play! progress report (01/10/2025)
I guess the hint about what I was testing this month was just too obvious, huh? Kingdom Hearts has been in my list for years and I was finally able to give it the attention it deserves. Not only I've finished both main games (Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2), but I also 100% their improved versions as well (Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Mix and Kingdom Hearts 2.5 Final Mix). So let's check on some details...
New verified playable games [09/2025]:
Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts 2
Kingdom Hearts 2.5 Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts 1 and 1.5 Final Mix: other than the pre rendered videos being slower than they should, it's 100% playable, every single quest and boss can be destroyed with good performance.
Kingdom Hearts 2 and 2.5 Final Mix: this is where it got tricky, but it was quickly fixed. I've found an issue that was common with the PS3 emulated version as well: the HP bar on the TRON boss reached a specific value and... nothing, the HP wouldn't go down no matter what you did. This was fixed changing the rounding mode for some values that were only breaking that specific battle. After beating his ass on the original KH 2, the same issue obviously showed it's ugly face on the KH 2.5 FM as well, so we had a patch added to that version too. Performance is good, the 1000 heartless battle still sends chills down my spine and Sephiroth killed me more times than I want to admit (the soundtrack is still worth all the pain).
After that I've started to poke at Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories and after two bosses I had an issue while trying to save. This issues isn't exactly emulation related, but more of a limitation of the game itself in how it reads the memory card (the game probably expected a specific amount of saves... but since I test many games and play! has all that in a single folder, it goes crazy and warns you that you can't save there. The "solution" for now it's to use the other memory card instead (I've hundreds of saves in my MC1, but only 5 on the MC2), but before even noticing that I gave up on the game to progress into my next adventure: Rogue Galaxy.
So for this month I'll try to finish the game (already found a gamebreaking issue but there's also a patch for that incoming), then go back to KH Re:Chain of Memories and then... who knows (really, even I don't know, I'll probably pick a random game on the in-game list unless anyone suggests some specific name in the comments =x).
That's all for now, thx for your support and see you all next month ;)
Useful Links
play! site: https://purei.org/
play! NAMCO System 246/256 compatibility list: List
play! repository: https://github.com/jpd002/Play-
play! patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jpd002