Kingdom Hearts 1.5 ReMIX - UK Release Date and Special Edition announced

Square Enix announced the long awaited European release date for Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX. Kingdom Hearts is the  RPG version of East meets West. Square and Disney combined their creative talents to create a role playing game that introduced characters from the Final Fantasy universe inhabiting the same world as your favourite Disney characters.

Originally released in 2002 on the PlayStation 2, Kingdoms Hearts follows a boy called Sora, a 14 year old boy who, after his village is attacked by creatures know as the Heartless, stumbles upon a mysterious artefact called the Keyblade. The Keyblade is the only weapon that can defeat the creatures the Heartless. Sora sets off to find his friends who were taken by a dark portal and rescue them. Along the way he meets Donald Duck and Goofy, who are searching for King Mickey Mouse. King Mickey went missing when he set off from Castle Disney to stop the Heartless from destroying his worlds. He never returned...

So the three band together and set off to find their lost friends and discover more about the mysterious Keyblade. This journey takes them to several worlds, each one themed around a Disney film. Along the way the player will meet many well know Disney characters and some may even join your party to help the fight.

The game is split into your usual Final Fantasy style game with exploration and town hubs mixed in with the turn based combat that are synonymous with the Square games. In battle, you only directly control Sora, with Donald and Goofy being controlled by the computer. This is good way to simplfy the battle mechanic, which allow younger players a better chance of getting to grips with it.

The HD 1.5 ReMIX of Kingdom Hearts, features not one but two games. The original Kingdom Hearts (in its Final Mix form) and Re: Chain of Memories, itself a remake of the Game Boy Advance game, Chain of Memories. This new HD release actually sees Re: Chain of Memories arrive on European shores for the first time.

This new HD treatment sees quite a few improvements. Obviously, the graphics have been given an overhaul and the character models have been upgraded to ones based from the more recent 3DS title Dream Drop Distance. Gameplay tweaks have been added, mainly to the control scheme to make the original game play more like Kingdom Hearts II. Plus new cutscenes and dialogue have been recorded as well. As an extra bonus, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days has had all of it story cutscenes rmastered into HD and can be viewed as a cinematic version of the game. Better get some popcorn first though, because it will be almost 3 hours long!

Finally, to go along with announcement of the release date of 13th September 2013, Square Enix also revealed the pre-order bonuses. Anyone who pre-orders the game can choose either the standard edition, or from selected retailers, a special limited run art book edition, full of lovingly crafted artwork for each of the titles.

Just what I needed just before the GTA V launch, another JRPG to add to the pile of ones I need to finish. I cant wait!