What’s different in the 3 versions of Kingdom Hearts

kingdom-hearts-1.5-remixversion differences

I recently started playing Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD. I have played the original PS2 and I know the PS3 version of it is actually Final Mix which until recently wasn't released outside Japan. However, I am aware there may be even more changes onto this as Final Fantasy X-2 had new Dressspheres and the Creature Catcher thing.

Just from my observations I've noticed the appearance of some enemies is now different (ie. Guard Armor and Trickster are far more colour) and that there's now Gummi Ship missions and new blocks. However, I don't know if these were done in Final Mix or just 1.5 HD as this answer just mentions added difficulty and scenes.

So, I am wondering, what is the difference between Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts Final Mix? Also, on top of that, what has been changed in Final Mix for 1.5 HD?

Best Answer

I'll try to cover each of the versions from start to finish. For this, I'm actually going to start with the Japanese release to give the full picture.

Kingdom Hearts (Japan)

Base game. Probably not exactly the one you know, though.

Kingdom Hearts (US & International)

Base game plus:

  • Translation (obviously)
  • Additional Secret Bosses (Sephiroth, Kurt Ziza, Phantom, Ice Titan, Rock Titan)

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (Japan Only, PS2)

Everything in the International KH release plus:

  • Recolored heartless
  • Additional cutscenes
  • Longer secret movie (Deep Dive)
  • 3 Gummi Ship missions for each world
  • Several new Enemies
  • 2 New Weapons each for Sora, Donald and Goofy
  • A few new abilities
  • A few new accessories
  • Couple Bug Fixes
  • Ability to skip cutscenes
  • Tweaks to the difficulty levels (including harder expert called Proud)
  • English voices

Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix Final Mix

Everything from Final Mix plus:

  • Remastered in HD
  • Couple new abilities (Zero EXP and Combo Master)
  • Reaction commands for certain actions (triangle for things like opening chests)
  • With the actions move, some commands moved to different slots in the action menu
  • Improved Camera Controls
  • Some model changes for some characters (to match models from other games)

Those are all the major changes, but there are lots of minor ones that are too long to really list out.