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Kingdom Hearts Community Thread: Now everybody can be a Keyblade Wielder!

Famassu

Member
Playing through the Cavern of Remembrance makes me really wish the series had more consistent level design like that place. Sure, it's nothing amazing, but it's still very fun to go through imo. Some cool platforming challenges using your drive forms and just lots of stuff to do in general compared to most of the flat-ish and empty areas in the main game.
They have been trying to avoid KHII's super-linear & simple environments ever since KHII (Cavern of Remembrance itself is a kind of a band-aid done for the game's Final Mix because of all the criticism towards vanilla KHII's too straightforward level designs, so they decided to add something less so). Days has quite a lot of platforming where you need specific skills to reach certain (optional) areas. BBS has maybe a bit less so, but it's still an improvement over II. Dream Drop Distance actually has some pretty well designed levels for old school KH gameplay, which you might not notice if you just flowmotion your way through the levels.

III should be good considering the size & verticality of the stuff we've seen so far.
 
They have been trying to avoid KHII's super-linear & simple environments ever since KHII (Cavern of Remembrance itself is a kind of a band-aid done for the game's Final Mix because of all the criticism towards vanilla KHII's too straightforward level designs, so they decided to add something less so). Days has quite a lot of platforming where you need specific skills to reach certain (optional) areas. BBS has maybe a bit less so, but it's still an improvement over II. Dream Drop Distance actually has some pretty well designed levels for old school KH gameplay, which you might not notice if you just flowmotion your way through the levels.

I'm not even sure if BBS level design was better than II personally. As much as I love BBS, it had pretty small worlds/areas with not a lot of interesting platforming or mechanics going on (PSP limitations and all that I suppose). I still think CoR should be the type of stuff they should aim for in KH3.

---

Just beat KH2FM (via KH2.5 of course) on Critical mode. Did quite a bit of optional stuff, but I don't really have any plans to do all the mushrooms, finish the data battles I have left, or beat Terra. I told myself I would try to finally beat Terra once I played 2.5, but I really just don't want to put in the time/effort getting to the point where I can even begin. I attempted him a few times tonight after beating the game and nahhh, I just don't think I'll ever beat him, lol. I had enough fun just getting Sora some nice gear (Grand Ribbon, Ribbon x3, Full Bloom+s, Ultima Weapon, beating Sephiroth, etc etc). Maybe one day I'll go back for Terra.

Probably going to start BBSFM soon. Not sure what difficulty mode I want to play on, though. In the past, I have always done Proud because I've heard horror stories about Critical on BBS (about how it isn't fun like KH2FM), and unlocking the Secret Ending was pretty easy on Proud anyway (just getting all the reports and beating all 3 characters). Were there any good changes on the Final Mix version that would make Critical fun to play? If I did Proud, is it hard to unlock the Secret Episode with Aqua? I think I read I just have to get all the stickers for each character? That doesn't sound too hard.
 

sasuke_91

Member
I played BbS on Critical and it wasn't too hard. Always beat the final boss at around level 30.
You have to do the same things on Critical as in Proud to unlock the Secret Ending. Get all the reports and beat the story with every character.
 
I played BbS on Critical and it wasn't too hard. Always beat the final boss at around level 30.
You have to do the same things on Critical as in Proud to unlock the Secret Ending. Get all the reports and beat the story with every character.

That's good to hear about Critical. I just heard that since it halves your damage, the bosses can go on forever and it just isn't super fun. You didn't feel that way?

And the Secret Ending is easy to unlock, but doesn't the Secret playable Episode require something else?
 

Famassu

Member
I'm not even sure if BBS level design was better than II personally. As much as I love BBS, it had pretty small worlds/areas with not a lot of interesting platforming or mechanics going on (PSP limitations and all that I suppose). I still think CoR should be the type of stuff they should aim for in KH3.
You're right, the PSP's hardware probably set some limitations since they tried to reach almost PS2 level graphics. Still, the Lilo & Stitch's space ship world has the prison room where you have to navigate the moving platforms to get every treasure chest and rooms that play around with gravity, Sleeping Beauty's world that has that time restricted thing to get through the gate(s) & other rooms that require some platforming/trickery to reach areas, and IIRC the rest of the worlds have at least a room or two/three with some platforming & vertical differences that require you to put at least some effort in getting through the room to the exit(s) instead of just running & minimal jumping. Except the final world. The Keyblade Graveyard is fairly boring from a level design POV. BBS is not a huge improvement or a game changer over KHII, but I think it is a step closer to the style of the first Kingdom Hearts worlds, something they continued improving in DDD, even if the flowmotion system does make some of the platforming-focused aspects of the levels obsolete since you can just get past them all with the overly massive wall jump.

That's good to hear about Critical. I just heard that since it halves your damage, the bosses can go on forever and it just isn't super fun. You didn't feel that way?

And the Secret Ending is easy to unlock, but doesn't the Secret playable Episode require something else?
If you know how to meld yourself some powerful commands, the bosses aren't all that damage-sponge-ish in Critical. Something like Nier's hardest difficulty level is about a million times worse then BBS Critical even if you don't quite understand command melding.
 
It's been a while since I've played BBS, so maybe I'll think differently on the level design after having just played KH2. I do remember the Stitch world being pretty interesting especially though.

I was soooo addicted to Command Melding and would often create some really powerful spells/abilities early on in the game because I just had fun grinding and upgrading characters. If I play the same way I have in the past, maybe Critical mode won't be too boring/frustrating and would actually be fun with a decent challenge. One thing that annoys the fuck out of me with the KH series is you can't change the difficulty after starting the game. So if you get a bit into the game and decide you don't like a difficulty mode, you can't change it. I know the extra stuff is often tied to difficulty (like secret endings and all that), but they could easily just make the requirements reset to the lowest difficulty you used if you switch.
 

Famassu

Member
Just like other KH games, BBS Critial is at its hardest in the beginning when you don't have Cure, have somewhat lacking defensive skills and have very little munny to buy Potions, so you have to be more careful if you don't want to die in 5 seconds. Once you get Cure, the challenge is reduced quite significantly, though some bosses can still one-shot kill you if you are even a little underleveld & fail to dodge some of their super attacks and you don't have the skills preventing them. But yeah, that's nothing a level up or two and the right abilities from melding & leveling up the right commands won't fix.
 
Just like other KH games, BBS Critial is at its hardest in the beginning when you don't have Cure, have somewhat lacking defensive skills and have very little munny to buy Potions, so you have to be more careful if you don't want to die in 5 seconds. Once you get Cure, the challenge is reduced quite significantly, though some bosses can still one-shot kill you if you are even a little underleveld & fail to dodge some of their super attacks and you don't have the skills preventing them. But yeah, that's nothing a level up or two and the right abilities from melding & leveling up the right commands won't fix.

Good point. The KH games are definitely harder at the beginning due to lacking cure and good defensive options. Kind of dread the early parts of Aqua... She seems pretty weak compared to the others at first.

Hmm, to play as Terra or Ven first... I usually start with Terra just to get his campaign out of the way (he's my least favorite to play as personally), but I dunno... tempted to start with Ventus.

EDIT: And I think I read there was something special about Exp Zero in BBSFM? It makes bosses easier or something?
 
Just like other KH games, BBS Critial is at its hardest in the beginning when you don't have Cure, have somewhat lacking defensive skills and have very little munny to buy Potions, so you have to be more careful if you don't want to die in 5 seconds. Once you get Cure, the challenge is reduced quite significantly, though some bosses can still one-shot kill you if you are even a little underleveld & fail to dodge some of their super attacks and you don't have the skills preventing them. But yeah, that's nothing a level up or two and the right abilities from melding & leveling up the right commands won't fix.

To add on to this, one really great thing to do when starting out on Critical Mode is to make use of the D-Links. They're easy to level up, and I believe both Aqua and Ven's D-Links give you access to a Cure spell well before you can even get Cure. Activating a D-Link also restores you to full health, which is handy, too.

If nothing else, Birth by Sleep gives you tons of options to work with, which is pretty nice.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
All I remember of my fist BBS playthrough is getting stuck on the spinning wheel boss for 1 hour on critical because I had no idea what I was doing.
 
So I just managed to get that homebrew update that lets you overclock your (new) 3DS up and running. Overclocking it may or may not lead to performance updates depending on the game.

The first game I tried was Rayman 3D, because Rayman 2 is an awesome fucking platformer.

The second, more relevant game I went for was Dream Drop Distance, and so far... the framerate seems to be be locked to 30 with no dips. I ju now, even in 3Dst fought Xemnas, and I'm gonna head to Young Xehanort, since that fight in particular is a slideshow. But so far, so good. It actually makes the game a lot more bearable, and is probably a decent indicator of how the game will run on PS4.
 
holy fuck i can actually follow this young xehanort fight now

Edit: Okay, wow. Seeing some significant improvements here. Figured I'd use the final bosses as a litmus test since those fights have the most going on in terms of stuff on screen being throw at you and are the most prone to framerate drops. KH3D's bosses are way more enjoyable with a stable framerate.

Xemnas: The attack where he traps you in that laser fence cage and begins bombarding you with laser blasts reliably chugged on a regular 3DS. Post overoclocking, entirely smooth, the entire time through. Goes for the whole battle really, which is kind of surprising.

Young Xehanort: Having a stable framerate takes this fight from "kinda okay" to "whoa, this is actually pretty rad". Blocking and evading his attacks seem like less of a dice roll now. The icicle attack in particular doesn't even slow the game down to a crawl like it used to. Even when you're in the phase where he starts using his BBS superboss moveset, it remains pretty smooth, whereas it'd start chugging whenever more than one of him stayed onscreen beforehand.

Armored Nightmare Ventus: This goes for all of the above really, but there are some cool ass visual effects going on in these boss fights when it's not a damn slideshow, and it's really no different here. The little back and forth with the ball of darkness at the end is far easier to control now since things are running smoothly. Before, I always had to time my button presses a second early because I always got input lag at that part.

I'm half tempted to play through the game again with these improvements. The HD port probably isn't coming for a while, anyway.

Edit 2 because yes, this shit excites me: You know that big open circus area in Prankster's paradise? the one that runs like shit? Runs flawlessly now
 
Let's get bets going. What world will be announced next week?

I'll go crazy and say Star Wars. While I'm still 50/50 if they even have that world at all it would be perfect time to reveal it if they did. Perhaps the most likely one would be Frozen since it's the most popular one for a big Japanese Disney event (and hopefully KH3 has released before the next D23) but I have a theory from my ass. They have not shown any Disney characters outside of D+G and at E3 they even said they didn't want to show Rapunzel yet since they wanted her model to be perfect or whatever. Frozen I feel is extremely character driven for the filthy casual audience, thus I think they will not announce it until they have complete models/cutscenes for Elsa and Anna. I just feel it's a world they would not announce just showing some snowy mountain or concept art and calling it a day.

Frozen will be around TGS next year. LOCK IT IN.

Maybe this game was actually made for New 3DS and Square Enix were ahead of their time.
2.8 to be 60fps on Enhanced Playstation 4 confirmed.
 

Golnei

Member
Ariel finally managed to travel to another world (her KH-franchise-long dream) and you get more singing minigames.

Since they're foregrounding the 'attraction flow' mechanic, it'd make more sense for her to tag along for the entire game as a similar sort of bonus ability, which you can use to interrupt any battle with a musical interlude. In the interest of promoting gameplay flexibility, it's completely optional, except for being required to finish off every boss battle with a continuous 4-song set.
 

iosefe

Member
Then you should put in your own bet!

very well then.

in terms of disney, we have a reimagined Hercules world, and we have gained BH6 and Rapunzel. Frozen is almost a no brainer for next
they've only revealed Disney based world


then again, they could throw a swerve and give us Toy Story
 

zeemumu

Member
very well then.

in terms of disney, we have a reimagined Hercules world, and we have gained BH6 and Rapunzel. Frozen is almost a no brainer for next
they've only revealed Disney based world


then again, they could throw a swerve and give us Toy Story

We haven't gone to Treasure Planet or Atlantis yet, and those are some of the most action-heavy Disney movies ever. I think they're obvious picks for a world.

We also never got that fully-realized Jungle Book world

Still holding out hope for the non-Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion world. The mansion's big enough, there are plenty of interesting characters, we already have ghost-themed Heartless. It's perfect.

Atlantis. And BOOOOM everything explodes in awesomeness.

Not sure how it'd work as a KH world

Either have warrior Kida as your party member or no party member for that world, and have the Heartless spawn from Roarke and attempt to corrupt the Heart of Atlantis (that big glowing light with all of the stone faces) and that's the boss. Leviathan is the mid-world boss. Optional flying ship minigame. If you want, you can demote the Leviathan to a minigame and have Crystal Roarke be the boss on that balloon part from the movie. Then the Heart of Atlantis gets corrupted with darkness and sets off the volcano then flies back to Atlantis, and you have to fight it in a time limit to purify it so you can activate the stone statues to raise the shield before the lava hits.
 

zeemumu

Member
Less than a week until we find out, guys! LESS THAN A WEEK! Tuesday.

But it's Tuesday in Japan time, right? So it's Monday afternoon in SoCal time.

I wish that Kingdom Hearts had a heavier presence at D23 in Anaheim. I mean, I don't regret driving to Anaheim at like 5:30 in the morning to wait in the Anaheim Convention Center's basement for a few hours until the panel started because I really like this series, but I wish we would have gotten more. I did get that Disney Infinity King Mickey costume, though. I'm gonna have another Xion moment when I have to fight Heartless Baymax, though, and from the reaction that they got from the audience when they announced that part of the story, so will everyone else.


Does anyone think that a Wreck it Ralph world would hit too close to home? "Let's go into that Dissidia arcade booth!"
 
Less than a week until we find out, guys! LESS THAN A WEEK! Tuesday.

But it's Tuesday in Japan time, right? So it's Monday afternoon in SoCal time.

I wish that Kingdom Hearts had a heavier presence at D23 in Anaheim. I mean, I don't regret driving to Anaheim at like 5:30 in the morning to wait in the Anaheim Convention Center's basement for a few hours until the panel started because I really like this series, but I wish we would have gotten more. I did get that Disney Infinity King Mickey costume, though. I'm gonna have another Xion moment when I have to fight Heartless Baymax, though, and from the reaction that they got from the audience when they announced that part of the story, so will everyone else.


Does anyone think that a Wreck it Ralph world would hit too close to home? "Let's go into that Dissidia arcade booth!"
WIR world where you can play emulated FF6 and Maui Mallard. Lock it in.
 
Completed Terra's story on Critical on II.5. My previous playthroughs of BBS have been on Proud, and I must say, Critical was far easier than I thought it would be. To be fair, I made myself pretty OP early on by melding a ton of nice stuff, so I'm not too surprised, I suppose. The thing that sticks out the most to me after my playthrough of Terra is how fast the loading was compared to KHIIFM (on PS3) and especially the original BBS on PSP. Like dear god, both of those had such long loading times to me. BBS on II.5 loads things so quickly - loved it. And you can actually use the Dualshock 4 on it which is awesome.

After having played KH2FM and now BBS back to back, I have a question. Which battle system do you prefer? KH2FM or Command Deck (more specifically BBS with the Command Styles). I'm pretty torn myself. There's a lot to like about both. The movement of Sora in battle is probably the best in the series, but that game seemed more about just finding an opening for combos (which did look pretty nice) during bosses. With the Command Deck, you can customize your abilities a lot more and have some variety in how you go about fights. in KH2FM, I pretty much just had Reflect, Cure, Ether, and Thundaga as my shortcuts and rarely used anything else whereas in BBS, I was constantly equipping new things, leveling them up, melding new stuff and just having fun doing that (I know someone will probably reply that the only thing they did in BBS was spam the Mines lol). I know KH3 is going back to the KH2-ish battle system which I'm totally fine with, but part of me will miss the Command Deck's customization. Also, Command Styles were fun and far better than what DDD did with that. D-Links are kinda meh though, and I much prefer the Drive form system of KH2. Hope they bring those back.
 

sasuke_91

Member
@SoraanTribal: Why not have the best of both worlds? I could imagine having a battle system similar to KH2 and additional commands that you can choose for Special Attacks. BBS-style Finishers would also be cool :p
 

Seda

Member
I strongly prefer Birth By Sleep's combat to KH2's. Gives the player some actual agency over battle strategy.

KH2 leaned a little too much towards 'press X a bunch when there's an opening'.
 

StoneFox

Member
The Finishers system almost made me flat out hate battling in BBS; never liked how I could be doing an air combo and then all of a sudden fall straight down to the ground because the finisher was ground-based only. Unless I was missing something about how they worked, I would have preferred just unequipping them. Sora's combos were much more customizable and flowed better in II, and I hope III is much closer to that than BBS.

It was kinda fun to gain abilities through merging though.
 

silva1991

Member
BBS has the second best combat after KH2 imo.

it had the potential to be the best, but i just don't like the scrolling commands mechanic. also I hate the auto style mode as soon as the style meter is full.

I'm betting that we finally get a Fox and the Hound world revealed next week.

My real bet is a reveal of KH's first Pixar world

I don't see the potential in it did this movie even had a unique villain?

101 dalmatian on the other hand can easily has Cruella Devil as a great boss.maybe we fight her while she is driving like one of those car shadows in KH2 lol

cruella_deville_crazed_lg.jpg
 
I'm betting that we finally get a Fox and the Hound world revealed next week.

My real bet is a reveal of KH's first Pixar world

Too blankety bet, more specific!

That feel when fuckin NieR sequel releases before KH3.

I think KH2 combat is much better than BBS but BBS has the best ideas and would be a great concept to improve. DDD was such a missed opporturnity but since KH is like fuckin Sonic where they can't stick to one working idea what can ya do.
 

DKHF

Member
Let's get bets going. What world will be announced next week?

I'll bet Frozen will be announced. I think it would have been chosen immediately after seeing it's success in late 2013/early 2014 so they would have spent a lot of time working on it by November 2015. Whereas Big Hero 6 only came out 1 year ago (soon after they switched to UE4) so I can understand why they wouldn't be ready to show that world yet.

It being the 3rd highest grossing movie of all time in Japan and this (hopefully) being the last D23 Japan before KH3 is out makes it seem very likely.
 
I strongly prefer Birth By Sleep's combat to KH2's. Gives the player some actual agency over battle strategy.

KH2 leaned a little too much towards 'press X a bunch when there's an opening'.

Yeah, definitely agree about the KH2 battle system. I mean, it really shines during some of the harder encounters (Organization fights especially), but it still really did just amount to wait for an opening in the boss attack pattern, then spam X until time to Reflect/Block again. Bosses were still fun as hell imo, but yeah.

The Finishers system almost made me flat out hate battling in BBS; never liked how I could be doing an air combo and then all of a sudden fall straight down to the ground because the finisher was ground-based only. Unless I was missing something about how they worked, I would have preferred just unequipping them. Sora's combos were much more customizable and flowed better in II, and I hope III is much closer to that than BBS.

It was kinda fun to gain abilities through merging though.

I never really experienced any frustration with the Finishers system. If I knew I had a finisher lined up and ready to go, but there wasn't a good enemy to use it on, I'd use some commands in the deck until I saw an opening. I thought it added a bit more to the battle system besides spam X over and over.

----

Dat feeling when you get a rare meld in BBS... I was trying to meld something pretty weak to get an ability, but I got a rare meld and it gave me Ars Arcanum for Ventus. I'm on like the 3rd world too. <3

BBS has the second best combat after KH2 imo.

it had the potential to be the best, but i just don't like the scrolling commands mechanic. also I hate the auto style mode as soon as the style meter is full.

Personally, I feel like using a real controller (II.5 obviously) with the Dualshock4 makes the command scrolling very easy and fun. Using R2 and L2 would have made it far better on the PSP (if that had been possible of course).
 
One thing I wasn't a big fan in BBS and seems much improved in KH3 is that when using abilities/magic you are rooted in place. As a magic fan I always loved to use Wisdom Form for much more fluid use of magic. In KH3 trailer we can see magic doesn't stop you on your tracks.
 

Malyse

Member
As I'm sure many of you are aware, Yen Press has been licensing and releasing the Kingdom Hearts books and manga in English over the past few years. Amazon has a program where you can request a novel not available on Kindle to get a Kindle release. So, let's get the KH series on there.

Best part? I'll do all the hard work for you. All you have to do is click these links.

Kingdom Hearts: The Novel by Tomoco Kanemaki

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316260193?ie=UTF8&a=0316260193

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories The Novel by Tomoco Kanemaki

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316261734?ie=UTF8&a=0316261734

Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix by Shiro Amano

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316254207?ie=UTF8&a=0316254207

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316254215?ie=UTF8&a=0316254215

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories by Shiro Amano

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316255629?ie=UTF8&a=0316255629

Kingdom Hearts II by Shiro Amano

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316401145?ie=UTF8&a=0316401145

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316401153?ie=UTF8&a=0316401153

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316288799?ie=UTF8&a=0316288799

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days by Shiro Amano

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316401188?ie=UTF8&a=0316401188

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316401196?ie=UTF8&a=0316401196

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_031640120X?ie=UTF8&a=031640120X

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316286761?ie=UTF8&a=0316286761

http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ref=dtp_dp_su_0316336262?ie=UTF8&a=0316336262


Plus it should help get the other novels in English.
 

Lnds500

Member
As I'm sure many of you are aware, Yen Press has been licensing and releasing the Kingdom Hearts books and manga in English over the past few years. Amazon has a program where you can request a novel not available on Kindle to get a Kindle release. So, let's get the KH series on there.

Best part? I'll do all the hard work for you. All you have to do is click these links.




Plus it should help get the other novels in English.


Either your links only worked for your session or it's not available to all (??).

We're Sorry

An error occurred when we tried to process your request. Rest assured, we're working to resolve the problem as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Continue shopping on the Amazon.com home page or Shop in the Kindle Store
 
I'm a bit concerned they aren't going to have time during KH3 to cover all the plot stuff they need to tie up by the end. I mean, if it's going to be like most KH games where it starts off with relevant plot stuff, then the next 80% of the game is Disney filler, and then the last bit is back to being relevant plot stuff for the main story arc... I just dunno. They have so much to do. Find Aqua, wake Ventus, free Terra from Xehanort, decide if Roxas and/or Xion will be their own character outside of Sora, etc all the while stopping Xehanort from achieving his goals. It's a lot to do with I feel like very little time in the game (if they follow previous KH games and how they flow). I have nothing against the Disney worlds, but they are mostly just filler stuff that doesn't matter.
 
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