Re-viewing KHII

[Gram]

Well, it let you use more magic-heavy play styles, which I don't find a problem with.

All kh games let you use magic heavy combat its just no one bothered till bbs' command system.
Your even able to finish off enemies or bosses in kh1 with magic JUST LIKE kh2 so long as they arent immune to it. (And honestly kh2 has more magic immune bosses than kh1)

As far as combat goes, my issue is in the range he has. Most Keyblades are pitifully short, with Sora being able to cover little ground in a timely manner, putting the player at a distinct disadvantage compared to the number of Heartless who can come at him from across the room. (Which is a SERIOUS pain in the ass at LV1.) Even his magic works best in closed quarters

Thats still something all games share, the short range, so its not a kh1 exclusive thing yet thats the only game thats bothering you.
Soras range is short in every game even kh2, its just that in kh2 he's faster paced.
The range, timing, and enemy number are things you (the player) are supposed to overcome using the characters abilities available to them.

Something, by the way, that is easy to overcome in kh1 with magic just simply equipping one of Soras longer keyblades like metal chocobo.
Honestly what your describing is more of a pet peeve than actual gameplay fault.

If you want to get into actual faults look at the camera or such.

 

[hemmoheikkinen]

When you play as Roxas in KH2 was there the choice between the shield, staff and the sword? If you pick up the staff is it possible that magic attacks comes far more powerful than the physical attacks you deal with the Keyblade? I have never picked the staff on my playtroughs in either KH1 or KH2 but the staff suggests a more magic oriented combat.

 

[The_Echo]

All kh games let you use magic heavy combat its just no one bothered till bbs' command system.

What I'm saying is that the MP recharge made it a much more viable style.

Your even able to finish off enemies or bosses in kh1 with magic JUST LIKE kh2 so long as they arent immune to it.

I was talking about how KHII required a finisher move, as in the end of a combo, to defeat a boss. Otherwise they remain at 1HP.

Thats still something all games share, the short range, so its not a kh1 exclusive thing yet thats the only game thats bothering you.

No man, the only time a character's Keyblades have been back to KH1 lengths was with Ventus. Which was OK because Ventus was mobile and capable of closing distance easily. KHII and beyond have notably longer weapons.

Something, by the way, that is easy to overcome in kh1 with magic just simply equipping one of Soras longer keyblades like metal chocobo.

The problem here is that Metal Chocobo, Pumpkinhead and Jungle King aren't exactly Keyblades you want to keep through the whole game. In Final Mix, Divine Rose is the strongest Keyblade in the game, under Ultima Weapon which is a pain to obtain. And if you remember, Divine Rose is one of the shortest Keyblades, just barely taller than Fairy Harp if memory serves.

Are these fatal flaws? Does it make it a bad game? No, not by any means. I still love KH1 dearly. I'm just saying that I prefer the changes that KHII brought.

 

[Gram]

No man, the only time a character's Keyblades have been back to KH1 lengths was with Ventus. Which was OK because Ventus was mobile and capable of closing distance easily. KHII and beyond have notably longer weapons.

Incorrect completely. Roxas, Xion, Data Sora and Sora all use the same initial keyblade thats not changed in size whatsoever and there are many equal to it's length.
Even a good deal of Terra and Aquas keyblades are short as well only being slightly longer than Sora's kingdom key in Terra's case, especially their initial keyblades.
Of course Terra and Aqua have longer keychains but so does Sora, use them.

However if you want to ignore that for your issuse then fine, to each their own, there's no point to argue when things are being ignored for the sake of keeping the argument and for that reason our discussion here just minds well end.

The problem here is that Metal Chocobo, Pumpkinhead and Jungle King aren't exactly Keyblades you want to keep through the whole game. In Final Mix, Divine Rose is the strongest Keyblade in the game, under Ultima Weapon which is a pain to obtain. And if you remember, Divine Rose is one of the shortest Keyblades, just barely taller than Fairy Harp if memory serves.

Are these fatal flaws? Does it make it a bad game? No, not by any means. I still love KH1 dearly. I'm just saying that I prefer the changes that KHII brought.

Again thats not a problem because you have ways to correct it but your choosing not to use them. I for one have actually kept and used pumpkinhea and metal chocobo till the end as soon as I get them.

What your complaining about isnt an actual flaw though since there are ways around it which your not using thus only making it more of a bother to yourself.
An actual game flaw is something that cant be worked around like overly easy difficulty, camera control and so forth.
What you have is a personal gripe not a true flaw because you have ways to temper it but won't use them.

 

[Blackdrazon]

When you play as Roxas in KH2 was there the choice between the shield, staff and the sword? If you pick up the staff is it possible that magic attacks comes far more powerful than the physical attacks you deal with the Keyblade? I have never picked the staff on my playtroughs in either KH1 or KH2 but the staff suggests a more magic oriented combat.

The game does try but I don't feel it succeeds. Maybe in FM? I used to always take the staff, so initially took the staff in 2, and have played with the Sword since (Shield maybe during my next run in 2.5?), and magic doesn't come up any more or less than it does with sword. Unless the Shield is a remarkable in some other way, I feel your build just doesn't affect your play-style in KH2. They may have made it that way to compensate for the builds in KH1 being so extreme, which is bad in its own way, I'd even say worse, but KH2's just comes off as flat. It's no surprise they gave up on "Character Creation" like that almost entirely after KH2.

(coded's sequence doesn't really count, it just gives you some early attacks, and you can replay it to get free ones whenever you want!)

 

[The_Echo]

Incorrect completely. Roxas, Xion, Data Sora and Sora all use the same initial keyblade thats not changed in size whatsoever and there are many equal to it's length.

As the starting equipment, I don't expect much from the Kingdom Key. That's sort of the point. That said, it's actually a fairly medium-sized Keyblade. Somewhere between maybe Oathkeeper and Jungle King?

And while I can't speak for Days, since it has way too many Keyblades to begin with and I won't be playing through it again anytime soon (the game has worse issues than Keyblade length), the Keyblades in Re:coded were either decently long, or compensated with Overclocking abilities (and Data-Sora's own DMC-esque battle prowess) which allowed them to close in on enemies easier (the Commands also helped in this regard).

Even Zero/One, fashioned after the Kingdom Key, is a long Keyblade.

Even a good deal of Terra and Aquas keyblades are short as well only being slightly longer than Sora's kingdom key in Terra's case, especially their initial keyblades.

This just plain isn't right. The majority of TAV's Keyblades follow the same lengths. Terra's are usually long to counterbalance how slow he is, Aqua's are medium-length (around the size of Kingdom Key) because she's the more well-rounded character, and Ventus gets short Keyblades to counterbalance his increased mobility compared to the others.

Sure, Earthshaker and Rainfell aren't exactly huge but again, starting equipment.

However, all of their Ultima Keyblades are pretty long.

Again thats not a problem because you have ways to correct it but your choosing not to use them. I for one have actually kept and used pumpkinhea and metal chocobo till the end as soon as I get them.

Like what, exactly? Attack Ups? Equipment? The way I play KH I tend to enjoy doing as much physical damage as possible, which generally means swapping for the Keyblade with the highest attack stat, regardless of length.

I will say though that in vanilla KH1, Metal Chocobo had the same ATK as Divine Rose, though it also carried -1MP and a worse Crit rate, making it a worse Keyblade regardless. Not sure why DR got such a huge buff in Final Mix to be honest with you.

An actual game flaw is something that cant be worked around like overly easy difficulty, camera control and so forth.
What you have is a personal gripe not a true flaw because you have ways to temper it but won't use them.

I mean, I don't recall ever even insinuating that these were flaws in the game's design. I'm pretty sure all I've ever been saying was that I prefer how things changed in later installments.

Don't gotta be so passive-aggressive.

Like I said, I still love KH1 to bits, and there's no problem with the sizes of the Keyblades per se. You can bet your ass I've gotten used to using them from the number of playthroughs I've done of the game, not to mention that for a while there that was the only​ size they were. I just happen to prefer how they've changed since then.

 

[Gram]

This just plain isn't right. The majority of TAV's Keyblades follow the same lengths. Terra's are usually long to counterbalance how slow he is

I suggest you take another look most the world based keyblades he gets are the same, or nearly, as his Earthsaker and one keyblade he gets from the Mirage Arena is even shorter.

Most of what he has that's longer begin with Ends of the Earth and past. (like No Name, Chaos Ripper, etc)
And yes Terra has some long keyblades but not all of them are like that his arsenal is around half and half on medium KK/Earthsaker length and others as long as his body.
Same for Aqua.

Don't gotta be so passive-aggressive.

I wasn't, at least not intentionally. I'm just blunt spoken so if that comes off offensive I apologize for the implication.

Like what, exactly? Attack Ups? Equipment? The way I play KH I tend to enjoy doing as much physical damage as possible, which generally means swapping for the Keyblade with the highest attack stat, regardless of length.

There are still ways to curb your issue such as keychains or yes attack ups. You listed the metal chocobo's minus of 1mp as a bad thing but what would MP matter to you when you just admitted you always use physical damage?

The point here is there are ways around your issue and your just not using them then showing that as an issue or flaw in the game compared to later titles.
If later games fixes that for you and what not that's good, really, but it's not something that can really be compared on a whole as a pro or con between KH1 and 2 like when members bring up KH1's bad camera or KH2's overly easy difficulty because it's an issue that you can fix.

Also we're going off track and it'd be a bit sad of both of us to continue and start to spam and derail this thread with a discussion that has devolved into talking about keyblade length and your fixable issues with them so I'm gonna stop here.

 

[TotalIndignant]

I'm actually replaying KHII right now, and I starting thinking about the flaws. It is really easy, and I find myself just hitting the X button without moving most of the time. I don't like the fact that I don't need to move around a whole bunch. Sora had way too much power early on. And then there's the magic. The magic is really annoying for me, especially fire, so I don't use it often. I don't know why they changed it and it's absolutely frustrating. I really like the story, but it would be better if all the worlds were more involved, you know? It feels like the worlds that aren't Twilight Town, Hollow Bastion, and The World That Never Was are just kind of there. It makes me upset that I have to go to the other worlds because it seems like they're unnecessary to the plot. But don't get me wrong, I still like to spend time with the disney peeps. Lastly, there's the Gummi Ships. At first I hated the new gummi ship travel thing, but after awhile I was okay with it. The one thing I really like is designing the gummi ships, in my opinion it's much easier in KHII.

 

[kuraudoVII]

I think the anime comparison is very apt, because the stage-based Worlds structure of KH (besides Days) really does analogue better to TV than to movies or even other contemporary RPGs. I mean, coded actually is divided into episodes! (A relic of its cell phone origins but there it is all the same!)

This also drives back to Ruran's point about shonen action shows on Page 2.

That is indeed an apt comparison. Kingdom Hearts II was released back in an era where games were trying to have more shonen tropes added to them in the hopes of garnering more fans.

I don't agree that KH2 is a step up in gameplay. While the idea of drives is interesting, I prefer the way MP works in the first game. KH2 makes using magic (outside of cure) as well as items pointless. I like that the strikes you make on an enemy can help you gain MP in the first game, where KH2 basically voids magic while it loads again. Also, I have to disagree about movement--Sora moves incredibly slow in KH2 until you get MAX level Glide from the Final form, and this is even more emphasized by how far the camera is behind him and how small the "areas" are. And the fact that Sora more easily hits his enemies = a good thing...? I guess that depends, because I consider it worse.

Overall, everything about the gameplay, like everything else KH2, simplifies the game down to a boring level.

^THIS. More than anything else, I feel like everything was dumbed down in order to make the fights look more flashy, but they only served to either bore me to tears or make me tear my hair out due to fake difficulty (seriously, why do we need to use a finisher on a boss? Even the Devil May Cry series doesn't require this and that is a series that emphasizes stylish gameplay).

Back in Kingdom Hearts I, you had to think about how and where you were going to attack. Charging in recklessly against anything in that game would get you killed, whether it was a horde of Heartless, Captain Hook, or Squall Leonhart. In II, every boss can be taken down with reaction commands. The only ones that I came across that made me fight strategically instead of bum-rushing in II were Xaldin and Luxord (though the latter is easy once you know what to do).

I'm actually replaying KHII right now, and I starting thinking about the flaws. It is really easy, and I find myself just hitting the X button without moving most of the time. I don't like the fact that I don't need to move around a whole bunch. Sora had way too much power early on. And then there's the magic. The magic is really annoying for me, especially fire, so I don't use it often. I don't know why they changed it and it's absolutely frustrating. I really like the story, but it would be better if all the worlds were more involved, you know? It feels like the worlds that aren't Twilight Town, Hollow Bastion, and The World That Never Was are just kind of there. It makes me upset that I have to go to the other worlds because it seems like they're unnecessary to the plot. But don't get me wrong, I still like to spend time with the disney peeps. Lastly, there's the Gummi Ships. At first I hated the new gummi ship travel thing, but after awhile I was okay with it. The one thing I really like is designing the gummi ships, in my opinion it's much easier in KHII.

To me, the magic system was the worst aspect of the combat system. I don't really like having regenerative magic the way that they have it in II if they decide to still have a magic bar. Give me the chance to gain MP like in the first game (getting hit with MP Rage equipped, attacking enemies, equipping Goofy with MP gift) over what we had in II. Birth by Sleep may have had a somewhat similar system in regards to regenerating spells, but since there was NO MP bar and every command did the same, it didn't bother me there.

 

[The_Echo]

Back in Kingdom Hearts I, you had to think about how and where you were going to attack. Charging in recklessly against anything in that game would get you killed, whether it was a horde of Heartless, Captain Hook, or Squall Leonhart.

Back when Kingdom Hearts was fresh, I was about eight years old. You know how I played the game? Charging in recklessly. And you know what happened?

I beat it.
And I did the same thing every playthrough. I even did it on my Proud Mode playthrough in 1.5. With no trouble.
Hell, I beat Proud Riku 2 on my first try, despite him apparently being notoriously hard?
Kingdom Hearts is not even remotely as difficult as people make it out to be.

The only time I haven't been able to bumrush the game was in Proud Mode LV1, for obvious reasons.

In II, every boss can be taken down with reaction commands. The only ones that I came across that made me fight strategically instead of bum-rushing in II were Xaldin and Luxord (though the latter is easy once you know what to do).

That's not true.

The only boss in the game who can be defeated purely with Reaction Commands (in a timely fashion, at any rate) is Xaldin. The Learn/Jump RC is incredibly borked.

Also, about the boss finisher thing; cast magic. A magic attack is considered a finisher.

 

[Blackdrazon]

Back when Kingdom Hearts was fresh, I was about eight years old. You know how I played the game? Charging in recklessly. And you know what happened?

I beat it.
And I did the same thing every playthrough. I even did it on my Proud Mode playthrough in 1.5. With no trouble.
Hell, I beat Proud Riku 2 on my first try, despite him apparently being notoriously hard?
Kingdom Hearts is not even remotely as difficult as people make it out to be.

Based on an informal survey I've been running here, elsewhere and in real life. Kingdom Heart's difficulty is intrinsically tied to your character build. If you take Sword, the game seems to become easier. Most people who take Staff seem to run into a wall. If you take slow EXP gain, you will also increase the difficulty of the first half of the game dramatically (well yeah, that's the point), and if you take early EXP gain, you will make the game much easier; the trouble is that early KH1 is much harder thanks to the lack of Cure spells so taking slow EXP means a higher net raise of difficulty until you get it. In both cases, reversing the data seems to create a better post-game, but that's just my experience. I couldn't get enough data on Shield, because very few people seem to have taken it. I first played the game on staff minus sword, slow exp, and I was 18, and it was the hardest game in the series. The game has the balance of a top-heavy bookshelf, ready to fall over at a moment's notice, and two choices at the start of the game will flip it upside down, and the EXP choice isn't even explained to the player in-game! If we can say anything, it's that KH1, 2 and even the weird difficulty curve of CoM prove that early 2000's Square wasn't very good at balancing an action game.

Moreover, you're being incredibly rude to call kuraudo's experiences incorrect just because their experiences were different than yours. Why does your experience trump theirs? In fact, you're not just calling out them, you're calling out who groups of people, everyone that dares to call a game harder than you think it is. Difficulty is subjective. If someone was in your exact same shoes and had a harder experience, then they had a harder experience! If they were in different shoes and had a harder experience, then they still had a harder experience, and you need to acknowledge that instead of trying to silence it. Difficulty is subjective, different people are going to experience it differently. If you don't like Kingdom Hearts 1 because you found it easy, that's fine, say that, but what you seem to be doing is holding up your experience of the game as proof that it's easy and so how dare other people call KH2 easy. That's not how difficulty works. That's not how discussion works. You're trying to silence other people's opinions on KH2's difficulty by silencing their opinions of KH1's difficulty, and you're doing it by pretending your impression of KH1's difficulty is the only objective truth. This is a disaster to watch.

So you beat Riku in one go. Fantastic for you. Why are you rubbing it in everyone else's faces? Are you calling them liars? Shaming their credentials as gamers? To what end? You're not providing objective evidence to the game's difficulty, you're describing your experience and demanding it be taken as law. You're being a jerk.

 

[Gram]

^ I'm gonna have to agree. You can't hold your own issues as absolute evidence over something it's rude and kills discussion.
KH1's difficulty varies from person to person but also by Sora's level.
(like for instance if you ran around a lot as a kid like I'm sure many of us have when playing kh1 for the first time you'd be over leveled and any boss would be easy)

Also srsly dude 1.5? You can't use that as a comparison. As you are now of course it'd be easy, 1.5 is over 10yrs after the original kh1. Hell after so many years and playthroughs of kh1 I found 1.5 so easy it was pitiful but that's natural after practicing that game and it's system for a decade.
It's not actual evidence to difficulty just a show of how much you've also practiced KH1 and using it as absolute evidence when it isn't.

Not that this is something you alone do, we all grade and compare the games based on personal experience but your holding yours above everyone elses which just doesn't work.

Like for example I have an issue with magic and drives in kh2 and while I find it a draw back I dont call it an outright flaw because I can (and do) fix my problem by simply not using them.
Like you not liking how Sora hits in kh1 I'm not fond of it, it's a drawback to me, but not something that's a flaw in either games gameplay that you can compare as an absolute.
They're just flaws to us alone.

Things like camera control, audio, writing, graphics. Those are things that'd be universal for everyone and actual flaws everything else is subjective and while we all may argue them it's not right to just assume your view is absolute and try to silence another because they disagree.
There's just no point in discussing if one's gonna be like that.

 

[The_Echo]

snip

snip

Whoa jeez, I didn't intend to set the world on fire here.

I guess I came off more antagonistic than I meant to be.

The way he described KH1's difficulty, to me anyway, sounded like he was trying to state facts... which I didn't find accurate. Y'know? "You have to think about where/how you're going to attack," leans more towards a tip for Dark Souls or Devil May Cry than it does for Kingdom Hearts, and doesn't quite strike me as describing how he played the game.

Like, if a dumb kid version of myself can just spam attack and be fine, y'know, that's not exactly a difficult game. It's more difficulty than KHII, but... not by much. I never said that's how you should play the game, but it is how I played it, which led me to believe it was an easy game.

I didn't intend to lord over anyone as if I'm some god among gamers. Because I'm definitely not.

And as you pointed out, the difficulty does to an extent depend on player level, equipment and the early-game choices. So... is there even a way to say "this is how you play Kingdom Hearts?" I'm not so sure.

Difficulty is subjective, but only to a certain point. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to say "KHII is easier than KH1" or even compare difficulty settings. And the design of KH isn't really the design of a difficult game.

 

[Gram]

Like, if a dumb kid version of myself can just spam attack and be fine, y'know, that's not exactly a difficult game. It's more difficulty than KHII, but... not by much. I never said that's how you should play the game, but it is how I played it, which led me to believe it was an easy game.

That's just your personal experience though man. As kuraudo shows it wasn't that easy for everyone so you stating it wasn't difficult at all is being rude to him because your viewing your own experience as superior to his own.

KH1, to me, was difficult in places the first time. (but not everywhere) However by my second playthrough I could breeze past it fine. That doesn't make it an easy game by default for everyone just a game that I have gotten good enough at to win easily in.

And as you pointed out, the difficulty does to an extent depend on player level, equipment and the early-game choices. So... is there even a way to say "this is how you play Kingdom Hearts?" I'm not so sure.

Difficulty is subjective, but only to a certain point. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to say "KHII is easier than KH1" or even compare difficulty settings. And the design of KH isn't really the design of a difficult game.

No there isn't no defined way to say "this is how you play kingdom hearts!". That's why everyone's view on it is either, or should be taken as, "how I play kingdom hearts".

Your wrong it is entirely subjective. We can only call KH2 easier than KH1 because there are so many here that view it that way. It's a shared opinion to us but it's not true for everyone.
As I said I've actually meet people that had trouble with KH2.
The design for any KH isn't made to be difficult so your statement doesn't really mean much. Sure it has varying levels for those that wnat more of a challenge but none of the games are made to be difficult as fuck.

 

[The_Echo]

That's why everyone's view on it is either, or should be taken as, "how I play kingdom hearts".

Well I guess that didn't process to me when I read his post and the way he phrased it.
Which y'know I don't think is entirely out of left field or anything.

Your wrong it is entirely subjective.

Ehhhhhhhhhh.

There is nothing, literally nothing that every single person on Earth agrees about. Literally nothing. But the exception doesn't make the rule. Most people consider E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial a terrible game. Most people consider Devil May Cry 3 a hard game. So E.T. is a bad game. DMC3 is a hard game. There are people who disagree, but that doesn't completely nullify it.

There is a degree of objectivity in all things.

 

[Gram]

Well I guess that didn't process to me when I read his post and the way he phrased it.

There is a degree of objectivity in all things.

The same could be said of your posts and at one point or another everyones.

No because what is "objective" is determined by a majority with the same opinion not everyones as a whole so your statement is only proving my own point not your own.

 

[The_Echo]

No because what is "objective" is determined by a majority with the same opinion not everyones as a whole so your statement is only proving my own point not your own.

But that's exactly what I said. I even used examples.

Is your "point" just to tell me I'm wrong at every turn? 'Cause it's starting to look like it.

 

[Gram]

No what I'm pointing put is that "objectivity" is just subjectivity on a larger scale meaning nothing is completely or always has a level of "objectivity" in it.
If thats the same point you was making then my bad I miss interrupted, theres no need to get annoyed.

You can take it as you will though cause we're killing this thread with this topic and its best to just stop.
At least I'm stopping we've both spiraled this into petty stuff and Going any further would be foolish.

Also your bit about proving someone wrong at every turn...well now you just know how your own posts to korubo would've felt.

 

[Antar]

I played and passed KH2 a lot of times and that was when I was much younger than I am now. So what I'm planning is to start off with a proud mode run when I get KH2.5. Thanks to this thread, though, I'm kind of nervous of all of the issues I might spot...
:/

 

[ajmrowland]

Personally, as one who has followed the series from the beginning.

KH1 has better difficulty. But KH2s battle system is better in design and potential. KH2 Final Mix recognizes this and tries to improve in this regard with new Critical Mode and optional bosses.

KH2 is bigger, but emptier with less exploration. Final Mix once again tries to fix this by including a puzzle collection meta-game, and platforming dungeon.

KH1 has better writing and plot structure. KH2 doesn't, despite it's own prologue and the Organization.

KH1 is darker. KH2 is lighter. Neither inherently good or bad, but 2 has less atmosphere.

The he keyblades place in the story was better in 1

Yeah, KH1 is better than KH2, but KH2FM inches past KH1 in this race.

KH2 was a victim of time constraints and a product of its time, shonon action series being very popular then. It was planned to have lot of content and originally was intended two take up two disks, but a lot of stuff had to be dropped. That's why KH2FM has so many extra goodies, and to this day, is he beefiest FM title.


Basically, KH2 was just over ambitious.

this is the first I've heard of this.


And regarding the Disney worlds being filler: in KH1, not even all the Legion of Doom were that important, let alone some of the Disney worlds. But they were still better written.

Sealing the keyholes, when you think about it, is no less contrived than "opening the pathways" without the final keyhole making up much of the plot. The only other difference between the two is that "opening the pathways" takes a back seat and quickly becomes forgettable until whatever object floats up and reveals the giant keyhole shape on the ground. It's not as much of a goal. And for the first half of the game, Sora, Donald and Goofy don't really have a direction-it's just whatever world naturally becomes available to them or has something new worth seeing.

All in all, I still love it because I find half the fun is just spending time with characters I like in worlds I find interesting from a non-level design perspective.