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KH PC Review Thread



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AegisXIII

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Hello there, fellow KH friends.

Yesterday, I have been weak and thus I bought Kh1.5+2.5 once again (on PC this time). I wanted to get this one as it contains the oldest games. And as a technical enthusiast, I was curious to see how it would hold up to today's standards.

The goal of this topic is to review the technical aspect of it. What has changed and how does it work internally.
Please share your reviews as well. The more the better.

- First of all, the settings. They are great. I wasn't expecting them to be that detailed:
1617703312012.png

You get fps options, resolution options and gamepad type selection. They did a splendid job unifying the icons for controllers/keyboard in all the games. This is really great considering there are 4 playable games that needed to be aligned with the same graphical convention.

My only complaint (and this is a huge one): no japanese voices!!!
This is terrible especially considering it was written on the epic store page that there was dual audio. The reason behind it probably comes from the pre recorder cutscenes (theater mode for kh1) that use lip syncing. Having dual audio would double the amount of disk space taken by these videos. Note that com, days and re:coded should not be impacted as they never had lip sync in the first place.

- Second big topic: Mouse and Keyboard control:
This one is insane. I was not expecting them to map the camera to the mouse. Remember KH1 and its slow outdated camera? Well, they miraculously managed to make it super reactive now. It's insane. It's not as good as kh2 which is the golden standard in term of camera, but it's a pretty good step forwad. I still haven't tested with a controller if it's better as I still believe the ps4 version could be improved. Note that the camera in kh1 will still refuse to move when it touches obstacles (walls for example).

- Third topic: The save files. We need to talk about this. They are not regular files. They are PNG images with the data encoded in the picture.
Here is a save file for KH2:
1617704092781.png
In theory, you could take this picture, paste it in your folder, and that's it. The save data are encoded as 0 and 1 in the pixels. This is so crazy and fits KH so well that I had to mention it.


So I am pretty happy with the port. It is rock solid. However I have some minor complaints I feel the need to address:

-BBS menus are not made for HD screens (and even less for 4k). They are blurry and you can see the pixels in the fonts and icons. You can clearly see it was designed for the psp and they didn't manage to scale it properly, which is sad considering DDD got a much better treatment. However, there is a proper save menu compared to the ps4 and it's pretty nice. I wish they would find a way to upscale it a little bit to make it way more playable.

- Prerecorded cutscenes are not HD. They are upscaled 720p. You can see the aliasing in all the cutscenes of chain of memories, days and recoded and it is really distracting (more than on a flat screen tv as you are closer to your desktop screen). I know making them more hd would require the files to be larger, but I would say: PC can handle it. It should be possible to get proper HD cutscenes.
The only exception is the theater mode for KH1 and the Roxas+Xion cutscenes that were rendered 4 years later. Those one are gorgeous and should be the standard for the other cutscenes.

That's it for now. If I get more info later, I'll post them here.
 

LoneFox

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In theory, you could take this picture, paste it in your folder, and that's it. The save data are encoded as 0 and 1 in the pixels. This is so crazy and fits KH so well that I had to mention it.
This belongs on thedailywtf.com !

Unfortunately I cannot try out the games myself, because there is an artificial dependency on dll files that are not available for Windows 7. Apparently it can be circumvented for KH3 (only), but I think that game probably is a bit too much for my old Windows computer...
 

AegisXIII

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This belongs on thedailywtf.com !

Unfortunately I cannot try out the games myself, because there is an artificial dependency on dll files that are not available for Windows 7. Apparently it can be circumvented for KH3 (only), but I think that game probably is a bit too much for my old Windows computer...
Yeah I wouldn't try KH3 on an old computer. My machine is from 2014 and runs 1.5+2.5 smoothly. The only issue I had was that the games were running on my low intel graphics card and I had to switch them manually to nvidia. Then, the 60fps unlocked automatically.
 

AegisXIII

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Okay, so now I have a bit more playing time at my counter.
So far I have played KH1FM and it ran smoothly for the better part.

I got two bugs. The first one happened once I died looking for Guard Armor and it took me back to the meeting Leon cutscene. This is a known issue from the PS4 already I think.

The second bug is more related to the epic game store, but basically you need to be online to load a game. And this is an issue if you select the option to go back to title screen while being offline, as it will basically restart the Kingdom_Hearts_1_FM.exe which counts as loading a game. So any change of game while being offline will crash and it cannot recover from that.


Now let's talk about something that I realized after playing for 3 hours:
Yesterday I mentioned that the camera on the mouse was great. It is, it really is. However, it could be improved. You see, there seems to be an issue with the vertical axis. When you go up with your mouse, the camera moves up, but then slowly goes back to its original position. It's like there is a force pushing the camera back to the initial altitude. When you want to look up for hidden chests this is a drag, because it feels like you are fighting an invisible force that shouldn't be here. I could understand if your character is in motion as every game do that. But when the character is not moving, when I move my camera, I want my camera to stay in place.
After a while I found a way to fix it: if your camera touches the ground, then it stops the invisible force. It really feels like they tried something but didn't cover all use-cases.
I am not sure that this is happening on PS4, but they should definitely fix it. it doesn't make the game unplayable by any means, but it make it feels clunky. But hey, what would Kingdom hearts 1 be without its clunky camera?

If anyone from Square Enix reads this: PLEASE FIX IT. The camera should follow our orders. If we move it somewhere there is a reason.

That's all for today.
 

AegisXIII

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Okay, I completed KH1 at 100% and got 0 crash. This is a surprise.

Just started chain of memories and the cutscenes quality is really bad. These old prerecorded upscaled videos give me the impression that I forgot to wear my glasses. It's not only the aliasing, but some edges are super blurry. I don't understand why they cannot produce proper hd cutscenes when there is HD on the title of the game.

Appart from that, the camera in re:chain of memories is exactly what I was looking for and didn't get in KH1. It is stable, doesn't go crazy when it touches walls and stay in position if you stop moving the mouse. See? The camera in KH1 is so bad, that it makes Re:chain of memories feel fresh and dynamic.
 

AegisXIII

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I guess I am the only one playing on PC, but I don't care I'll keep on posting as my personal diary.

I found out that they had to tweak the tiger jump minigame in chain of memories. The icons to press used to be painted on the logs as a texture. Now they are gone and instead they display the touch to press at the bottom of the screen. All of this is probably to adapt to the multiple possible configurations that pc has to offer.

Also they fixed the bug that locked gameplay at 30fps during the bees minigame. Now it's finally smooth.
 

bambii

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FYI everyone’s dreams of playing KH on-the-go may finally be coming true. Valve’s just-announced Steam Deck appears to basically be a portable handheld Linux-based gaming PC. I can’t see any reason one couldn’t use Epic Games Store on it, though I could be wrong.

As an aside, what a slap to the face to Nintendo after their OLED drop, lol
 
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FYI everyone’s dreams of playing KH on-the-go may finally be coming true. Valve’s just-announced Steam Deck appears to basically be a portable handheld Linux-based gaming PC. I can’t see any reason one couldn’t use Epic Games Store on it, though I could be wrong.

As an aside, what a slap to the face to Nintendo after their OLED drop, lol
I mean, it is basically a portable PC. You'd be able to install Windows and the EGS on it.

And you'd be able to install emulators so you basically got a full fledged all-in-one game system.
 

AegisXIII

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I mean, it is basically a portable PC. You'd be able to install Windows and the EGS on it.

And you'd be able to install emulators so you basically got a full fledged all-in-one game system.
Yeah. It is still running Linux by default, which is a great platform but not for gaming. There wouldn't be KH on it.
 

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Recently patch 1.0.0.7 was reeased for 1.5+2.5, the patch states:
  • Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix has been updated to fix a bug and improve stability
Seemly this patch slightly fixe some stuff but made the whole game worst.

 

AegisXIII

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Recently patch 1.0.0.7 was reeased for 1.5+2.5, the patch states:
  • Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix has been updated to fix a bug and improve stability
Seemly this patch slightly fixe some stuff but made the whole game worst.

Well, although not a lot has been fixed, it seems they are listening to feedback. So we just have to be patient. From their twitter account, they are more patches to come.
 

magic713

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I started playing on PC a few weeks ago. It was quite good, but it suffered from bugs. I only finished playing the first game, but I had to do some troubleshooting as it was crashing a lot. I finally found a way to get it fixed but it still had an occasional crash and one non-crash bug, where, while fighting Shadow Sora, the entire room turned black and no one could hurt the other (forcing me to close the game, regardless)

I just started Re:CoM, and I already had a few crashes as of late. One involved crashing as I was loading the save, but I fixed that. The other was more random.

So when it works, it is fun, bt sadly the crashes make me paranoid. With the CoM crashes occurring after this latest update.

EDIT: Congrats PC. You've driven me back to finish the current game on PS3. I'll have to endure lesser graphics and load screens, but it's better than lag crashes.
 
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AegisXIII

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I started playing on PC a few weeks ago. It was quite good, but it suffered from bugs. I only finished playing the first game, but I had to do some troubleshooting as it was crashing a lot. I finally found a way to get it fixed but it still had an occasional crash and one non-crash bug, where, while fighting Shadow Sora, the entire room turned black and no one could hurt the other (forcing me to close the game, regardless)

I just started Re:CoM, and I already had a few crashes as of late. One involved crashing as I was loading the save, but I fixed that. The other was more random.

So when it works, it is fun, bt sadly the crashes make me paranoid. With the CoM crashes occurring after this latest update.

EDIT: Congrats PC. You've driven me back to finish the current game on PS3. I'll have to endure lesser graphics and load screens, but it's better than lag crashes.
Yes it's not perfect. I am starting to have the feeling they first released on epic as the pool of users is much smaller so that they can gather feedback before the steam release. Plus they get epic's money for the exclusivity.
But a good thing is that they announced they were investigating more patches. We just have to wait and see.
 

magic713

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Yes it's not perfect. I am starting to have the feeling they first released on epic as the pool of users is much smaller so that they can gather feedback before the steam release. Plus they get epic's money for the exclusivity.
But a good thing is that they announced they were investigating more patches. We just have to wait and see.
I've learned years ago that initial releases are being treated more and more like beta releases, with the audience as the beta testers, and the patches are the real finished product. I forgot to take that into account, with this game, since it is a different version, and not a brand new game. I'll keep that in mind next time.
 

MATGSY

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I've learned years ago that initial releases are being treated more and more like beta releases, with the audience as the beta testers, and the patches are the real finished product. I forgot to take that into account, with this game, since it is a different version, and not a brand new game. I'll keep that in mind next time.
Hence why FF Pixel remasters aren't on console yet. -_-
 

AegisXIII

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By the way, I said something wrong about the steam deck being on Linux and not running windows game. This is absolutely wrong. Most windows game will run on the steamdeck using Proton, a technology that simulates a windows environment. So, there is a high chance we could play KH on this deck if/when the series arrives on steam.
 
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By the way, I said something wrong about the steam deck being on Linux and not running windows game. This is absolutely wrong. Most windows game will run on the steamdeck using Proton, a technology that simulates a windows environment. So, there is a high chance we could play KH on this deck if/when the series arrives on steam.
Can't u just install Windows on it
 

AegisXIII

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I just woke up to a 7GB update.
Apparently, they fixed some issues in both 1.5+2.5 and 2.8.

And actually, I just started kh2 and realized they still have the same issue than on ps4 with the texture compression for faces.
1632347155535.png

And this is really annoying, considering it was fine on ps3.
1632347103430.png
 

LoneFox

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There is now a hack to get KH 1.5+2.5 working on Windows 7. Unfortunately, it seems to require Vulkan support, so it's not useful for older systems.
 
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