Oh the Mirage Arena...I confess that it's the one extra challenge I haven't even attempted in any KH. Is it as fun as say...Hades Cup? Or is it as grindy as completing that Synthesis list?
You have three types of challenge (fixed-wave PvE, Command Board, racing), plus PvP. Completing specific challenges (e.g. win on a particular Command Board, earn X lifetime medals) increases your Arena Level, which opens up newer challenges and items in the arena shop. It's basically set up such that you'll eventually go through all the challenges, so it's not really grindy aside from having to earn 9999 medals.
Waiting for 2.5 will make it more fun, as that version added three bosses (and one souped-up version of the doppleganger thing)
Monstro (you fight the whale himself, but he can also swallow you during battle, whereupon you cut up his insides until he releases you)
Armor of the Master (a hypothetical armored form of Master Eraqus)
and No Heart (A hyopthetical armored form of Master Xehanort, in his prime)
Each of which look like a more fun fight than the Mysterious Figure or Vanitas Remnant.
Fun fact: Laguna was originally going to make an appearance as the boss of the Mirage Arena, but the idea was scrapped in favor of putting Laguna in Dissidia 012.
Waiting for 2.5 will make it more fun, as that version added three bosses (and one souped-up version of the doppleganger thing)
Monstro (you fight the whale himself, but he can also swallow you during battle, whereupon you cut up his insides until he releases you)
Armor of the Master (a hypothetical armored form of Master Eraqus)
and No Heart (A hyopthetical armored form of Master Xehanort, in his prime)
Each of which look like a more fun fight than the Mysterious Figure or Vanitas Remnant.
Fun fact: Laguna was originally going to make an appearance as the boss of the Mirage Arena, but the idea was scrapped in favor of putting Laguna in Dissidia 012.
To be fair, they did nerf MF in Final Mix.
His Collision Magnet (the rope attack) isn't a one-hit kill anymore.
So you can't find this thread by searching for Kingdom Hearts which is a pain in the ass, heh. So my wife and I are playing the games in 1.5. We finished Kingdom Hearts, which was way shorter than I remembered. Granted, I didn't grind for synthesis or do all the optional coliseum and what not, but we finished it in like 22 hours.
I was wondering if anybody could tell me about how long chain of memories is? I've never played it, and i'm actually having some fun with it. I played the original handheld version for like 30 minutes before hating it, so it's all new to me.
Do we have any idea when 2.5 will come out? Since 1 and 2 are the only games I've ever played, I'm planning on actually playing all of them before KH3 since 1.5 and 2.5 covers all of them except DDD which i'm going to pick up at some point.
So you can't find this thread by searching for Kingdom Hearts which is a pain in the ass, heh. So my wife and I are playing the games in 1.5. We finished Kingdom Hearts, which was way shorter than I remembered. Granted, I didn't grind for synthesis or do all the optional coliseum and what not, but we finished it in like 22 hours.
I was wondering if anybody could tell me about how long chain of memories is? I've never played it, and i'm actually having some fun with it. I played the original handheld version for like 30 minutes before hating it, so it's all new to me.
Do we have any idea when 2.5 will come out? Since 1 and 2 are the only games I've ever played, I'm planning on actually playing all of them before KH3 since 1.5 and 2.5 covers all of them except DDD which i'm going to pick up at some point.
It's not that long if you don't go card hunting in Sora's story and if you play Riku's on easy mode. Riku's is stupid hard though, and NOT card hunting makes the combat much more of a pain (and is the main reason people hate it, I think; they don't bother to go out of their way to get the rare stuff)
We have no idea when 2.5 comes out. Probably after global warming hits the point that the equator becomes uninhabitable.
I am not even far enough in the game to know what you mean about card hunting. It doesn't sound like something i'm going to like though, heh.
SOOO in Chain of Memories, you know how you attack stuff by using cards? Some you get automatically, but all the better cards and better numbered card are random drops. You can increase your chances of getting them by farming, though I forget the specific method I used.
People who ignore this aspect tend to end up with really random-ass decks full of 1-6 valued cards (which are useless), low-attack keyblades, and useless spells. You have to figure out how to use Sleights and stack your deck with 0s (which, while they can be broken automatically by any card, can also break any card, including sleights) and 9s (can only be broken by 9s and 0s)
for my part, I am a fucking crazy person, so I spent a lot of time in both the GBA and PS2 versions of the game using Room cards with high drop rates and Treasure rooms to farm until I had copies of basically everything in the game and then built custom decks around each boss
Vexen is hilarious if you stack your deck with Fire & Mushu cards, because Fire Fire Mushu = Megaflare, and guess what element Vexen takes x2 damage from!
That doesn't really sound so bad. I am enjoying chain of memories well enough I can see myself farming for better combat cards. I'm always down for a bit of grinding in a game I am enjoying.
As Lucid pointed out, that's for the really intense/obsessive player. I suggest playing as normal until you get crushed by somebody, then reorganize your deck to have potions in the beginning or end (and with a HIGH number or a zero) and throw random zero cards THROUGHOUT your deck. This is key. In the final boss fight, I just declined to let the boss attack ever. Makes it pretty dang simple.
So i'm about 6ish hours into chain of memories on the KH1.5 dealio, and I'm actually having quite a bit of fun with it. Some of the boss fights I've had to do several times which is a nice change of pace. Do you just eventually get a feel for when you should use sleights versus single card attacks on bosses? On one of the bosses I wore him out using sleights after he kept breaking a lot of my single card attacks with his own sleights, but then on another I exhausted my card pool using sleights and barely won having only had 2 cards left to use.
I feel like i'm not really "getting" the intricacies of the combat system just yet, just kind of feeling it out in terms of when to use sleights. I have been getting decently lucky with weapon card drops so it's getting easier.
So i'm about 6ish hours into chain of memories on the KH1.5 dealio, and I'm actually having quite a bit of fun with it. Some of the boss fights I've had to do several times which is a nice change of pace. Do you just eventually get a feel for when you should use sleights versus single card attacks on bosses? On one of the bosses I wore him out using sleights after he kept breaking a lot of my single card attacks with his own sleights, but then on another I exhausted my card pool using sleights and barely won having only had 2 cards left to use.
I feel like i'm not really "getting" the intricacies of the combat system just yet, just kind of feeling it out in terms of when to use sleights. I have been getting decently lucky with weapon card drops so it's getting easier.
You do eventually "get" the combat system. It does take a bit though.
One big suggestion I have -- if you have 0 level cards, stack them at the end of your deck so you can cycle back and access them quickly. Then MY usual strategy is to roll around like an idiot until the boss uses a Sleight, then break his Sleight with a 0 level card. When the guy is cardbroken, he's stunned, so then cycle back and slap him with a Sleight of your own. Note that when you cardbreak sleights in this manner, the boss will PERMANENTLY lose the first card of the sleight (just like when you do it normally) so eventually he won't be able to do shit to you anymore.
Admittedly this can make for some boring battles if you get really good at it.
I usually run with two card Decks. One filled with 9s, 8s and 7s with an enemy card like Roxas or Maleficent for random mobs and one for bosses filled with magic sleights and Sonic Blade. Ironically this card metagame is why I like Sora's game more than Riku's.
Thanks for the tips, folks. Using the 0s to break boss sleights is a great idea I hadn't thought of. RE: Sora vs. Riku's games, do you not get to use the card decks when playing as Riku? I'm not to that point yet so I don't know what the differences are.
I usually run with two card Decks. One filled with 9s, 8s and 7s with an enemy card like Roxas or Maleficent for random mobs and one for bosses filled with magic sleights and Sonic Blade. Ironically this card metagame is why I like Sora's game more than Riku's.
Yeah I'm the same way. Sora's game is so, so much more fun than Riku's, while Riku's is just an awful slog. Even if I tend to like Riku's actual plot better...
Thanks for the tips, folks. Using the 0s to break boss sleights is a great idea I hadn't thought of. RE: Sora vs. Riku's games, do you not get to use the card decks when playing as Riku? I'm not to that point yet so I don't know what the differences are.
Riku has a set deck that you can never change that changes based on the world that you're on. He also has no healing skills save for when you get random Mickey cards. This makes his game a hell of a lot harder and a LOT more annoying to play, because you're basically stuck with terrible decks 99% of the time.
*e* Also, he can't use Sleights at all unless he's in his Super Mode, iirc.
Damn, that sounds like it should've been the first half of the game instead of the 2nd, if all they do is take options away from you after you get used to the deck system, hah.
Damn, that sounds like it should've been the first half of the game instead of the 2nd, if all they do is take options away from you after you get used to the deck system, hah.
Yeah, I feel the same way. I mean it's the second half because ~zomg play as Riku~ but ... yeah.
It also has one of the most frustrating bosses in the entire series because he's mandatory and you have a REALLY shitty deck when you fight him and he has like a billion HP
Riku can also heal with the Oogie Boogie card after completing Halloween Town. He also benefits greatly from the Jafar card, as approximately 100% of what he uses is weapon cards.
Riku is not as bad as advertised because of a lot of reasons. His sleights are much more straightforward to put together and usually very effective, whereas some of the Sora ones are just slow and bad. You get to constantly level up his attack strength, so just throwing non-Sleight 3 hit combos is a strong strategy. His story goes faster because you never need to stop and calibrate, he's ALWAYS ready for battle. Finally, you don't need to worry about "exploring the floor" ever as Riku, you just rush for the story points.
So over the past couple weeks my wife and I played through re: chain of memories, and I must say, I now don't understand any of the posts in this thread complaining about the Riku half(more like a 3rd in terms of how long it took me).
In terms of story and what not, i thought the pacing was better. Sora's formula of 3 story rooms per world just meant more running around fighting heartless than I really honestly wanted. Plus I had bad luck with some card drops so I couldn't use Cloud cheese on the final boss and had a pretty tough time of it.
Gameplay wise, my thoughts are as such, divided between normal fights and bosses:
Normal fights: With Sora, I could just use all 7-9 cards and never worry about breaks. It was just smash the button non stop. Or I could just sleight cheese and just kill everything with sonic blade or whatever. With Riku, since in some of the worlds your decks aren't as strong as others, getting broken by enemies is a real concern. There were plenty of fights where I would just brute force it, but sometimes it was much more in my favor to wait to break enemies to go into dark mode and just wipe them out.
Boss fights: Both games had easy and hard boss fights. The difference for me is that in Sora's, most of the boss fights I had trouble with I just beat with sonic blade cheese and the boss never got to do anything. The last boss fight gave me some trouble because I wasn't as levelled up as I could've been and didn't honestly have that great of a deck, and he kept killing me using omni laser spam when I'd get him low.
Riku's boss fights were much more interesting to me, because the ones that weren't a cake walk involved pretty clear strategies that weren't really cheesy. I'd just play patient and get breaks to build up dark mode, and once i was in dark mode i'd aim for either duels or sleights while trying to stay in dark mode as long as possible.
The lack of being able to heal didn't really mean anything to me because with good strategy I rarely needed to heal in boss fights anyway, and if I did, i'd just use my mickey cards.
My only complaint would be that a couple of the worlds had what i'd consider really shitty decks with the high number cards spread out too much and you couldn't even reorder them. Besides that, i thought the fast reloading, dark mode, etc. made Riku's gameplay waaaaay more satisfying.
I mean in the end I like the story in Riku's much better. I think Sora's just appeals to my weird desire for customization.
In other news, somebody recently pointed out that Indiana Jones is also owned by Lucasfilm, and that potentially Squeenix could use THAT in a game. If I were doing the writing, I'd actually go for Indiana Jones long before I did Star Wars, because I feel like Indiana Jones lends itself better to a self-contained storyline and would give them another jungle zone, or heck, a desert zone that wasn't Agrabah.
I loved the hell out of CoM on GBA. My cousin started a new game and wiped my save when I was ~90% through the game, though, and I haven't played it since. I'd still like to finish it someday, maybe after I (finally) finish Dream Drop Disco.
I can't even explain how glad I am they decided to do these compilation releases. Previously I played Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 but none of the other games. I don't typically buy handhelds. I honestly expected the handheld side games to be spinoffs and not integral to the main story of the series, which was obviously incorrect. So when I played Kingdom Hearts 2, a lot of it made no sense at all and I was like where did all this come from, heh.
Now that I've played KH1, Chain of Memories, and watched the cutscenes from 358/2 Days I'm super into the series. Parts of KH2 make sense now that didn't before, and I just can't wait to play the 2.5 games. After I finish them I think i'm going to buy DDD too to be fully caught up when KH3 comes out.
There's no info on when 2.5 will release, right? Just presumably some time in 2014?
I can't even explain how glad I am they decided to do these compilation releases. Previously I played Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 but none of the other games. I don't typically buy handhelds. I honestly expected the handheld side games to be spinoffs and not integral to the main story of the series, which was obviously incorrect. So when I played Kingdom Hearts 2, a lot of it made no sense at all and I was like where did all this come from, heh.
Now that I've played KH1, Chain of Memories, and watched the cutscenes from 358/2 Days I'm super into the series. Parts of KH2 make sense now that didn't before, and I just can't wait to play the 2.5 games. After I finish them I think i'm going to buy DDD too to be fully caught up when KH3 comes out.
There's no info on when 2.5 will release, right? Just presumably some time in 2014?
Yeah, I'm really glad to. I think honestly it's a mistake to have this kind of super-involved storyline spread out across so many damn different systems and consoles, and it's a big thing that lends itself to the perception that Kingdom Hearts is an incoherent, nonsensical mess.
The other thing is that it IS an incoherent, nonsensical mess, but it's LESS of one once you've had the chance to play the other games. CoM, especially, I think clears up a good deal of the plot complaints about KHII.
Yeah, having games in one series released across a living room console, 2 different handhelds, mobile, etc. is just a bad idea imo. You're banking on a lot of people liking the series enough to buy a handheld just for your game if they otherwise wouldn't, and you actually hurt their enjoyment of the games on the consoles they DO own if it makes less sense because they didn't play X game.
They can do it however they want, but i'm so glad they are at least doing the compilations for people like me who missed most of the games.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Well, I can think of one person for whom the blatant cash grab by SE worked out great (I am a sucker).
I mean, it wasn't even really a cash grab by SE to release the various KH games across different platforms. They'd have sold more copies of the games by releasing them all on one platform that had the biggest install base. They didn't get money when you bought the PSP or DS to play the games.
I mean, it wasn't even really a cash grab by SE to release the various KH games across different platforms. They'd have sold more copies of the games by releasing them all on one platform that had the biggest install base. They didn't get money when you bought the PSP or DS to play the games.
There has to be some money related reason behind it though, either a misguided attempt to broaden their player base (Squeenix just make unique new games for the console, like TWEWY) (And a better marketing team for games like that) or... I dunno, I thought there were deals or something they got from the console makers for releasing games on their machines or something? Maybe not monetary but some other perk?
@silence1186 the thing is, while I've played every game except Re:Coded, D3, and the browser game, I don't think I've purchased a single KH game for a console that wasn't the PS2. All the others I bummed off of friends by being like, "Hey you have a PSP and Birth By Sleep, can I borrow that?" D3 may be the first one, if/when I finally grab a 2DS. And I'm FAR from the only one; I know VERY FEW people who actually bought the original CoM or Days. I know more who bought BBS but that's because people were kind of starved and it was praised as a really good entry in the series.
I honestly don't understand Square's reasoning for that strategy when it comes to a series like Kingdom Hearts. It makes a LITTLE sense with Final Fantasy, because the games are mostly optional spinoffs for stand-alone games anyway. You're not going to miss a huge chunk of the plot of XII because you didn't play Revenant Wings (XIII is apparently another story...), while with KH, if you haven't played CoM or watched the Days cutscenes, SO MUCH in KH2 is utter nonsense. And if you haven't played KHII or CoM or Days, then BBS is confusing, and don't even get me STARTED on how little D3 makes sense to an outsider...
And that's the thing, if it were a cash-grab I'd be like, okay, but honestly I don't know how much better all these mobile titles ACTUALLY sold?
The only one that doesn't make sense to me is Re:Coded. That clearly should have been on both PSP AND DS. Here's the logic.
Chain of Memories: They wanted to make a handheld title (for the lower budget and production value required) and GBA was the only game in town at the time.
358/2 Days: I guess Chain must have done well for them, so a similar tie-in for the GBA's successor makes sense.
Birth By Sleep: Since the PSP is basically Ps2 level quality, they can make a KH "3" without having to spend next gen budget or time on it (instead, it can be at the Ps2 level budget and time investment). The higher production values make the DS out of the question this time, the game already runs pedal to the metal on the PSP (you need to install AND overclock the system to really get the best out of the game).
Re:Coded : So they're remaking the very inessential cell phone game with the higher production values of the existing handheld games. Okay, makes sense. But... why not capture the audience that developed for both 358 and BBS by releasing an identical version for DS and PSP? I suppose the reason must have been that the systems can't be similar to program for. Still, this game doesn't really use the dual/touch screen for anything important, would have been fine on PSP.
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You fought Scar on top of Pride Rock.
Probably a mandate from Disney for some reason or another.
That's often the answer for every baffling decision in a Disney game.
Now, getting everything from the arena shop...
Monstro (you fight the whale himself, but he can also swallow you during battle, whereupon you cut up his insides until he releases you)
Armor of the Master (a hypothetical armored form of Master Eraqus)
and No Heart (A hyopthetical armored form of Master Xehanort, in his prime)
Each of which look like a more fun fight than the Mysterious Figure or Vanitas Remnant.
Fun fact: Laguna was originally going to make an appearance as the boss of the Mirage Arena, but the idea was scrapped in favor of putting Laguna in Dissidia 012.
I was wondering if anybody could tell me about how long chain of memories is? I've never played it, and i'm actually having some fun with it. I played the original handheld version for like 30 minutes before hating it, so it's all new to me.
Do we have any idea when 2.5 will come out? Since 1 and 2 are the only games I've ever played, I'm planning on actually playing all of them before KH3 since 1.5 and 2.5 covers all of them except DDD which i'm going to pick up at some point.
It's not that long if you don't go card hunting in Sora's story and if you play Riku's on easy mode. Riku's is stupid hard though, and NOT card hunting makes the combat much more of a pain (and is the main reason people hate it, I think; they don't bother to go out of their way to get the rare stuff)
We have no idea when 2.5 comes out. Probably after global warming hits the point that the equator becomes uninhabitable.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
SOOO in Chain of Memories, you know how you attack stuff by using cards? Some you get automatically, but all the better cards and better numbered card are random drops. You can increase your chances of getting them by farming, though I forget the specific method I used.
People who ignore this aspect tend to end up with really random-ass decks full of 1-6 valued cards (which are useless), low-attack keyblades, and useless spells. You have to figure out how to use Sleights and stack your deck with 0s (which, while they can be broken automatically by any card, can also break any card, including sleights) and 9s (can only be broken by 9s and 0s)
for my part, I am a fucking crazy person, so I spent a lot of time in both the GBA and PS2 versions of the game using Room cards with high drop rates and Treasure rooms to farm until I had copies of basically everything in the game and then built custom decks around each boss
Vexen is hilarious if you stack your deck with Fire & Mushu cards, because Fire Fire Mushu = Megaflare, and guess what element Vexen takes x2 damage from!
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
I'm really just hoping we don't get Agrabah again, even though it looks like we will. Its been in like what, five of the games now?
Dang, that's even a possibility, considering on how much they drew on Return of Jafar for KHII
It's weird that Aladdin seems to be the only expanded universe type thing they've drawn on tho. Also known as WHERE MAH GARGOYLES WORLD AT.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
I feel like i'm not really "getting" the intricacies of the combat system just yet, just kind of feeling it out in terms of when to use sleights. I have been getting decently lucky with weapon card drops so it's getting easier.
You do eventually "get" the combat system. It does take a bit though.
One big suggestion I have -- if you have 0 level cards, stack them at the end of your deck so you can cycle back and access them quickly. Then MY usual strategy is to roll around like an idiot until the boss uses a Sleight, then break his Sleight with a 0 level card. When the guy is cardbroken, he's stunned, so then cycle back and slap him with a Sleight of your own. Note that when you cardbreak sleights in this manner, the boss will PERMANENTLY lose the first card of the sleight (just like when you do it normally) so eventually he won't be able to do shit to you anymore.
Admittedly this can make for some boring battles if you get really good at it.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Yeah I'm the same way. Sora's game is so, so much more fun than Riku's, while Riku's is just an awful slog. Even if I tend to like Riku's actual plot better...
Riku has a set deck that you can never change that changes based on the world that you're on. He also has no healing skills save for when you get random Mickey cards. This makes his game a hell of a lot harder and a LOT more annoying to play, because you're basically stuck with terrible decks 99% of the time.
*e* Also, he can't use Sleights at all unless he's in his Super Mode, iirc.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Yeah, I feel the same way. I mean it's the second half because ~zomg play as Riku~ but ... yeah.
It also has one of the most frustrating bosses in the entire series because he's mandatory and you have a REALLY shitty deck when you fight him and he has like a billion HP
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
In terms of story and what not, i thought the pacing was better. Sora's formula of 3 story rooms per world just meant more running around fighting heartless than I really honestly wanted. Plus I had bad luck with some card drops so I couldn't use Cloud cheese on the final boss and had a pretty tough time of it.
Gameplay wise, my thoughts are as such, divided between normal fights and bosses:
Normal fights: With Sora, I could just use all 7-9 cards and never worry about breaks. It was just smash the button non stop. Or I could just sleight cheese and just kill everything with sonic blade or whatever. With Riku, since in some of the worlds your decks aren't as strong as others, getting broken by enemies is a real concern. There were plenty of fights where I would just brute force it, but sometimes it was much more in my favor to wait to break enemies to go into dark mode and just wipe them out.
Boss fights: Both games had easy and hard boss fights. The difference for me is that in Sora's, most of the boss fights I had trouble with I just beat with sonic blade cheese and the boss never got to do anything. The last boss fight gave me some trouble because I wasn't as levelled up as I could've been and didn't honestly have that great of a deck, and he kept killing me using omni laser spam when I'd get him low.
Riku's boss fights were much more interesting to me, because the ones that weren't a cake walk involved pretty clear strategies that weren't really cheesy. I'd just play patient and get breaks to build up dark mode, and once i was in dark mode i'd aim for either duels or sleights while trying to stay in dark mode as long as possible.
The lack of being able to heal didn't really mean anything to me because with good strategy I rarely needed to heal in boss fights anyway, and if I did, i'd just use my mickey cards.
My only complaint would be that a couple of the worlds had what i'd consider really shitty decks with the high number cards spread out too much and you couldn't even reorder them. Besides that, i thought the fast reloading, dark mode, etc. made Riku's gameplay waaaaay more satisfying.
In other news, somebody recently pointed out that Indiana Jones is also owned by Lucasfilm, and that potentially Squeenix could use THAT in a game. If I were doing the writing, I'd actually go for Indiana Jones long before I did Star Wars, because I feel like Indiana Jones lends itself better to a self-contained storyline and would give them another jungle zone, or heck, a desert zone that wasn't Agrabah.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
PSN: BrightWing13 FFX|V:ARR Bright Asuna
Twitter 3DS: 0860 - 3257 - 2516
Now that I've played KH1, Chain of Memories, and watched the cutscenes from 358/2 Days I'm super into the series. Parts of KH2 make sense now that didn't before, and I just can't wait to play the 2.5 games. After I finish them I think i'm going to buy DDD too to be fully caught up when KH3 comes out.
There's no info on when 2.5 will release, right? Just presumably some time in 2014?
Yeah, I'm really glad to. I think honestly it's a mistake to have this kind of super-involved storyline spread out across so many damn different systems and consoles, and it's a big thing that lends itself to the perception that Kingdom Hearts is an incoherent, nonsensical mess.
The other thing is that it IS an incoherent, nonsensical mess, but it's LESS of one once you've had the chance to play the other games. CoM, especially, I think clears up a good deal of the plot complaints about KHII.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
They can do it however they want, but i'm so glad they are at least doing the compilations for people like me who missed most of the games.
There has to be some money related reason behind it though, either a misguided attempt to broaden their player base (Squeenix just make unique new games for the console, like TWEWY) (And a better marketing team for games like that) or... I dunno, I thought there were deals or something they got from the console makers for releasing games on their machines or something? Maybe not monetary but some other perk?
@silence1186 the thing is, while I've played every game except Re:Coded, D3, and the browser game, I don't think I've purchased a single KH game for a console that wasn't the PS2. All the others I bummed off of friends by being like, "Hey you have a PSP and Birth By Sleep, can I borrow that?" D3 may be the first one, if/when I finally grab a 2DS. And I'm FAR from the only one; I know VERY FEW people who actually bought the original CoM or Days. I know more who bought BBS but that's because people were kind of starved and it was praised as a really good entry in the series.
I honestly don't understand Square's reasoning for that strategy when it comes to a series like Kingdom Hearts. It makes a LITTLE sense with Final Fantasy, because the games are mostly optional spinoffs for stand-alone games anyway. You're not going to miss a huge chunk of the plot of XII because you didn't play Revenant Wings (XIII is apparently another story...), while with KH, if you haven't played CoM or watched the Days cutscenes, SO MUCH in KH2 is utter nonsense. And if you haven't played KHII or CoM or Days, then BBS is confusing, and don't even get me STARTED on how little D3 makes sense to an outsider...
And that's the thing, if it were a cash-grab I'd be like, okay, but honestly I don't know how much better all these mobile titles ACTUALLY sold?
EDIT OF ACTUAL CONTENT
http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/4/5174548/square-enix-jump-festa-14-games
2.5 Remix will be at JumpFesta.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Chain of Memories: They wanted to make a handheld title (for the lower budget and production value required) and GBA was the only game in town at the time.
358/2 Days: I guess Chain must have done well for them, so a similar tie-in for the GBA's successor makes sense.
Birth By Sleep: Since the PSP is basically Ps2 level quality, they can make a KH "3" without having to spend next gen budget or time on it (instead, it can be at the Ps2 level budget and time investment). The higher production values make the DS out of the question this time, the game already runs pedal to the metal on the PSP (you need to install AND overclock the system to really get the best out of the game).
Re:Coded : So they're remaking the very inessential cell phone game with the higher production values of the existing handheld games. Okay, makes sense. But... why not capture the audience that developed for both 358 and BBS by releasing an identical version for DS and PSP? I suppose the reason must have been that the systems can't be similar to program for. Still, this game doesn't really use the dual/touch screen for anything important, would have been fine on PSP.