Xbox One gamers are being ignored by Kingdom hearts' developer.
The first two titles in the trilogy were already Steam Deck Verified, but now Kingdom Hearts III has gotten its coveted green checkmark.
Travis Bruno of Capsule Computers writes:
"When it comes to the Kingdom Hearts franchise, fans have had a variety of ways to play it throughout its incredibly long length. They could have followed it from 2002’s original release and subsequent questionably canon releases on handheld devices only to return to the core game again with Kingdom Hearts II to find out that yes, they were canon. Then in that wait until the third game the mixture of titles along the way and other numerous platforms would make following Kingdom Hearts‘ story a challenge even for the most eager fan. Square Enix made up for this prior to Kingdom Hearts III’s release by bringing together an HD pack collecting the game’s together in an easier to digest package for fans and releasing them on consoles only for PC fans to be left in the dark. That is of course until all of the games arrived on PC, but not in a way that many had hoped. See, PC users can be a fickle bunch and when the Kingdom Hearts collection arrived on PC exclusively through Epic Games, it may as well not exist. Now, three years after the fact, these same PC players can now enjoy the exact same games on Steam with a bit of extra support including Steam Deck compatibility with Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece. The question is, do all of these games still hold up on their Steam PC ports?"
Far from a 9, Square have left these games a janky mess since their epic release. Even now they have not said anything about fixing some of the problems that many steam reviews mention. You gotta download the re:fined mod to fix what square refuses to do.
"SQUARE ENIX®’s beloved KINGDOM HEARTS series has launched on Steam®, bringing the iconic RPG series to a whole new world of players. All three collections released today—KINGDOM HEARTS HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX, KINGDOM HEARTS 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue and KINGDOM HEARTS III + Re Mind DLC—can be played both on PC and on-the-go on Steam Deck devices, and available at a special discounted price for a limited time*." - Square Enix.
My main complaint about the series is that it mixes Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters, but they are actually not important at all to the plot. I read summaries and watched videos about the series, even played the music game which tries to summarize the plot of each game, and the Disney and FF stuff are barely mentioned at all.
All the series really is, is an amalgamation of convoluted plots that tries too hard to be mysterious and edgy, with some cameos to attract fans of Disney and FF, who wouldn't care at all about the franchise otherwise.
Heck, even in the trailer above, the Disney/FF characters are... just there.
When people don't buy games, games stop coming.
They did it to themselves.
If they want them,just get a PS4. Not too hard to do.
I wish it was on X1 or Steam but nope. At least I already played DDS on my 3DS thankfully. I'm just waiting for KHIII
"Unfortunately, so far we’ve only got a handful of spin-off title scattered across various portable consoles, which in my opinion, didn’t help the franchise thrive. I would even dare to say that the focus on spinoffs for the past decade only damaged the series, making it hard for newcomers to enjoy it with ease."
You couldn't be any further from the truth. These spinoff titles are what keep this franchise alive and relevant in the past decade. The series could've pretty much ended after KH2 with the plot pretty much wrapped up and little room to just jump into a direct sequel. Not to mention the devs of KH1 & KH2 went onto work on FFvXIII(now FFXV) and said they wouldn't start work on KH3 until after they finished work on FFvXIII. Seeing how FFXV is only now just releasing in a month, that means that we would've had to wait until a whole decade without any KH games just to get the sequel and an even longer time to receive KH3. The series going dormant for a decade would've really hurt it, but the Osaka team that worked on Re: CoM, BBS, DDD, KH1.5, & KH2.5 are working on KH3 so we can get this sequel sooner than was originally expected.
"First of all, each collection costs nearly as a newly released game. Judging from the fact that most of the titles are at least 10 years old, plus them being portable entries (limited gameplay, short campaigns) it’s hard to justify three purchases just to be in line for the third game"
KH1.5 & KH2.5 both costed $40 when they came out, and now both cost $20 each. That's not anywhere near the cost a new game typically costs. Plus Re:CoM & BBS can take as much time to fully complete as KH1 & KH2. It was easy to justify the purchase of playing all these games on an HD console.
"These two obstacles are nothing compared to the pressing issue most fans are complaining about – the lack of Xbox One releases"
The only explanation is that Sony got an exclusive deal for all these compilations or Square Enix doesn't think these compilations will sell well enough on Xbox consoles to justify the effort of porting them to the platform.
Xbox users are typically NOT fans of JRPGs. Not enough "pew pew".
You'll still see major releases on X1, but smaller stuff and remasters? Nope. Fanbase isn't what I would call diverse. So neither are the games.
Xbox your first name in online shooters