Square Enix announced on Tuesday that cloud versions of the Kingdom Hearts games would hit the Nintendo Switch on February 10, and to let players get a feel for how these titles play on the cloud, the company dropped three playable demos of the games that same day. Fans of the series expressed disappointment toward the demos upon playing them, with many of their issues seemingly stemming from having to stream the game over the internet.
Several players experienced dropped frames, framerate stutters, input lag, and poor image quality while playing the demos. In some cases, players felt the games were mostly playable via the cloud, but also that these versions of the games felt inferior to the ones available on other consoles. “It’s playable yes, but it doesn’t feel like the full experience,” wrote one Twitter user.
Some players, however, had a significantly worse time playing the demos. Twitter user FauxRetro posted gameplay of Kingdom Hearts’ first level, which featured some heavy framerate stuttering. Another fan tweeted out gameplay footage of Kingdom Hearts II’s first area that was rife with lag, making it borderline unplayable, despite allegedly running on a strong internet connection.
Players also raised issues regarding the game’s long-term availability. As the series is only available on Switch via a cloud streaming service, it’s possible that Switch users may no longer be able to play the series — even if they paid for it — should the service one day go offline. “Why would I pay all that money for a game that [won’t] even be playable in the future,” posited ThatNerdTim on Twitter. It will cost $90 to purchase every Kingdom Hearts game on the Switch, Square Enix confirmed.
Square Enix has stated before that native Switch ports of the Kingdom Hearts games could happen in the future, but the company has not announced any native ports at the time of writing.
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