The Kingdom Hearts Cloud Versions Preview – The Worst Way To Play The Series Right Now

The Kingdom Hearts franchise has been through many ups and downs, and while the majority of its games are worthy of your time, you should not play the cloud versions under any circumstances, at least right now.

Unfortunately, the cloud versions of these beloved games have every connection issue known under the sun for this format. The visuals are blurry/pixelated, the game has a jittery frame rate, and the sound quality isn’t the best. It’s absolutely the most terrible way to play the Kingdom Hearts series at this point in time.

In the short trials I was able to play for Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 HD ReMIX and Kingdom Hearts III (as the games aren’t on Switch fully currently), the button inputs felt slightly off and would certainly not be applicable to more difficult bosses that require pinpoint precision. I think it would be a miracle if anyone beat the likes of the secret bosses Yozora or the Lingering Soul with this kind of connection.

Just standard battles with the heartless and nobodies would be tough to handle in some circumstances. As the game buffers or freezes for a few vital seconds, basic enemies can get devastating attacks in to eliminate your HP bar. It’s certainly not fun, especially in harder difficulties like Proud and Critical.

During cutscenes, these cloud versions seem at their most stable. The renders are slightly better, especially if they stop and talk in one place rather than moving.

Even at the game’s best, however, the stream quality pales in comparison to the Kingdom Hearts series on the PS4, Xbox One, PC, and even the PS3. I’ve noticed that the graphical quality is slightly better with the remasters than Kingdom Hearts 3, but both still stand out as terrible ways to play the series.

While there are a lot of negatives, there is one positive. Kingdom Hearts III has an exclusive keyblade for Nintendo Switch users called Advent Red. It has a delightful red, blue, and black design that has stars flowing through its blade. It looks great in Sora’s hands as he takes out the heartless one-by-one.

Check it out:

Being able to play the Kingdom Hearts series on-the-go sounds incredible for a long-time fan like me. However, these cloud versions fail at everything that they set out to do. You’ll be struggling with the original Kingdom Hearts‘ platforming challenges and the calculated Organization XIII battles in Kingdom Hearts II, due to the lag that you’ll encounter.

Hopefully, one day, Square Enix and Disney will release Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 HD ReMIX as a standalone physical or downloadable version that works natively with the Nintendo Switch. If they can run on the PS3, they should be able to work on the Switch easily. If this doesn’t happen, however, let’s hope the stream quality drastically improves before the cloud versions’ releases on February 10th, 2022.

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Thank you for stopping by Nintendo Link! Have you had a chance to try the demos for these titles on Switch? What are your impressions? Let us know in the comments!