Where Square Enix North America Went Wrong With Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ
- Details
- Published on September 7, 2016 @ 02:53 am
- Written by Joey
The recent updates to Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ have disappointed the community. From glitches and bugs to false advertising that gets swept under the rug, Square Enix North America seems content to have delivered a game that is vastly different to what fans have been asking for. The most recent update, versions 1.1.2, is just the tip of the iceberg as the English version of Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ features many differences from the Japanese version. Forum members The_Echo and Cyborg009 submitted opinion pieces to KHInsider about where the localisation with the game went wrong in hopes of raising awareness to these changes.
An Ocean Apart
By The_Echo
July 18, 2013. Kingdom Hearts χ[chi] launches its open beta on the Yahoo! Games service in Japan. It is the series' first ever made-for-browser title. A departure from franchise norms in many ways, it still caught the attention of fans both in Japan and across the globe. Many Western fans, myself included, banded together to cross the regional divide and experience the game.
What followed was a two-year exercise in cooperation, speculation and most of all, fun. The Western community surrounding χ[chi] bloomed and flourished amidst consistent content and story updates which kept interest strong. What we had once thought was a strange side project tiding us over during the wait for future games quickly became a beast all its own, offering a narrative and world full of mystery, couched in an accessible yet addictive set of mechanics and a cute, comfortable visual aesthetic. Despite all its differences, Kingdom Hearts χ[chi] truly felt like a Kingdom Hearts main title.
To the dismay of its players, the game ended service on September 1, 2016, shortly after its third anniversary. But all was not lost; there was more to the world of χ[chi] that had yet to be explored...
September 3, 2015. Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ is released in Japan for iOS and Android devices. A mobile port of the browser original, this game was again very different, but captured the interest of players worldwide regardless. While it had been known that Unchained χ was developed with the intention of localization, many people would step over the border once again. It wasn't a perfect launch; the first month was plagued with connectivity issues. But as time went on, the game slowly became more content-dense and more enjoyable. What had felt like, perhaps, a play-to-win game design was quickly undercut by several improvements and changes made to balance the game for all players to enjoy regardless of monetary investment.
Months went by with no word on a localization. Impatience festered in the community, everyone waiting with bated breath for the day that all Western fans could enjoy this game that the few of us had been for years.
April 7, 2016. Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ is released exclusively to the North American region. This was the first mistake; European fans, Australian fans, and anyone in-between had been wholly ignored and would not receive the game in their local app stores until June 16, a whole two months later. Moreover, the North American and worldwide releases shared the same servers, meaning that NA players had a collective three-month lead on WW players, with all the events and bonuses that came with it. But let's go back to the beginning.
I downloaded Unchained χ's NA release as soon as it appeared on the store page. I had been dying for this localization; I wanted so bad for everyone to understand and experience this game that I genuinely loved. I open the game, create my character, and start moving through the first batch of story quests.
"Defeat all enemies within one turn."
My eyebrow raises. "This is supposed to be 'defeat the target enemy'," I thought.
I finish quest 200. Chirithy gives me the Strength Bangle. "But this isn't supposed to happen until quest 350," I thought.
These initial head-turners are the precursor to what has thus far been a consistent series of alterations made to the game by the localization staff. The reasoning? Well... we can only guess.
Events are altered. The contents of Jewel Boards changed. Medals have their stats and abilities changed, sometimes made worse. Quality-of-life additions in the original are missing with no sign of showing up. The order of Medals added to the game is changed. Prices in the shop are higher when converting the prices in JP. Medals which were free via an event in JP are made paid Medals via altered Jewel Boards.
Despite the early introduction of Guilt (now renamed Special Attack Bonus, which thanks to χ[chi]'s ending we know to be an objective mistake), despite the idea that the localization is meant to be on a "fast-track" schedule to catch up to JP, the addition of Broom Servants and the Mickey & Broom Servants Medals seems ever more like a far-off dream.
The list goes on and only continues to grow. Likewise, the divide between paying players and free-to-play players grows seemingly by the day, with some F2Ps complaining that certain features or objectives are, for all intents and purposes, locked out unless they pay up. An atmosphere of passive-aggressive bitterness is ever-present in discussions of the Western release.
However, the community is not taking this lying down; petitions, discussions, a comically-failed protest, and an endlessly vocal Twitter following have all made it readily clear to anyone paying attention that the ENG community knows they're being played with, and they don't enjoy it. And yet... here we are. On the day I write this a notice released teasing the introduction of Skuld, a character who should join ENG sometime in October, as well as Proud Mode, and the addition of Castle of Dreams and multiplayer which the JP team had teased a few days prior. This seems fine, until you notice that, supposedly, these story developments are slotted to happen in January 2017, three months late.
What is going on? Is this just poor communication (a consistent issue with the ENG team)? Are they delaying the story updates? If so, what happened to catching up? What about when χ Back Cover releases as part of II.8 in December, possibly spoiling many of the late-game developments? Are they intentionally altering the game to siphon more money from what they thought were unsuspecting players? Or are they just incompetent? No one can be sure.
Recently, the team gave out 1500 Jewels as an apology, and are offering another 600 to those who finish quest 200 (thereby unlocking Guilt Special Attack Bonus). But these gestures of good faith are tainted by five months of disappointment and frustration. It seems for every good move the localization makes, a poorer one is sure to follow.
At this stage, some players may even consider the two versions to be separate games altogether. Some have even jumped ship and opted to play JP instead, despite the language barrier. But what is there to do? Can the community do any more than it already has, or are we doomed to this repetitive back-and-forth struggle with SENA?
To be honest, I have no idea. All I can hope for is a brighter future than the one that's currently written.
To the Kingdom Hearts Unchained X Development Team
By Cyborg009
It has come to our attention that many North American players of Kingdom Hearts Unchained X have made a number of complaints in regards to its content. Although we do enjoy the game as it adds another piece to the franchise’s complex and yet well detailed story, many of us here in the states believe that we have been short-changed in comparison to our counterparts over in Japan. While the list of compliments is somewhat extensive, there are a few major issues that have gained more ire from the fans than others.
The first of these issues is the current absence of the Broom Medals in the game. As we all know, these medals are needed in order to guilt other medals so that they unlock their special attack bonus. Now lately I’ve noticed that some people have managed to easily beat the harder challenges, like the weekly adamantine challenges. This is contributed to the fact that those people were using guilted medals, providing extra boost of power. To come to the point, is up to six months since the release of Kingdom Hearts Unchained X to the US, and yet we have seen no sign of the Broom medals being released at all. This would mean that the only way to acquire guilted medals is to purchase identical medals from daily and weekly deals from the shop. To do so, one must have a hefty amount of jewels in order to purchase medals. And to obtain jewels, one must purchase them in said shop through the use of real money. To reiterate; to guilt high-level medals, one must buy them which cost jewels, which in turn cost money. It is a somewhat unfair and vicious cycle for those who do not have the means to purchase them or have a fixed budget.
And speaking of jewels, there seems to be an unfair difference in regards to the daily login bonus between both versions. On the Japan side one can gain up to nine hundred jewels within five days of logging in straight (100 - 100 - 200 - 200 - 300). They can also complete Daily Jewel Quests, where you get 200 jewels every day. It probably asking yourselves, ‘where is the problem with this’, the answer is quite simple. The jewel quests are not daily, save, for only when it is an event and the login bonuses are cut in half (50 - 50 - 100 - 100 - 200), which add up to 500, That's 400 Jewels less than JP, and that's a huge difference.
Another major difference that has brought some annoyance is the artificial difficulty that has been placed into the game for North America. Within each quest in the game, there are three objectives at the player can complete to earn rewards. That, however, is where the similarities between the two versions end. In the Japanese version, one of the objectives involves ‘Defeat Target Enemy in 1 Turn’. But in the American version, nearly all of those objectives are changed to ‘Defeat all enemies in 1 turn.’ This is quite cumbersome considering the fact that some of the enemies are, if not tougher than the target Enemy. Thereby forcing the player to purchase stronger metals in order to meet those objectives, as was aforementioned in paragraph 2.
So in conclusion, while this game has given us hours’ worth of entertainment and delight, many over in the NA feel that we are not getting any equal content than that of our Japan counterparts. While we do look forward to many new worlds and content that will come forth in the future, we believe that all gamers worldwide should be treated equally in both content and availability.
Truly yours,
The members of Kingdom Hearts Insider
COMMENTS
It's obvious NA is being cheated and plundered for money to play this game. So, you have to hit them where it hurts and where notice is taken. In their pockets. Quit paying for Epic or Carnival pulls. Just stop it. Play the game without your almighty powerful medals just for a time until we can boycott successfully to get what we want. Stop paying and pulling!
It's obvious NA is being cheated and plundered for money to play this game. So, you have to hit them where it hurts and where notice is taken. In their pockets. Quit paying for Epic or Carnival pulls. Just stop it. Play the game without your almighty powerful medals just for a time until we can boycott successfully to get what we want. Stop paying and pulling!
I remember the last time a group of people told everyone to not buy jewels.
They ended up with fully guilted Terra's 3 days later.
Just wanted to point out, April 7th to June 13th is closer to 2 months than 3 like it claims.
Whoa, these absolutely reflect my opinion.
Nice work, Echo and Cyborg!
(I might edit this post later to add more)
Dang, wasn't expecting to see this show up so fast
Just wanted to point out, April 7th to June 13th is closer to 2 months than 3 like it claims.
Whoops
If anybody else wants to share some thoughts, feel free to send them our way.
EDIT: (Note that it doesn't all have to be negative. There is plenty to talk about on both sides if you want to share a rebuttal or an agreement to the current ones)
If anybody else wants to share some thoughts, feel free to send them our way.
EDIT: (Note that it doesn't all have to be negative. There is plenty to talk about on both sides if you want to share a rebuttal or an agreement to the current ones)
Huhh... a (discussion) war of Editorials, you say? :p
Let's hope they fix the game to be like Chi and the JP of KHuX
Guilty as charged haha.
Nicely stated complaints, big props to The_Echo and Cyborg009, as well as to Spockanort and Chaser and everyone here for going ahead with publishing these! I think they effectively sum up the reasoning behind the negative sentiments which have ensued as a result of the changes made to NAUx. I've said it before, but the onus is really on Square to make the case that these changes are for the better. So far, I haven't heard a convincing argument in their defense.
Meanwhile, I've expressed frustration in the past with the way the game's structure feels kind of immutable at this point, and I wonder if there has been any brainstorming as to what could be significantly improved so that we don't have a constant back-and-forth where it feels like the game's progress is minimized as a result of its seemingly entrenched pattern of always aiming squarely for the players' wallets. Would simply nudging (or steamrolling) it in the direction of JPUx be the desired result here?
With the growing discontent, I'd be surprised if NAUx hasn't taken a hit and if there isn't more damage to be done. I think the developers really underestimated the fact that, as a KH game, this title has a significant, committed baked in audience who (like myself) nonetheless have very limited experience with "hardcore" mobile games and therefore a completely different expectation for the game as an entry in the franchise.
This is great, but is missing one thing, like most other articles I've read regarding not only where this game falls short, but how SENA is blatantly milking us for money. Voice acting on the medals. Some medals even having character themes playing on them in our JP counterpart of the game. I would seriously love this aspect added to our version, and we do not have enough people bringing this issue up. Simple things like that make the fanbase appreciate the game so much more.
This is great, but is missing one thing, like most other articles I've read regarding not only where this game falls short, but how SENA is blatantly milking us for money. Voice acting on the medals. Some medals even having character themes playing on them in our JP counterpart of the game. I would seriously love this aspect added to our version, and we do not have enough people bringing this issue up. Simple things like that make the fanbase appreciate the game so much more.
Apparently the voice clips were removed/not included because Square would have to pay a licence fee [strike]which they would 100% afford but are just being completely stingy[/strike].
It's a shame, I really liked the idea of different music playing in the Fountain Courtyard :(
I never really played the English version of the game. Been sticking to JP version... because the English version is not even in the Southeast Asia region.
But knowing the whole thing with this... I feel sorry for those who feel cheated...
I remember the last time a group of people told everyone to not buy jewels.
They ended up with fully guilted Terra's 3 days later.
Hahaha, yeah good times. Some guy even made a Youtube video about how mad he was. We can't do that again, not so soon. Maybe we can get all of KHI to agree, maybe even KH13, but how many of the ENG fanbase would we reach? There are fans on Reddit, the Wikia's, Youtube, even some that didn't join any.
If anybody else wants to share some thoughts, feel free to send them our way.
EDIT: (Note that it doesn't all have to be negative. There is plenty to talk about on both sides if you want to share a rebuttal or an agreement to the current ones)
So I"m gonna need some pointers. I don't play the JPN version so, what are ALL the differences? There are:
- Brooms
- Objectives
- Nerfed Medals
- Artificial Diificulty
- No voice acting
- Not enough free Jewels
- Too hard to Guilt
- Translation errors (talking about the Guilt here)
- Slowing down story process
That's all of them?
Also, who is the "big boss" of this game? I've heard Nomura isn't very involved in this game beside the storyline. Who makes the final decisions? Should I talk in the "we" form or the "I" form. To who should I direct it? Are you gonna post them all in this thread, or will they actually get sent to Square? Stuff like that.
Huhh... a (discussion) war of Editorials, you say? :p
But who wants to be on Square's side?
This is great, but is missing one thing, like most other articles I've read regarding not only where this game falls short, but how SENA is blatantly milking us for money. Voice acting on the medals. Some medals even having character themes playing on them in our JP counterpart of the game. I would seriously love this aspect added to our version, and we do not have enough people bringing this issue up. Simple things like that make the fanbase appreciate the game so much more.
Apparently the voice clips were removed/not included because Square would have to pay a licence fee [strike]which they would 100% afford but are just being completely stingy[/strike].
It's a shame, I really liked the idea of different music playing in the Fountain Courtyard :(
Wait, games actually do that? I thought it was a JPN only thing. I've never seen a ENG mobile games who had English voice acting.
I didn't realise these were issues in the game. I've been playing it since it launced in Australia and other then the timezone annoyances, I've never had an issue with the game. I also haven't pay a cent for it and I'm caught up on the story. But it does sound that the Japanese version is heaps better. I guess ignorance was bliss for me. I mean i knew it was further ahead story wise but the level of gameplay differences is astonishing.
Also what is guliting haha? 😅
Also, who is the "big boss" of this game? I've heard Nomura isn't very involved in this game beside the storyline.
Nomura is listed for director/concept design/story
His co-director, which I believe must be the man taking the project on full-time while Nomura is busy with way too many other projects is someone named Hiroyuki Itou
| But who wants to be on Square's side? |
You'd be surprised.
Also what is guliting haha?
It's the percentage multiplier that serves as the final stage of strengthen the Medal's ability. In ENG it was renamed to "Special Attack Bonus," except, y'know...
It's a canon element of the story so they kind of pulled the blunder of the century right there.
Thank you for writing those lines, I always thought that there were some issues but never could quite put my finger on those. Especially the Quest Objectives which changed to "Defeat all Enemies in 1 Turn" which I remember from the Japanese Version being "Defeat the Target Enemy in 1 Turn" and I wasn't sure if I was imagining things and kept this to myself.
Which also annoyed the hell out of me was that stupid 2 month or 3 for getting the same Version which is already out - I thought that they use the time for making translations or whatever the reason for such a delay. In the end I only felt betrayed.
And for the Jewel Pulls I mostly feel betrayed because from m point of view this whole System just seem to be rigged especially when it wasn't long that you mostly got free to play Medals which are obtained from Quests and you paid realy money for this.
I can't understand why they're so focused on money in that Game - it has to be a fun experience and not disappointment all the time - do they finance KH III with this?!
I really hope that Square Enix NA will someday realize that they are doing us some unjustice and change this whole trainwreck they are driving right now.
It's the percentage multiplier that serves as the final stage of strengthen the Medal's ability. In ENG it was renamed to "Special Attack Bonus," except, y'know...
It's a canon element of the story so they kind of pulled the blunder of the century right there.
Oh. That changes everything. Wow. That shit is hard to and to find out Japan can do it easier can pisses me off a bit.
While I haven't seen the ending to x[chi] yet, the fact that its a canon aspects kinda messes a few thing. Now I'm really intrigued in the ending. It it possible to change it in a patch or to change the story around it?
Ι haven't gone that deep with Ux maybe because I play it with my pace, but man those are some differents. I don't know about the medals you are talking about, but the jewels is one key part of this game and getting 400 less jewels every week breaks the game. Also I found out about the story update yesterday and I was suprised considering 2.8 releases in December. What is wrong Square?? In localization aspect since I live in Greece, I had to change the account to a US one because I didn't wanna lose all the bonuses that European fans would lose because of all this wait. I haven't changed back to my EU account because I don't know if the facebook save will be okay. All in all I hope Square see these messages. I don't want to leave the game but I don't want to be treated like sh#t too.
Excellent work, guys! :] I feel like you summarized the community's complaint in a very coherent, and orderly way.
I feel bad for the western community. I myself haven't played this that much, (think I'm still at lvl 50 or something) and honestly I don't think I'm gonna play it anytime soon.
The January release date feels weird though, I sure hope that doesn't mean that Back Cover will not​ answer the questions people need to know in order to go into KH3 without being confused.
I feel bad for the western community. I myself haven't played this that much, (think I'm still at lvl 50 or something) and honestly I don't think I'm gonna play it anytime soon.
The January release date feels weird though, I sure hope that doesn't mean that Back Cover will not​ answer the questions people need to know in order to go into KH3 without being confused.
I think that, maybe, KHx BC will answer some questions, or at least touch what KHx and its Special Episode did not touch (what Luxu told Ava and the MoM's whereabouts).
But after KHx's ending and its Special Episode creating more questions than answers, anything is possible at this point, haha.
The only way i think they can compensate is give us a big amount of free jewels, change the daily log in to what JP has, making jewel quests daily and bring brooms/mickey and brooms into the game. And that is just to make it closer to the game that japan has. But that is just asking too much, isn't it?
The only way i think they can compensate is give us a big amount of free jewels, change the daily log in to what JP has, making jewel quests daily and bring brooms/mickey and brooms into the game. And that is just to make it closer to the game that japan has. But that is just asking too much, isn't it?
Nah man, there is no way they can compensate this. Not after this bs they pulled. You can't just move the story quests like that. Especially when Back Cover is coming. That's just utter... I don't even... ARGH!!! This makes me so mad! I can look past all the other crap the pulled, but they can't just touch the Story Quests.
Nah man, there is no way they can compensate this. Not after this bs they pulled. You can't just move the story quests like that. Especially when Back Cover is coming. That's just utter... I don't even... ARGH!!! This makes me so mad! I can look past all the other crap the pulled, but they can't just touch the Story Quests.
um didint move any story quest i'm playing the japananse ux and skuld quest isnt next yet the beast castle will finish this month then we have that bee mission follow by the dark corridiorss then i belive added quest where got to find keyblade wielders side stuff then i think it skuld stuff mostet i think are i think 25 missions
I know, but like others already said, if we kept the same pace as we used to, we would be finished just in time for Back Cover. But now we aren't advancing at all until January. And that's what makes me mad. I'm pretty sure Nomura intended for us to catch up before Back Cover, but now we end up being behind.
Props to Echo and Cyborg. You guys gave the stupidity of it all and our feelings on it perfectly.
Sometimes when looking at the English version, I feel it's first problem is it acts like we get the same amount of login bonuses as Japan does and that the Daily Jewels quests are always there. That we'll be able to make several thousand Jewels in time for Boards and special deals. If the Daily Jewels were permanent and we got 900 Jewels for login in 5 days straight, a big problem would be taken care of.
Second is the "
Defeat all enemies within one turn." objective. This is complete bullshit and should be "D
efeat the target enemy" like in JP.
Special Attack Bonus... It's... How can they think changing Guilt to that was a good idea? You can't NOT think there wasn't reason for "Guilt" being used. When the Guilt Bangle was first introduced we all knew immediately there had to have been a reason for the particular word. And lo and behold the finale of X[chi] showed that, guess what, the word has plot importance and SENA shot themselves in the foot for no reason at all.
Oh and now they're holding off the plot until next year! Why? What's the point in that besides confusing fans when 2.8 releases?
Why is SENA going out of their way to be money-grubbing dickweeds? We should be able to spend money on this game when we feel like it, and never feel forced to.
It's really cool to see such features here, especially the contribution of The_Echo resonated with me, great work you two.
I know, but like others already said, if we kept the same pace as we used to, we would be finished just in time for Back Cover. But now we aren't advancing at all until January. And that's what makes me mad. I'm pretty sure Nomura intended for us to catch up before Back Cover, but now we end up being behind.
we going to end behind no mater what the filler stuff wont end until december i think
... what? We would have atleast met Skuld by then.
I didn't find it fast enough, but there is this quote from Diablo 3 developer Joshua Mosqueira that is often used to point out the central problem of this game philosophy: the frustration of the players.
[QUOTE= of our fears was, If we give them everything, they are going to stop playing? And I think the realization we made now and what we firmly believe now is that it’s much better for players to get all the loot and to leave the game happy because they will come back happy when we drop a new expansion or patch. If you are stingy, and you are afraid of being too generous, they are going to leave frustrated, they are going to spend three hours not getting an upgrade and then say "this game just wasted my time". We learned that we needed to become comfortable being generous.[/QUOTE]
I understand that there is a difference between how free2play and these buy2play massive online games work, but still there are lessons to be learnt here.
And yet I complain about the NA version and I get bad mouthed and warned about it. I see how it works now. I have to design my complaints better and actually 'publish' them to these sites so I can get away with it better.
... what? We would have atleast met Skuld by then.
I just noticed this…
On JP, You can get up to 900 Jewels within 5 days of logging in straight.(100 - 100 - 200 - 200 - 300)
You can also complete the Daily Jewel Quests, where you get 200J every day. They even give 500J every 50 days of login!
"So, where's the problem?", you ask.
You see, on NA, there are no Daily Jewel Quests. They only appear once in a while as an Event.
The Daily Login Bonuses were halved. All you can get within 5 days of logging in are 500 Jewels.
(50 - 50 - 100 - 100 - 200).
That's 400 Jewels less than JP, and that's a huge difference.
Let's talk about artificial difficulty now.
You can complete 3 objectives per Quest.
They changed nearly all of the "Defeat Target Enemy in 1 Turn"-Objectives to "Defeat all enemies in 1 turn", making the game harder in return.
On the Japan side one can gain up to nine hundred jewels within five days of logging in straight (100 - 100 - 200 - 200 - 300). They can also complete Daily Jewel Quests, where you get 200 jewels every day. It probably asking yourselves, ‘where is the problem with this’, the answer is quite simple. The jewel quests are not daily, save, for only when it is an event and the login bonuses are cut in half (50 - 50 - 100 - 100 - 200), which add up to 500, That's 400 Jewels less than JP, and that's a huge difference.
In the Japanese version, one of the objectives involves ‘Defeat Target Enemy in 1 Turn’. But in the American version, nearly all of those objectives are changed to ‘Defeat all enemies in 1 turn.’
:I
Apparently the voice clips were removed/not included because Square would have to pay a licence fee [strike]which they would 100% afford but are just being completely stingy[/strike].
Um, are you sure? I was under the impression that the actors are paid for recording, Disney then owns the clips in perpetuity and the actors don't receive royalties for video games. Archival recordings. I mean, they have Kairi's grandma at the start, and she didn't even get credited in the japanese version. What would they need to license?
Thank you for your words The_Echo and Cyborg009! I visit the X and Unchained thread mostly to see stuff about the story updates, but still reading some of the messages I got the feeling that something was going with the game. Now thanks to your words I am aware of the things that are wonky when it comes to this game and especially about the suspicious changes that have been made to the Western version.
I didn't find it fast enough, but there is this quote from Diablo 3 developer Joshua Mosqueira that is often used to point out the central problem of this game philosophy: the frustration of the players.
I understand that there is a difference between how free2play and these buy2play massive online games work, but still there are lessons to be learnt here.
While we can indeed learn a lesson here, I still think it's utter bs that we won't get the main story until January.
And yet I complain about the NA version and I get bad mouthed and warned about it. I see how it works now. I have to design my complaints better and actually 'publish' them to these sites so I can get away with it better.
No, you complain about every damn thing you do =_= Even when you get a good medal you complain about how you ran out of Jewels. Hell, you even dared to say that the free Aqua we got was a useless medal.
I just noticed this…
:I
??? What's the problem?
^
You don't see the obvious similarity? He copied my post
^
You don't see the obvious similarity? He copied my post
I thought that was a common practice here.
It's tough for me to say how I feel as I haven't paid much attention to the JP versions.
I haven't used money, nor have I used jewels, for medals. All I've used my jewels for have been continues, storage, and replenishing AP & Gauges. I've used nothing but the medals that have dropped, special open events, or have been given to me (Mickey at the start, and Aqua).
I'm currently on quest 395, and I haven't really been playing much anymore. I will certainly state the ramp in difficulty at quest 300 with this Witch boss following by the Cerberus and the enemies of the Underworld. Yet, I'm unsure if I was expected to conquer these difficult bosses in one turn or without a continue? It just seems a bit messed up.
Then there are the Adamantite quests which I can understand are intended to be extremely difficult. As I've only been able to collect 1 or 2 due to luck. I've been working on boosting stats, synthesizing, and guilting my medals, but I still feel incredibly underpowered. I then look at videos online, and it appears that there are much stronger medals to be acquired at the store.
However, I can certainly see clearly how different the games are between JP and NA. Though I don't really know if that's the reason for my struggle in the game, or merely because I haven't used my jewels to purchase medals.
I already spoiled the story thus far with the wonderful and appreciative translations that members of KHInsider has provided because I already had a feeling that we weren't going to catch up in time for Back Cover, anyway. The story was my main purpose for playing, but I also enjoyed playing the game. I just wish it was a bit more friendly.
Thanks for the editorials, guys:) They sum up our problems with this localization, perfectly.
I was actually thinking of doing my own write-up about this, but now I see that that won't be necessary. This topic was held in much better hands than mine;)
Also, in telling two of my party members just how cruel the English version of the game is compared to the Japanese one, they've now decided to play the Japanese game.
If that right there doesn't tell you how bad things are, I don't know what would. They had no idea about any of this until I mentioned it, but right then and there they realized, "You know what? You're right. From everything you've said, what SENA's doing to us sounds horrid", and basically went from zero to fifty just like that, and I don't blame them at all!
Anyway, you guys maybe want to try not buying jewels--and not going for the Epic Carnivals and stuff--and see what happens? Do you think that might finally wake SENA up some?
Great collective job everybody! It's unfortunate all the people who heavily fund KHUx SE's business milestones don't care, nor do they frequent the information outlets like KHInsider.
I'll continue doing my best to take advantage of what SE offers us in hopes to beat them. I'm still letting them beat me for now. I haven't spent jewels for 9-10 weeks and I hoard Weekly Extravaganza every week to eventually break the game for myself when the power creep hits (Illust Kairi, I'll have 42,000 next week).
After I hit 45,000; I won't buy another Weekly until we get Daily Jewels and increased login bonus. That's me trying to do my best for the game I love. And by that point I most likely won't buy Weeklies, since I played JP as F2P for 100 days until this Anniversary and am now at least a top 3000 player.
I'm not falling for their High Score Challenge bait ever again! Behemoth as a competition medal to guilt? Hah p-leeease.
If you guys are interested in my activities and endevours then feel free to check me out on:
www.twitch.tv/bankea | https://www.youtube.com/user/zhadow7
It's nice to see such a notable hub site for KH being willing to publish pieces on the complaints from the community. Having it all laid out in a rather concise, constructive fashion is going to make it a bit easier for folks to really understand what the frustration is rooted in, without the sentiments being lost among toxic attitudes displayed by members from both sides of the spectrum in regards to this issue.
For the most part, both articles pointed out the awkward and unfortunate changes we got in our localization, but it was surprising to see that neither mentioned our banner super rares/premiums being stripped of the three guilt dots/orbs they come with in the JP version. Admittedly, I don't believe they were in the very first JP banner premium (SP Roxas), but they were definitely included on them from Sephiroth (November 2015) onward.
That aside, as a huge chunk of the community has been saying for months now, the whole situation is just a frustrating mess. And SENA knew what they were opening themselves up to the second they opted to go for all of these unfortunate changes. I know I'm a broken record, but: we live in the age of the internet. Just about anything and everything can be Googled in all of about ten seconds, so when they chose to kneecap, withhold, and/or flat-out remove beneficial features from the localized/translated version of this game, they had to have been completely aware of the fact that people would be able to discover that and put them on blast in no time at all. You'd think that most companies would know better than to try to pull a move like that, but they've done a pretty good job of putting their hands over their ears and ignoring the complaints (or, at the very least, simply not acknowledging any of them publicly). While they've made a point to apologize for some of their slip ups, they do not seem to be making much of an effort to address many of the most-troubling issues within the global/NA version of KHUx in terms of how the player base is treated. The closest they've come to doing that is putting out that survey in June/July (which we've seen neither hide nor hair of since).
We can hope for the future because it's never too late to take to change and grow, but not having much faith in them isn't too unreasonable, given their track record. We'll just have to wait and see.
You know, I was really aware of the problems the NA version of the game had until now, and in retrospect I can see it. I played the Japanese version of the game when it first came out and I noticed a couple of things different that baffled me when I first played the NA version (the "Defeat an enemy in 1 turn" objective and lack of a 2 turn bonus being the most notable). To be honest, i didn't even know the story was being delayed until January either until this post, and I must say that it's absolutely ridiculous and somewhat unprofessional that we're not caught up yet, and by the time we're partially there, Back Cover gonna spoil a lot of stuff for English-speaking fans. Thanks again for writing this, there's probably a lot of people like myself who have no idea what's going on.
I sent the development team a strongly worded letter about my complaints and how they embodied al our general issues.
Wow this editorial has truly been an eye-opener. I haven't playing the JP version or have been keeping track of their updates so I had no idea these differences existed between JP and NA. Well done you guys!
I must admit that I felt as though I had a suspicion of these sorts of things.... Being a F2P player it's hard to get good medals and guilt them without playing everyday, and of course getting enough jewels to buy a 10 medal pack in an attempt to get better medals can take weeks. Saving up jewels for so long only to pull and get bad medals is disheartening for sure. Not having the ability to buy better medals with jewels more often sometimes makes the game frustrating, as it's super difficult/impossible to complete some of the higher level proud or adamantite quests without such medals...
I sent the development team a strongly worded letter about my complaints and how they embodied al our general issues.
They won't read it nor take it seriously
They won't read it nor take it seriously
I'm pretty sure they'll take complaints seriously to satisfy every customer. But you could be right lol.
I'm pretty sure they'll take complaints seriously to satisfy every customer. But you could be right lol.
I hope I'm wrong, it would be sad if I was right
They won't read it nor take it seriously
They monitor community happenings, especially on forums and social media. They know about these complaints.
They monitor community happenings, especially on forums and social media. They know about these complaints.
To be honest that kind of just makes this whole situation worse.
To be honest that kind of just makes this whole situation worse.
Well, we have no choice to get our opinions out!
anyone wanna bet that they'll make some form of response to this?
anyone wanna bet that they'll make some form of response to this?
As far as I am aware, they don't usually make announcements or responses. It wouldn't do anybody any good if they did without having any intention to fix the problems. Instead they just need to continue to make changes that make the game more equal to the Japanese version and make sure those changes benefit the players.
[strike]And apology Jewels. 5 months worth of backlogged Jewels we were cheated out of 8D[/strike]
Nice editorials there :) Actually, I was also a bit surprised when I saw the letter from developer. If the story update will be held until January when the Back Cover X in this December MAY spoil everything, then I hope this isn't a kind of foreshadowing the KH 2.8 ENG version delay...
Nice editorials there :) Actually, I was also a bit surprised when I saw the letter from developer. If the story update will be held until January when the Back Cover X in this December MAY spoil everything, then I hope this isn't a kind of foreshadowing the KH 2.8 ENG version delay...
There is no correlation between the story update being in 2017 and KHII.8 being delayed. Like the four pages worth of thread has in it, it's just NA SE being incompetent.
Basically,this GIF represents your glorious post (kind of. ignore dem burgers.[SIZE=2])
And if you guys are asking,yes: The petition I made is still up and running. From day 1 I sent 1 e-mail every 10-12H explaining them about the petition,what we're asking and stuff like that.
The first 3 e-mail I got the "we'll send this to our superiors" thingie (I think they're being sent by a bot too. I don't even know anymore),from there until today I got no response for ANYTHING. No "superiors" stuff,no "thanks for the feedback"... Nothing. D;
[/SIZE]
It's good to see this being addressed here. I've mostly used reddit for my KHUX updates, but if SENA monitors this site more, then let's hope this gets their attention.
I try to still have fun with this game, but I'm almost at my breaking point. I'm definitely not spending any more money; haven't spent that much overall anyway, maybe ~$75, but that is more than I would ever have to spend to get one or more complete games elsewhere. If there were more incentive to purchase, I might be more tempted, but my experience so far has proven it's not worth it unless you are willing to spend a fortune. I've been playing for over 100 days now, I am level 215, I've pulled 150+ medals with jewels, and not a SINGLE one of them has been a premium medal. I've scraped by on a handful of decent epics and the few event medals we've gotten for free, but so much content is unreachable behind the paywall and it's despicable. Think about the fact that the only way to guarantee getting a single premium medal without hoarding jewels forever is to spend $215 on jewels in order to pull 10 times. That is just BS, plain and simple. Between facts like this and the ridiculous, greedy changes that have already been addressed in this thread, I really can't see myself playing much longer unless there are drastic changes in the right direction.
it's just NA SE being incompetent.
When overlooking the whole situation with several different experience reports and filed complaints taking into account I wonder if this is really incompetence or just a partly covert attempt to wangle money out of the players that is starting to backfire.
I mean, changing the stats of medals (for worse), free daily jewels (for worse) or objectives of quests/tasks (for worse) has nothing to do with localisation/translation and certainly requires extra work as you have to change something in the app that is not in the text/dialogue files.
Who gave the order to implement these changes anyways and why?
Frankly, what should have been done is to take the japanese version, do the translation of texts and dialogue and maybe accomodate needed technical changes for western servers, but leave everything relating to actual gameplay alone as it is!
There should be no differences between medal stats, free daily jewels or quest objectives at all between the JP and International version.
If there are changes to be made to something like this, they should be made to ALL versions of the product or to none at all.
Could you imagine if they made these many changes to any of the actual games? When you really think about it, this amount of actual gameplay changes makes no sense.
I can forgive a few translation errors or misunderstandings (like what is bound to happen with "guilt"), but changing how a game plays to this extent (not cosmetic like Xigbar's target) is just... I don't get it.
They purposely went out of their way to change the game. People can say it's not that bad or its an overreaction all they like, but if they made this many changes to any other normal KH game, I think complaining about it is justified. Heck, people spent years complaining that we never got the Final Mixes that had relevant plot information and extra gameplay.
It's just a mobile game, and at the end of the day if they give me enough reasons not to care anymore, then I won't. But I do like the game, and I just think they could make it so much more interesting in the NA servers if they stopped trying to swindle everyone.
It's just sad that every time I see how the Japanese version is I'm just thinking "I'd rather play that game and not the one we ended up with"
I was a little disappointed with this game. I played it a bit at first and then just handed it off to my sister because I did not have the patience to grind through all those levels to get to the story arcs. Now she is fed up with it and is so tired of the bad drop rates of good badges that she rarely plays it anymore (and she used to play it obsessively and then just give me the updates with what is going on). I think she just got into the 200+ levels and is stuck on the Cerberus boss fight. She explained to me that she keeps grinding for jewels so she can try to guilt more but so far no real luck, and even after I paid about $40 towards it for her b-day, she still didn't get much :/
I am no longer going to be spending money on this, and I think my sister is done with it as well.
Money definitely doesn't go very far in the game. :c
If you want to get far in this game you will either need a ton of money, or a ton of luck. Most of us have neither.
If you want to get far in this game you will either need a ton of money, or a ton of luck. Most of us have neither.
Do you?
I'm curious as to where that starts. Sure I've got quite a few quests to go, but so far the game goes quite okay for me without being super lucky or spending any money.
Do you?
I'm curious as to where that starts. Sure I've got quite a few quests to go, but so far the game goes quite okay for me without being super lucky or spending any money.
Well, depends on what you call far I guess. In Story Quest the hardest thing you will face are boss battles like Master Ava. And even for that people made strategies with farmable medals and friend medals. So I guess if you're going for the story, you're good.
And how far you now though?
To be honest, I haven't paid more than 5 bucks in this game and have still managed to clear all the missions so far, sometimes with continues (I don't know how long I can continue to do that tho on bosses).
Oh and Google Rewards credit doesn't count really. I don't think I have that good a luck either; I got Alice but no Namine (hopefully that'll change) and hopefully I can get some good medals. If Mickey and Brooms shows up soon, I'll be cheering. ^^
And just so everyone knows; going mostly for story here.
Well, depends on what you call far I guess. In Story Quest the hardest thing you will face are boss battles like Master Ava. And even for that people made strategies with farmable medals and friend medals. So I guess if you're going for the story, you're good.
And how far you now though?
Ugh, good question. I passed quest 200 a good while ago, but my game won't load atm.
To be honest, I haven't paid more than 5 bucks in this game and have still managed to clear all the missions so far, sometimes with continues (I don't know how long I can continue to do that tho on bosses).
Oh and Google Rewards credit doesn't count really. I don't think I have that good a luck either; I got Alice but no Namine (hopefully that'll change) and hopefully I can get some good medals. If Mickey and Brooms shows up soon, I'll be cheering. ^^
And just so everyone knows; going mostly for story here.
Welp, I'm trying not to use continues. And till this day I haven't yet.
Google... Rewards? That sounds interesting.
Ugh, good question. I passed quest 200 a good while ago, but my game won't load atm.
200, I guess you haven't faced a boss then. So... more glitches?
Welp... what's far? Completing all the Story Quests without continues, getting past the third Adamantine Ore challenge and get top 1000 rankings in the High Score Events/Coliseum, I think one could consider that far.
gotta say I've made the transition to the japan version this week cause I was fuckin sick of the NA one, and there is no turning back at all. Unchained is the biggest rip off of a game I have ever played tbh, and if it wasn't a kingdom hearts game I wouldn't touch it at all.
What's the difference between the medal deals in the JPN version and the NA/EU version?
Thanks for sharing this, very informative.
What's the difference between the medal deals in the JPN version and the NA/EU version?
Most notably: their Super Rare premium medals (i.e. Sephiroth, Illustrated Terra, SP Axel, etc) come with three orbs, so you only need to pull two in order to roll guilt... or just pull one and toss three Mickey and Brooms on it. They also tend to get Cid 5s anytime you do a 10 medal draw, unless they're running a promotion for a different "gift with purchase" at the time.
Just as well, at least once per month for the past 4/5 months, Japan has put out 1500 and 900 jewel cost draws that contain epic medals exclusively, with at least one dot/orb towards guilt on each. For the sake of comparison: right now, we have the Organization XIII 1500 draw that contains two guaranteed Org members and three other random medals. When Japan did this deal last month and previously in April or May, it was 1500 for five guaranteed Org members and all medals came with one orb. Just as well, in the draw for August, one of the medals was guaranteed to be Boosted. While it's not necessarily fair to compare our current deal to theirs from last month, but it's perfectly reasonable to compare it to the one from several months ago.
The status of NA wouldn't be so bad if the sales were jaw-dropping, but they're not... So it's a situation where you get an abundance of jewels in JP (11,400 every month) AND the deals are pretty amazing, while jewels in NA are scarce (3000 each month from login, no permanent jewel quest) and our deals are pretty sub-par.
This stingy philosophy needs to change soon because we're fast approaching the content where you NEED fairly strong medals in order to progress. I won't give story spoilers or anything like that, but there are bosses in 500-570 quest range that have upwards of 30 health bars and apply attack and defense buffs every turn. This isn't crazy in JP because you have access to a steady income of jewels to pull with, but in NA... I genuinely don't know what folks are going to do when we reach those quests. I'm hopeful that conditions will improve before we get there because those quests are going to be the jumping-off point for a lot of people otherwise.
Most notably: their Super Rare premium medals (i.e. Sephiroth, Illustrated Terra, SP Axel, etc) come with three orbs, so you only need to pull two in order to roll guilt... or just pull one and toss three Mickey and Brooms on it. They also tend to get Cid 5s anytime you do a 10 medal draw, unless they're running a promotion for a different "gift with purchase" at the time.
Just as well, at least once per month for the past 4/5 months, Japan has put out 1500 and 900 jewel cost draws that contain epic medals exclusively, with at least one dot/orb towards guilt on each. For the sake of comparison: right now, we have the Organization XIII 1500 draw that contains two guaranteed Org members and three other random medals. When Japan did this deal last month and previously in April or May, it was 1500 for five guaranteed Org members and all medals came with one orb. Just as well, in the draw for August, one of the medals was guaranteed to be Boosted. While it's not necessarily fair to compare our current deal to theirs from last month, but it's perfectly reasonable to compare it to the one from several months ago.
The status of NA wouldn't be so bad if the sales were jaw-dropping, but they're not... So it's a situation where you get an abundance of jewels in JP (11,400 every month) AND the deals are pretty amazing, while jewels in NA are scarce (3000 each month from login, no permanent jewel quest) and our deals are pretty sub-par.
This stingy philosophy needs to change soon because we're fast approaching the content where you NEED fairly strong medals in order to progress. I won't give story spoilers or anything like that, but there are bosses in 500-570 quest range that have upwards of 30 health bars and apply attack and defense buffs every turn. This isn't crazy in JP because you have access to a steady income of jewels to pull with, but in NA... I genuinely don't know what folks are going to do when we reach those quests. I'm hopeful that conditions will improve before we get there because those quests are going to be the jumping-off point for a lot of people otherwise.
Ah, thank you. A very detailed answer, exactly what I was looking for.
I loved this game as soon as I started playing it. But the treatment to F2P players is really harsh. Not all of them not willing to pay but some like myself doesn't has any mean to pay. No credit cards, unsupported mobile billing service etc. How long they need to take just to afford a single epic medal pull if this continues?
Ciel
September 7, 2016 @ 04:14 amOffline