Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece preview, our first impressions

The Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece demo allowed us to provide you with many confirmations in our preview, but not what you are hoping for

On the one hand, as you may have guessed from the previous review of Melody of Memory, even just the fact of writing apreview per Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece it is (close to the celebrations) a step towards a dream come true. Imagine, if you can, a tangible sense of wonder, after taking the first steps in the Plunge into the Heart with Sora, finally seeing the X of Nintendo Switch on the command menu. It is in magical moments like this that a pleasant feeling of having travezzole arises in us, such as to make an image seemingly clear at times almost blurred.

And then, suddenly, a superimposed message brings us back to reality abruptly: “Warningen (sic) The conditions of the network are not good enough[X] to play without problems. [X] The game will be automatically stopped. [X] Check the network conditions and settings. ” That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the magic of the cloud (with the lowercase “c”, not the Cloud we love) it doesn’t take long to reveal his Mephistophelic face. We will discuss the inevitability of the compromise later, but we can say right now that the appeal of a portable debut for the series has gone to hell from the start.

The occasion makes the critical eye

Perhaps our preview of Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece opened a little too caustically, but if you like it, you can compare the writing to the torture of Harry Potter with the feather by Dolores Umbridge. Writing these lines makes, if you pass the inelegant expression, a bad dog. To tell the truth, the impartiality of an evaluation serves to be honest both with developers and publishers and with players, and it just so happens that we have had the opportunity to test these trial versions with “comfort” in the midst of the adversities entailed by an excruciating connection.

For this reason, expect to see many, many screenshots (two out of three) taken at an internet café with the lowest resolution due to portable mode. The unintended irony of the situation is but the tip of the iceberg, though: if you’ve imagined the cloud experience “like playing a YouTube video”, we congratulate you on your divination art. The ups and downs of image quality It is comparable to a roller coaster, with crisp passages worthy of blurring promotional screens capable of making 358/2 Days turn pale on the Nintendo DS.

Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece preview, our first impressions

Just a peek – Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece preview

Given the unusual situation, to say the least, you will notice a lack in our preview of Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece: that of the three “non-interactive” games, namely the purely narrative versions of the aforementioned 358/2 Days, of Re: coded and of χ Back Cover. It is no coincidence: we have skipped as many cutscenes as possible due to the need to obtain the images you will see here. You see, there is no separate build – on balance, the whole game is in the cloud right now. It makes the only difference a timer of about ten minutes (!) for fun, with a maximum number of uses.

In short, even by opting for a borrowed connection, the room for maneuver was still quite limited. Which brings us to the elephant in the living room: the choice to extend the cloud to the entire collection. We understand very well that Ubitus (whose logo even precedes those of Disney and of Square-Enix) tried to do their best to make this saga accessible to everyone, but if we say “extend” it is because the titles seen on PS2, PSP and 3DS hardly need to opt for a compromise, as the guys from Panic Button teach us, Virtuos and Saber Interactive. Let’s pretend we understand the choice, anyway.

Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece preview, our first impressions

A ray of sunshine in the clouds – Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece preview

What else is left to say? It is still Kingdom Hearts. In our repetitive reliving the opening bars of each of the games involved, we have still had the opportunity to ascertain (through the cloud’s blurry filter) that it is still a matter of a series of qualities beyond question. We wouldn’t take it that much if it were low-grade products, but the franchise was one of the first to dismantle the long-established curse of licensed games. And seeing the “don’t turn off your Nintendo Switch console” message at each save point never fails to make us jump, such was the wait.

For those who are not aware, this matryoshka contains in turn three collections that can also be purchased individually. We allude to 1,5+II.5 HD ReMIX (che contiene I Final Mix, Re:Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, II Final Mix, Birth By Sleep Final Mix, Re:coded), II.8 HD Final Chapter Prologue (comprensivo di Dream Drop Distance, Birth By Sleep 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage e χ Back Cover) e di Kingdom Hearts III (with the Re + Mind DLC). The total cost is one hundred euro, which for native ports would be a bargain… and which we suppose is also a bargain for home-only players with a phenomenal connection. For everyone else, we are like NFTs.

Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece preview, our first impressions

Commiser… concluding remarks

It’s hard to hold back the sighs in our farewell, knowing that we’ll just have to point out the above in our preview of Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece. At their best, the games are limited to re-propose what has already been widely appreciated elsewhere, although out of time. At their worst, however, these titles only remind us which are Square-Enix’s favorite platforms. We are not talking about the vague regret with which we have occasionally beaten some games (as happened with Killer Chambers for the legacy of the development team), but something bigger.

Of course, we would be happy to repent if the three weeks between us and the release of the games (February 10) were enough for Ubitus to solve performance problems attributable to a mere excess of players connected simultaneously. We don’t take a review for granted, with the words just written, but just as we appreciated Square-Enix’s honest invitation to try the game before buying it, we would still be honored to see it subjected to our scrutiny. For now, “The demo version is over. To keep playing [X] you can purchase access to the full version [X] of the game on Nintendo eShop. “

Now it’s up to you to tell us yours: were we too austere? Let us know below, and as always don’t forget to stay on TechGameWorld.com for all the most important news for gamers and more. For your purely gaming needs, you can instead find the best discounts in digital format on Instant Gaming.