Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix Collector's Edition unboxed

(I want to apologize for any formatting issues ahead of time. Giant Bombs editor is not always very cooperative due to how it auto resizes for the screen. I did my best to compensate for this, but it may still have issues on some monitor sizes.)

I received my Kingdom Hearts II.5 CE box today and I know there's other fans of the KH games around Giant Bomb so I thought it would be cool to share pictures of unboxing it- biggest reason mainly being that as far as I know (at least right now) this was a limited time thing. So, you know, in case anyone wanted to see it or whatever because they otherwise couldn't or something. I kind of doubt Giant Bomb will quick look the game which is only slightly a shame (I understand, though). It'd be neat if they did, but I know it's not a game the staff really cares about.

Anyway, to the pictures:

Pretty standard looking box. Unfortunately it was smashed a little in shipping, but whatever. I'm gonna open it anyway so it doesn't matter that much. There is not much else to say about this really. The box does it job, but it's probably the cheapest part of the production which is interesting to me. I've bought a few CE games over the years and usually the box is either terrible or really sturdy. This one is middle of the road. It's fine.

So, as you can see there is a plush of a heartless, a pin, a book of the art (for KH HD 2.5 Remix), and the game case. I have to say, the plush seems well made to me. It's not as cheap as I would have expected. I mean, I'm not going to use it or anything, but stuff is so cheaply made these days (especially with CEs of games) that it's refreshing that this seems like it was made by the people who make the plush toys Disney officially sells of their own characters. It's a legit plush, I guess, is what I'm saying. I have to admit, though, I can only base this on when I had stuffed animals like... 30 years ago. I don't tend to buy stuffed animals, but it seems like it's hard to find good ones these days.

The pin is surprisingly well made to me. Some kind of hard metal. It actually seems very sturdy, which again I didn't expect. I kind of thought it would be soft metal or a very lite mold of metal and a cheaper, less sturdy, material layered. But no, this seems like a decently refined pin. It has a nice weight when you hold it. As a collector of pins (well, I did when I was a young man, and still have those 20-30 year old pins somewhere) this is a pretty decent modern one in my opinion. I am very surprised by how well the items within this CE feel to me. Better made than usual.

I know. It's a picture of a book, but we should be fair and look at everything. I don't like to take pictures of the inside of books (it's both difficult and I don't like to bend pages for various reasons), but the pictures are nice. In fact that's all that's in the book. Other than titles to declare what the pages will cover (WORLDS!) and names of characters there is no writing in the book at all. The book itself seems to be made with an ok bind (that looks to be laced and glued) and- I don't know- it doesn't look super well made. It's ok because of the laced binding it should last longer, but it's not as impressive as the plush and the pin for me. The last book I can remember getting in a CE was with Alan Wake and that seemed better to me from what I recall. The book is also fairly short- having only a few concept drawings and renders in it. It's so far the least impressive thing to come with this although it's still not bad.

This is the case for the games. If I remember correctly this comes with Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5 HD (obviously) as well as a couple of the off shoot KH games. I forget which ones at the moment. The case itself has really nice art on it (I almost took a picture of both sides, but I'm not sure anyone else would care about it as much as me), and the tin the case is made of is just as good if not a little better than those blu ray collectors tins you can sometimes find at Walmart. I think it feels a little better. It's pretty sturdy and feels nice. I like the build of it; it doesn't seem cheap.

Inside the game case is the games and the modern day equivalent of manuals (which are really only warnings and title art).

Overall, I am actually pretty happy with getting this. It has mostly everything I would have wanted from a CE of a re-released game I look back on fondly (and have played 1 and 2 many times).

I remember when this CE was brought up as a Gamespot article a lot of people were nay saying it, but honestly I think they did this one right. Even including the first HD remix with it was a good step overall, but not only that the make of most of the contents of the package is actually pretty decent all things considered. I feel pretty good about how SE put this together and shows at least some amount of care that I wouldn't normally expect from an HD re-release.

Overall I'd have to say they done good with this one at least as far as outside presentation. After I finish the MGS collection I will go back to this series and see how well the actual games were uprezed and what not. As long as they aren't a total mess, and play like they did on PS2, that's really all I can ask for.

As a bonus I included pictures of my original KH and KH2 for PS2 below. Since this is a nostalgia piece in a way I felt it would be a fun fit to look back at those. I also just really like them. I think they're probably the best made game cases/covers on PS2- they have a really cool sheen to them.

Thanks for reading. If anyone else has thoughts on this, or got it and wants to share thoughts about it let me know- leave a comment.

Awesome! Can't wait to play through II again. I really wish this was on PS4, though.

@steadying: Ya, while I personally am glad this was released on PS3 (because it's what I currently own) being that the new game as far as I recall (?) is on PS4 it is kind of strange if they don't release this on PS4 as well.

If I had to guess; sometime down the line they will probably re-release it again on PS4. Probably not long after or before the new KH releases. They probably re-released on PS3 first because of the initial install base (at the time they started development of 1.5 I mean) so they want to make sure it sells or something. I don't know. PS4 does have a decent install base now so if there's call for it (enough people are buying it on PS3) I do suspect it will get another re-release.

I said probably a lot because I really can only speculate on all this. I don't really want to think about having to get this game again on yet another system haha

I might have more re-releases on my PS3 than new games now that I think about it. Weird.

Looks really cool!

I'm thinking about picking this up next time I have money to burn, but then I remember that 3 hour tutorial for KH2. I guess I could just put on a podcast and skip all the cutscenes.

@relenus: Ya, the opening several hours of KH 2 is mind boggling. Especially if you never played the side games (I haven't). I remember feeling like maybe they were homaging the Twilight Zone or something the first time I played it and wondering where it was going.

I think the rest of the game is pretty great, though, so it's definitely worth struggling through that initial barrier. You can actually do it fairly quickly if you skip all the pointless meandering it does (which takes up most of the time you spend on it only for it to mean absolutely nothing once it's over).

Hopefully I wrote that in a vague enough way for anyone who has played it to know what I mean, but anyone who hasn't to have no idea what I mean in case they want that to be a mystery.

(Spoilers but the first few hours of KH2 are awful =P )

Looks super sexy! Got my copy today and I've been playing some BbS FM.

Thought about getting this cause it looks real nice. Didn't because I got the regular limited edition for free through build up of Amazon points. The one I got doesn't seem as nice as this.

I hadn't pre-ordered it thinking "it's too much and I don't need all this stuff"

Of course a few days ago, I realized I had made a terrible decision and tried to pre-order it. Of course, it was sold out. fuck my life I guess.

Still got the game though.

@tepidshark: Ya, I was curious about that. What all is in the LE as opposed to the CE (which funny enough it seems like the labels of these are backwards as this one seems more like a "Limited Edition" than the actual LE, but whatever haha)? I think I saw it has the game (just KH 2.5 HD Remix I believe?), but did it come with anything else? I was also curious if that one has the tin case or a plastic one?

It's just kind of interesting the difference of these. The LE is $70 I think, and this one was $100. Just from when I was thinking about the effective (possible) cost of each item in this one the price seemed totally worth it so I decided to go for this one.

@frostyryan: Ya, they were limited to 2 per person and I was so tempted to get 2 of them, but I didn't want to be that asshole since I knew these were limited and going to be rare. It was really really tempting to do that, though.

Sell it on Ebay for 3 times it's value. Ugh... I shouldn't even have thought of it (it's kind of a gross thing to do), but I totally did think about doing that.

I had to get that off my chest. I feel better now that it's out there =P

I didn't realize this existed. Thanks for posting this!

@cornbredx: I love the opening of Kingdom Hearts II, I think it sets up the game very well. I really, really dislike it when games just throw you into the action immediately with little to no set-up. Happens too often nowadays.

@steadying: Well the problem (for me) is that the prologue really doesn't have a whole lot to do with the rest of the game (it's a very minor detail that goes on for a while). It's just a little bit of connecting between the side game and the main two.

It's probably alright if you played the other game between them, but not having played that it comes off really strange.

@slag: Np duder!

@cornbredx: The limited edition was originally $40. It is probably $70 now because it's sold out. You could get the limited edition anywhere, where as you could only get the $100 collector's edition through Square's online store.

The limited edition just comes with the pin & a plastic case copy of 2.5, so the collector's has that plus way more stuff.

@tepidshark: Hmm...Oh, ok. Interesting. Ya, I had gone to amazon to check and it was $70 and today it says $40 so I don't know what that was about.

You're probably right, though, a 3rd party probably floated to the top.

That makes a lot more sense now.

I wish I had a PS3 to play this on. KH used to be one of my favorite series (the fourth or fifth spinoff is where I stopped following the plot). I'm really excited for 3, and with the recent news that Square is "considering" bringing 2.5 HD to PS4, I'm pretty excited to return to this franchise.

As someone who greatly enjoyed the first two main games in his youth, would you recommend Birth By Sleep to someone who perhaps has forgotten many of the games' stories? I never paid much attention to the narrative in the games, because, as you have probably been made very aware of, the story can become quite mawkish and awkwardly composed. When I reminisce these games, I usually come to admire the character's skill progression and the artistic care done for the visuals and the score. Does BBS hold those same standards?

By the way, I really enjoyed the unequivocal approach to your packaging review. It made me ask myself how I would phrase or review things without any of the language that would inhere for the craft of paraphernalia. I can tell you that even talking about glued or laced bindings is worlds more knowledge than I have about that stuff, haha.

Keep writing. I like these.

@poortommy: I always appreciate your input. =)

Sorry, I haven't played Birth by Sleep yet so I'll have to let you know when I do. I believe it's in one of these remixes so I might get around to it whenever I get around to playing this HD re-release, but being the holidays (among other real life things) I have little time to play games at the moment, and I have to finish the MGS collection first (again, technically, as I have played all of them before on PS2 although it will be the first time I've played 4).

Ya, I think the nostalgia is why I love this series in particular more than their main story. I always accepted it as a contrivance to get all these characters in one setting (and not a terrible one, although it starts to really become full of itself at some point). I do appreciate the rules Disney set that the games seem to follow as I feel it at least keeps the separate settings feeling somewhat like they belong in the worlds that we're crashing in on. Those little bits of story, and what generally happens in those parts, I actually enjoy immensely. The Neverending Story like take on what brings it all together (at least at first) is an interesting choice as well and I think helps seal it as an interesting adventure overall even with all the anime nonsense that sometimes happens (Riku is in the body of this other guy now... ya that happened for some reason... why not?). I only hope they can keep what made this game series interesting for one more game (whenever Kingdom Hearts 3 releases).

Also, thank you. Ya, there's several kinds of bookbinding and lace tends to be the best because glue decomposes faster. You'll notice on cheap books they use really bad glue (and nothing else) and the pages will just fall out from regular use in only a few short years (when you turn the page, the page may just come off the spine on it's own). It's the worst when it comes to hard cover books. When they use lace it is less likely to happen. My problem with the lacing on this is more that it just looks rushed which you can see when you open the book (as it kind of separates from the spine which it shouldn't do). That may have to do with how small the book is, and the manufacturing process, though. Nonetheless, the fact that it's laced means the pages won't fall out anytime soon which anyone who goes back to books over time would appreciate. (The second worst binding used, if you're curious, is staples, which comic books tend to use, or at least they did when I bought them 15 or 20 some odd years ago- I assume they still do for the individual books- trades and graphic novels are usually more traditionally bound although often just use glue since they're just paper backs most of the time). =)

Anyway, wow I said a lot. Thanks again for reading.

Ah, bummer about your not playing Birth By Sleep. I have heard favorable things about it, but I wanted to get real feedback on the experience. I am also pensive with my time lately, and while I may be looking to get back into KH, I certainly won't be playing all of the other games that have come out. At this point, I'm going to be realistic and wait for KH3 to be released to find out if BBS is necessary to play.

And boy am I eager to revisit some of the idioms of those games. Of course, some of the story stuff was too crazy and some of the levels seemed incongruous to the tone of the series, but there was enough interesting ideas in the narrative that I still admire. I can gladly say that I thought their rendition and presence of one Mickey Mouse was a refreshing take on the character. Putting it coarsely, much of the story reads off as fan fiction but I felt its material always come from sincere intentions.

The only thing I know about bindings is that every summer I would vacillate between purchasing my notebooks as either Composition or Spiral because I was a student who threw books in his bag at a hell-for-leather pace. No binding could be proportionate to my gunslinging gusto. And certainly not those godforsaken stapled bindings of cheap ashcan comics. I have a few Classics Illustrated comics in my collection that I have had to repurchase because of how much of a blockhead I was.

Anyway, I'll be there for your next journal adventure!