Okay, so I actually wanna give my opinion on the whole video. Since it's almost an hour long, I'll certainly miss out on a few points, sorry for that.
And no, I'm not trying to bash anything, just discuss the thing this topic is about.
Story part:
I think BB has a huge point that in KH1, Disney worlds actually mattered. I also loved the scene with all the bad guys in Hollow Bastion (and I still remember how hilarious it is in the german version) and the fact that they were actually MORE than Disney villains. KH villains. They were intertwined with the story and were actually an enemy of Sora, not just an enemy in their respective world. That's something I missed in any game after KH1, and I think it has already been a major issue in KH2, where - sure - you still visit Disney worlds and it's still somehow important for the plot (open new paths, look for friends, get rid of enemies, bla), but there just wasn't any specific reason for SDG anymore to defeat those enemies. It was simply to help their new-found friends (which isn't a bad thing, but just not the essence of KH in my opinion).
I was kinda confused when he said the friendship of TAV sucked (this part is "true" or let's say I agree mostly) while the friendship of SRK was enjoyable and believable in KH1, because in my opinion, that's not true at all. I never felt like Riku and Kairi were friends at all, it was mostly Sora-Riku and Sora-Kairi. And that scene in KH2 with Kairi recognizing Riku and them talking to Sora really isn't anywhere close to enough to convice me otherwise. But this is an overall problem of Kairi as a character and I still have my hopes up for that to change in KH3.
I just feel like saying SRK was great and TAV sucked isn't quite fair.
I heavily agree that TAV mostly felt like strangers and actually all three of them acted in very, very stupid ways. Be it believing all the shit Master Geezernort tells him, be it Ven who, instead of REALLY wondering why there's a stranger in his room maliciously telling him he'll lose his friend and tell his friends and master about this guy, actually runs after his friend like the guy said like "hey, let's trust some weird creepy guy I never met", or be it even Aqua who does things like "hey ven. go home? what you don't wanna? go. bye" and then wonders he gets into more danger.
They.were.all.stupid. It was the only reason the plot advanced anyhow. That's why their friendship often felt fake and stupid. But this has also already been a big problem since...hell, since KH1 already.
Doesn't matter if it's KH1 where "the girl" is already handled as simply some trophy and when she does come back and the player thinks "whoa nice, she'll be around to save Riku now", she just somehow gets left behind AGAIN.
Doesn't matter if it's KH CoM or KH2 where they throw like about 15 or more new people in your face of which about six seem to hold any value AT ALL.
It doesn't matter which game, KH has always had a problem with character development. It was especially heavy in BBS (and Days), but it wasn't like a "new" problem.
Next thing I remember I have to agree with were the flashbacks in BBS. Like, yeah, true, they did try SO hard to make you believe that background story instead of just letting you EXPERIENCE an actual story IN the game. Everything vital about the story is really told in damn flashbacks. Like...why?! And even those don't make much sense if you don't play with enough attention. I still don't get why they did that, just as much as I still don't get why they chose to spread Terra, Aqua and Ven when they had such an AWESOME opportunity to make this game rock with all three of them as a group.
I'm still sad about the Sora-Ventus part.
It's not really the fact that he's wrong about Sora getting the keyblade from Ventus. It's okay, it's hard to get the whole story of KH and everyone makes mistakes, seriously. I just think it's sad that he says that BBS "destroys" KH1 because of this connection and because of his false assumption.
What he says is that Sora was no longer chosen because of his strong heart and him being friendly, but because of Ventus. Instead though, Ventus connecting to Sora is easily one of the best things about BBS in my opinion if you get it right. I mentioned it before: The fact that Sora, being a few hours old at best, has such a strong heart that he's already able to save Ventus as a baby boy makes him actually seem like a special person again! After KH 2 giving Kairi a keyblade and making it seem more like Sora was actually not that much of "the chosen one", I was so happy about this and the fact that he was special again somehow. Because like BB said, a main character who has outstanding traits is someone to identify with, and in that scene (and also the end of Ventus' story, where he takes in said's heart in his)...Sora was so cool again and it really showed what a pure, nice character he really is.
About the keyblades. When Kairi got hers, I already realized shit was going to go down. I wasn't content with people just randomly getting some (I was quite happy with being speciul in KH1 for having one). I also don't understand why it's really needed. The more the series commenced, the more it really felt like keyblades were something anyone could and HAD TO get.
Like...even Dolan and Gooby aren't sure anymore if they're still important. Because, well, they're not keyblade wielders, how useful could they be, he? It's sad. I wished there were more characters without a keyblade who are use- and powerful. Back to the roots style. Back when a strong heart really was important.
I probably missed out on a million things in this, but my point is:
I agree with most what BB says about the story and characters. I agree that BBS had really big flaws and wasted a lot of potential, ignoring many of the things the fans actually wanted after KH1 and KH2.
That said, I still have to say I really think that BBS has NOT been the turning point (story-wise) at all, but rather KH2. Yup, KH2. Where the story started getting less serious, where the Disney part of the game became less important, where there were too many new characters to actually make all of them as interesting as they deserved, where there were more and more questions that players had trouble answering for themselves.
I don't think BBS is the reason Days, Re:Coded and 3D happened the way they did.
I think KH2 is the reason all four of those games happened the way they did.
So, off to gameplay:
There's hardly anything in the video I could disagree about here.
The main reason KH2 was often called a button smasher was - in my opinion - that it was WAY too easy on low difficulties. Like, if you didn't evade like every heartless in every world, you'd easily be overleveled on any mode but the hardest one, thus players assumed the game was too easy and just mashed the X-button. But when you actually start playing on a higher difficulty or lower level, you realize there's much, MUCH more to the gameplay than that.
Be it the DMs, the hit values, the dodge roll and its timing to give you invincibility when you need it, the summons, drive forms, everything.
My only major problem about this is that as a casual player, you will never, EVER experience any of that. You most likely will never appreciate how useful Chicken Little is. You most likely will rarely to never make use of NOT using a finisher because you can chain certain enemies by not doing a finisher move. And you'll most likely never make use of strategies where you don't normally use your keyblade at all. And you'll certainly not stick to air combos because they're way faster and have you land more hits before the enemy counters.
All in all, I think KH2's gameplay really was great. It takes some time to get into it other than button mashing, but it's still really nice.
BBS' problems....yup, mostly true as well. I absolutely detest enemies not staggering at all. Like, okay, they can have like a hit value where they get out of the loop, but NO STAGGERING WHATSOEVER? Are you kidding??
I also laughed at the "did they forget that Terra is in this game?" part because it's TRUE. The game's enemies are build up on three commands to permanently spam and the bosses are build up on dodging (Aqua and Ven) or fucking dying (Terra). It's stupid.
That being said, I still loved the idea of the command board and wouldn't mind it come back in a later installment of the series. Re:Coded actually made that system more enjoyable to me, while 3D sucked again because of stuff like Balloon, but they still tried to somehow improve it.
In the end, I'm glad they tried something else for once. While it could've been a million times better, I'm still quite okay with major, huge changes. That's okay.
Fun thing to me:
I don't like stuff like candy crush. Cookie clicker was funny for some of the stuff that could happen when it first released, but I also don't play stuff like that. I still enjoyed BBS a lot and I do also agree that getting a million of orbs and killing three dozen enemies at once somehow feels cool - I just don't think that's the only reason I enjoy the gameplay.
So, what do I think about this video all in all?
I think BB has some really good points regarding the problems with the gameplay, the Disney worlds/characters, the character development and the direction KH is going. SE is trying to give us more and more new stuff, while actually, most of us really want the existing stuff to expand, to evolve, to get better and more approachable.
I would've wished for him to actually dive more into the flaws of KH2 as well (even though he did mention some) instead of just saying "I forgive KH2 for not being soo good because..uhm...the basics of KH1 are still there!".
I'm pretty sure this post is super confusing. I'm sorry. And wtf when did it turn 2 am. I could swear I started typing like 59384 hours ago. Sorry.