Whilst the second wasn't perfect (Maleficent turning into a joke, the Heartless inexplicably returning), at the very least it sported more intricacy and had some meat on it's bones.
I failed to notice where there was meat. Was it when Sora stood aside and watched Simba fight Scar on his own, or when you had to beat Ursula by singing because Ariel forgot she was not to be trusted?
Oh I know how about the zero screen time for the actual plot elements being Riku, Namine, Diz and... well yeah, the Organization?
Diz's want for revenge (or "revenggggggggggggge" as he puts it), the Organization's motives and want to become human, all felt more thoughtful and gave the game a sense of realism that the first game didn't have.
I'll tell you right off the bat why KH1 >>>> KH2 to me on that aspect.
Riku screen time.
And it has nothing to do with me being a Riku fangirl since at the time I didn't like him all that much.
We got to see both Sora and Riku screen time and thus, got proper insight on both sides. Even the Disney villains got more insight and development, both in their plotting as well as in their own worlds.
Hell, they interacted in regards to each other as well, like with Hades calling Riku out on not helping Jafar when SDG fought him. You don't get that with the Organization. They each show up in their lone worlds, detached from having any true significance to the plot and then they die, without really meaning anything.
Aside from Sora going through a mental breakdown in Hollow Bastion which he already did without Demyx's help, what good did that Demyx fight have in the long run?
Squat. It was just... there because they needed to kill Demyx off and they had nowhere better to put it at.
At least the Disney villains had relation to the worlds they showed up at by definition - Jafar in Agrabah, Hades in Olympus, etc.
Why Demyx in Olympus? Why? No reason whatsoever.
It felt like every plot point in the first game could be described with some lame vague cliche like "he gave into the darkness," or "he lost his heart."
It might not have been too intent on messing things up, but it was pulled off very well and we got to see both sides of the story. Also, the various developments on all fronts was wonderful.
Traverse Town as home back.
Wonderland introducing the PoHs.
Deep Jungle showing us people falling to Darkness with Clayton and some needed SDG development.
Olympus had Hades and introduced Cloud.
Agrabah got things going. Another PoH, more Disney Villains explanations and insight. Riku cameo we learned of later.
Monstro was lots and lots of SoRiku development.
Atlantica had more insight on the whole Heartless situation, and for the first time - insight about the Keyblade itself.
Halloween Town is about the most useless world in the game but it raised the question of what the hell is a Heart anyway?
Neverland was pure plot, as was Hollow Bastion and the end of the world.
So excuse me if while they weren't the most unexplained things ever, if I could do with KH1 a lot better than I can do with basically all worlds west of Disney Castle in KH2 xD;
It didn't feel real to me. I nearly puked out vomit when possesed Riku told Sora in his serious dark voice that Kairi's heart was inside Sora. Yikes, could you get anymore cliche?
And yet for the first time you play it, without knowing the shit fest that would cause, it's one of the game's biggest twists that unless you really thought about all those Kairi visions throughout the games, came out of nowhere. You mock it no in retrospect but it's without justification. That bit was a good twist and one of Kairi's finest plot moments in the series.
And the balance between Square and Disney was way off kilter. The only Square characters were the three main ones, Sora, riku and Kairi and even they struck me as more Disney-eque to me. Ansem was a mature threatening Square villain, but by the time he showed up after hoards of Disney characters it was too little too late.
At least in KH1 the Disney had meaning and value unlike aforementioned Simba vs. Scar fight. And then they remembered this wasn't the Lion King, it was KH, and we had our token boss fight.
And so what if the Org are square characters? With how much they moved and did and WERE SHOWN, they were redundant save for maybe Saix and Axel.
And the true plots were, again, missing, being Namine and Riku.
A lot of people say the first had a better story and I simply don't see it. I still love the first one because of it's unqiue blend of Final Fantasy and Disney motifs, but the story doesn't really start star until the second one
I just do hope you realize the irony of this as without KH1 and CoM, the little KH2 had to give to us wouldn't have been there.
(haven't played Chain of Memories)
...I'll be blunt.
This explains so much.
