View attachment 50224 Hey everyone! I hope you're all enjoying Kingdom Hearts 3! For many of us this'll be our first full weekend with the game. As I make my way through I've been recording cutscenes, and I'm happy to say I've got the first batch ready for download! As of this initial post there are only the first few worlds (6 videos total with intro and menu trailer), but I will be posting updates in this thread as I make progress. If you'd like to stay in the loop of what's available, click "Watch Thread" at the bottom of the page to receive notifications. I'll be saying how many videos were added, and the world names hidden in spoiler tags in case you aren't caught up and don't want to know. Bear in mind that the cutscene archive itself will have world names and thumbnails, so be careful if you are avoiding spoilers. I now present our shiny new Kingdom Hearts III Cutscene Archive! The scenes on this page are captured from my first playthrough, so they will have whatever Keyblade I was using at the time. However once I'm completely done, I plan on recording everything again using Theater Mode so it is Kingdom Key only, and that version will have subtitles turned off. There may be less scenes in the later version (any small clips that didn't make it into Theater Mode), but it will have smoother edits and be generally better for watching. As always, you can find cutscenes from all of the Kingdom Hearts games on the main page of our Cutscene Archive. Enjoy!
Hey everyone, You may have noticed we had some downtime over the weekend. As it turns out there is an unexpected restriction on the size of our database which wasn’t made clear when switching to our new host, and so we had to scale back a bit. The good news is the recent database errors should stop, but unfortunately we had to disable the site’s search function, and delete a large portion of posts from 2009 and earlier (Role-Playing Arena posts have not been touched). We have backups of all posts, so no data was actually lost, and specific threads can be restored upon request. Furthermore, your post count has not been affected. Over the next few weeks we’ll be assessing whether we want to stay on this host, or if there’s an affordable alternative we can move to. Apologies for the inconvenience, we’ll keep you updated.
View attachment 49897 Hey all, We'll be down for maintenance shortly in order to switch over to our new host. We're just waiting on them for one last thing, and then we'll be ready to go. UPDATE 1: Bit of a technical hitch so we’re delayed a little. We’re hoping to have this done sometime today and will give some warning (on Discord and here). But just in case you miss the warning, if you’re writing anything long-form, we suggest having it saved in a text file on your computer/phone. UPDATE 2: Maintenance will begin somewhere between 7 and 9 PM Eastern Time. We recommend wrapping up anything you’re doing before that time, or saving it and waiting till we’re back online. UPDATE 3: We're back! Eveything's set up and should look as it did before. If you see anything not working correctly let us know. Thanks for your patience. Onward!
View attachment 48627 What's good, everyone? I'm happy to unveil the project I've been working on the last few months. Kingdom Hearts: Chronology is an episodic cutscene series that weaves together all KH games into a single timeline. It's a great way to see how all the games and sub-plots fit together. Truth be told this project is actually years in the making. Seven years ago I completed a BBS Chronology (which was featured a couple times on this site, actually), as well as one for Re:CoM, which I never bothered to upload anywhere. This new series is an expansion on that, but HD-ified, and with a few inaccuracies cleaned up. Check out the trailer below: The first two episodes are available now, and a new episode will be uploaded each week. Click here to start watching. Hope you all enjoy!
View attachment 48304 View attachment 48305 Some fairly convincing screenshots appeared online, depicting a Monsters Inc. world, with Sora and Co. sporting new outfits, and fighting Unversed enemies. If real, the images show a clearly unfinished version of the game, in part because it has an Unreal Engine 4 debug menu overlayed, and the character portraits do not reflect their new looks. The images were supposedly found on an FTP server, before being quickly taken down. Speculating on what could’ve happened: they may have been intended to be shared on an internal server (ie. for a progress report), but were uploaded to a public facing FTP instead. But again, there is absolutely no confirmation that the screens are real, so take this with a grain of salt. What do you think: do they look legit to you? Source: ResetEra EDIT: New screenshots have been leaked from KHInsider, giving us a better look at Donald and Goofy, as well as our first look at Boo. Check 'em out below:
View attachment 47609 At long last, our cutscene archive is complete. We're finishing things off with the scenes from Kingdom Hearts Final Mix on PS4. I used the new "Theater Mode" that was added to 1.5+2.5 to smooth out a few audio transitions, but that aside, all audio/video was captured in-game. Make sure to check out the "Extra + Alternate Scenes" file as well. There's tons of bonus content, like summon animations, secret bosses, miscellaneous short clips, and some rare alternate scenes that many of you have probably never seen before. Oh! And while we're here, if you previously downloaded the cutscenes from Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A fragmentary passage -, I suggest you re-download the two scenes "Forest of Thorns" and "Ending". I made some further edits to reduce the stuttering in those scenes. And that's that. We eagerly await the release of KH3, but for now, do what you will with these vids. Big thanks to @libregkd for updating our Cutscene Archive as it continued to grow. Peace!
View attachment 47493 Hey folks, got a massive update for you today! We're now hosting all the cutscenes from Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix! That's 13+ hours of cinematics, including a few rare cutscenes you may have missed, which can be found in the "Extra + Alternate Scenes" file. This also marks the first time we've offered the Final Mix-exclusive scenes in English, and I'm happy we could deliver them in such high quality. Captured from the PS4 version, this game is looking sharper than ever. While the PS4 version has some occasional stuttering during cutscenes, I've taken care to edit that out anywhere I noticed it. And as a little bonus, you can also download a handful of KH2FM's Boss Battles. Our Cutscene Archive is almost complete. Thanks to @libregkd for keeping all that Data Org'd (get it?). KH1 Final Mix on PS4 is nearing completion, so you should see it very soon. Until then, peace.
Earlier this week, there was an update to Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5. It enabled the use of two optional add-ons: an extra cutscene in the Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days movie, as well as the addition of Theater Mode to Kingdom Hearts Final Mix. In addition, it also included several long-awaited bug fixes. While the official patch notes are somewhat vague, we have a detailed list, thanks to the combined effort of many dedicated fans/speedrunners. Here are the highlights: Unfortunately, a few new issues popped up during this patch, including: For full details, check out Bizkit047's notes. Overall this is a great improvement, and most would agree it is a net positive. However, the new bugs that appeared are a problem that definitely needs fixing, if this is to be considered a high quality port. It's important to note that the much-criticized audio bugs are still in this version. Let us know your thoughts. Has this new patch brought in anyone who was still on the fence about this collection?
View attachment 47410 Hey everyone, exciting news! As a surprise treat, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMix received an add-on with Patch 1.03 that adds an extra scene to the 358/2 Days movie. The final fight with Xion is now fully animated! You can check out the new scene in this video: And the scene has also been updated in our 358/2 Days Cutscene Archive. Download the file "Day 356 - Day 357" to get the new scene. What are your thoughts on this sequence? More updates coming very soon. Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 are fully recorded, and editing is well underway. In the meantime, you can download all the other games' cinematics in 1080p from our Cutscene Archive. Until next time!
View attachment 47288 Hey everyone! It's been a long time coming, but we finally have HD cutscenes for Birth by Sleep. I hope you'll agree that it's worth the wait: this game looks beautifully crisp on PS4. And for a more cinematic experience, I edited out that bothersome loading icon from all scenes (this was done for DDD as well, and will be done for all future games). You can download all three stories below: Terra Ventus Aqua Note that the CG Intro, as well as the opening cutscenes can be accessed from Terra's page only (even though they appear in all three games). This is simply to cut down on duplicate downloads. And in case you missed it, we recently uploaded all the cutscenes from Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue. You can find them (and more) in our Cutscene Archive. Special thanks to @libregkd for keeping it up-to-date. I'm making solid progress through 1.5 + 2.5, so it won't be too much longer before we've got KHFM and KH2FM. Once I get those, we'll have the newest versions of all games, which is very exciting to say. Keep an eye out for it.
View attachment 47198 Hey everyone! Just in time for the release of 1.5 + 2.5, we're finishing off the 2.8 collection with the Dream Drop Distance cutscenes, subtitle free. Naturally, this is a huge step up in quality over the original 3DS scenes. I hope you all enjoy using these however you see fit. On the subject of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMix, I'd like to talk about what you can expect in terms of cutscene uploads. First off, we won't be re-recording Re:Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, or Re:Coded. Those cutscenes are all pre-rendered, and have no graphical changes whatsoever on the PS4 version. And since there doesn't seem to be an option to disable subtitles on the collection, there would be no point in doing that again. And another note, I'll likely be recording Birth by Sleep first. I've heard talk of occasional stuttering during scene transition in KH2, so I'll delay that in case they have a patch that fixes it. And KH1 will be saved for last, since we've already got HD cutscenes for 1, granted with a few missing scenes, and of course slightly lower resolution, since the PS3 version was upscaled 1080p, as opposed to native 1080p. But that's all future talk. For now, you can download the new DDD scenes, the rest of 2.8, and more from our Cutscene Archive. Big ups to @libregkd for his continual support on keeping it organized and up to date.
View attachment 46815 Hello again! As promised, here are the scenes from Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover, with no subtitles, and virtually no stuttering, hooray! It was a tedious editing process but I think it was well worth it. And one more thing: we now have all the Boss Battles and scripted enemy encounters from Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage -, to go along with the cutscenes we added two weeks back. I'm nearly finished with my Dream Drop Distance HD playthrough, so those scenes will be up relatively soon. Thanks to @libregkd for getting everything up and running on our cutscene archive.
View attachment 46429 Hey everyone, got some exciting news for the video editors out there. We've updated our cutscene archive with all the scenes from Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage -, with subtitles off, so you can fully appreciate this beautiful game. And for the special occasion, I made a shiny new intro that I hope you all like. Site veterans may find it somewhat familiar... I'd like to apologize for the slight delay, but this was a bit more difficult to edit than anticipated. Due to the game's frame stuttering, I had to record all the scenes twice, and splice together the footage to get the smoothest result possible. You can download the Kingdom Hearts 0.2 scenes here. Update: Boss Battles have also been added to the archive. And don't forget to check out our full Cutscene Archive, which will be getting some new additions in the coming weeks and months. Back Cover is up next, so look forward to that. Thanks to @libregkd for keeping the archive up to date.
View attachment 45960 Hey there video editors! Got some more content for you to work with. This time around it's the Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded movie. With the PS4 versions of 1.5 + 2.5 coming out in a matter of months, I put a hold on recording KH2FM and BBSFM. But I went ahead and recorded this, since Re:Coded is pre-rendered and likely won't be getting any improvements on PS4 (though if it does, we will revisit it). The next few months are an exciting time for the Kingdom Hearts community, with 2.8 on the horizon, then 1.5 + 2.5 shortly after. We hope you'll stick with us for news updates, community events, and those sweet, sweet vids. Check out our Cutscene Archive for more. Thanks to @libregkd for keeping it nice and organized.
View attachment 45585 Hey everyone, the next batch of cutscenes are here! We've had the Japanese version up for quite a while, but now the English version of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days has been added to the archive. You can download everything here. And in case you missed last week's update, we also have all of Re:Chain of Memories available for download. For that and more, be sure to check out our Cutscene Archive. And with that, we've wrapped up the first HD collection. The next update will take a little longer, but will be out as soon as possible. Stay tuned! Again, thanks to @libregkd for getting the archive page up and running.
View attachment 45545 Hey, all! It's been a hot minute since our last big archive update, but today I'm happy to present the entirety of Re:Chain of Memories and Reverse/Rebirth in HD! And for the completists out there, we also have all the text bubble sequences available as separate downloads. You can access it all from our Cutscene Archive. Apologies for the massive delays. For a multitude of reasons, the entire project fell into limbo for quite a while. But I recently acquired the means to pick things up where we left off, so barring my untimely demise, you can expect to see more updates from us in the coming weeks. It's been long overdue, but we want to put the "Vids" back in KH-Vids. Big thanks to @libregkd for sprucing up the archive, and putting everything in its proper place. More to come soon!
SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW. Creating this thread for public reference, and on the off-chance that there might be a patch or future re-releases of these games. To preface, I don't think the HD versions are bad. In fact, they're my favorite versions of the games to date. But they aren't without their problems. Following is a comprehensive list of everything that's (negatively) different from the original games, or somewhat lacking in the PS3 port, ranging from tiny nitpicks to progression blockers. I wouldn't expect all of them to be fixed, but I figured it was best to share all information anyway. Anything I missed you can post below for me to add. Bugs: ~ Red Trinity outside Oogie's Manor in Halloween Town. If you don't get this Trinity before sealing Halloween Town, it will be inaccessible (still visible, but no command appears), unless the Chimera heartless spawns, in which case you can trigger it after defeating the heartless. If you do get the Trinity before sealing the keyhole, it may appear again afterwards, totally inaccessible, though it still counts as having gotten it in your journal. ~ Floating platform where you fight Darkside Heartless (during Destiny Islands' destruction) has texture glitch along the edge. Clearly displayed in cutscene. During battle, if you angle the camera in certain ways, it will appear fixed, but otherwise has a weird border. ~ Scene where Maleficent awakens Riku's full potential, lights above in the Castle Chapel flicker. The timing and number of flickers is not consistent, but as far as I can tell, it happens every time. ~ Sometimes in the first cutscene in the End of the World, the background music will not play. Minor Gripes: ~ When transitioning between cutscenes and gameplay, the camera will often jolt into place, rather than have the smooth fade of the original. This is the result of the change in aspect ratio from the original game, but could still be fixed with either minor animation or programming tweaks. ~ Occasionally subtitles will take up three full lines, when it used to be limited to two, taking up a large portion of the screen. Minor Gripes: ~ Cutscenes were not re-rendered (except for one or two), and thus models and textures have not been updated during cutscenes. ~ Occasional artifacting/interlacing in certain cutscenes, that was not present in the original. Happens during very fast moments (ex: Lexaeus slams RIku against the ceiling, Riku Replica runs towards Marluxia, etc.) Gameplay Bugs: ~ Game crashes. Can happen during several boss fights (happened for me during The Experiment). ~ Randomly missing "Reversal" reaction command in Final Xemnas fight. Becomes a huge problem for level 1 Critical Mode. Audio Bugs: ~ Sound effects that are played in close succession are skipped. (ex: half of Xigbar's shots during his desperation move). ~ Battle dialog is sometimes quiet or doesn't play at all. Seems partially related to the camera's distance from the character making sound. (most notable in Jafar and Saix fights, present in Zexion, Luxord, Sephiroth, and others). ~ In TWTNW cutscene shortly after Xigbar fight, Xemnas' dialog is out of sync with his lips ("Rejoice and feast on these hearts we offer..."). ~ Cutscene after Armored Xemnas 1, Donald and Goofy's victory laughs aren't heard (right before Mickey says "Gosh, you all did great"). Game Performance: ~ Long load times when going into a drive form or summoning. Sora is invincible during transformation, but enemies can recover/retaliate in the time that it takes to transform. Pause buffering (pausing the game during transformation) is a workaround, but annoying. ~ Long load times when transitioning game areas. Difference when going to adjacent game areas is negligible, but loading is especially long when loading an area from a completely different world (ex: absent silhouettes) ~ Temporary freezing at the start of certain boss fights, or when enemies spawn in at certain locations. (Larxene AS, Cerberus, top of Ruin and Creation's Passage, parts of Timeless River, etc.) [English versions only] Mistakes: ~ In the cutscene before Axel fight 2, the camera goes through the flames, causing a white flash. Aspect Ratio Mistakes: Some game assets were not properly recreated to match the new 16:9 aspect ratio. The difference is not huge, but there will be small gaps on either side of the screen, where you can see the layer behind it. ~ In battle: Zexion fight, white flash after Dispell reaction command. Xigbar fight, some of the static effects when reflecting his sniper rifle shots back at him. ~ In cutscenes: Roxas Day 4 - static when falling off station tower. Scene before Armored Xemnas 2 fight, as screen is wiped during arena change. Aspect Ratio/Animation Quirks: In some scenes, characters going on or off screen have weird animation snaps, or might overstay their welcome. This is a result of the widened field of view. Most notably: In new FM scene with Axel, Xaldin, and Xemnas. Xemnas jolts from one pose to another as the camera pans over to him. As heartless step out of frame when Cloud and Sephiroth first meet in the game, one of the heartless is still visible, even though they all should have left. Game Performance: ~ Slight frame rate drops during both cutscenes and gameplay. Does not typically hinder gameplay, but is annoying. ~ Long load times for D-Links. Gameplay pauses during this, so not a huge problem, but once again, annoying. (To give credit where it's due, all other gameplay loading, especially area transitions, are surprisingly short). Mistakes: ~ Ventus' heart station in the introduction is not the correct one. It displays the Land of Departure emblem, as well as the Wayfinders, which Ven should not know about. They mistakenly used the same heart station seen at the very end of his story. ~ In the secret ending, Aqua has her old PSP model and textures. Everyone else's have been updated for this scene, except for hers. Possibly related to unforeseen problems, with the tears that run down her cheeks having to be redone for the new model? ~ In the Keyblade Graveyard cutscene, the dust particles on the torrent of keyblades Xehanort summoned are missing. ~ In Aqua's final fight with Xehanort, all the gold particles are missing from the area where you can use Dual Limit with Terra (which Xehanort's guardian transports you to). Other Gripes: ~ The skybox in the Castle of Dreams' Palace Courtyard is a solid blue color, with no other shades. Original version had stars and a gradient. Can be a little painful to look at. _______________________________________________________________________________ Here's a great video by Bizkit047 discussing the major issues with KH2FM on PS3. I thought it was worth plugging, because there's a better chance that someone who matters stumbles upon the video over my ramblings.
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*mild BBSFM spoilers* I'll admit, this is a little weird. But I have a theory that the boss of BBSFM's Secret Episode is the Heartless of Lady Tremaine and the evil step-sisters. In Aqua's visit to Castle of Dreams, Cinderella's step-family apparently summoned an unversed to kill Cinderella, out of jealousy. It ultimately destroys them, and Aqua comments "The darkness in their hearts overtook them", which is a pretty accurate description of how a heartless is born. In the final phase of the battle, the Dark Hide creates three copies of itself, each one colored differently: one red-ish pink, one green, and one purple. These are the same colors as the three ladies' dresses. And after the battle, Aqua emerges into the Castle of Dreams world, now lost to darkness, in the same area that the three of them presumably died. More than likely I'm reading too much into it, but I thought it was an interesting set of coincidences.
It's a little odd to say this now, since I already knew what was in the game, and even played through it on an emulator before. But playing FM at not a horrible frame rate, with everything fully translated and voiced in english, it really put in stark relief how much better all the additions make this game. Of course the new optional bosses are all good stuff (possibly my favorite addition), but I won't talk about that, because they aren't as necessary as some other things. *mild content and story spoilers below* I was really excited when vanilla KH2 came out, but after the new-ness wore off, I was kind of underwhelmed. Aside from a few curveballs, it was a very straightforward, almost obligatory sequel, and with the exception of a few boss fights, combat was really easy. The extra scenes work wonders for fleshing out the universe and its characters. The Organization is cool and all, but most of them you barely got any sense of, so it wasn't that satisfying to beat them. Seeing their round room discussions let you see more of them as people, and not just how they are when they're on the job, messing with you. As someone who played Chain of Memories before KH2 was released, I felt slightly disappointed by how little recognition that game got. Obviously KH2 picked up a little ways after CoM left off, but it seemed like it was tip-toeing around talking about it as much as possible (probably wise, given sales, but frustrating nonetheless). As you may recall, Final Mix was originally released alongside ReCoM, so it was reasonable to assume that pretty much everyone with FM played it, which allowed them to throw in a few references to Castle Oblivion, as well as having a few appearances from the other Org members (I think I had a couple friends who were confused about what the "XIII" in Organization XIII meant). Those little throwbacks, along with the hints to Birth by Sleep, made it feel less like a one-shot, standalone title, and more like a satisfying entry in a series. More than anything else though, the playable Roxas fight and the new scenes that followed felt like the most necessary inclusion. Having an animated fight sequence was a first for the series, and on that level it was a really awesome moment, albeit a bit of a missed opportunity. Getting to fight the guy who's a better version of you is always a top-tier video game moment. As is getting to fight another playable character. Still one of the better moments in the game, but the overhaul it got for FM made it hands down my favorite part. In no small part because of the music change. It went from a sort of ominous, yet tame theme, to a powerful and sad tone. Instead of presenting Roxas as an evil character, it made him look really tragic, which is a lot more accurate. And one of the following scenes gave much needed closure for both Roxas and Axel, in what is one of the most touching parts of the series. I have been highly critical of Kingdom Hearts II in the past, and to a degree I still am. It's definitely not perfect: for one thing, I think it could have used a bit of editing. 11+ hours of cutscenes is a bit much. Looking past that however, I think it's come a long way since its first release, which I consider to be the most disappointing game in the series. It's gone from being one of my least favorites to one of my favorites, and now it actually feels like a worthy sequel to me. I want to know if anyone else had a similarly transformative experience. I understand a lot of people love vanilla KH2, and many hail it as the best in the series, so I'm probably in the minority here. But either way, I'm glad we finally got Final Mix internationally, and I'm glad I changed my mind about it.
