The Kingdom Hearts series has been around for ages with complex lore and memorable characters. With all the different Kingdom Hearts games in the series, there have been countless memorable moments for fans throughout the years.
At the beginning of most of the games, there is a beautiful pre-rendered opening cinematic that portrays these moments in the game or recounts what has happened so far up to that point. Much like anime openings, these cutscenes have no spoken words and are accompanied by a stellar soundtrack by Japanese artist Utada Hikaru.
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Now, a fan who goes by "Kingdomon" on Reddit has posted side-by-side comparisons of these pre-rendered cutscenes versus how they look within the game's engine. There is a clear difference in quality between the two art styles, both of which are impressive looking on the PlayStation hardware. Additionally, it is clear that both sides have a certain charm to them that many players have come to appreciate. Click here to see the rest of the Kingdom Hearts image comparisons.
Some of the iconic Kingdom Hearts moments shown in the post are when Sora and Riku are racing through the beach in the first game and when Sora sacrifices himself for Kairi. In the second game, Kingdomon shows the difference in the cutscenes were fighting against Xemnas. And to top it all off, there are even some stills from the third game where Sora is accompanied by all of his friends he made through his journey.
Through these comparisons, many fans were able to notice new hidden details in Kingdom Hearts that previously went unnoticed. For instance, one fan pointed out how it was strange that the image of Kairi and Sora hugging each other happen at two different locations. This is because the pre-rendered cutscene takes place at the area where players fight Ansem, and in-game, it is at the beginning of Castle Oblivion. Another fan speculated this is because the creators didn't want to spoil too much.
Another user commented feeling appreciative that Square Enix would work so hard to create these beautiful images on a console with very limited capacity. This post even had some fans even calling for remakes of the first two games but with the cinematics and engine of the third game. As awesome as that would be, Square Enix would most likely start development on Kingdom Hearts 4 before making these remakes, which is hopefully coming out in the near future. Either way, it was nice of Kingdomon to help other fans take a trip down memory lane.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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