After playing 358/2 days, I can tell you that you don't need to play it in order to experience it. Watching the cutscenes should be more than enough to get what you need out of it.

It's called spin offs. You don't have to play all of them to understand the story, but it's a PLUS. And yeah, you have to pay for the plus. And KH spinoff are funded with exclusivity. Wich gives us more games, even if on different platforms.

I didn't play COM before KH2, it didn't prevent me to understand 2. Why would it be different with 3 ? 

Big mistake.

Without referencing anything from the spinoffs, can you explain how the characters got from where they were at the end of KH1 to the start of KH2? There is no sense of continuity between the two games becausea story was told in between to explain how the characters arrived where they did.

And I'm not asking them to bankroll multiplats of all these spinoffs. But if information from the spinoffs is necessary to understand the plot and characters, they need to put that information into the story proper. Even a throwaway line to explain why so many of the Organization people are gone, and what the deal is with Axel and Roxas, and what that letter at the end of the first game led to.

you cant really get away from that with MG or KH those games are important parts of the saga, unless you dont care about story.

Just wait for the HD collections. KH3 still years away. I'm shooting for a 2016 release, if SE gets their shit together with FF15.

Yes and no. The reason the writing is so poor is because the story is segmented into spinoffs, instead of one consolidated narrative.

What doesn't make sense to me is the fact the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix isn't coming to Xbox 360 and yet there making Kingdom Hearts 3 for Xbox One.

You can play every Kingdom Hearts game by owning a PS3 and 3DS. A PS3 gets you KH 1, Re Chain of Memories, and (coming soon) KH 2, and probably birth by sleep included with it.

3ds lets you play Re Coded (just a remake of Re Chain of Memories right?), 358/2, and DDD.

So there you have it. I kind of wish that the hd remixes were available on 360 as well, but that is not the end of the world. I'll probably wait for some sort of mega compilation of every game that will come out some day ... maybe?

3DS is super cheap now, and PS3 is only getting cheaper. These will let you play all of the games in the series (after KH 2.5 releases).

Of course, you will need a next gen system to play KH 3 so that makes it three total systems you will need to buy to enjoy the entire series.

I think the overarching plot is stupid so it doesn't bother me, it is weird though how they have it scattered on PS2, PSP, DS, 3DS...

However the fan service, and plot within the disney worlds is awesome, so it doesn't bother me so much.