badcrumble
Member
Wait until you see the part where Master Erauqs reveals that he is the (Unversed) living incarnation of Kingdom Hearts.duckroll said:Right now, that is totally a possibility. I can even imagine such a cutscene.
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Official Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP) Import thread of Convoluted Nonsense
- Thread starter Bebpo
- Start date
Nihilistic Monk
Member
Bebpo said:Or ridiculous like this:
:lol Fantastic work OP. Had to stifle my laughs so my wife didn't think I was a nutter.
1) By the hair, sholderpad with screws and buster sword, I'm guessing that's some Evil version of Cloud Strife?
2) Since when does wrapping your sword in bandages make for a more effective cutting weapon? :lol
Pureauthor
Member
Nihilistic Monk said:
Nope, just ordinary Cloud Strife. And I'm pretty sure he had the shoulderpad all the way back from FFVII.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Nihilistic Monk said:
Since Bleach that's when.
See, Cloud and Square-Enix are totally ripping off Ichigo and Tite Kubo.
Nihilistic Monk
Member
Desi said:
That's correct, I assumed it was just a re-design to make a different version of cloud.
I really should get into Kingdom Hearts, but i'm not sure if I'm just too behind at this point to pick up the storyline.
badcrumble
Member
That's just because a lot of Kingdom Hearts is bullshit :lolduckroll said:
Pureauthor
Member
Nihilistic Monk said:
Yeah, I misread. Sorry about that.
And seriously, don't worry about the storyline. It's not worth worrying about.
duckroll said:
Besides you and Bebpo, that's a fair assessment. I can't say I blame Sony these days (and let's not kid ourselves; a significant number would pirate the game anyway), but it's depressing that the CFW scene has been always a step behind these days. But it is nice to hear that BBS is definitely a better game than a lot of the recent KH entries.
You know what I'm wondering why playing BbS most of the time? Where the fuck were all the people involved in designing the various awesome skill and ability systems in BbS, and the awesome minigames, when S-E was making FFXIII? :lol
The Command Charge fusion system alone is already so much more awesome than the weapon upgrade "system" in FFXIII. :/
The Command Charge fusion system alone is already so much more awesome than the weapon upgrade "system" in FFXIII. :/
Riskbreaker23
Member
duckroll said:
hopefully SE might use those ideas for vsXIII
badcrumble
Member
duckroll said:
This is pretty depressing to hear, but the greater emphasis on fun is one reason I'm actually starting to like Kingdom Hearts more than Final Fantasy these days.
BlazingDarkness
Member
:lol oh dearduckroll said:
How do the graphics hold up? Looked pretty great from what i could tell in the stream
badcrumble said:
This is pretty depressing to hear, but the greater emphasis on fun is one reason I'm actually starting to like Kingdom Hearts more than Final Fantasy these days.
I don't think it's very depressing, since I'm done with FFXIII and I definitely enjoyed it for what it was, and now I'm playing KH BbS, and it's even better than I expected! More good games is good for me! :lol
BlazingDarkness said:
Think Dissidia cutscene quality animation and models, with better environments and the awesome cartoon style art that KH has..... all the time. :lol
BlazingDarkness
Member
Best looking PSP game then, gotchaduckroll said:
Man, time really flies! Over 10 hours clocked already, and I'm still not done with Terra. The Command Board takes up A LOT of time though, and I've been playing it a ton. I've unlocked all the 6 different boards now, and it's sooooo awesome.
If they took the Command Board segment of the game and just released it on PSN/XBLA/iphone, I bet they would make a ton of extra sales. It's really that good! Totally replayable and just tons of fun. I think my Terra is a little overpowered though, because I'm not having any difficulty with bosses anymore. :lol
Spent an hour or so in Disney Town today too. The minigames are pretty fun, and I'm really pretty amazed at how flexible the engine in the game is for doing different activities. It's definitely a lot like KH2 in that aspect, and it's really nice to see an action RPG with a good mix of different sort of activities.
If they took the Command Board segment of the game and just released it on PSN/XBLA/iphone, I bet they would make a ton of extra sales. It's really that good! Totally replayable and just tons of fun. I think my Terra is a little overpowered though, because I'm not having any difficulty with bosses anymore. :lol
Spent an hour or so in Disney Town today too. The minigames are pretty fun, and I'm really pretty amazed at how flexible the engine in the game is for doing different activities. It's definitely a lot like KH2 in that aspect, and it's really nice to see an action RPG with a good mix of different sort of activities.
badcrumble
Member
Can you just play the Command Board as much as you want and simply keep powering up that way?
badcrumble said:
Yes, but it's not an end all solution to "powering up" so to speak. You don't gain any actual exp with Command Board, you are only leveling up your skills, which ultimately doesn't mean that much. I'll try to explain.
In BbS, all abilities are treated as individual items of sorts. So say you have 2 lvl1 Fire abilities. If you equip one on your Command Deck and fight battles, it gains CP from each enemy defeated, and can go up 3 levels before it is mastered. But ultimately this doesn't mean much. It's still a Fire spell, and a lvl3 mastered Fire spell would be stronger than a lvl1 Fire spell, but it's still not a Firera or Firega spell.
But, it gets more interesting when you look at it in context of the rest of the gameplay systems. The game has a Command Charge system where you basically fuse 2 abilities and optionally add in a booster item into the fuse to end up with a new ability. It's similar to Crisis Core's material fusion, but much more refined. The booster items are a completely separate sort of item, not random items you can put in like Potion, etc.
What the booster items do is add an auto ability modifier on the resulting ability. Examples: Thunder Guard, Fire Guard, HP Up, Libra, Command Finish Up, etc. When you have the ability with the modifier equipped, that auto command is active. But here's the kicker: when you master this particular ability at the max level, your character will learn the auto ability for good.
So to go back to the Command Board: it is not going to break the game if you sit in once place playing it over and over, because ultimately you will max out all your abilities and maybe gain a few new ones, but it won't make your character stronger or anything. What is effective is when you combine Command Board sessions with lots of Command Charge fusion experiments. You can max out abilities fast with Command Board, then fuse them to make more new skills with more auto abilities, then you can play more Command Board and max those out, learning the auto abilities without ever using those abilities in combat if you don't want to.
Basically, Command Board = replacement for grinding CP. It is more fun, and it doesn't require you to equip crappy spells and attacks when you get lvl1 ones, and fight pointless battles just to level them up to fuse. It's a great system that compliments the rest of the game really well.
Bel Marduk
Banned
So have they really fixed the magic issue? Meaning, is magic actually useful besides Heal now and using it regularly is actually effective?
From what I've heard 358's magic is good (haven't played it yet, will soon) but does this game take things to another level?
From what I've heard 358's magic is good (haven't played it yet, will soon) but does this game take things to another level?
Bel Marduk said:
Don't know for certain, I will find out when I play as Aqua.
Terra isn't much of a magic user. He isn't a range character, his general attacks and finishers are much more up close and combo + guard/counter based. It feels more like DMC than KH. From the bits of Ventus and Aqua I played in the prologue, Ventus definitely plays more like Sora/Roxas, and Aqua is the core magic user.
The most magic I've ever used in combat is probably when I use Aqua's D-Link in battles. Based on that, and based on some command deck set ups I have used (rarely, but sometimes I like to try different things to keep it different) magic definitely has good combat potential in the game. If you set up the order of attacks right you can have some pretty great combos.
Like if you use Magnet to suck all enemies into the air, and the next command is an Air based attack, or Aero, or Thunder, you basically force enemies into a central location and then do an AOE attack on all of them. Since there's no MP, what's more important is the order of attacks you set up on the deck so you can optimize a single string of abilities before going back to using regular attacks while waiting for the attacks to recharge.
badcrumble
Member
That sounds complicated but really fun (and learning the auto-abilities permanently without any sort of cost for equipping them sounds excellent).duckroll said:Yes, but it's not an end all solution to "powering up" so to speak. You don't gain any actual exp with Command Board, you are only leveling up your skills, which ultimately doesn't mean that much. I'll try to explain.
In BbS, all abilities are treated as individual items of sorts. So say you have 2 lvl1 Fire abilities. If you equip one on your Command Deck and fight battles, it gains CP from each enemy defeated, and can go up 3 levels before it is mastered. But ultimately this doesn't mean much. It's still a Fire spell, and a lvl3 mastered Fire spell would be stronger than a lvl1 Fire spell, but it's still not a Firera or Firega spell.
But, it gets more interesting when you look at it in context of the rest of the gameplay systems. The game has a Command Charge system where you basically fuse 2 abilities and optionally add in a booster item into the fuse to end up with a new ability. It's similar to Crisis Core's material fusion, but much more refined. The booster items are a completely separate sort of item, not random items you can put in like Potion, etc.
What the booster items do is add an auto ability modifier on the resulting ability. Examples: Thunder Guard, Fire Guard, HP Up, Libra, Command Finish Up, etc. When you have the ability with the modifier equipped, that auto command is active. But here's the kicker: when you master this particular ability at the max level, your character will learn the auto ability for good.
So to go back to the Command Board: it is not going to break the game if you sit in once place playing it over and over, because ultimately you will max out all your abilities and maybe gain a few new ones, but it won't make your character stronger or anything. What is effective is when you combine Command Board sessions with lots of Command Charge fusion experiments. You can max out abilities fast with Command Board, then fuse them to make more new skills with more auto abilities, then you can play more Command Board and max those out, learning the auto abilities without ever using those abilities in combat if you don't want to.
Basically, Command Board = replacement for grinding CP. It is more fun, and it doesn't require you to equip crappy spells and attacks when you get lvl1 ones, and fight pointless battles just to level them up to fuse. It's a great system that compliments the rest of the game really well.
Given the more complex ability systems found in 358/2 Days, Chain of Memories, and Birth By Sleep, I'm hoping KH3 doesn't go back to plain old AP costs like KH1/2.
badcrumble said:
Yes, I totally agree. Given what Nomura has showcased in TWEWY and the various non-numbered KH games, I think he definitely has a flair for directing/producing games with very interesting action based gameplay systems. Crisis Core and Dissidia also exhibit such properties. Versus XIII and KH3 will carry very high hopes, and Nomura better not disappoint. I'm very interested in see what he'll bring to the table with The Third Birthday and Agito XIII too, as well as his unannounced titles.
badcrumble
Member
Wait, he's not directing Third Birthday or Agito, is he? And I don't think he directed Crisis Core or Dissidia either.duckroll said:
edit: my bad, he's one of the designers for Third Birthday
Now that you mention it, I'll be quite curious to see what sort of ability system FF Versus XIII uses. After the fairly involved stuff in FFX, FFX-2, FFXII, and FFXIII, and especially after the non-numbered KH games we mentioned and TWEWY, I'm sure it'll be more than simple AP costs. Hopefully it'll be as stylish as the rest of the game is looking. But that's for another thread.
BBS's Command Board easily sets the bar for production values when it comes to the ability system in the KH series (or FF for that matter - it's both a prettier minigame than Blitzball and a more involved and complex system than Crystarium, grahically pretty as Crystarium may be), so KH3 ought to have something similarly impressive, I would hope. The fact that it's also FUN and not just something to tinker with is great as well.
badcrumble said:
He's the Creative Producer for TWEWY, Dissidia, Crisis Core and The Third Birthday. I'm not entire sure if he's also creative producer on Agito XIII, but he's more involved in that than with say, FFXIII itself, because it's by the Crisis Core team which he worked closely with. Crisis Core, The Third Birthday and Agito XIII are all directed by Tabata, who's another rising star at S-E.
YuriLowell
Member
How does this game not support CFW?
Is this the beginning of the end for psp piracy?
Is this the beginning of the end for psp piracy?
SecretBonusPoint
Banned
Gameplay is sounding super sexy, thanks for impressions duckroll.
badcrumble
Member
Could have something to do with its ability to mess with the 333/222 MHz thing, but is likely well-done security. And yeah, this could seriously blunt PSP piracy in a great way, I'm hoping. I need to get in all of my goofy CWCheat-driven game runs before BBS comes out in North AmericaYuriLowell said:How does this game not support CFW?
Is this the beginning of the end for psp piracy?
It's also going to kneecap the corpse of the PSPGo, as if it needed the damage.
Dead Prince
Banned
compared to the other KH games. how is the difficulty? no button mashing like KH2?
DMPrince said:
I feel that on average (regular enemy waves) it is either the same level or easier than KH2 (I'm playing on Standard, not Proud). Bosses can be tough. The balance feels completely different from KH2 though. KH2 was actually pretty grindy at times, where enemies and bosses have TONS of health and your only strategy was to just keep mashing away and using a potion or elixir when required.
In BbS, it seems to be balanced more like an action game. Some encounters and bosses can and will kill you if you're not careful, but they will kill you relatively fast, in the same way, if you don't die the battle itself shouldn't take too long to win, as long as you.. don't die. One reason why the dynamic feels different to me is that for example, I never equip potions on my Command Deck. It takes up a slot, and I'll rather do with more attacks instead. I have Curera on the Deck right now, and in battles that's my only healing option.
The solution therefore is simply not to take damage, or if I do, to kill enemies fast enough to regain health via health drops. For boss battles, I generally have to be more evasive and take offensive risks when I can do maximize damage and win, since if the battle draws on and I lose concentration, if I take too much damage I can't keep healing all the time.
Overall the game is probably definitely easier than KH2, if only because you're given so many more combat options to learn and exploit.
YuriLowell
Member
badcrumble said:Could have something to do with its ability to mess with the 333/222 MHz thing, but is likely well-done security. And yeah, this could seriously blunt PSP piracy in a great way, I'm hoping. I need to get in all of my goofy CWCheat-driven game runs before BBS comes out in North America
It's also going to kneecap the corpse of the PSPGo, as if it needed the damage.
Wait also no digital version?
:lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol PSP GO.
HamPster PamPster
Member
duckroll said:
So how does eveything work between characters? Say for some reason I spend 100 hours maxing out character 1, when I get to character 2 will I have to do everything over again or does some stuff carry over? (like does the different command boards you unlock carry over at least or are the boards character specific?)
I mean on one hand if stuff carries over it could make character 2's stuff too easy but on the other hand if nothing carries over it might suck going from maxed out optional boss beating badass character back to level 1.
Can you switch between stories? Do act 1 for each character then do act 2 for each etc... (or however the story may be broken out)
Die Squirrel Die
Member
duckroll said:
That sounds like the direction I've hoped more ARPGs would take, less about digging in against a large health bar and more about kill or be killed situations.
HamPster PamPster said:
I don't think anything is carried over. The game maintains a single "system save", which is separate from your game saves. There's no way to change characters mid-way, but you can start a new game and select to play as a different character, and keep multiple con-current saves I suppose. Doesn't seem like a good idea to me though, it would be confusing and weird.
I'm pretty sure nothing carries over between the characters aside from maybe the Reports which keeps track of stats, characters/worlds/enemies/items/etc you've encountered, etc. It would make no sense for anything to carry over, because it's a different character and a different scenario entirely. It's not like the play the same game with different characters, but rather it's a multi-angle scenario, and each character has their own self-contained complete campaign. Of course they'll visit the same worlds, etc, but the story and even stages will be different because each character does not see the complete parts of each world.
badcrumble
Member
Forgot to mention, duckroll - how closely does the game follow the original Disney storyline for each world? It's looked to me like it's much more of a departure this time than in KH1 and KH2, which is great, but I'd like to confirm that.
badcrumble said:
I don't think that's true at all, but the way the narrative is approached is certainly different from KH and KH2.
In KH, you follow Sora and friends as they travel from world to world, and experience the entire story of that world.
In KH2 they tried to break it up a little by giving each world 2 parts, so you only get the climax when you revisit the world again in the second half of the game.
In KH BbS, because there are 3 different characters, they each visit the worlds on their own and participate in a different part of that world's story. So when you play through as one character, you won't get the complete story of the world, but instead a part of it. It might not even be the beginning or the end, but something in the middle. But what you participate in is definitely as faithful to the original story as it is in KH and KH2.
Some early world spoilers if you're interested:
When you visit Enchanted Dominion as Terra, everyone is already asleep in the kingdom, and you only get to go into the castle and visit Aurora's room and everything Terra "learns" about the world is from Maleficent. There is no conclusion of the story or much set up either, it's just Terra visiting at a particular point of time.
On the other hand, when you visit Castle of Dreams, Terra walks in on Cinderella crying because her dress is ruined. Then the fairy godmother appears and gives her the carriage and dress. You then follow her to the castle ball, and protect her against the Unversed enemies, and so on. It's a pivotal point of the story, but again this time you don't get the set up of the villains, nor do you get the happy ending. You just help Cinderella out at a key point of her story.
On the other hand, when you visit Castle of Dreams, Terra walks in on Cinderella crying because her dress is ruined. Then the fairy godmother appears and gives her the carriage and dress. You then follow her to the castle ball, and protect her against the Unversed enemies, and so on. It's a pivotal point of the story, but again this time you don't get the set up of the villains, nor do you get the happy ending. You just help Cinderella out at a key point of her story.
Hope that helps explain stuff.
badcrumble
Member
That does, thanks. Interesting. So it's about the same as KH1/2 except that you have three characters woven into it at different points instead of one character most of the way through.
One thing I have not had the chance to try out yet, but am impressed by, is how extensive the ad-hoc multiplayer content in the game is.
There's Versus Arena (deathmatch/team deathmatch) which supports up to 6 players, there's Arena mode which supports up to 3 players in co-op challenges, there's Command Board which supports up to 3 players, and there's Rumble Racing (racing minigame you unlock at Disney Town) which supports up to 6 players.
Not only can you play with friends, but there are also various forms of community functions like in Dissidia. When you play with other players, you can get the skill set of another player as a D-Link to use in single player as well. You can also customize the color of your armor in multiplayer, so everyone doesn't look exactly the same.
It's too bad the game doesn't support infrastructure directly though. Between Dissidia and BbS, Square Enix PSP games have really good multiplayer modes. They just need to actually invest in an online service so people don't have to use Ad-Hoc Party to play with each other. Come on Agito XIII! Don't fail us!!!
There's Versus Arena (deathmatch/team deathmatch) which supports up to 6 players, there's Arena mode which supports up to 3 players in co-op challenges, there's Command Board which supports up to 3 players, and there's Rumble Racing (racing minigame you unlock at Disney Town) which supports up to 6 players.
Not only can you play with friends, but there are also various forms of community functions like in Dissidia. When you play with other players, you can get the skill set of another player as a D-Link to use in single player as well. You can also customize the color of your armor in multiplayer, so everyone doesn't look exactly the same.
It's too bad the game doesn't support infrastructure directly though. Between Dissidia and BbS, Square Enix PSP games have really good multiplayer modes. They just need to actually invest in an online service so people don't have to use Ad-Hoc Party to play with each other. Come on Agito XIII! Don't fail us!!!
