KHII Spells vs. KHI Spells

[Veritas7340]

Which spells do you like better/worse in KHII from KHI?

For instance, for me,

KH I Blizzard > KH II Blizzard

-- Wider Radius in KHI

KH I Thunder > KH II Thunder

-- Actual Lightning Storm vs. Just 1 Thunderbolt

KH II Fire > KH I Fire

-- Radial attack in KHII

KH I Aero >= KH II Reflect

-- Both are a Counteroffensive but Aero lasts a while instead of getting the timing right like in Reflect

 

[Launchpad]

I like the way the KHII spells look, more, but they suffer in functionality in comparison to KHI.

 

[Veritas7340]

^^ Yeah, I definitely agree with you. Personally, I think they might have nerfed magic capabilities so people would use Drives and Limits more

 

[Ruran]

In KH1 I didn't use magic all that much consecutively throughout the game, but when I did use it, it felt necessary and tried to give creative reasons to use it, e.g., using Fire to open tha door in the third district to get to Merline, Gravity to bring down platforms, Blizard to freeze water, etc.

In KH2 I used magic much more often but I mostly used the same three spells.

Gravity + Lightning = breaking the game.

I spent over half that game spaming Gravity and Lighting as well as Reflect. Which is almost as broken as Aqua's Barrier, the only thing that keeps it from being as bad is the fact that it deplites MP. As far as I recall, I don't think KH2 gave you much reason to use a variety of magic. Or to use magic period since most of the enemies could be hack 'n slashed away pretty easily.

 

[Ballad of Caius]

In KH1 I didn't use magic all that much consecutively throughout the game, but when I did use it, it felt necessary and tried to give creative reasons to use it, e.g., using Fire to open tha door in the third district to get to Merline, Gravity to bring down platforms, Blizard to freeze water, etc.

In KH2 I used magic much more often but I mostly used the same three spells.

Gravity + Lightning = breaking the game.

I spent over half that game spaming Gravity and Lighting as well as Reflect. Which is almost as broken as Aqua's Barrier, the only thing that keeps it from being as bad is the fact that it deplites MP. As far as I recall, I don't think KH2 gave you much reason to use a variety of magic. Or to use magic period since most of the enemies could be hack 'n slashed away pretty easily.

What is so "formidable" about the Thunder and Gravity spell combination?

 

[Ruran]

What is so "formidable" about the Thunder and Gravity spell combination?

It's especially effective if they're leveled up all the way, but with KH2's Gravity you can collect a large number of enemies all at once and keep them in a single place. Lighting hits multiple enemies at once so once you have them caught in the Gravity field, you can blast them with Lightning until they're all obliterated. It's especially good for crowds. Since the enemies in KH2 are pretty weak, even on proud mode, this combo gets rid of most of them pretty fast. Granted, it doesn't work every time and isn't always necessary but it's really effective.

 

[Solo]

It's especially effective if they're leveled up all the way, but with KH2's Gravity you can collect a large number of enemies all at once and keep them in a single place. Lighting hits multiple enemies at once so once you have them caught in the Gravity field, you can blast them with Lightning until they're all obliterated. It's especially good for crowds. Since the enemies in KH2 are pretty weak, even on proud mode, this combo gets rid of most of them pretty fast. Granted, it doesn't work every time and isn't always necessary but it's really effective.

You mean Magnet? Yeah, that can get über pretty quickly. Have enemies spin around in the vortex and you're basically free to attack them in any way you like; even physical attacks work wonders since anything caught within it takes continual damage.

Nothing beats Reflect when it comes to über-ness, though. It allows you to completely absorb incoming hits at a cost of very little MP, and the damage accumulated by the barrier gets bounced back to every single enemy that happens to be within its blast radius which increases with every spell upgrade. You get away scot-free, too, which makes it a really convenient, and almost cheap, spell to have in the arsenal of any play style.

 

[Ruran]

You mean Magnet? Yeah, that can get über pretty quickly. Have enemies spin around in the vortex and you're basically free to attack them in any way you like; even physical attacks work wonders since anything caught within it takes continual damage.

Nothing beats Reflect when it comes to über-ness, though. It allows you to completely absorb incoming hits at a cost of very little MP, and the damage accumulated by the barrier gets bounced back to every single enemy that happens to be within its blast radius which increases with every spell upgrade. You get away scot-free, too, which makes it a really convenient, and almost cheap, spell to have in the arsenal of any play style.

Face/palm

I knew I was mistaken somewhere, I just couldn't put my finger on it. I meant Magnet. ^_^;
Magnet in is OP in KH2. In BbS as well for that matter. The whole Maget+Lightning stradegy worked in BbS, but since it has so many powerful skill and magic options I didn't feel the need to recluse myself to that old stradegy.

Imagen if Reflect had the infinite use that BbS block skills had and the frame rates. You'd be practically immortal~

 

[Face My Fears]

I liked Aero but preferred Reflect. I never used Fire or Blizzard, and rarely used Thunder. The spells I'd use most in KH1 and 2 were Cure and Reflect/Aero. They need to fix the spells so that they'd be more useful.

 

[LightUpTheSky452]

I liked the spells better in I, and just how the magic system worked, in general. Thunder was a lot more powerful in the first game; healing didn't take all of your MP... it was just better, imo.

I also still miss Gravity. I feel like that spell was neat when you used it against the right enemies, or if you used it to access higher up treasure chests. I miss things like that. It also took a bit of strategy, too, since if you use Fire, Blizzard, or Thunder against a Wizard they'll throw it back to you. They were vulnerable to Gravity, though (as they didn't have that in their arsenal), which was awesome.

Gravity also gave the game a nice, dark vibe, in my opinion, since it reminded me of the ichor from the Heartless.

People will probably argue this, but I fee like the first game was balanced and more fair in certain ways? IDK. For instance, I could never use Reflect that well in II. It was certainly no Aero to me. And Magnet was just useless to me in II (I LOVE it in later games, though). I also could never get the Fire to hit anything for me in the sequel, which is why I had trouble activating the stones in that one Agrabah segment.

IDK. I just liked the magic better in I. -shrugs- II wasn't horrible, but how can you argue with things like this? LOL. Stop magic at it's best. Seriously. Kingdom hearts 1 Cloud glitch - YouTube

(And on a side note, I liked how enemies didn't take damage until after Stop was lifted. It seemed realistic to me that way. I wonder how they'll handle it in the future, if they bring something like "Stopza" in from DDD... And speaking of which, I really hope III has a nice variety of magic from all the games, and that Donald's a stronger mage than Sora is again. LOL.)

In conclusion, I feel the spells were more useful in I, and were awesome but impractical in II.

 

[Gram]

In KH1 I didn't use magic all that much consecutively throughout the game, but when I did use it, it felt necessary and tried to give creative reasons to use it, e.g., using Fire to open tha door in the third district to get to Merline, Gravity to bring down platforms, Blizard to freeze water, etc.

This entirely^

Though as I played kh1 more and more I began to experiment with the magic and began to find it quite useful. Not only did it feel more necessary like Ruran pointed out but kh1 gave you incentive to actually try it and see what happens thanks to tech points.
You'd be surprised just how many heartless give you tech points for figuring out which spells their particularly weak too.

There was even times it was just useful without tech points like using gravity on those Defender heartless. It cuts their hp down to a single hit instantly or how ice on fire heartless gives you tech points and stuns them.
The annoying wizards, angel, and invisible heartless were susceptible to stop magic making them much easier to handle as well.

Kh1 magic was just more rewarding in every way, when you used it, it felt necessary and like it actually served a purpose plus they found ways to integrate it into the environment like Merlins door, ursula's cauldron or the fire place in the traverse town accessory shop.

Plus there is the aero defensive spell that comes in handy for us all.

Magic in kh2 was just poorly done. The basic spells like fire and blizzard were hardly functional, thunder lacks any power until your high in level and reflect completely breaks the game even without the magnet-thunder combo.
And there's honestly no incentive to even try magic like in kh1.

 

[Axel92]

I love to use Magic in WIdsom Form. The combo Magnetga - Thundaga in the Fragment Crossing makes me gain Widsom EXP easily.

 

[Solo]

Another thing that makes KH1 magic system appeals more to me is that MP is not automatically regenerated. If you don't want to use Ethers or Elixirs, then you'd have to either attack or get hit. It kind of encourages you to man up and be bold rather than just run around the battlefield while waiting for your MP to get fully replenished over time.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Another thing that makes KH1 magic system appeals more to me is that MP is not automatically regenerated. If you don't want to use Ethers or Elixirs, then you'd have to either attack or get hit. It kind of encourages you to man up and be bold rather than just run around the battlefield while waiting for your MP to get fully replenished over time.

Both versions are flawed actually.
KH 1's variant encourages you to do more button mashing in order to replenish MP while KH 2's let's you continually running away/dodging.

That's why I would have preferred it if they either would have scrapped MP completely (the command system of BBS/Coded/DDD at least allows variety in that the loading time of one command does not affect the others, unlike KH 2 where being out of MP meant nothing except dodging until it's recharged or Button mashing is available) or tie normal physical attacks to a similar penalty as magic with MP in order to finally get rid of the constant "smash everything until it's dead"-strategy which works on most normal enemies and even several normal bosses.

I.e. like an endurance/stamina gauge which depletes over time when using normal physical attacks (the press X-syndrome) and the more you button mash, the faster it depletes and once it runs out, Sora or whatever character you're playing at gets exhausted, gasping for air and cannot do anymore combos or Keyblade swings for a short time until the gauge refills.

 

[Unusual1290]

I actually like KH2's Fire better, as well as Reflect better than Aero.

 

[Gram]

Both versions are flawed actually.
KH 1's variant encourages you to do more button mashing in order to replenish MP while KH 2's let's you continually running away/dodging.

That's why I would have preferred it if they either would have scrapped MP completely (the command system of BBS/Coded/DDD at least allows variety in that the loading time of one command does not affect the others, unlike KH 2 where being out of MP meant nothing except dodging until it's recharged or Button mashing is available) or tie normal physical attacks to a similar penalty as magic with MP in order to finally get rid of the constant "smash everything until it's dead"-strategy which works on most normal enemies and even several normal bosses.

I.e. like an endurance/stamina gauge which depletes over time when using normal physical attacks (the press X-syndrome) and the more you button mash, the faster it depletes and once it runs out, Sora or whatever character you're playing at gets exhausted, gasping for air and cannot do anymore combos or Keyblade swings for a short time until the gauge refills.

To be honestI dont find the command style much better than kh2 on the matter because in the end its still just a matter of dodging until your little gauge refills.
The idea of a physical gauge sounds interesting so long as it doesn't give out after just three combos.

Personally I think they were going in the right direction with days panel system.You could only spam as much magic as you had equipped making it by far the least broken method of them all. The only problem is they ruined the system in days by introducing level panels which took up most of your panel space.

I think a revised panel system lacking level panels combined with your attack gauge would be a good unbroken system.

 

[Solo]

Both versions are flawed actually.
KH 1's variant encourages you to do more button mashing in order to replenish MP while KH 2's let's you continually running away/dodging.

While that's true, in my personal opinion button-mashing in KH1 was still more bearable than in KH2. Combo attacks were still not as elaborate and certainly less powerful compared to those in KH2 (with which you can practically take out a whole bar of a boss' HP).

 

[Sephiroth0812]

To be honestI dont find the command style much better than kh2 on the matter because in the end its still just a matter of dodging until your little gauge refills.
The idea of a physical gauge sounds interesting so long as it doesn't give out after just three combos.

Personally I think they were going in the right direction with days panel system.You could only spam as much magic as you had equipped making it by far the least broken method of them all. The only problem is they ruined the system in days by introducing level panels which took up most of your panel space.

I think a revised panel system lacking level panels combined with your attack gauge would be a good unbroken system.

I didn't actually declare the command deck system from BBS/Coded/DDD as better, just as having a bit more variety because the abilities other than physical attacks are not tied to just one gauge. It's an improvement over KH 1's system (where combo-finishers and extra abilities like Strike Raid cost also MP, depleting from the same source that should be reserve for magic) or KH 2's which is easily the most broken of all the battle systems the series had so far and made me more than once wonder why some people keep on to praise KH 2's battle system.
To me personally, KH 2 easily has the worst battle system out of all entries in the series so far.

I'd say how fast such a gauge for physical attacks would deplete (and how many combos you can pull off with one filled gauge) would depend on length of the combo and the equipped finisher as well. Of course, if you implement such a feature you would also have to think about items to refill the gauge faster (or instantly) like i.e. energy drinks and possibly a new stat (stamina) which influences the overall length of the gauge as well as how much of the gauge is depleted for which attack. This would then of course also be affected by level ups and they could even implement side quests that earn the players awards in form of ability-upgrades which can be applied in order to make attacks consume less stamina (as the character becomes more proficient in performing certain attacks and his/her stamina increases, it should be easier to perform).

The main problem with the Panel-system in Days however also remains in that if you use up all your magic (or do not even take any with you), the gameplay again comes to only mashing buttons for normal attacks occassionally interrupted by one other button to perform an alternate combo, much like one button in KH 2 is used to start a reaction command. Not counting Birth by Sleep and possibly DDD, playing a mostly magic oriented character requires much more micro management and is often less effective than just mashing everything to death.
CoM's card system is in this case actually the most "unbroken" because you have to perform physical attacks the same way as magic: With cards. You cannot "button mash" and string physical attacks together like crazy if you have not enough attack cards equipped.

I only noticed this recently because I played KH HD 1.5 in turns with Dynasty Warriors 8, which is admittedly a total button masher where story only plays second role, but it does not try to be anything else. The KH series though, when looking overall, does not feel to be much different in terms of the battle system except that the amount of enemies on-screen is vastly lower, you have most time only one playable character (three in BBS, two in CoM and DDD, DW 8 has 77) and a bigger variety of attacks (which either do not need to be used because you can just mash everything to pieces or cannot be used enough because they're tied to just one gauge).

While that's true, in my personal opinion button-mashing in KH1 was still more bearable than in KH2. Combo attacks were still not as elaborate and certainly less powerful compared to those in KH2 (with which you can practically take out a whole bar of a boss' HP).

I wholeheartly agree with that. In terms of actual diverse playability, KH 2 was not an improvement over KH 1's system. They're both button-mashy, but KH 2 even more which gets also mixed with over-the-top Hollywood flashiness and countless gimmicks that make an easy game even easier.
Note though that all I am saying about KH 2 here pertains solely to the original KH 2. I have read that KH 2 Final Mix actually has quite some improvements (not counting the overpowered mess that is Limit Form) and I am actually somewhat looking forward to when KH HD 2.5 comes out if I will like KH 2 FM's way of using the battle system better than the one of the original KH 2.

 

[Gram]

I didn't actually declare the command deck system from BBS/Coded/DDD as better, just as having a bit more variety because the abilities other than physical attacks are not tied to just one gauge.

I apologize but it does come off as insinuating that way, so can you really blame me for the confusion?

KH 2's which is easily the most broken of all the battle systems the series had so far and made me more than once wonder why some people keep on to praise KH 2's battle system.
To me personally, KH 2 easily has the worst battle system out of all entries in the series so far.

Your not alone as I've wondered the same for both in terms of kh2s gameplay and story praise. (which it doesnt deserve)

There's no doubt it's by far the most broken but BBS comes in a close second thanks to melding.

I'd say how fast such a gauge for physical attacks would deplete (and how many combos you can pull off with one filled gauge) would depend on length of the combo and the equipped finisher as well. Of course, if you implement such a feature you would also have to think about items to refill the gauge faster (or instantly) like i.e. energy drinks and possibly a new stat (stamina) which influences the overall length of the gauge as well as how much of the gauge is depleted for which attack. This would then of course also be affected by level ups and they could even implement side quests that earn the players awards in form of ability-upgrades which can be applied in order to make attacks consume less stamina (as the character becomes more proficient in performing certain attacks and his/her stamina increases, it should be easier to perform).

I like everything described here, I wish they'd try it. TnT

The main problem with the Panel-system in Days however also remains in that if you use up all your magic (or do not even take any with you), the gameplay again comes to only mashing buttons for normal attacks occasionally interrupted by one other button to perform an alternate combo, much like one button in KH 2 is used to start a reaction command.

I know this that's why I specifically stated I'd like to see it revamped with your physical gauge idea.

Honestly I dont think the problem lies with the button mashing but the lack of any strategy and difficulty. CoM was the only purely strategic kh game because you had to think about everything you do and what deck you use and on proud this added some actual difficultly (especially when your trying to get the cards to break Repliku or Larxenes cards when their so fast)

This series is an action rpg so normal attacks and some slight button mashing is to be expected from it to begin with, the problem is that there are no penalties for button mashing behavior. (unlike CoM were mashing all your attack cards leaves you vulnerable)

The other games like BBS' (as well as DDD's & Recoded's) and it's command system did add variety in magic but that's all it added. In the end it was still just like kh2 and running around till your gauges filled back which, to me, added nothing in terms of strategy or even difficulty. (especially when I can just ignore my commands and rely on X spamming and bbs' renewal block)

Thus why I point out the panel system, it doesn't fix the button mashing sure, but it DOES fix the MP/Gauge problem because you can only carry so much of magic.
So even though the panel system had it's flaws like we both pointed out but learning from those as well as adding in a penalty for overly button mashing would make an interesting system.
Just give it the variety of BBS/Recoded/DDD, the strategic element or CoM and your physical attack gauge and you may very well have something.

Spells, limits and physical attacks would all be limited. There would be no spamming of X nor would there be any running about till gauges fill.

 

[Kinsei]

I prefer the magic in KHII but for the most part I think magic is useful in both games.

Here is how I would rank them.
KHII Fire > KH Fire. Every time I went to use it in KH I was always too far away. For a homing spell it's range was crap IMO.
KH Blizzard > KHII Blizzard. I love the range that the KH version has.
KH Thunder > KHII Thunder. While both are useful, I prefer calling down a lightning storm on my enemies.
Reflect > Aero. I prefer the damage you can do with reflectga when compared to the projectile deflecting and defense boost of aeroga.
Magnet > Gravity. Magnet is incredibly useful, whereas gravity is not. Every time gravity is useful in KH, thunder is just as good if not better (Excluding bosses of course.).