated addition. I'm serious! They provide an incentive to explore a bit more, level up your abilities to get them, and then try a fun little puzzle game once you have them all, in which you get a great item as a result! It's just a fun little extra, and I really like it! Back to the extra battles though, I really like that these battles deliver a nice slap-in-the-face to anyone who criticizes KH2 for being too easy. These battles were made to be challenging, and they are very successful in that regard. They also provide a much more enjoyable endgame than the original KH2. (Random question though: Does anyone else think they nerfed the Roxas storyline battle in TWTNW? I remember him being a LOT more difficult in the original 2FM, but maybe it's just my imagination.)
KH2FMHD is worth $40 by itself. It is a titanic supergame, with a ridiculous amount of content for the player, awesome graphics, and a great storyline, and I cannot recommend it enough. Even though there are a few flaws, I still see this game as my favorite game of all time, and the HD remaster is an awesome excuse to sink hundreds of hours of my life into it again.
Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Final Mix
[i'm in Cinderella's world with Terra (1/3)]
+Unlike 2FM, the load times are great. Like I was fighting Wheel Master and died, and when I hit continue, I was back to fighting it in less than a second.
+Controls feel great.
~The game doesn't look as good as 2FM, but this is probably because it came from a handheld instead of a console. I'll excuse it there.
~The camera feels a little too close to Terra, but it's not a huge deal.
-The Lip Sync is a lot more hit-or-miss than 2FM's. Like 2FM's lip sync was great at first, and then started falling apart a little more near the end of the game for some reason. This is just more hit or miss all the time.
-Terra's VA just... isn't good. He does a great job with battle cries, but that's about it. (not a complaint about the remaster, just a general statement)
Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded Cinematics
[The spoiler contains my thoughts as I watched, and my final review of it as a whole is underneath.]
+Haley Joel Osment seems to be doing fine as Sora so far! You can tell it's a strain for him, since he's aged a lot more than Sora (besides his face, anyway), but props for effort, Haley.
+Same for Mickey's, Goofy's, and Donald's Voice Actors. They all sound great, and Mickey's current voice actor has improved a ton since Re:CoM.
+The fight scenes, despite not really being anything special, show a good effort by Square to correct their mistakes with the Days cinematics in 1.5.
+James Woods as Hades again. Noice.
~"Gosh, it's kinda a long story." Got that right, Mickey.
~Why did they use the original PS2 music instead of the ReMIX remastered music? It's not like it matters, I just found it kinda unusal
~Cheshire cat sure sounds a lot like Winnie The Pooh
~It seems like Dave Gallagher took the same approach with Riku as Peter Dinklage took with his character in Destiny. Eh... whatever
-------There is practically no entertainment value to this...
-Most of the Disney voices are incredibly cringe-worthy so far
-This is very jaggy looking. Not crisp like 2fm.
-They didn't even try with the lip sync, but whatever. I didn't really expect any different tbh. Still a negative though by default
Overall thoughts of the Re:Coded cinematics:
"You kinda lost me a few minutes ago." --Sora, in Re:Coded's ending.
That's how I felt while watching this. Except "a few minutes" became a couple hours. The thing is, Re:Coded was a video game designed with an emphasis on gameplay. The story only had a few important plot points, and everything in between is apocolyptically boring, especially with no gameplay to distract you from it. The story is poorly written at most times, and sometimes borders on downright nonsensical. The whole thing about Roxas and "hurt" doesn't really make any sense at all, and feels like just filler. The dialogue also just feels like an exposition dump, with characters vocally stating what just happened literally seconds ago. Like saying, "wow, I'm here!" when they show up. So much of it is one character explaining something to another character. On top of that, the logic of the datascape is so poorly defined, and there is rarely any real explanation as to why accomplishing task X will result in endgoal Y.
The voice acting is quite poor, overall, which makes the already poor dialogue sound even worse. The weird thing is, some of the voice actors here seem like they were given instructions to seem as monotone and boring as possible, such as Dave Gallagher (Riku) and Jesse McCartney (Roxas). Heck, I thought Roxas had a different voice actor until I listened more closely and heard some of the more subtle vocal giveaways that it was actually McCartney. Still, Sora sounded okay, but you could tell it was a struggle for poor Haley Joel Osment to maintain the sound of a 15 year old. Regardless, HJO still rocks. And some of the Disney voices like Alice and Jafar sound downright awful. Alice sounded like some random person trying to imitate that voice and not doing a very good job of it. The lip sync only made this worse, but whatever.
The fight scenes were a nice gesture by Square, but they were pretty poorly choreographed, and just felt kinda awkward overall. My biggest peeve was that the final fight with you-know-who (you know, THE FINAL BOSS OF THE FREAKING GAME) was almost completely cut out, like almost to the extent that the 358/2 Days cinematics cut out Roxas' final battle with Xion. It felt incredibly anticlimactic (I guess it would have been more anticlimactic if the story had made it actually mean anything, but whatever) and I was honestly kinda disappointed. Also, the visuals are jaggy and some of the closer up textures are jarringly bad.
BUT, I don't see any of this as a problem. I highly doubt that anyone who purchased 2.5 did so mainly for these cinematics, and for $40, there is more than enough quality content in the other two games for you to get more than your money's worth. Heck, there's enough quality content in 2FMHD or BBSFMHD by themselves to justify $40. So how about we all just switch to playing either of them and forget this trainwreck exists. After all, Kingdom Hearts 2.5 is basically someone selling you a package with a delicious juicy cheeseburger, a warm and chewy oven baked chocolate chip cookie-cake, and a plate full of moldy vegetables. Each part of the meal is in a separate container, and he tells you that you can take your fill of as much or as little as you'd like. And you're completely fine with it, since the price was more than reasonable!
I'll update this as I progress through the game. I'll keep things simple for now, but give my full impressions when I complete everything. That's probably going to be a while though.
For Reference:
+ = something good
~ = something neutral/something I have mixed feelings about/random note
- = something negative
Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix
[The spoiler contains my thoughts as I played, and my final review of it is underneath.]
+The Game is beautiful in HD. If I hadn't played this before and you told me that this was a PS3 game to begin with, I'd probably believe you.
+I am LOVING the remastered music.
+The voice acting is incredible (I had forgotten how good it was), and a lot of effort went into the lip sync in the new Final Mix only scenes. I was very impressed by this! The game feels more complete than 1.5's 1FM, for this reason alone.
+Starting this and thinking of all the FM content is reminding me that KH2FM is essentially a titanic supergame. There is SO MUCH STUFF to do in this game.
~The changes in Roxas' battle voice clips are kinda weird and threw me off a lot at first, but they're not bad and they fit pretty well. I'm just not fully convinced that there was any point to doing this.
~Some textures look dated, but not as dated as I expected. I probably wouldn't notice them if I weren't looking for them, to be honest. EDIT: As I've gotten farther in the game, I've actually been noticing them less and less.
~Is Proud Mode more difficult than it was before? Or am I just rusty? I've been dying quite a bit...
-Loading times are rather obnoxious. I'll probably get used to it, but it's a bit more jarring than 1.5's loading times were.
-The Loading times are REALLY bad when trying to fight Absent Silhouettes. It's kinda depressing to see my favorite game of all time plagued by such bad loading times.
-Drive load times are worse than I thought they'd be. Like seriously Square, I'd really like for there to be an install data option if it means shorter load times. I have the space on my PS3.
-I've noticed some poorly lip synced moments, but they're few and far between, so it's not really a big deal.
Ah, Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix. As I played this, I was reminded why I consider it possibly my favorite game of all time. There is just so much to like about this game. It's not flawless (nor is it's HD remastering), but I still love it just as much as I have my whole life. The game as a whole is fantastic. Some say that the battle system is outdated, but I'd disagree.I think it plays great, and the sheer amount of content (especially with the final mix extras) is staggering. It is truly a ton of fun.
As for the specifics, let's get the cons out of the way first. The most obvious offender here is the load times. Mostly, it's not too bad if you're not paying attention (although still worse than 1.5's, I think), but the Drive Load times are awful, and the Absent Silhouettes' load times are on the brink of being unacceptable. Also, there's random lag in some odd points, such as the final area of Hundred Acre Woods (I have no clue why). and the whole laser storm thingy in the final battle (I guess I can understand that). It also happens when you're opening certain chests and when you use the change command for your party members. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's pretty distracting, especially because I'm so used to experiencing those things without lag. The one in the final battle in particular really takes you out of the experience, so I was very frustrated by it. Also, I don't recall if it was like this in the original KH2, but there is some pretty distracting lip desync, like Xemnas' speech to Saix before Saix asks to "end the charade," for example. One last con: Atlantica. It's just awful. 'Nuff said.
Granted, no HD collection is perfect. But this one is still great. So let's go over the good now, shall we? Put simply, this game looks amazing. The HD graphics are stellar, and most of the textures hold up well, especially on the main characters. The voice acting is quite good, as usual, and the effort they took to voice and give lip sync to the Final Mix only scenes was great. Most of the music sounds great, and while there were a couple tracks I was iffy about, it was mostly a fantastic re-orchestration of music I've come to know and love. Also I liked that most of the music aimed for a "re-orchestrated" sound, and not a "remix" of the original track. The only exception I noticed is the "Hazardous Highway" remixed track with the extra electric guitar and whatnot, and I freaking loved that remix anyway, so I'll let it slide.
As for the game of Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix in its own right, I may as well take this as an opportunity to go over what I love about it. I'm one of the people who thinks that KH2 is in most ways a superior game to KH1, and overall the best game in the series. I really love the story line; Sora is likeable in that he handles the task of saving the universe, but still shows that he's a silly and immature 15 year old, like when he goes nuts over Santa Claus, talks about wanting to be a pirate, and tickles Tron for kicks. It really makes him seem like a person, and not just some bland character that we only stick with because we have to play as them(cough cough Squall cough cough Lightning cough cough). I like the Organization as villains, because they have a good motive behind them. Most of them honestly believe that what they're doing will bring their hearts back, but they just go about it in a way that makes them villainous, selfish, and dangerous. (obviously we learn in DDD that the top few in the Organization had their own motive, but since that's still a pretty cool motive, I stand by my sentiment on them as a whole.) See, that makes a good villain. We get so many villains in movies and games that are just "hurr i wanna b king" or "hurr i want 2 tak over teh world," and a villain (or villains, in this case) with a more complex motive than that is very refreshing.
The Final Mix content also makes the game that much better. I've played 2FM multiple times on the PS2, but it was still just as enjoyable this time. The extra battles are all great and challenging, and the mushrooms are a fun and very rewarding minigame, but I actually also think that the puzzle pieces are a very underrated addition. I'm serious! They provide an incentive to explore a bit more, level up your abilities to get them, and then try a fun little puzzle game once you have them all, in which you get a great item as a result! It's just a fun little extra, and I really like it! Back to the extra battles though, I really like that these battles deliver a nice slap-in-the-face to anyone who criticizes KH2 for being too easy. These battles were made to be challenging, and they are very successful in that regard. They also provide a much more enjoyable endgame than the original KH2. (Random question though: Does anyone else think they nerfed the Roxas storyline battle in TWTNW? I remember him being a LOT more difficult in the original 2FM, but maybe it's just my imagination.)
KH2FMHD is worth $40 by itself. It is a titanic supergame, with a ridiculous amount of content for the player, awesome graphics, and a great storyline, and I cannot recommend it enough. Even though there are a few flaws, I still see this game as my favorite game of all time, and the HD remaster is an awesome excuse to sink hundreds of hours of my life into it again.
Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Final Mix
[i'm in Cinderella's world with Terra (1/3)]
+Unlike 2FM, the load times are great. Like I was fighting Wheel Master and died, and when I hit continue, I was back to fighting it in less than a second.
+Controls feel great.
~The game doesn't look as good as 2FM, but this is probably because it came from a handheld instead of a console. I'll excuse it there.
~The camera feels a little too close to Terra, but it's not a huge deal.
-The Lip Sync is a lot more hit-or-miss than 2FM's. Like 2FM's lip sync was great at first, and then started falling apart a little more near the end of the game for some reason. This is just more hit or miss all the time.
-Terra's VA just... isn't good. He does a great job with battle cries, but that's about it. (not a complaint about the remaster, just a general statement)
Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded Cinematics
[The spoiler contains my thoughts as I watched, and my final review of it as a whole is underneath.]
+Haley Joel Osment seems to be doing fine as Sora so far! You can tell it's a strain for him, since he's aged a lot more than Sora (besides his face, anyway), but props for effort, Haley.
+Same for Mickey's, Goofy's, and Donald's Voice Actors. They all sound great, and Mickey's current voice actor has improved a ton since Re:CoM.
+The fight scenes, despite not really being anything special, show a good effort by Square to correct their mistakes with the Days cinematics in 1.5.
+James Woods as Hades again. Noice.
~"Gosh, it's kinda a long story." Got that right, Mickey.
~Why did they use the original PS2 music instead of the ReMIX remastered music? It's not like it matters, I just found it kinda unusal
~Cheshire cat sure sounds a lot like Winnie The Pooh
~It seems like Dave Gallagher took the same approach with Riku as Peter Dinklage took with his character in Destiny. Eh... whatever
-------There is practically no entertainment value to this...
-Most of the Disney voices are incredibly cringe-worthy so far
-This is very jaggy looking. Not crisp like 2fm.
-They didn't even try with the lip sync, but whatever. I didn't really expect any different tbh. Still a negative though by default
Overall thoughts of the Re:Coded cinematics:
"You kinda lost me a few minutes ago." --Sora, in Re:Coded's ending.
That's how I felt while watching this. Except "a few minutes" became a couple hours. The thing is, Re:Coded was a video game designed with an emphasis on gameplay. The story only had a few important plot points, and everything in between is apocolyptically boring, especially with no gameplay to distract you from it. The story is poorly written at most times, and sometimes borders on downright nonsensical. The whole thing about Roxas and "hurt" doesn't really make any sense at all, and feels like just filler. The dialogue also just feels like an exposition dump, with characters vocally stating what just happened literally seconds ago. Like saying, "wow, I'm here!" when they show up. So much of it is one character explaining something to another character. On top of that, the logic of the datascape is so poorly defined, and there is rarely any real explanation as to why accomplishing task X will result in endgoal Y.
The voice acting is quite poor, overall, which makes the already poor dialogue sound even worse. The weird thing is, some of the voice actors here seem like they were given instructions to seem as monotone and boring as possible, such as Dave Gallagher (Riku) and Jesse McCartney (Roxas). Heck, I thought Roxas had a different voice actor until I listened more closely and heard some of the more subtle vocal giveaways that it was actually McCartney. Still, Sora sounded okay, but you could tell it was a struggle for poor Haley Joel Osment to maintain the sound of a 15 year old. Regardless, HJO still rocks. And some of the Disney voices like Alice and Jafar sound downright awful. Alice sounded like some random person trying to imitate that voice and not doing a very good job of it. The lip sync only made this worse, but whatever.
The fight scenes were a nice gesture by Square, but they were pretty poorly choreographed, and just felt kinda awkward overall. My biggest peeve was that the final fight with you-know-who (you know, THE FINAL BOSS OF THE FREAKING GAME) was almost completely cut out, like almost to the extent that the 358/2 Days cinematics cut out Roxas' final battle with Xion. It felt incredibly anticlimactic (I guess it would have been more anticlimactic if the story had made it actually mean anything, but whatever) and I was honestly kinda disappointed. Also, the visuals are jaggy and some of the closer up textures are jarringly bad.
BUT, I don't see any of this as a problem. I highly doubt that anyone who purchased 2.5 did so mainly for these cinematics, and for $40, there is more than enough quality content in the other two games for you to get more than your money's worth. Heck, there's enough quality content in 2FMHD or BBSFMHD by themselves to justify $40. So how about we all just switch to playing either of them and forget this trainwreck exists. After all, Kingdom Hearts 2.5 is basically someone selling you a package with a delicious juicy cheeseburger, a warm and chewy oven baked chocolate chip cookie-cake, and a plate full of moldy vegetables. Each part of the meal is in a separate container, and he tells you that you can take your fill of as much or as little as you'd like. And you're completely fine with it, since the price was more than reasonable!
Edited by Jim