Ranking All The Games In The Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece Collection
All seven playable games in the Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece Collection ranked.
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It's hard to believe it's been 24 years since Kingdom Hearts came out for the PlayStation 2, and even harder to believe we are in the middle of our longest drought between games in the franchise's history. With that in mind, let's look back at this franchise. For the sake of this ranking, we are only going to look at the games that are playable in this collection, which would exclude 358/2 Days, Re:Coded, X Back Cover, and Melody of Memory since the first three are just a collection of cutscenes and the last one came out after the collection was released.
Please note, light spoilers follow but I'll keep them to a minimum.
7. Kingdom Hearts 0.2: A Fragmentary Passage
If Square Enix was going to charge the same price for 2.8 as they did for 1.5 and 2.5, they needed a second game to actually play besides just Dream Drop Distance. A Fragmentary Passage is basically a short tech demo designed to give players a sense of how Kingdom Hearts 3 would run with a thin narrative purpose being served. It's not awful but something had to bottom out the list.
6. Kingdom Hearts Final Mix
Every once in a while, a rumor will arise that Square Enix is working on a ground-up remake of Kingdom Hearts, and I think a good amount of that comes from just how slow the original game runs, even with the Final Mix upgrades. Sora feels clunky, slow, and just kind of weak compared to how he plays in later games, arguably including Chain of Memories. This is really what holds the game back, especially when combined with the entirety of Atlantica handling very poorly, as do the flight controls in Neverland. It's also kind of funny going back and looking at this game and take into consideration how much smaller scale the story feels compared to how much larger it would become, even in the next entry.
5. Kingdom Hearts RE: Chain Of Memories
There's a learning curve with Chain of Memories as you go from an active combat to a card-based combat system. The game is short, though this is mostly because it is a port of a Game Boy Advance game, but once you get used to the combat it works pretty well. The only reason it's not higher is that the gameplay loop gets repetitive very quickly and it becomes pretty easy to cheese most of the bosses after a certain point. Riku's story doesn't add much to the overall narrative and his dark mode is a little broken but still, the game is pretty fun.
4. Kingdom Hearts 3 + Re:Mind
When Kingdom Hearts 3 finally came out in 2019, I couldn't help but feel disappointed in the final product. Sure the Gummi Ship open world was fun and some of the ship combat gameplay for The Caribbean was pretty cool, but the world selection was pretty small, the new gameplay mechanics are not as fun as the ones in previous games, and the ending boss rush is a little unsatisfying. Going into the game, we knew this was going to have to end in a boss rush, but this just wasn't fun.
3. Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD
This would be my favorite game if not for one really stupid gameplay mechanic: the drop system. The idea that you lack a good amount of control over when you switch between Sora and Riku really takes away a lot from this game. The only other issue, which is definitely a nitpick, is that the level up system for the dream eaters feels very Final Fantasy (specifically World of Final Fantasy Maxima or Final Fantasy XIII) while Sora and Riku use a conventional experience system, which can feel oppositional at times. It's impressive how well this game translated from the 3DS, where it took full advantage of the touch screen, to home consoles. The flowmotion system adds a sense of power to both Sora and Riku, even if it is horrifically broken. I personally could have done without The Grid, but the inclusion of a world based on Fantasia and the adjustments made to Monstro to add in other aspects of Pinocchio give this game the strongest world lineup of any game.
2. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep Final Mix
Despite originally releasing on the PSP, Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep felt like such a step forward for the franchise. The command deck system with command melding is such an innovation for the franchise, it's a shame it didn't make its way into Kingdom Hearts 3 after working so well here and in both Dream Drop Distance and Re:Coded. From a narrative standpoint, this is the most interesting of the games because it's the one that really expands this universe and added some needed depth so it wasn't just a shonen-style constantly increasing power level situation for the antagonists.
1. Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix
If this was just the original Kingdom Hearts 2, this would likely rank under Birth By Sleep. The gameplay for Kingdom Hearts 2 with the drive system and even the general mobility of Sora puts this in the top two, the post-game Cavern of Remembrance, Data Replica battles, and the battle against Lingering Will turn Kingdom Hearts 2 into one of my favorite experiences in video game, a low skill floor to get in and play but a high but accessible skill ceiling to complete the game.
Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece Collection
Developed By: Square Enix
Release Date: February 10th, 2022
Platform: Nintendo Switch and PC (Similarly available on PlayStation as the All-In-One Package, minus the Re-Mind DLC)
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