Kingdom Hearts For PlayStation 4 Has Some Serious Problems

Sora, Goofy and Donald spring into action in Kingdom Hearts

The Kingdom Hearts series has finally made its way to the PlayStation 4 and, at first glance, it's everything an HD remake should be. Now that players have had some time to dig into the Disney-character-infused action RPG series, however, it's looking more and more like this particular collection needed to spend quite a bit more time in the oven.

On its surface, the horribly named Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix (we'll just call it Kingdom Hearts from here on out) is exactly what fans wanted from the PS4 version of those beloved games pulled from just about every console known to man. It includes the two main entries in the series, as well as almost all of the spinoffs that appeared on consoles like the 3DS and PlayStation Portable. They were all HD-ified in two collections for the PS3, and this PS4 collection was intended to bring them all together under one roof with a few extra bells and whistles. As Polygon points out, the collection even boasts improved load times, making it a little less of a slog for series fans or folks who are trying to do speedruns. However, that's pretty much where the good news ends. As the original report points out, folks are finding that, coupled with all kinds of brand new issues, the collection of games still boasts bugs and issues that were present in the originals. So, despite the number of iterations and all those extra years to clean house, it looks like this may be the buggiest version of Kingdom Hearts to date.

Fans are pretty serious about wanting these issues fixed, too, as they've already started compiling an overwhelming list of issues over on reddit. These range from listing details to posting videos that show off the problems in action.

Oddly enough, one of the game's biggest pluses, moving to 60 frames per second, appears to be to blame for much of the issues. Having the game run at that faster clip is apparently screwing up the physics in Kingdom Hearts. So while certain small things in the games aren't working the way they are supposed to, the real issue is that more important encounters, like boss fights, are suffering a noticeable impact. Here's an example of what we're talking about, pulled from Youtube user Bizkit047.

Sadly, wonky as hell physics in the various Kingdom Hearts games isn't the worst of the problems. The game is reportedly suffering from all sorts of crash issues. We don't know when you last played an RPG, but it's not uncommon to go for long stretches without hitting a reasonable point to save. Even more insane is that Kingdom Hearts has a real problem with crashing while folks are trying to save, making it a gamble every time you want to keep your adventure current.

While Kingdom Hearts is only out in Japan right now, fans seem to think there is little chance that Square Enix will fix these issues before the collection launches in the West. For starters, many of the issues come from the PS3 versions of the game and, if they aren't fixed now, it's not likely they ever will be.

So, in other words, proceed with caution.

Ryan Winslett

Staff Writer for CinemaBlend.