First off I would like to say that if this game was not on sale when I bought it (15.99) it would not be worth the cost. however, I cannot say this game is a waste of money entirly. If you never played the original kingdom hearts it is a great game that deserves to be played. you also get chain of memories which is a port of the game boy advanced card based action game which is fun but definitely only worth playing if you want to get the whole story between KH1 and KH2. (Because KH2 can be very confusing if you don't know the back story). This collection also contains the CINIMATICS-only version of 365/2 days which also fills you in on the backstory of some of the characters in kh2. More on this game later.
I suggest getting this collection if it stays less than 20 dollars however if you are one of those people who played the original version you might not find the new version that much of an upgrade to make it worth it. It is also worth noting that KH2 is not part of this collection and will be part of its own collection to be released at the end of 2014.
Now to the actual gameplay of kingdom hearts 1.5 collection: I was very split with how I felt when I played this game. I played the original kingdom hearts and hingdom hearts 2 on the ps2 and loved them, completing both 100%. I never bought chain of memories or 365/2 because I didn't have a handheld so I was exited to play them on ps3. The first thing I did was open up 365/2 days thinking it was the full game. Instead what I got was all of the cut scenes with these poorly constructed text scenes to fill in what is supposed to happen during actual gameplay. I got through 4 cutscenes before I realized that no game was coming and was severally dissapointed. I don't know how hard it would have been to port the game to ps3 but if they could do it for chain of memories why couldn't they do it for 365/2? It's nice to get the story, however I found that it was annoying to get a cool scene with voice acting and then 3 minuites later have to read a 4 paragraph text box explaining what happened between scenes. And this game was long, the title says 365 days, and there is litterally a text box every 2-3 "days". It continues to play without you needing to push any buttons after a text box but that is both a good and bad thing. I feel like they don't give you enough time to read everything before removing the text so I missed out on a lot of information because I would look away from the screen during cutscenes to find a text box had popped up without me noticing. The one other complaint I had was that it seemed towards the end of the story they got really lazy with editing and didn't put some text box information that was direly needed between a few cutscenes. The whole thing takes about 4 hours to play through from beginning to end and once you have seen a chapter a chapter selection on the main screen lets you go to any chapter you have already seen. Once you finish the whole thing it opens up a charactor page which let's you look at information about the different characters that appear in the story, and there are achievements... For getting through the whole blasted thing. That is pretty much all there is to this part of the game. It was a real letdown because I had wanted to play the game for a long time and it just seems like they were either lazy or ran out of time so I will probibly never watch this again. I will say that the one redeeming thing for this game is the amazing story. Even though I was distracted by the bad editing the story caught my heart and I really felt for the characters as they discovered who they were and what must be done to make things right.
The next part of the collection I opened was the remastered kingdom hearts 1 game. I must say that the graphics, although not mindboggalingly better than the original are crisper both in the cutscenes and while playing the game. I like that because the graininess during play on the ps2 version used to make my eyes hurt. I didn't get far in the game because I like to level grind however it seemed like all the cutscenes up until the Alice in wonderland level are exactly the same. As of right now the only difference I can see is that there are a few changes to when you get certain abilities when leveling up. It might be more different later on.
If you have never played kingdom hearts 1 before this is pretty much how it goes: in the beginning you choose between 3 classes in an unconventional way. You choose between sword, shield, or staff (strength, defense, or magic) then get rid of one of the ones you didn't choose. ( for example I chose magic, and got rid of defense. This effects what powers and stats you get as you level up. Your only weapon is the key blade (and whatever magic you want to use), and you recieve two companions Donald and goofy to fight along side you in a hack and slash style fighting. You travel between disney themed worlds each of which has it's own mini story you need to complete in order to progress in the overarching story. In the worlds you battle heartless, talk to disney characters and solve simple puzzles while collecting items and new spells. Traveling between worlds is a minigame where you are in a space ship shooting down opposing space ships to get to the end of the mini level without dying. The story of kh1 is innocent and well written with some cute disney humor and themes of friendship and belief in oneself. It gets a little darker as you near the end of the game but it is never anything a child would have trouble understanding. I played this game for the story, but I also think the gameplay is good too. The battle system is pretty easy to use and will fit any playing style because you can apply different moves and magic to fit your style. The one issue I have is the bad camera, which can get stuck on the environment if you are in a close quarter and need to do some platform ing. One new thing that they added that was cool is that now you can skip through cutscenes which in the original was not possible. This helps a lot with battling some of the harder bosses that you often have to battle multiple times to beat. It would get really annoying having to watch a 3 min cut scene every time. Like I said in the begenning this version doesn't have that much of an upgrade but it is nice to have it on a new platform with some graphic clean up. There are achievements added and most of them have to do with beating certain bosses or completing worlds, it's a nice touch but I don't really need achievements so this additive didn't matter to me.
The third and final part of this game is the chain of memories port. I must confess at this time I only played the first couple of levels and for the most part it looks pretty much the same as the game boy advanced version. The cutscenes graphics have gotten a facelift but pretty much everything is left the same. I thought the shift to a card based game is kinda strange. When you go into a battle you are transported to a battle stage where there are a few enemies moving around in a pappermario-esque partial 3d environment. You move around your charactor and have to aim at enemies individually like a hack and slash but what power you use is based on a deck of cards you work through as the battle continues. You collect cards by defeating enemies and can rearrange your deck to get combos. It's a cool idea but I found this style of gameplay very difficult to use because you have to move your charactor and position yourself while scrolling through your deck to find he cards you want to use. The story takes place right after kingdom hearts 1 and before kindgom hearts 365/2 and introduces a new type of enemy as well as a bunch of new characters who are sited in 365/2 kh2 and most likely the upcoming kindgom hearts 3 title. There aren't many cutscenes and most of the story is revealed through speech bubbles the in game characters communicate with. This means a lot of reading.
So in conclusion, kingdom hearts 1.5 remix has 2 games and 1 cenimayic. The remastered kh1 is good with added cutscenes and a graphic facelift, as well as the new skipping cutscenes and achievements. Chain of memories is ok, not much changed and is kinda a mediocre game to begin with, with a good story but too much text reading. Finally the 365/2 Cinimatic which I consider bad. With lazy editing, the lack of the playable game, and text that moves too quickly the only redeaming feature of this one is it's amazing story.
I suggest only buying this if you have never played any of them and you are interested in playing kingdom hearts 2 (which is wonderful) and only then if it continues to cost less than $20.00.
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Got here pretty fast. Not damaged. Disk in great condition. Excited to play the game with my daughter. Thank you. Definitely recommend
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