GAME REVIEW: Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue

Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue  is the latest compilation from Square Enix and Disney.

It includes a port from the Nintendo 3DS (Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance) remade with shiny new graphics, a sequel to Birth by Sleep (0.2 Fragmentary Passage) that ties into Kingdom Hearts III and a movie based on the iOS game (Back Cover). The main event in this compilation is 0.2 FP but it’s not the bulk of the game, as opposed to 3DS which lasts over 7 hours and the movie coming to just under two hours.

Now I’m a huge Kingdom Hearts fan. As a kid, I got hooked playing the first game and I was blown away by the characters, worlds and levels. Being an old school Final Fantasy fan the combat system was very refreshing. I was so drawn into the story I felt involved in it; I cried when Sora cried and I felt the struggle Riku felt. I couldn’t afford the spin-off titles or their respective consoles so I had to wait until they were remastered many years later and the same goes for this game. I’ve never played Dream Drop Distance so I was really hyped to get it and play it.

 

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance

I was more excited for this than 0.2, I craved for an explanation at the end of Kingdom Hearts II and it looked like I was finally getting it. We start off with Sora and Riku taking their Mark of Mastery exam to become Keyblade Masters. You’re plunged into a whole new story that now consists of Dream Eaters instead of the Heartless, original characters.

The Hallmark feature of this game is the new Drop system: while you are exploring as Sora, a timer in the bottom right hand corner starts to time down. When it reaches zero, you are suddenly forced into a slumber and dropped into another alternate reality where Riku takes over and his timer starts to count down and you return as Sora. The only downfall is if you were in the middle of combat whilst playing Sora you have to go back and do that whole area again, which I found incredibly frustrating.

As soon as Sora landed, I was bombarded by tutorials and flashbacks within other flashbacks, which slowed the progress of the game down. I did, however, eventually get my head around it and found myself in the same familiar world that he visits in all of the other games. I was let down by this, which doesn’t stop there because there are very few new worlds. In fact, there are only three.

The new combat addition “Flow motion” was very pleasing; it was exactly what the franchise was missing. It enables you to bounce off walls, swing on poles and use your opponent’s weight against them by smashing them into others or walls. You can also bounce from wall-to-wall at top speeds. I found it to be a creative way to move around and fight.

The new enemies of the game are called Dream Eaters, which are just Heartless knock-offs that come in all sizes. However, the big twist with these minions is you can now own your very own and command them as allies. It’s a new feature in the game where you get a recipe, add the required materials and out comes a Spirit (Dream Eater). You can also add more materials to make your new ally stronger and increase their level. You can then interact with them by playing mini games.

As for the story, it will keep you satisfied until Kingdom Hearts III, but the game feels rehashed and the story becomes so complex by bringing back villains for the sake of it.

 

Birth By Sleep 0.2: Fragmentary Passage

In the sequel to BBS you return as Aqua after sacrificing yourself to the Darkness to save your friends. You hit the ground running here by being granted level 50 with end-game abilities so you don’t feel like you’ve been shafted and you can fight to the best of your abilities through this maze of caverns.

I really enjoyed this more than I thought I would. The game plunges you into the deepest darkest part of Kingdom Hearts and these dark empty caverns are a perfect nod to the previous, main title game’s final world. It is imaginative, creative and the environment is visually pleasing. It showcases its smooth new graphics and offers incredible high quality details such as the particles, the water, and the lighting. Yet it keeps its traditional Disney artwork and style. Ironically, it feels like they have more life than the worlds of Dream Drop Distance. The game encourages you to explore off-route, each path has a subpath veering off of it that usually holds treasures or puzzles and optional objectives, which include wardrobe changes that don’t have any effect on Aqua, but it’s nice to see her wearing cat ears fighting the Heartless, right?

The gameplay is a simplified version of BBS and KH3D, which isn’t a bad thing because instead of the rotating command deck, you go back to basics with Attack, Magic and Item. But it also incorporates some key features from BBS such as the Grand Finisher and the Multi-Attack. This system offers the best of both worlds and is much easier to navigate through the menu for your attacks instead of being frozen still flipping through the deck.

And for the story, I found the ending seems to tie up the loose ends in BBS while moving forward to Kingdom Hearts III. It’s a fantastic, entertaining game that makes me hopeful and excited for the future of the franchise.

 

Kingdom Hearts Back Cover

As with all Kingdom Hearts compilations, there is a movie. This time we’re given χ -Back Cover. That x is actually pronounced “Chi”. I didn’t know what to expect watching this movie, I’ve never played the iOS game and apparently they made this movie to delve deeper into the foreteller’s backstory. All the characters are original; there are no Final Fantasy or Disney characters. I had to read the synopsis to find out what it was about, which was the Keyblade war, and it serves as a prequel to KH BBS.

The graphics are great and the film is very well animated. As I’ve mentioned above with 0.2, it seems to be looking good for Kingdom Hearts III and their engine.

The film leaves me asking more questions and I wish they’d kept to the 258/2 Days format where the missions where bullet points, as I had to google the mobile game to understand what was going on.

If you’ve never played 3DS or the mobile Unchained χ and you can afford the price tag of £44.99, I recommend it. The games satisfy your Kingdom Hearts hunger cravings and adds fresh new lore to the series, which is nice to have since it gets extremely confusing and complicated at times. I don’t recommend newcomers play this. I suggest hanging on until March when 1 and 2 are re-re-released.