(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.