Just like before the KH HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue compilation will be just short summaries of what I liked and didn't liked of the 2 games here, plus going over the χ Back Cover movie:

Dream Drop Distance HD - Great game with fun mechanics like flowmotion and dream eaters. Story got good before time travel was involved and made no sense at all (gotten better with understanding it now).
But for cons, the drop mechanic felt a little pointless, and annoying in certain fights or bosses. The virtual pet simulation of looking after the dream eaters got very dull after a while. And certain abilities not being shared between both characters kinda sucked like HP boost and magic boost.

χ Back Cover - This movie was a really fun time to watch, especially after finishing Unchained χ for it. Got to gain more insight on the Master of Masters and his plan, the 5 foretellers, and Luxu. I thought that the Master, Aced and Ava were the stronger characters in this story, however Invi and my boy Ephemer had not much to do at all in this movie, which was a bit meh.

0.2 Birth by Sleep - a fun tech demo of what will be KH3's gameplay. Story following on from BBS was great. The gameplay was so much fun, even if it is basic. And the new mechanics were so exciting like the situation commands.

a nice collection. good to re-experience DDD even though it is far from my favorite in the series; great to have it brought forward and accessible to more players.

Loved 0.2, beautiful game; fully re-ignited my hype for KH3 again.

Back Cover -- actually came through positive for me. it looks great, adds some lore, and presents a very intriguing ending which also added steam to the KH3 hype train.

My long-drawn out series replay and KH3 preparation is finally complete. Kingdom Hearts III will be played in 2024!

stats:
January 2, 2024 - January 9, 2024
26h32m
27/69 achievements
975/2000 gamerscore

Yet another Kingdom Hearts compilation title of unbalanced quality. This time, we have the final third of the xehanort saga through a HD remake of Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, a short tech-demo-esque prologue to Kingdom Hearts 3 in the form of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep A Fragmentary passage, and lastly a cutscenified Kindgom Hearts X back cover. Not very much content compared to the previous 2 compilation titles if you look at things since theres basically one full game whereas the other ones have two, but honestly I'm fine with it, KH3D is fine enough on its own. I think theres a front cover movie to go alongside back cover (which is now a 1 hour cutscene movie instead of the 3 hour 358/2 days and re:coded movies, thank the lord), but only back cover is in the package which makes it feel a little strange and confusing but whatever. I feel like if you are looking at this review you are either confused at the name and don't know where to start (1.5 HD remix is the start point), or you are already too far down the hole for me to stop you from playing this so like yeah

Gameplay: Really Good
Music: Really Good
Replayable? Nah
Streamed? Yes

Extra Notes? It's a nice collection, but it's a weak collection compared to 1.5+2.5.

I bought this collection to complete KH Dream Drop Distance and 0.2 Birth by Sleep in preparation for the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts III.

The utterly ridiculous game title aside, I'd consider this package to only be for diehard Kingdom Hearts fans... what's included isn't that great in comparison to previously released collections.

I've separated the games out into their own sections below:

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD
Kingdom Hearts meets Pokemon... but in the worst way possible. This is one of the worst battle systems introduced in the KH series since Chain of Memories... in fact, I think I'd give the slight nod to CoM over this one.

The Dream Eaters, overly cutesy "pocket monsters" that follow Riku and Sora around, tie to their abilities, and it introduces some very odd design decisions (Link Board, Affinity, Drop Meter, etc.) that did not "click" with me.

It's not a horrible game, however. I give it credit that it actually introduces new Disney worlds (a rarity in these KH spin-offs), which are much larger and open than previous titles, Yoko's music, as always, is phenomenal, I loved the inclusion of The World Ends With You characters, and the ending portion with Riku is excellent.

This game was the one that I think cemented the fact that Riku is a far superior character than Sora... probably because he actually has an arc where he grows as a character. I've just gotten so tired of Sora, and have despised seeing the degradation of his character as the series progressed - he just kept getting sillier and sillier... he might as well be Goofy 2.0 now.

Maybe I've just outgrown the KH series... I don't know.

Final Score: 3/5

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage
It's pretty much a short demo of what KH3 was going to be...and it features one of my favorite KH characters as the lead: Master Aqua! Short and sweet to build hype for the KH3 release.

I enjoy the return of the mainline series battle system (that still shows respect and merges the best ideas from its spin-offs). What I don't like (and didn't like in KH3 either) is the weird, plastic-looking character models though... not sure what they were thinking from an art style decision there. I much preferred the KH2 and Birth by Sleep art style... but it is a minor nitpick.

Final Score: 4/5

Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover

To put it bluntly... this shit is bonafide trash. This isn't a game, but a 1-hour collection of cutscenes from the mobile/browser title... it's about as bad as you'd expect...

I had trouble staying awake throughout, had no idea what the hell was going on, thought the whole concept was stupid, and it is single-handily the reason I pretty much have written off the series after KH3. If this is the direction they are going in, I'm done... unless KH4 looks like one of the greatest games of all time when they release more information on it, I'm fine with that decision.

Final Score: 0.5/5