Kingdom Hearts fans had a very good day yesterday. There was an enormous amount of hype and speculation about the final DLC fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with social media abuzz with prayers for Sora to be the final addition to the game. Masahiro Sakurai answered them: unveiling Sora with a stunning debut trailer and moves breakdown for the Disney/Square Enix hero. Large parts of the internet had what can only be described as a joygasm.
But the excitement hasn’t stopped there. Following the announcement, Nintendo confirmed that the Kingdom Hearts series is coming to Switch. The ‘Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece’ collection will comprise Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix, Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, and Kingdom Hearts 3 + Re Mind. They’ll arrive sometime later this year, though an exact date is yet to be announced.
Sadly, there’s a catch. These games will only be made available via cloud streaming, meaning you’ll need a beefy internet connection to enjoy them and won’t be able to play them on the move. Nintendo generally reserves this for titles that the Switch couldn’t handle using its onboard hardware, with Control, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and Resident Evil 7 being released this way.
As a PlayStation 4 game with plenty of graphical bells and whistles, Kingdom Hearts 3 falls under that category. But there’s no question that the Switch could easily run ports of the first two Kingdom Hearts games, which were released in 2002 and 2005 on the PlayStation 2.
Disappointed fans have pointed out that paying full price for games that’ll only be available for as long as the servers are up isn’t a good deal, with the consensus being that Nintendo and Square Enix are simply being lazy.
Despite this, it’s nice that Switch owners will have the ability to catch up on Kingdom Hearts as Sora makes his leap into the wild world of Smash – even if it is in a suboptimal way.
Published: Oct 6, 2021 08:49 am