Kingdom Hearts Collection [I-III] review for Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X, PC

Let’s get all the biases out of the way early on… I am a HUGE Disney fan on many levels. From the parks (been to all of them worldwide except for Paris), to the animated classics, to all the acquired properties such as Marvel, Star Wars, and The Simpsons; it’s safe to say I bow to King Mickey both in recognition and with my wallet. Now if that wasn’t enough favoritism I should also mention that the Kingdom Hearts franchise is one of my all-time favorite franchises and Kingdom Hearts 1 is definitely in my top 10 all-time favorite games. So please take all of that under consideration while reading my review here of the Kingdom Hearts Collection [I-III] . While there isn’t anything inherently new, there certainly is a lot here to chew on.

Square Enix provided me with a Switch 2 code for the Kingdom Hearts Collection as I wanted to check out these games on a platform they have never truly* been on (*cloud versions just don’t count and while you get a discount if you “owned” them, you still got hosed). Being on an impressively powered handheld that has the capability of being docked to the TV and taken on the go really interested me. Now I do own a Steam Deck and already own the previously released Kingdom Hearts Collection on there, but there was something about playing on Nintendo hardware. Without going any further I would recommend the Steam versions over the NS2, purely on price and ability to mod the games, but based on the recent Steam hardware price increases there is a good chance that as you read this you may only own a NS2 as it’s actually one of the more affordable pieces of gaming hardware in 2026 and impressively powerful as well.

Now, as I’ve mentioned earlier there isn’t anything truly new here; this still is the definitive Kingdom Hearts Collection with every major release included (rhythm and mobile don’t count)… you just can’t play every release. You see the games released on the Nintendo DS (358/2 Days and Re:coded) are included but are not playable; they feature just each game’s cinematics which provide more KH backstory without actually playing anything. Unfortunately these titles were released over 15 years ago and it doesn’t seem like we will ever get a playable remaster to make them work on modern consoles. For those unfamiliar, these titles on the Nintendo DS utilized two screens and had touch screen gameplay. What I find odd is that the Nintendo 3DS KH release, Dream Drop Distance, is on this collection fully playable and looks fantastic. From what I remember Dream Drop Distance used the touch screen far less than the NDS releases, but it’s still disappointing that nothing can be done to get those releases playable in a collection in some way (I guess emulation is your only option if you don’t have or want to play on original NDS hardware).

Speaking of the handheld KH releases, Birth by Sleep from the PSP is included here as well and looks great. I was really impressed with how great these handhelds looked after all these years. Again, I know this isn’t anything new to many, as these collections have been out between many different versions for many years, but I never went back to these releases since I played them back on their original hardware when they were initially released. The same can be said of every game on this collection, this is the first time I am revisiting any of these games off their original hardware, besides Kingdom Hearts 3. I have tried (and failed) to make my way through Kingdom Hearts 3 on multiple consoles, from PS4 to Steam, and now NS2. I’ll get through it at some point… hopefully before Kingdom Hearts 4.

I am not one of those gamers who lives and dies with frame rates, as you can see from my previous reviews, so you won’t get much of that here. That being said, I did notice some stutter while playing KH3, but nothing that really ruined my experience and I thought it still played impressively well, both docked and handheld. Ideally, I will finally beat KH3 on this play through and hope to continue my collection when KH4 is released on the NS2. If you’ve never played anything from the Kingdom Hearts series and own a NS2 you should absolutely dip your toe into the KH water. Even if you don’t want to get the whole collection, the set is broken out into three separately available packs that break up the releases and make it a not so expensive initial investment. If you’re a diehard fan like myself and you’d like to have nearly all of the KH games on one console, this is an absolute beast of a collection (but often on sale on Steam if you have that capability as well).

Note: Square Enix provided us with a Kingdom Hearts Collection [I-III] code for review purposes.

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