Kingdom Hearts

We've already ranked our Top 7 favorite Final Fantasy games but now it's all about the spinoffs. With the release of Final Fantasy XIII-2 this week, we decided to go back and look at all the games that were not part of the main series...

Sony seems to be on something of an HD remake kick lately. This week finally brought us long-awaited confirmation that the Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection will head our way sometime next year; with last year’s God of War Collection and the upcoming Sly Collection, that brings to three the number of classic PS2 series Sony’s retrofitting with 1080p visuals and Trophies, before re-releasing as budget-priced PS3 games.

This is a trend we can really get behind; as much as we love our old PS2 games, we can barely stand to look at them anymore. Give them a makeover so they don’t look crap on our new TVs, though, and we’re all over them. With that in mind, here are a few other series from the last generation we’d love to see resurrected for the modern age of HD consoles...

The first Kingdom Hearts is one of my favourite games of all time. The character movement may be clunky and some of the worlds a bit pants, but it combined Square-Enix's RPG expertise with decades' worth of classic Disney characters, dressed them up in some of the finest visuals ever seen coming from a PS2 and then added the most charming, un-cheesy love story. It was, and still is, a masterpiece.

Since then, it's fallen foul of the usual sequel traits. It's still high quality stuff, but it feels like Square-Enix have been missing the point a little of late. So, with a new KH game set to be unveiled at E3, this is what we want to see from the next game in the series.

You know that friend nobody likes? The one that keeps showing up because no one’s told him to buzz off? That’s what water levels are to videogames. Upon arrival, they kill the mood and alienate anyone who was on the fence about staying or leaving. In short, they tend to ruin the entire flow of a game that’s otherwise just fine, and very few titles have been able to do liquid environments right.

Have a seat, children… Now, I know you thought Mickey, Ariel and Pinocchio would last forever, but the harsh reality of gaming is that all characters must eventually die. Often it seems like God is being cruel, yet it’s a fact that anything with a health bar will eventually perish.

We hear you kids in the back: “Disney is nothing but kiddy bullshit! There’s no way Kingdom Hearts can be hardcore with Mickey Mouse in it.” Really, mister? Then you have no sense of history and you’re about to get some. Wipe away those knee jerk images of princesses and dancing cats - we’re about to expose the bloody, black powder underbelly of Disney’s hardcore legacy of sheer brutality!

There’s an ancient and oft cited survey floating around the web that claims that Mario is more popular than Mickey Mouse. Sure, sounds believable. Even if the source of the poll has gone unaccredited since 1990. So, in order to present the following article in terms our audience can understand: Mickey is basically the Mario of everything else.

It seems a lot like Disney and Square-Enix are on different wavelengths as far as developing games goes, what with a Warren Spector project in the works and Final Fantasy XIII well on the way. But there was a time when these two juggernauts of adolescent entertainment teamed up to make sweet, sweet video game love in the form of Kingdom Hearts.

Licensed games come and go, so most of us don’t bat an eye when titles based on movies and TV shows fall into obscurity. Today, they’re ephemeral by nature, seemingly designed with an expiration date only as far off as the coinciding property’s DVD release date.

We suppose our regular readers, weaned on the violent acts of Marcus Fenix and Solid Snake, deserve an explanation. Why has GamesRadar devoted five whole days to anthropomorphic rodents and smile time gags on the week Halo 3: ODST hits shelves? It’s partially due to poor scheduling (not necessarily on our part!) and a lifetime of love for The House of Mouse.