freeofgreed
Member
Back when Kingdom Hearts was first announced I was pissed off. I had a Gamecube 
but in all seriousness, seeing this game on TV and on G4 blew me away. Everything about it seemed perfect, no turn based combat (I was a fool back then) cool looking characters who visited Disney worlds, and the music omg. I used to run to the TV whenever I heard the theme to catch the commercials. But I was never able to play the games because they always came out on systems that I either didn't own or didn't have anymore so for over a decade I've been longing to play this series.
I got KH: 3D when it first came out but put off on playing it because I never played any of the prior games and wanted to before I delved in. I was this close to breaking and just buying a PS2 off Amazon when SE announce the 1.5 collection. I was ecstatic. Bought it day 1, but again, didn't want to play it until I had the 2.5 collection. A year later it was finally mine.
This past December I blew through both collections in less than a months time, I would've done DDD right afterwards but I wanted to play it on the new 3DS so I had to wait a month. As of yesterday I finally completed it and with that I have played through the entire franchise and I have to say it was every bit as amazing as my younger self thought it would be. This series has easily become one of my, if not my, favorite franchises of all time. It's so great the music, the art direction, the story (I may be in the minority in this one), the game play, everything is top notch. Here's how I'd rank the games I've played.
-Kingdom Hearts 2: This and the first game come really close and honestly which one I prefer most could change as I'm typing this but right now I'm giving it to 2. I just loved the sense of scale that the story had, I loved organization 13 and combat wise I definitely think this is the best KH game.
-Kingdom Hearts: This game easily has the best charm out of all the games. I liked how the main story was simplistic and Disney like in itself. this is also the only KH game where I feel like the Disney and SE elements were a 50/50 effort. In the later games the SE elements take over and the Disney worlds just feel like pit stops, but in this one they are tied more closely to the main plot. This game just has a certain magic that was lost with all the sequels.
-Dream Drop Distance: This game is such a great lead up to KH3. I love most of the new mechanics they introduced. Flowmotion was great and I loved using it to zip around the levels. I loved dropping and being able to experience the two stories concurrently. I never really found it annoying except the one time I dropped during the
. Reality shifting was pretty cool and a suitable replacement for reaction commands. Also SE did a really good job at making the worlds feel alive, more so than any of the other spin offs and on par with the main games. Now my biggest problem with this game are the dream eaters. I absolutely despised them. They never did shit in battle other than getting me killed trying to heal them (who thought this was a good idea?). Also I hated how all your skills were tied to them so you pretty much were forced to care for them. Also the fact that you had spirits means that there weren't any hardware limitations preventing regular partners. So SE intentionally chose to give you these shits instead of having Disney partners. I also hated how most boss fights were against them. The end bosses and the rare Disney ones were easily the best ones in the game.
-Birth By Sleep: This ranks pretty close with DDD. While KH2 has the best combat I think that BBS has the best battle system. I loved the command system of BBS and I think that command styles were superior to linking in DDD. My problems with this one were that playing through the same worlds got stale quick by the 3rd scenario especially since they weren't that interesting in the first place. Also out of all the KH games levels mattered the most here, which was annoying since I had to grind several times simply because I wasn't able to deal enough damage.
-Re:Chain of Memories: I loved the story in this one. It was such a cool lead up to KH2. It was cool being able to play as Riku and the boss fights were also really good. However that's about all the good things I have to say about this game. I hated the gameplay. Playing through shittier, lifeless versions of the KH1 worlds was torture. And even though I can appreciate it's depth the battle system was definitely not for me, and suffers from the same problem that Jupiter's other game TWEWY suffers from in that it's based on multitasking which makes it inherently flawed imo.
I haven't played re:code or 385/2 days. But from what I've been told that's probably a good thing. i did watch both of the movies and they were both shit, but I do give a slight edge to re:coded, just for the secret endings alone, and the fact that it was at least partially relevant to the main story. 385/2 days on the other was completely pointless, it adds absolutely nothing to the main story aside from needlessly complicating it, and nothing of note happens through out 80% of it aside from Roxas and Axel eating Ice cream. Both of these entries are completely skippable with no detriment to the main story.
So there you have, sorry for the wall of text but I've been wanting to write this for a while. What are your thoughts on the series and how would you rate its games?
but in all seriousness, seeing this game on TV and on G4 blew me away. Everything about it seemed perfect, no turn based combat (I was a fool back then) cool looking characters who visited Disney worlds, and the music omg. I used to run to the TV whenever I heard the theme to catch the commercials. But I was never able to play the games because they always came out on systems that I either didn't own or didn't have anymore so for over a decade I've been longing to play this series.I got KH: 3D when it first came out but put off on playing it because I never played any of the prior games and wanted to before I delved in. I was this close to breaking and just buying a PS2 off Amazon when SE announce the 1.5 collection. I was ecstatic. Bought it day 1, but again, didn't want to play it until I had the 2.5 collection. A year later it was finally mine.
This past December I blew through both collections in less than a months time, I would've done DDD right afterwards but I wanted to play it on the new 3DS so I had to wait a month. As of yesterday I finally completed it and with that I have played through the entire franchise and I have to say it was every bit as amazing as my younger self thought it would be. This series has easily become one of my, if not my, favorite franchises of all time. It's so great the music, the art direction, the story (I may be in the minority in this one), the game play, everything is top notch. Here's how I'd rank the games I've played.
-Kingdom Hearts 2: This and the first game come really close and honestly which one I prefer most could change as I'm typing this but right now I'm giving it to 2. I just loved the sense of scale that the story had, I loved organization 13 and combat wise I definitely think this is the best KH game.
-Kingdom Hearts: This game easily has the best charm out of all the games. I liked how the main story was simplistic and Disney like in itself. this is also the only KH game where I feel like the Disney and SE elements were a 50/50 effort. In the later games the SE elements take over and the Disney worlds just feel like pit stops, but in this one they are tied more closely to the main plot. This game just has a certain magic that was lost with all the sequels.
-Dream Drop Distance: This game is such a great lead up to KH3. I love most of the new mechanics they introduced. Flowmotion was great and I loved using it to zip around the levels. I loved dropping and being able to experience the two stories concurrently. I never really found it annoying except the one time I dropped during the
Xenmas fight (this one hurt)
-Birth By Sleep: This ranks pretty close with DDD. While KH2 has the best combat I think that BBS has the best battle system. I loved the command system of BBS and I think that command styles were superior to linking in DDD. My problems with this one were that playing through the same worlds got stale quick by the 3rd scenario especially since they weren't that interesting in the first place. Also out of all the KH games levels mattered the most here, which was annoying since I had to grind several times simply because I wasn't able to deal enough damage.
-Re:Chain of Memories: I loved the story in this one. It was such a cool lead up to KH2. It was cool being able to play as Riku and the boss fights were also really good. However that's about all the good things I have to say about this game. I hated the gameplay. Playing through shittier, lifeless versions of the KH1 worlds was torture. And even though I can appreciate it's depth the battle system was definitely not for me, and suffers from the same problem that Jupiter's other game TWEWY suffers from in that it's based on multitasking which makes it inherently flawed imo.
I haven't played re:code or 385/2 days. But from what I've been told that's probably a good thing. i did watch both of the movies and they were both shit, but I do give a slight edge to re:coded, just for the secret endings alone, and the fact that it was at least partially relevant to the main story. 385/2 days on the other was completely pointless, it adds absolutely nothing to the main story aside from needlessly complicating it, and nothing of note happens through out 80% of it aside from Roxas and Axel eating Ice cream. Both of these entries are completely skippable with no detriment to the main story.
So there you have, sorry for the wall of text but I've been wanting to write this for a while. What are your thoughts on the series and how would you rate its games?
