After Sakurai confirmed the release of Kingdom Hearts on Switch last year during the final Sakurai Presents presentation – where Sora was revealed for Super Smash Bros Ultimate – the series finally makes its way to Nintendo Switch next month… with a catch. Four different games are coming to Switch; Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, Kingdom Hearts III + Re Mind (DLC) and the all-in-one Kingdom Hearts series collection.
However, none of these are native and are only Cloud versions of the titles. Meaning that you can only play them over the internet, on hardware somewhere far away, so they can’t be played offline. Also, much like streaming Netflix, the quality of the game is highly dependent on your internet, the quality of the servers, and how many other people are playing. Compression artefacts, visual downgrades, and input lag are just some of the issues this causes.
Not only this, but you’re only renting Cloud versions for as long as the service is active. Therefore, if and when the Switch eShop shuts down in a few years, so does your licence to play these games. That hasn’t stopped Square Enix from charging full price for the titles though, with the complete collection coming in at $79.99/£79.99. While we might – if we’re generous – say that Kingdom Hearts 3 was only possible this way, the previous Kingdom Hearts games could absolutely run on Switch, so this is disappointing, to say the least. Moreover, it feels like Square Enix is leaving money on the table and unnecessarily upsetting fans. So, when is the Kingdom Hearts Switch release date?
Source: https://www.pockettactics.com/kingdom-hearts/release-date
