Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece Steam review

I’m sure most long term gamers have a few series that emotionally resonate with them more than the rest, and have been there for them through the tough times. For me the series that this most applies to is Kingdom Hearts. I’ll never forget crying at the end of the first game as an emotional teenager, or how fast I completed its sequel in lieu of revising for an upcoming Maths exam. There’s no other series I can think of where specific pieces of the music from them hit me like a bus running late every time I listen to them, or that I’ve spent more time watching other people play on Twitch. Although almost all of this wonderful series of games have been ported and remade for most consoles at this point, those who prefer to play on Steam won’t have had a chance to enjoy the series. That has just changed though, thanks to Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece.

Now for those of you who have been sleeping under a particularly well hidden rock for the last couple of decades, Kingdom Hearts is a series that (generally) follows Sora. This plucky young kid has always dreamt of exploring worlds outside of his little island home, and it doesn’t take long for fate to intervene and make that happen. It turns out that monsters called Heartless are spreading across worlds and destroying everything, and Sora has been chosen by the series’ iconic weapon the Keyblade to take them down. With a whole lot of games in the collection there are a whole lot of different threats he’ll fight across various story arcs, but with his Disney buddies Donald and Goofy by his side he’ll surely save the day over and over again.

One of the key things about the Kingdom Hearts series is that it’s a crossover game between the worlds of Disney and Final Fantasy. There simply aren’t any other games where one moment you’ll be fighting Cloud in Olympus Coliseum from Hercules, and in another will be singing songs from The Little Mermaid while transformed into a topless fish boy. Going to various Disney locations and teaming up with familiar characters to save the day is always an absolute blast, and because of this nostalgic multiverse setting I can’t think of a single other RPG with more exciting worlds to explore.

There are a whole lot of worlds to explore too, because Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece contains a hell of a lot of games. Although it’s a bundle made up of three individual downloadable titles on Steam, two of them are collections of a ton of games. Kingdom Hearts 1, 2 and 3 (plus DLC) are somewhat of a given for a bundle of a whole series, but there’s also Chain of Memories, Birth by Sleep, Dream Drop Distance and 0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage (I promise these are actual titles). To make up for the fact a few (not particularly fun) spinoffs are missing from this collection, there are also three movies that tell the stories from these games to fill you in on the details you’re missing. This is everything you could ever need to play and watch to experience the entire Kingdom Hearts series, and it all works perfectly on the Steam Deck.

There probably wouldn’t be a whole lot of point reviewing Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece as it moves from the Epic storefront to the Steam one, if it wasn’t for the Steam Deck. Having the entirety of one of my favourite series playable on my favourite handheld is, frankly, a dream come true, and it runs practically flawlessly on there too. I wasn’t sure that Kingdom Hearts III being a more modern title would be something the Deck could handle so well, but at 60fps (and 30 for cutscenes) pretty much locked in outside of a few moments it’s just wonderful.

At this point you can probably tell that I’m rather chuffed to have been given an excuse to play one of my favourite video game series again, but I should also talk about the very few negative aspects of Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece. Not all of the games in the collection are made equal, and with many of them upgraded handheld games, their flow and feel isn’t quite as top notch as the best games in the series. Even remastered, the earlier games in the series aren’t going to win any beauty contests either, which may bother people unfamiliar with them.

Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece is the perfect way to play through the entirety of a series that is essential for fans of RPGs and/or Mickey Mouse. The Steam Deck support has made it the only way I’ll ever play these games going forward, and with hundreds and hundreds of hours of content here you’ll certainly get a lot of bang for your buck if you decide to do the same.