Editorial ► Where Square Enix North America Went Wrong With Kingdom Hearts Unchained X

[kirabook]

Could you imagine if they made these many changes to any of the actual games? When you really think about it, this amount of actual gameplay changes makes no sense.

I can forgive a few translation errors or misunderstandings (like what is bound to happen with "guilt"), but changing how a game plays to this extent (not cosmetic like Xigbar's target) is just... I don't get it.

They purposely went out of their way to change the game. People can say it's not that bad or its an overreaction all they like, but if they made this many changes to any other normal KH game, I think complaining about it is justified. Heck, people spent years complaining that we never got the Final Mixes that had relevant plot information and extra gameplay.

It's just a mobile game, and at the end of the day if they give me enough reasons not to care anymore, then I won't. But I do like the game, and I just think they could make it so much more interesting in the NA servers if they stopped trying to swindle everyone.

 

[Coxdem]

It's just sad that every time I see how the Japanese version is I'm just thinking "I'd rather play that game and not the one we ended up with"

 

[Kounelli]

I was a little disappointed with this game. I played it a bit at first and then just handed it off to my sister because I did not have the patience to grind through all those levels to get to the story arcs. Now she is fed up with it and is so tired of the bad drop rates of good badges that she rarely plays it anymore (and she used to play it obsessively and then just give me the updates with what is going on). I think she just got into the 200+ levels and is stuck on the Cerberus boss fight. She explained to me that she keeps grinding for jewels so she can try to guilt more but so far no real luck, and even after I paid about $40 towards it for her b-day, she still didn't get much :/

I am no longer going to be spending money on this, and I think my sister is done with it as well.

 

[Taochan]

Money definitely doesn't go very far in the game. :c

 

[JR199913]

If you want to get far in this game you will either need a ton of money, or a ton of luck. Most of us have neither.

 

[VoidGear.]

If you want to get far in this game you will either need a ton of money, or a ton of luck. Most of us have neither.

Do you?
I'm curious as to where that starts. Sure I've got quite a few quests to go, but so far the game goes quite okay for me without being super lucky or spending any money.

 

[JR199913]

Do you?
I'm curious as to where that starts. Sure I've got quite a few quests to go, but so far the game goes quite okay for me without being super lucky or spending any money.

Well, depends on what you call far I guess. In Story Quest the hardest thing you will face are boss battles like Master Ava. And even for that people made strategies with farmable medals and friend medals. So I guess if you're going for the story, you're good.

And how far you now though?

 

[maryadavies]

To be honest, I haven't paid more than 5 bucks in this game and have still managed to clear all the missions so far, sometimes with continues (I don't know how long I can continue to do that tho on bosses).

Oh and Google Rewards credit doesn't count really. I don't think I have that good a luck either; I got Alice but no Namine (hopefully that'll change) and hopefully I can get some good medals. If Mickey and Brooms shows up soon, I'll be cheering. ^^

And just so everyone knows; going mostly for story here.

 

[VoidGear.]

Well, depends on what you call far I guess. In Story Quest the hardest thing you will face are boss battles like Master Ava. And even for that people made strategies with farmable medals and friend medals. So I guess if you're going for the story, you're good.

And how far you now though?

Ugh, good question. I passed quest 200 a good while ago, but my game won't load atm.

 

[JR199913]

To be honest, I haven't paid more than 5 bucks in this game and have still managed to clear all the missions so far, sometimes with continues (I don't know how long I can continue to do that tho on bosses).

Oh and Google Rewards credit doesn't count really. I don't think I have that good a luck either; I got Alice but no Namine (hopefully that'll change) and hopefully I can get some good medals. If Mickey and Brooms shows up soon, I'll be cheering. ^^

And just so everyone knows; going mostly for story here.

Welp, I'm trying not to use continues. And till this day I haven't yet.

Google... Rewards? That sounds interesting.

Ugh, good question. I passed quest 200 a good while ago, but my game won't load atm.

200, I guess you haven't faced a boss then. So... more glitches?

Welp... what's far? Completing all the Story Quests without continues, getting past the third Adamantine Ore challenge and get top 1000 rankings in the High Score Events/Coliseum, I think one could consider that far.

 

[Draxem]

gotta say I've made the transition to the japan version this week cause I was fuckin sick of the NA one, and there is no turning back at all. Unchained is the biggest rip off of a game I have ever played tbh, and if it wasn't a kingdom hearts game I wouldn't touch it at all.

 

[JR199913]

What's the difference between the medal deals in the JPN version and the NA/EU version?

 

[cchaos]

Thanks for sharing this, very informative.

 

[ShadowCoon]

What's the difference between the medal deals in the JPN version and the NA/EU version?

Most notably: their Super Rare premium medals (i.e. Sephiroth, Illustrated Terra, SP Axel, etc) come with three orbs, so you only need to pull two in order to roll guilt... or just pull one and toss three Mickey and Brooms on it. They also tend to get Cid 5s anytime you do a 10 medal draw, unless they're running a promotion for a different "gift with purchase" at the time.

Just as well, at least once per month for the past 4/5 months, Japan has put out 1500 and 900 jewel cost draws that contain epic medals exclusively, with at least one dot/orb towards guilt on each. For the sake of comparison: right now, we have the Organization XIII 1500 draw that contains two guaranteed Org members and three other random medals. When Japan did this deal last month and previously in April or May, it was 1500 for five guaranteed Org members and all medals came with one orb. Just as well, in the draw for August, one of the medals was guaranteed to be Boosted. While it's not necessarily fair to compare our current deal to theirs from last month, but it's perfectly reasonable to compare it to the one from several months ago.

The status of NA wouldn't be so bad if the sales were jaw-dropping, but they're not... So it's a situation where you get an abundance of jewels in JP (11,400 every month) AND the deals are pretty amazing, while jewels in NA are scarce (3000 each month from login, no permanent jewel quest) and our deals are pretty sub-par.

This stingy philosophy needs to change soon because we're fast approaching the content where you NEED fairly strong medals in order to progress. I won't give story spoilers or anything like that, but there are bosses in 500-570 quest range that have upwards of 30 health bars and apply attack and defense buffs every turn. This isn't crazy in JP because you have access to a steady income of jewels to pull with, but in NA... I genuinely don't know what folks are going to do when we reach those quests. I'm hopeful that conditions will improve before we get there because those quests are going to be the jumping-off point for a lot of people otherwise.

 

[JR199913]

Most notably: their Super Rare premium medals (i.e. Sephiroth, Illustrated Terra, SP Axel, etc) come with three orbs, so you only need to pull two in order to roll guilt... or just pull one and toss three Mickey and Brooms on it. They also tend to get Cid 5s anytime you do a 10 medal draw, unless they're running a promotion for a different "gift with purchase" at the time.

Just as well, at least once per month for the past 4/5 months, Japan has put out 1500 and 900 jewel cost draws that contain epic medals exclusively, with at least one dot/orb towards guilt on each. For the sake of comparison: right now, we have the Organization XIII 1500 draw that contains two guaranteed Org members and three other random medals. When Japan did this deal last month and previously in April or May, it was 1500 for five guaranteed Org members and all medals came with one orb. Just as well, in the draw for August, one of the medals was guaranteed to be Boosted. While it's not necessarily fair to compare our current deal to theirs from last month, but it's perfectly reasonable to compare it to the one from several months ago.

The status of NA wouldn't be so bad if the sales were jaw-dropping, but they're not... So it's a situation where you get an abundance of jewels in JP (11,400 every month) AND the deals are pretty amazing, while jewels in NA are scarce (3000 each month from login, no permanent jewel quest) and our deals are pretty sub-par.

This stingy philosophy needs to change soon because we're fast approaching the content where you NEED fairly strong medals in order to progress. I won't give story spoilers or anything like that, but there are bosses in 500-570 quest range that have upwards of 30 health bars and apply attack and defense buffs every turn. This isn't crazy in JP because you have access to a steady income of jewels to pull with, but in NA... I genuinely don't know what folks are going to do when we reach those quests. I'm hopeful that conditions will improve before we get there because those quests are going to be the jumping-off point for a lot of people otherwise.

Ah, thank you. A very detailed answer, exactly what I was looking for.

 

[Decaboyz]

I loved this game as soon as I started playing it. But the treatment to F2P players is really harsh. Not all of them not willing to pay but some like myself doesn't has any mean to pay. No credit cards, unsupported mobile billing service etc. How long they need to take just to afford a single epic medal pull if this continues?