Look, we may have been a little harsh with our article talking about the release of the Cloud versions of the Kingdom Hearts series coming to Switch. Of course, Cloud gaming has a place, but often it can stutter, lag, and generally ruin a gameplay experience. Then, the user must have a stable internet connection for it to even work. However, sometimes, like with Xbox Cloud Gaming, it can be a nice supplement to a service.
So now that the demos are out in the wild, it’s fair to have a look at the performance of these titles, and see if they can justify the eye-watering £80 ($90) price, to rent the series as long as the cloud service is available. And wouldn’t you know it, we’ve been proven completely right. So how well is Kingdom Hearts’ cloud versions running on Switch?
Not only that, but we tested the demo ourselves, and found exactly the same issues as many other gamers – compression ruining the visuals, input lag, stuttering framerates, and just generally a completely unacceptable way to experience some amazing games. We’ve collected a few examples, and again, we can corroborate this with our own experience. So if you’re interested in the series and yet to pick it up, maybe grab a PS4 copy.
Here are a few examples of the performance players can expect, for again, £80/$90 for the full collection. We love these games and wish they were properly on Switch, but maybe just grab them elsewhere.
idk what everyone is talking about. kingdom hearts runs so well on the switch. (739 Mbps btw.) #NintendoSwitch #KingdomHearts pic.twitter.com/I1QIDn0JI9
— Ash・かい (@ash2_kai) January 18, 2022
The framerate was VERY inconsistent, the Switch recordings make it look worse but this is the worst-performing version of Kingdom Hearts. Some menu sounds were out of sync too. pic.twitter.com/w8S9aOYipU
— KDBgames (@KDBgames) January 18, 2022
Exciting as it is for Kingdom Hearts on Switch… this just ain't it #KingdomHearts #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/QDqd4bRzJV
— Lethal1Up (@Lethal1Up) January 19, 2022
So I tried the Kingdom Hearts: Cloud Version for Switch… would not recommend. pic.twitter.com/BUUDYglBvw
— Austin (@blacktionhero) January 19, 2022
Once again, we can maybe understand the need for a cloud version of Kingdom Hearts 3, but then again, we have competent ports of Doom Eternal and The Witcher III on Nintendo Switch, so we can’t help but feel it probably is possible but would need decent time and money thrown at the project. And as for the older Kingdom Hearts games? Yeah, they definitely could be running natively on Switch.
We hope they reconsider in the future because we would love to play the Kingdom Hearts series on Switch, properly. For now, save yourself some money and pain, and check out our guide to the best Switch RPG games if you need something to play.