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Is BBS 0.2 so bad?



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Grono

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I don't buy most of that, tbh. I have the imagination to visualize it anyways. While I agree there was a bit more fleshed out (though still mostly long hallway) exploration, the aesthetic of the bg models would'nt have any bearing on whether or not platforming elements were involved. You can just as easily land on a square as you can a circle.

The teams have been able to properly convert these worlds into 3D translations of their 2D counterparts up until this moment in the series (speaking of ED only). Mulan's The Land of Dragons world retained the Eastern inspiration, the watercolor effects and shapes presented in the original film in KH2. Halloween Town, Port Royal, Space Paranoids and The Grid all embraced the separation from the normal Disney canon style with great success imho. Chalk it up to this stage of the Kingdom Shader (if they even play a part in the backgrounds vs just the characters) or tooling with this new level of realism being in it's infancy, but I believe they are more than capable of delivering something stylized. It just looked generic here. The rich art is one of the most celebrated aspects of that film and they just completely missed the mark.

Oh, sorry, I must have not been clear. I just meant that it would have been jarring if the art style shifted a bit, like when Pirates was included with the animated films and they didn't put a lot of effort in blending it with the aesthetic.

I get why you'd be upset, though. Personally, I loved how good everything looked, but at the same time I could see how someone would want to see it just like the movie since that was the precedent before. I don't think that people like me would hold the graphics in such a high regard if that wasn't one of the selling points of the new game, though; personally, I think that the game looked absolutely breathtaking and was a much-needed change, since all of the games before now looked practically identical.

Either way, Kingdom Hearts III is looking a lot more stylized, with the plants on Mount Olympus and literally the entirety of Toy Story so far, so I'm sure that III will do a lot more with their Kingdom Shader than 0.2 ended up doing.
 

Rydgea

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Ah, I see. I guess I like the shifts in aesthetic, because it helps differentiate what might be an otherwise monotonous experience. Plus, it reinforces you're visiting other worlds! But more than that I just love it when they respectfully stay true to the stylizing of the films they're derived from. Another good example of their prowess is how they'd manipulated Zack to look like a perfect amalgamation of himself and the other Greek vase painting inspired characters of Olympus Colosseum. It wasn't expected, considering how Cloud and Auron were unaffected by this, but it made so much sense. It's kindof like when Sora & Co. are able to change with their settings.

I recognize the work put into these worlds. There are elements that were beautiful about all the worlds in 0.2; even so Enchanted Dominion didn't really feel like Enchanted Dominion to me. It was just any old, scary forest now. Like I said in my original post it's a nit pick of mine, just one of several in 0.2. When those personal flaws add up, it resonates to a lesser degree than some of the others in the series's list.

Anyways, I agree that KHIII seems to be heading in the right direction, looking beautiful so far. The way the Toy Story world looks is amazing (and it's why I had faith in ED - why wouldn't I when they'd done it justice previously, and again in KHUX I might add), and it is a perfect example of what they're capable of as well.
 

Antifa Lockhart

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I'm with Rydega - I think 0.2 is absolutely beautiful but it totally missed the mark on the Forst of Thorns segment. The cliffs and boulders are too rounded, and the movie's style is almost entirely angular. This has nothing to do with the engine or shaders, the models themselves are just off. When they've been nailing everything else, it is really annoying.
 

ImVentus

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Well they still have a lot to improve on the character rigs. Looking at Aqua's facial expressions in 0.2 she's lacking any real sense of horror or surprise.
Screen%2BShot%2B2018-02-08%2Bat%2B11.14.14%2BPM.png

She looks kind of happy don't you think?

Screen%2BShot%2B2018-02-08%2Bat%2B11.15.46%2BPM.png

However here she's somewhat more expressive

This isn't to sound nitpicky just to state some flaws that should be challenged for next time.
 

The Dark Mamba

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I don't buy most of that, tbh. I have the imagination to visualize it anyways. While I agree there was a bit more fleshed out (though still mostly long hallway) exploration, the aesthetic of the bg models would'nt have any bearing on whether or not platforming elements were involved. You can just as easily land on a square as you can a circle.

The teams have been able to properly convert these worlds into 3D translations of their 2D counterparts up until this moment in the series (speaking of ED only). Mulan's The Land of Dragons world retained the Eastern inspiration, the watercolor effects and shapes presented in the original film in KH2. Halloween Town, Port Royal, Space Paranoids and The Grid all embraced the separation from the normal Disney canon style with great success imho. Chalk it up to this stage of the Kingdom Shader (if they even play a part in the backgrounds vs just the characters) or tooling with this new level of realism being in it's infancy, but I believe they are more than capable of delivering something stylized. It just looked generic here. The rich art is one of the most celebrated aspects of that film and they just completely missed the mark.

That's an issue that I've never brought up but one I indeed had with the visual style of the princess worlds of 0.2.

The previous visual style of the series was able to capture the visual style of those movies in BBS. They captured Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella's art style pretty nicely in BBS but that was all abandoned in 0.2 were they did look nice but the right style wasn't there, especially for Enchanted Dominion. Thankfully I think KH3 is doing a much better job in terms of capturing the right visual style of the worlds.

Besides that, the big problem with 0.2 was the lack of any real story substance. There's just not much there and the way it sh#ts on Blank Points is just tragic.
 

Grono

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That's an issue that I've never brought up but one I indeed had with the visual style of the princess worlds of 0.2.

The previous visual style of the series was able to capture the visual style of those movies in BBS. They captured Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella's art style pretty nicely in BBS but that was all abandoned in 0.2 were they did look nice but the right style wasn't there, especially for Enchanted Dominion. Thankfully I think KH3 is doing a much better job in terms of capturing the right visual style of the worlds.

Besides that, the big problem with 0.2 was the lack of any real story substance. There's just not much there and the way it sh#ts on Blank Points is just tragic.

I absolutely agree with the blank points notion, I was so upset by that.

I will say that I wasn't a fan of the visual presentation of BbS anyways, not really. Sure, it means something to look the part, but you have to act the part too. The lack of NPC's, -5% exploration in each world, and the lame, disconnected boss fights (for the most part, dragon maleficent was okay) make those worlds so much worse in my opinion. That and the dialogue for those worlds was thoroughly forgettable, if not awful. Some Aqua line about "there's darkness here, I sense it" in Castle of Dreams made me cringe really hard the first time I heard it, Willow's delivery was so terrible.

Was 0.2 lacking in visuals? Maybe, depending on how you look at it, but the platforming and level design is so much better that I don't think all of the BbS worlds combined could have even held a candle to them. Also, they had an excuse for not having NPC's other than "it was too hard on the OG console" (giving you the stinkeye, ballroom from Castle of Dreams and Olympus Coliseum). We can argue about if the dialogue was any better, though; I'd say yes, but not too much better. The Terra scene was well written, but everything leading up to it was pretty lame.
 

Rydgea

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I will say that I wasn't a fan of the visual presentation of BbS anyways, not really.

I'm puzzled, because BBS had the same style as the PS2 era games.

Sure, it means something to look the part, but you have to act the part too. The lack of NPC's, -5% exploration in each world, and the lame, disconnected boss fights (for the most part, dragon maleficent was okay) make those worlds so much worse in my opinion. That and the dialogue for those worlds was thoroughly forgettable, if not awful.

Style vs substance is a valid argument, though each item in your laundry list could be applied to many of the games in the series, not just BBS. I'd wager a majority of the KH audience does not expect a hearty platforming experience each entry given its track record. Re:coded seemed to be on the right path, but DDD cheapened those possibilities with Flowmotion. In the end, it's not a platforming series, however welcome those elements are. And it's not as though the overall experience is much more rewarding in 0.2 when it does engage these ideas. Oh, we have an excuse to not have NPCs in the Dark World? Great it can make sense this time! Only it doesn't evoke a different tone than the other games, because that's basically all we've known, so it's not exactly worth celebrating? Previous towns never appeared bustling regardless if they held a few NPCs to a room. So, the Dark World only ever felt creepy to me, because it was doused in pitch and backed with haunting tracks. Oh look! We get to dress Aqua up in pretty things! I like pretty things, sure... that's fine they serve no function,... unlike the clothes in KHUX. k

I just feel like you're getting derailed defending 0.2 by solely deconstructing BBS. There's still way more to do in CoD and ED over the course of TAV's journeys in BBS than there is in 0.2's counterparts, and since aesthetics are a huge part of a game based off the art of timeless animated classics I'd say the former achieves both the style and substance award more than the latter, IMHO~

Less can be more, but for me, it didn't take advantage of the opportunities it was afforded. In fact, I'd like to trim the fat off some of the "meat" we got in 0.2 to make it just an anemic story rather than an anemic story that further tortures matters. There's obviously nothing wrong with you, OP or anyone liking the game. I like it too, though I embrace the points of criticism.
 

Grono

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I'm puzzled, because BBS had the same style as the PS2 era games.

It did, you're right! KH has great platforming, great combat, and a great story to it, while Kingdom Hearts II has similar good qualities to it, if a bit more foundationally flawed in my honest opinion. What I was getting to was that, while it looked the part, it didn't act the part. That's what I meant by I wasn't a fan of the visual presentation. You can look like Thebes, for example, but if you can't inject any of the life of Hercules then you're just a pointless grinding world in that game to me.

I know it may sound scathing, but I'm critical because I love it. The ending of BbS was great, and I love all the characters for it; it's a shame, for me anyways, that the level design is so bland and hardly ever shines. I believe that, in worlds like Deep Space and Neverland, they did explore that a bit and created interesting level design, and, at least from what I've played, a big factor of interesting level design is platforming. There is other things obviously, like environmental effects and barriers that can add to the battlefield, but the most prominent of these in the series have been the platforming of several of the titles, as interacting and exploring the level is just as important as the gameplay of combat.

This is something that tends to be an afterthought to the series; don't get me wrong, when it is added it's great, such as the secret episode of Birth by Sleep and Cavern of Remembrance from KHII, but these are both significant in that they were added post-game, and I believe that, if implemented earlier, they could have made traversing the worlds more interactive, as walking through straight-aways was a big and disappointing departure to the magic of the original, in my opinion at least.

And, again, you can disagree with me. You can say that visuals are divorced from that entirely and I won't argue with you. I just believe that level design and visuals are a two-for-one package, and if I have to pick one over the other it would be the platforming from 0.2 over the bland, blocky levels from the princess worlds in BbS any day. I hope I don't come off rude, I'm just trying to state my position :D

Style vs substance is a valid argument, though each item in your laundry list could be applied to many of the games in the series, not just BBS. I'd wager a majority of the KH audience does not expect a hearty platforming experience each entry given its track record.

And I'd agree with you! But just because they don't expect it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be implemented. The most exciting part of III to me is the level design and the liveliness of each world shown so far, as I believe that that is far more immersive and rewarding than just vaguely looking like the movie you're currently in. It's hearkening back to the first game in that way, and I love it for that. I bring up BbS only because it begs to be compared to its sequel, 0.2.

Re:coded seemed to be on the right path, but DDD cheapened those possibilities with Flowmotion. In the end, it's not a platforming series, however welcome those elements are. And it's not as though the overall experience is much more rewarding in 0.2 when it does engage these ideas.

Eh, I'd disagree, but I think you know that :D And someone complimented Coded's level design for once! I feel like that never happens!

Oh, we have an excuse to not have NPCs in the Dark World? Great it can make sense this time! Only it doesn't evoke a different tone than the other games, because that's basically all we've known, so it's not exactly worth celebrating? Previous towns never appeared bustling regardless if they held a few NPCs to a room. So, the Dark World only ever felt creepy to me, because it was doused in pitch and backed with haunting tracks. Oh look! We get to dress Aqua up in pretty things! I like pretty things, sure... that's fine they serve no function,... unlike the clothes in KHUX. k

I agree that the tone of the dark world is... samey. Even with the idea that these areas are all technically part of the same world, you'd hope that they at least would have had a little more life injected into each of them to feel different. They were on the right track with the different arrangements of the dark world theme, but... it's still just one song arranged differently! It can only feel like one place but a little different!

That NPC argument I made was dumb haha, I was just venting about my recent frustrations with DDD and the fact that NOTHING EXISTS ANYWHERE. Sorry!

I just feel like you're getting derailed defending 0.2 by solely deconstructing BBS. There's still way more to do in CoD and ED over the course of TAV's journeys in BBS than there is in 0.2's counterparts, and since aesthetics are a huge part of a game based off the art of timeless animated classics I'd say the former achieves both the style and substance award more than the latter, IMHO~

I mean, deconstructing BbS only makes sense, since this is the direct sequel to that game. Sorry if it sounds like I'm singling it out, but I only do it because it begs to be compared with its counterpart.

I would say that the TAV argument is valid, but, to be fair... each segment in 0.2 is only 30 minutes or so. You can't really do much with that. Granted, they totally cockblocked us by not allowing us to enter the castle and see horrors and the twisted ballroom or anything, so you got me there. It really was pretty lame what they decided to do with CoD. I would say that ED and DW really expanded upon their original and really brought something interesting, puzzling, and Gothic, overall really impressing me when I finished them.

And, I wrote this earlier, but I would argue that exploration and interactivity is what substance is, and in that case KHII, BbS, and DDD have to take a backseat to most anything else in the series. 0.2, though short, is very interactive, gives an incentive for replayability, and is pretty exploratory. I remember finding stuff even on my fifth playthrough that I never found before, which is pretty significant for such a small game.

I will say that, for BbS, a little bit of the magic is gone for me, and I won't claim that I'm not a little bit biased. I do enjoy the combat quite a bit on Aqua's side, and the painfully slow keyblade combos and barren maps combined with Terra's awful voice acting really affected me the first time I played it, as using the commands and building my arsenal was really fun and interactive. I especially loved the stickers and the entirety of the final ending story, which I believe includes the best villains in the entire series to date.

I don't hate BbS, I'm just very critical of it because I always see something that could be improved significantly in it, and for its sequel the first and most important thing that I noticed was the deep sense of verticality to it, something I had been craving since the first game and was only partially quenched with the bug blox from Coded.

Less can be more, but for me, it didn't take advantage of the opportunities it was afforded. In fact, I'd like to trim the fat off some of the "meat" we got in 0.2 to make it just an anemic story rather than an anemic story that further tortures matters. There's obviously nothing wrong with you, OP or anyone liking the game. I like it too, though I embrace the points of criticism.

I think we can both agree with the end of this line :D I embrace the criticism of 0.2, even though I seemed to have liked the gameplay more than some who played it, and I hope I got across that I don't hate BbS or any other game in the series. I just think that 0.2 took older elements from the series and really gave them a much-needed fresh coat of paint, and I appreciate that.

That and, no matter what the style is, the graphics are so prettttyyyyyyyyy
 

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I thought 0.2 was great gameplay wise, I loved how magic looked and how much it has evolved since KH1. I also enjoyed the atmosphere, exploring the Realm of Darkness and being accompanied by the music brought me back to the eeriness of End of the World from KH1. Speaking of music I loved how they twisted the worlds' music to make it appropriate for the Realm, and they also twisted up Aqua's theme which was a great touch. I just found the design of it all very impressive and I think that's its strongest element.

The problem is that it's short and doesn't deliver much in terms of story. It would've been great if Aqua did get out of the realm, but that wasn't the case and I did find that disappointing. It also makes Mickey a jerk because he could've gotten Aqua out of there but he didn't and just made some vague excuse why he didn't.
 

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Didn't feel like it was bad, just felt like it was way too short. It gave Aqua some more character development and strengthened her character out more, though some longer gameplay would of been nice.
 

Alpha Baymax

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After Aqua's recent revelation in Kingdom Hearts III, I'm starting to think that 0.2 should have been the intro to Kingdom Hearts III.
 

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After Aqua's recent revelation in Kingdom Hearts III, I'm starting to think that 0.2 should have been the intro to Kingdom Hearts III.

Hard disagree. I say this all the time, maybe to convince people, or maybe just because I love typing it out and reading my own posts, but if we're not going to play as Sora RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING, we need to play as someone who parallels Sora in an interesting way and as someone who is integral not only to the story, but to Sora's life. Other game series have you switch characters willy nilly, but KH2 set a precedent with Roxas, a decision that makes a lot of sense by the last few scenes of the game.

Aqua is an important character, but she lacks the seniority for me to want to open the game as her. 0.2 was a perfect place to give her a harder character study and set up her fall without bloating KH3's intro.
 

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Aqua and Sora do have a lot in common and parallel each other in a similar way, but she is not Sora like Roxas (or Ven) is.
 

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Aqua and Sora do have a lot in common and parallel each other in a similar way, but she is not Sora like Roxas (or Ven) is.

They're both very put-upon and are seemingly tasked with everyone else's mistakes. Sora and Aqua also have both sacrificed themselves to save those they care about most... Sora didn't end up paying too badly, showing the heroism and bravery of sacrifice, while Aqua eventually demonstrated that putting yourself last can have dire consequences.

So sure, they have parallels, but I find it awfully hard to believe that Nomura and SE execs want to give the BBS trio equal time to Sora, Riku, and the woefully underused Kairi.
 

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Nomura said 0.2 was intended to be the opening of KH3, but it was moved because of space (and probably time). Sure it's its own game now, but there might be more significance in having her first, especially after the recent revelation. SRK and TAV have a lot of connections, so while they won't get equal time probably, they are certainly going to be more important than we thought. I mean, the whole narrative of KH3 has been changed with one trailer.
Spoiler Spoiler Show
 

Zettaflare

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Nomura said 0.2 was intended to be the opening of KH3, but it was moved because of space (and probably time). Sure it's its own game now, but there might be more significance in having her first, especially after the recent revelation. SRK and TAV have a lot of connections, so while they won't get equal time probably, they are certainly going to be more important than we thought. I mean, the whole narrative of KH3 has been changed with one trailer.
Spoiler Spoiler Show

It may be up to Terra to save his friends. Cause if Xehanort has Aqua, he most certainly knows how to find Ventus. Worse case scenario all three are vessels :(
 

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Well, I always liked how Aqua and Sora are more tied than it might seem at a first glance, and I'm still hoping they'll continue on this parallel instead of resorting to a boring Naruto triangle reboot and have Aqua interact with Kairi alone in KH III, but I don't know about 0.2 as KH's prologue.
This is not me expressing negativity on the idea, I legit don't know. On one hand I can see how playing that and then witnessing Aqua's state a few hours later might pay off, but at the same time it's true 0.2 would feel out of place at times as KH III's prologue.
Also it'd be a bit of an empty beginning for the finale of the Xehanort saga... things hardly happen in that adventure, let's be real.

I think it might've been better as a side-story DLC, or even as some bonus levels discovered through the story, kinda like Laguna's flashbacks in FF VIII.

Spoiler Spoiler Show

Which is why I'm still hopeful about that whole point and I'm not going to call it bad writing or cheap plot twist just yet.
Nomura finally managed to caught people off guard and subvert expectations.
 

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Well, I always liked how Aqua and Sora are more tied than it might seem at a first glance, and I'm still hoping they'll continue on this parallel instead of resorting to a boring Naruto triangle reboot and have Aqua interact with Kairi alone in KH III, but I don't know about 0.2 as KH's prologue.

Kingdom Hearts' triangles have always been better than Naruto's. You'd expect Aqua and Kairi to have a lot in common, but they have basically nothing in common. She's most similar to Sora and Sora would have been the one she passed the keyblade onto if Riku didn't have his. Even Riku and Aqua have tons more in common than Aqua and Kairi ever have. And that's no diss on Kairi or anything, it's just nice to see the two girls of the group be nothing alike story wise.

Even the sea salt trio has their own thing going on. Three different groups with a lot of similarities, but properly playing off each other and not being duplicates.
 

DarkosOverlord

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Kingdom Hearts' triangles have always been better than Naruto's. You'd expect Aqua and Kairi to have a lot in common, but they have basically nothing in common. She's most similar to Sora and Sora would have been the one she passed the keyblade onto if Riku didn't have his. Even Riku and Aqua have tons more in common than Aqua and Kairi ever have. And that's no diss on Kairi or anything, it's just nice to see the two girls of the group be nothing alike story wise.

Even the sea salt trio has their own thing going on. Three different groups with a lot of similarities, but properly playing off each other and not being duplicates.

This is also my take (and I'll add that ironically Kairi and Ventus actually have more similarities between themselves, both being entities with hearts of pure Light, people who took refuge in Sora's heart and got manipulated by a Nort as ingredients of a recipe), but with KH III I'm always scared of everything changing, since a lot of metafors and parallels are mostly fans' guesswork.
Pretty accurate and logical, but still guesswork. It'll only take a dialogue in the game and a Nomura interview where he says "I'm surprised people never picked up Aqua and Kairi were going to be Master and disciple" for that to happen.
 
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