True. What's funny is that everyone loved KHI just fine, even though it has it's flaws.
Well... that sentiment is mostly shared inside the fandom proper. The general opinion of that game is, sadly, not as welcoming.
That's one thing I can say about the KH Teams, they always tried different forms of gameplay for better or for worse.
Yeah, but I'll say that there's definitely a thing as "too much".
The fact that they tried to switch things up and made experimental games doesn't exempt them from all criticism.
Nobody asked them to always deliver something different everytime and scattering 3-4 different gameplay styles throughout the series, sometimes you can stick to your guns, perhaps improve them a notch, and it just works. Give me a reason to play the next installment, not something I have to relearn all over again.
At the end of the day, in my favourite saga I have less than satisying results due to changes I didn't find all that necessary in the first place, and I have to live with that, experiment or not.
Some change is warranted, as I will say below, but big changes have consequences and I was never fond of automatically praise someone just because they tried. "Not changing" is always a valid option.
Then they can take the things that worked and implement them into new games. I know a lot of players (myself included) harshly criticize BBS and DDD but my first time playing through, I enjoyed it to the extent of being willing to try something new. It wasn't always my cup of tea but I still enjoyed it.
Hey, I remember when I discovered speedrunning and was in my "everything Osaka did was garbage" phase, which lasted... eh, way longer than it should have.
While I still like following and hanging around with some of the runners and defending them from people who think they "ruin this franchise", I will agree that after a while the air you breathe there can be a little... jaded.
I mean, now it's better than before but even just a few years ago you couldn't walk into a livestream saying you're a BbS/DDD fan without getting chat to go manhunt on you. It sometimes went over the line of joke, and you just gave in. Peer pressure and all of that. Also hearing those games' flaws over and over really made them seem bigger than they were.
Matter of fact, I like BbS. I probably have more fun with it than with KH II, just because I like the setting and characters so much. Better than "shonen kid re-enacts Disney movies and defeats anime villains while also failing at finding people" anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I still don't like how Osaka did things, like... at all. But I don't live it with a "KH III will be bad, the world is ending" mentality anymore.
In fact, I genuinely think Keyblade Transformations could be the next best thing about the franchise. So far I've seen only great potential for it.
I'd advise caution with such a kind of sentiment as this was already done back when KH II was still the newest horse in the stable and in most cases it didn't end well.
Heh, the truest statement.
Part of why I had to make an effort in liking KH II (aside from a short period of time at the beginning) was because I expected basically KH1 but more, and obviously didn't got it.
Forget that at the age of 12 I was even believing KH II would've had all the worlds and areas from KH1 in addition to the new stuff, the fact that there were changes in mechanics, exploration and writing was... devastating.
For... again, way longer than necessary, I've felt betrayed, like the game wronged me.
Of course, that was then. Things do change. I probably would've been happy with them releasing "KH1"s over and over, but that would be pretending the system to adapt solely to your tastes and it's pretty childish.
KH II is a fine game with great positives, mostly in the combat system.