LogFAQs > #970538432

KH1 is the only one of the series that I'd call charming. The combat is enjoyable enough, but it's not particularly deep. It's the only game where the Disney characters are actually important to the story rather than just being set dressing. The story, for the only time in the series, is a quite straightforward JRPG/shonen storyline with the usual tropes with the twist that Disney characters are involved.

Chain of Memories is a card battle game. Some people like it. Way, way more people hate it. It's more-or-less remaking the first game; you play through the exact same worlds as the first one, just in a far more truncated, card-battling focused style. The story is still pretty focused here, though I found the insistence to actually contextualize the card battling system in the story itself to be super fucking weird.

KH2 is widely considered the best game in the series for good reasons. The combat is actually quite good and, when it comes to the plethora of secret bosses, legitimately challenging. The downside is that the level design takes a huge step back, a trend for most of the series. The worlds are essentially just long, Disney-themed hallways rather than levels to explore (in fairness, the platforming in the first game is something that was criticized). The story becomes notably more anime and introduces the first elements that are just really stupid, but it's still fairly straightforward and the anime elements fall on the "mildly cringey but still cool" side.

Re:Coded is a movie adaptation of a mobile game that was canon for some reason. It yet again just goes through the worlds of the first game. I hand-to-god watched all three hours and couldn't tell you a single fucking thing that happened. I'm almost certain nothing of relevance happens in it.

358/2 Days is another movie adaptation, this time of a DS game. It's mostly backstory for a character that I found pretty pointless, but a lot of people like it.

Birth By Sleep is probably better than I remember it being. If you imagine a portable KH game, this one is probably what you'd expect: it's more-or-less a worse version of KH2 with simplified mechanics. The issue is that the combat is just fucking garbage. For most of the game, this isn't an issue, but the last bosses are tough enough that the flaws become very evident, thus leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth. This is also when the story starts to get completely fucked, but only in the context of the series as a whole. On its own, it's only slightly stupid.

Dream Drop Distance is a far better portable game than BBS, but the story just absolutely shits the bed. Like rolls out the portajohn and upends it all over the fucking mattress.

KH: was a browser game that was canon for some reason. It has an hour-long movie version called Back Cover which I actually enjoyed a fair bit, at least in comparison to DDD's stories.

KH3 is a fun spectacle. The combat is unsurprisingly miles ahead of the portable games' ports, but it's still not as good as KH2's. The worlds are also given a lot more attention this time around, being the first time since KH1 that they were actually interesting to explore. Given that it has to tie all the plot threads together, you shouldn't be surprised to learn that the story is not good. The biggest flaw is that it's paced about as well as a nursing home marathon, but it adds its own little warts to the shambling trash hag that is the series' lore.

Overall, I'd say give it a shot.