Beginning as a strangely unique PlayStation exclusive, born from a strangely unique crossover of media franchises, the Kingdom Hearts series once again releases on a brand new platform with the most recent PC port. Generally speaking, the journey to PC has been quite kind to Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX in a number of modest ways, with a few features to enhance the Windows port. Minus some issues and preferential gripes, Kingdom Hearts makes a successful transition to PC.
Among the few Windows-specific bells and whistles expected of most console-to-PC ports, the original lineup of Kingdom Hearts games on PC plays comparably to the console remasters. There are only very minor performance problems to speak of, none of which are game-breaking. The only major hurdle consumers will need to consider is the price vs. the value, as the classic Kingdom Hearts collection is still being sold at $49.99 MSRP on Epic Games Store. Other than minor and infrequent issues, Kingdom Hearts' PC debut is largely excellent. The only barrier of entry will be price, but otherwise, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX on PC is a solid port.
Fans who have played the remastered collection previously will be familiar with the games included, but for new players on PC Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX is a collection of the first and second mainline Kingdom Hearts games, as well as two narrative spin-off games in Re:Chain of Memories and Birth By Sleep Final Mix. The final two "games" are actually remastered cinematics and cutscenes from the original releases of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days and Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded.
Of course, the first Kingdom Hearts is iconic in its own right for kickstarting such a unique franchise in gaming, quirks and awkward combat aside. The first game in the series continues to show its age, especially in 2021. However, as if Square Enix made a complete 180 in the two years between the original and its sequel, Kingdom Hearts 2 definitely doesn't suffer as badly from that problem in 2021. Even Re:Chain of Memories and Birth By Sleep, which shifted the formula even further with card and command-based spell/ability systems, are still quite satisfying as action RPGs, despite each game's respective imbalances.
Players will witness the humble action RPG beginnings of Kingdom Hearts 1, the near-perfection of mechanics and gameplay in Kingdom Hearts 2, as well as the experimentation of the formula in Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories and Birth By Sleep. Those curious about filling in the narrative gaps between mainline games can view the origins of a certain Nobody in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, as well as the frankly bonkers narrative that takes place in Re:Coded. It's clear not much has changed with these remasters on the way to Windows, but that's largely fine. All of the previous major issues with the PS4/Xbox One remasters have since been solved.
Overall, performance is largely flawless on default settings, especially on a mid-range PC where the visuals and performance are as crisp and fluid as possible. Only on above average and very specific high-end rigs do minor inconveniences start to arise. None of the Kingdom Hearts games in the collection have ultrawide support, producing black bars and letterboxing on larger monitors. G-Sync capable monitors in particular have issues (according to fan reports, FreeSync monitors have similar issues) with severe screen flickering. However, there are some more significant issues that are solved with simple fixes as well.
V-Sync in Kingdom Hearts' PC port, in particular, can cause some irregular crashing and instability, depending on moments in-game and/or hardware specifications. It's hard to narrow down the source of these issues, but turning off "Refresh Rate" (V-Sync) in the game's settings avoids the issue entirely. All Kingdom Hearts games do have an uncapped framerate option as well, which is great on paper, but is also the source of the biggest performance issue on PC. Due to an issue with the game's logic in determining framerate scaling, certain cutscenes and moments in-game can force a much lower framerate to maintain stability. Luckily, there is a fan mod that fixes this.
Minor issues aside, gamepad and keyboard support is surprisingly solid for Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX. All games support three different icon displays for button layouts, utilizing Xbox, PlayStation, as well as generic XInput icons for miscellaneous gamepads as well. Players can also fully customize and re-map bindings for gamepads to their liking. Lastly, the collection's settings also let players swap the "confirm" action between circle/B and cross/A, flip-flopping between the Japanese and Western standards. Keyboard support includes numerous layouts, fully re-mappable bindings, as well as mouse sensitivity settings, but frankly it's not recommended for any Kingdom Hearts games.
For now, the only things bringing down Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX on PC are the minimal graphical and performance issues that occur. Putting aside those problems, players are left with a surprisingly adaptable port that plays just like the remasters once did on PlayStation and Xbox. Widespread controller support, unlocked framerate (when it doesn't slow the game down), visuals at their highest texture resolution, overall the Kingdom Hearts PC ports are largely pretty great.
Luckily, most of the issues with the collection could potentially be fixed with a patch/update down the line, so it's not the end of the world. Overall, playing through the original Kingdom Hearts games on PC really is a definitive experience for those games. The only major thing consumers will have to consider is the full $49.99 price, which could be a turn-off for anyone other than hardcore fans, especially with the aforementioned issues. Kinks aside, this collection does shine and perform respectably well on Windows, but it'll be up to consumers to decide whether they should jump in at full price as it stands, or wait for a patch and/or sale.
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX is available now on PC. Game Rant was provided a code for this review.