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[Caladrius]

Terra and the Mushrooms are down.

I'm not going to do a breakdown of the Mushrooms, but I will list what you need to clear all of their games (this is more of a quick reference post in case somebody inevitably asks about it once 2.5 comes out.) :

Maxed Wisdom Form
Maxed Master Form
Maxed Final form
Thundaga
Reflega
Fenrir
Negative combo
Finishing plus x2 or Finishing Plus and Rumbling Rose
Combo Master
Fatal Crest or Berserk charge

Mushroom number 8 is the only one that gave me any sizeable amount of grief. It feels like the game just decides to let him fly off randomly. The best advice I can give is to avoid using the X/O attack towards the end and use horizontal slash instead. If the mushroom flies off at the 60+ mark it's basically guaranteed to hit the ground, and the regular keyblade strikes are more likely to send it flying than the horizontal slash is.

Terra is hard for me to judge conclusively. Beating him this go-around only took me about 30-40 tries (The first time took over 100), I remembered a lot of the moves he used, so I had a good idea of how to counter most of them. When I won I realized he hadn't used two of his most deadly attacks: The command roulette bow and the Magic Seal. Both of them are indeed avoidable, but I have an extremely hard time actually nailing down the counters for them. The timing on the bow shots is really weird so I think I only ever managed to dodge all 4 shots once, and the telegraph for the seal moves is very fast.

If only Birth by Sleep could have gotten a proper FMV for its version of the Master Xehanort confrontation from the secret ending, the in-game version was comparatively underwhelming.

Hello everyone. Has anybody seen this?: http://www.ff-reunion.net/kh/2013/09/25/kh_correlation-chart

Is there a translation?

Alas, if only I knew. That chart is simultaneously sad and hilarious at the same time though.

 

[badcrumble]

Don't you only get more than one Finisher Plus on Critical difficulty anyway?

edit: forgot about Rumbling Rose, sorry.




I kind of wonder whether KH2FM or BBSFM will get any gameplay tweaks akin to the stuff altered in KH1FM for the HD Remix. I suspect any effort spent on such alterations will be to the Mirage Arena stuff in BBS, as I've talked about elsewhere, but it'd be a great treat to have something minor added to KH2FM like KH1 got Combo Master added in. But the only real ability I can think of that KH2FM doesn't have (IIRC) is the rather boring Exp Walker.

 

[Caladrius]

Don't you only get more than one Finisher Plus on Critical difficulty anyway?

edit: forgot about Rumbling Rose, sorry.

I kind of wonder whether KH2FM or BBSFM will get any gameplay tweaks akin to the stuff altered in KH1FM for the HD Remix. I suspect any effort spent on such alterations will be to the Mirage Arena stuff in BBS, as I've talked about elsewhere, but it'd be a great treat to have something minor added to KH2FM like KH1 got Combo Master added in. But the only real ability I can think of that KH2FM doesn't have (IIRC) is the rather boring Exp Walker.

I forgot about Rumbling Rose, actually. Mah bad. The last two times I played KH2FM were on critical so I forgot that some of the abilities were exclusive to that difficulty.

The only major abilities they added after KH2 that could really be applied to that game are the elemental resistance ones, and armor fills the exact same role. The ones they added to KH1FM (Leaf bracer, EXP 0 and combo master) were probably added to make sure low level Proud runs wouldn't be nearly impossible.

 

[badcrumble]

I forgot about Rumbling Rose, actually. Mah bad. The last two times I played KH2FM were on critical so I forgot that some of the abilities were exclusive to that difficulty.

The only major abilities they added after KH2 that could really be applied to that game are the elemental resistance ones, and armor fills the exact same role. The ones they added to KH1FM (Leaf bracer, EXP 0 and combo master) were probably added to make sure low level Proud runs wouldn't be nearly impossible.

Leaf Bracer was always in KH1FM, actually.

But yeah, I think the post-KH2 thing has been to seriously deprecate the importance of your equipment in general (it peaked in importance with KH2's focus on keyblades and accessories as vehicles for extra passive abilities). I'll be curious to see how KH3 ends up handling that, since it's by the Osaka KH team and not the Tokyo one.

 

[badcrumble]

Do BBS/DDD even have length/critical/stun/interrupt stats for keyblades anymore? I know BBS has length (from some of Terra's keyblades).

EDIT: all keyblades in 1/2/BBS/DDD have str, mag (in KH1 that's MP), length, and crit% stats.

KH1 adds interrupt and critical damage stats; KH2 adds critical damage and a special passive ability; BBS adds critical damage; and DDD adds reality shift stat (lol).

 

[Caladrius]

I know it's "The K-word" but I figured this would be worth posting.

http://kotaku.com/japanese-developers-on-the-ps4s-strengths-and-weakness-1507197536

"Looking at the PS4, I thought "they've gone too far." I wish they would just let us off the hook. For the player, having a game that's "thoroughly made" makes them excited with anticipation, but for a developer, it's a hurdle we have to overcome.

The number of things we have to do keeps increasing and if we keep trying to expand as far as it will go, we'll never be finished. I think we're going to end up being faced with the choice of what to keep and what to give up on [for Kingdom Hearts III].

I really felt the immense response to the Kingdom Hearts III announcement and so it's now my task to figure out how to satisfy all those people who are looking forward to it.

There have been a lot of different consoles in the past, but I feel that this one is the biggest mountain we've had to climb yet, in a good way."

I think this intimates that KH3 is likely to either have a long dev cycle or have Vanilla KH2-Tier optional content. Hrm.

Do we have any estimate of when development started? I know that they're still in pre-alpha but that would give us a better Idea of how far into that they might actually be.

 

[badcrumble]

I just hope they cut down on flashy set pieces before cutting down on fun-to-play content. But they're setting up Attraction Flow as a marquee feature, so I can't see that happening.

 

[WeaponKnight]

We'll get 3D all over again...

 

[Napalm_Frank]

We'll get 3D all over again...

I kinda do expect this to happen. I think KH3 will be fun but ultimately rushed title.

 

[Psxphile]

I kinda do expect this to happen. I think KH3 will be fun but ultimately rushed title.

Kingdom Hearts 3 Final Mix confirmed for Spring 2017. If at first you don't succeed...

 

[badcrumble]

I kinda do expect this to happen. I think KH3 will be fun but ultimately rushed title.

It happened to KH2 also, yeah. However, I fully expect $20 "Final Mix" DLC a year after release.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

It happened to KH2 also, yeah. However, I fully expect $20 "Final Mix" DLC a year after release.

Japan only DLC to ne a thing confirmed.

 

[SoraanTribal]

It happened to KH2 also, yeah. However, I fully expect $20 "Final Mix" DLC a year after release.

KH2 never really felt rushed to me. Unless you were just commenting on them adding a Final Mix later. KH2FM is a lot better than the original, though for sure.

I really do hope KH3 isn't rushed though as it's one of my most anticipated games. I'd rather them take the time. :/

 

[badcrumble]

KH2 never really felt rushed to me. Unless you were just commenting on them adding a Final Mix later. KH2FM is a lot better than the original, though for sure.

I really do hope KH3 isn't rushed though as it's one of my most anticipated games. I'd rather them take the time. :/

KH2 is rushed in the sense that it has basically no postgame content at all and no platforming or exploration to reward you for revisiting old worlds, all of which KH2FM fixed.

 

[SoraanTribal]

KH2 is rushed in the sense that it has basically no postgame content at all and no platforming or exploration to reward you for revisiting old worlds, all of which KH2FM fixed.

Ah okay, I see what you were saying. Original KH2 did have Sephiroth as postgame content, though! But yeah, Final Mix added a ton more - not denying that one bit. When I initially played KH2, it didn't feel like a rushed game at all. It was a lot bigger than the first game, and there was lots to do and see. It wasn't until I played the Final Mix version later that I found out about what all they added to the game.

 

[Caladrius]

There's also the underdrome but that's kind of like touting Chlorine Trifluoride as a usable fuel source.

Spoiler

The joke is that virtually anything it touches lights on fire.

 

[badcrumble]

There's also the underdrome but that's kind of like touting Chlorine Trifluoride as a usable fuel source.

Spoiler

The joke is that virtually anything it touches lights on fire.

The underdrome is so bad that I put it in the same category as "horrid skateboarding minigame you have to do for journal completion but which gives you absolutely zero rewards, not even an AP Up or like a Potion"

 

[badcrumble]

The best/biggest thing KH2 likely did was having you visit each Disney world *twice,* during the story, though. That honestly resulted in some pretty great stuff. I'd rather have that AND worlds that make better use of high jump, glide, et cetera upon second visit, but that was a cool addition to things.

Man, though, The World That Never Was is so incredibly boring compared to KH1's Hollow Bastion. RIP, best and biggest world in a Kingdom Hearts game ever.

 

[Meccanical]

I really didn't like having to go through the worlds twice but that was mainly because the level design was boring.

KH2 worlds were more like art asset galleries. And the assets were very good I will admit.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

I am getting worried about the news drought on 2.5. I was certain we would get a release date for Japan back in December when it was playable for the public but now we are approaching February! I have a feeling it might be a April/May release this time round. Just hopefully the western localization is around the same time too .

I hope next time the game appears we get a taste of the (supposedly) remastered KH2 tracks.

 

[badcrumble]

I am getting worried about the news drought on 2.5. I was certain we would get a release date for Japan back in December when it was playable for the public but now we are approaching February! I have a feeling it might be a April/May release this time round. Just hopefully the western localization is around the same time too .

I hope next time the game appears we get a taste of the (supposedly) remastered KH2 tracks.

I think there'll be plenty of 2.5 screenshots/trailers/news once Lightning Returns and FFX/X-2 HD come out in North America.

 

[SoraanTribal]

I am getting worried about the news drought on 2.5. I was certain we would get a release date for Japan back in December when it was playable for the public but now we are approaching February! I have a feeling it might be a April/May release this time round. Just hopefully the western localization is around the same time too .

I hope next time the game appears we get a taste of the (supposedly) remastered KH2 tracks.

Yeah, I admit I am a big concerned that 2.5 won't be released until late next year. Was hoping it would be a summer release at the latest, but they will have to voice new stuff, so localization probably won't be super fast. It took 1.5 a lot longer to release than I thought it would originally.

 

[Meccanical]

BAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[Seven Force]

I'll be curious to see how KH3 ends up handling that, since it's by the Osaka KH team and not the Tokyo one.

If Re:Coded is any indication (IIRC, Yasue had a pretty big hand in the battle & growth/stat mechanics for that game), it could turn out okay.

 

[SoraanTribal]

BAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Foreshadowing!

DDD spoilers:

Spoiler

Riku passes the exam, Sora fails... only one Keyblade Master!

Uh... if you don't include Aqua, Master Eraqus, Xehanort, Mickey, and so forth. Hmm, I'm not helping my case here, I guess.

 

[PixyJunket]

If Re:Coded is any indication (IIRC, Yasue had a pretty big hand in the battle & growth/stat mechanics for that game), it could turn out okay.

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA HOLD UP.

Am I reading this correctly, the brilliant man behind everything that made Re:Coded completely awesome is on the Kingdom Hearts III team?

 

[Seven Force]

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA HOLD UP.

Am I reading this correctly, the brilliant man behind everything that made Re:Coded completely awesome is on the Kingdom Hearts III team?

Yep. He's one one of the biggest reasons for the mechanics in the Osaka games being so great. (I'm going to assume KH3D was an anomaly)

 

[Caladrius]

The best/biggest thing KH2 likely did was having you visit each Disney world *twice,* during the story, though. That honestly resulted in some pretty great stuff. I'd rather have that AND worlds that make better use of high jump, glide, et cetera upon second visit, but that was a cool addition to things.

Man, though, The World That Never Was is so incredibly boring compared to KH1's Hollow Bastion. RIP, best and biggest world in a Kingdom Hearts game ever.

TWTNW was a tragedy because there is so much potential literally staring you in the face.

"Here's a giant-ass castle that has dozens of towers and immense hallways and chambers! Think of all the machinery used to keep this place afloat and all the chambers and the living area of all those people you killed to get here!

Now go in this straight line."

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA HOLD UP.

Am I reading this correctly, the brilliant man behind everything that made Re:Coded completely awesome is on the Kingdom Hearts III team?

The one thing I will never fault Re: coded for is the level up system. I'd love to see them have another go at a super-customizable system like that again.

...We're going to get the level up system from 1 and 2 aren't we?

 

[SoraanTribal]

Having never played Re: Coded, what is the leveling up system like? I enjoyed BBS's level up/ability system quite a bit. It was fun merging/combining various abilities/magic to create new stuff. Quite addicting. I didn't really care much for how DDD did it.

 

[Meccanical]

Remember how cool Deep Dive was?

I remember thinking it was the coolest shit ever as a kid.

 

[botty]

Exactly at what point in the series did Way To Dawn officially become a "key blade"?

Remember how cool Deep Dive was?

I remember thinking it was the coolest shit ever as a kid.

Great set up to the best character in the series

 

[Tabby]

Remember how cool Deep Dive was?

I remember thinking it was the coolest shit ever as a kid.

It still is the coolest shit ever.
I'm disappointed we didn't get to play as Dual Wield Roxas that much though, that was my favourite thing ever.

 

[Caladrius]

Having never played Re: Coded, what is the leveling up system like? I enjoyed BBS's level up/ability system quite a bit. It was fun merging/combining various abilities/magic to create new stuff. Quite addicting. I didn't really care much for how DDD did it.

Re: coded uses a system called the stat matrix, which works somewhat similarly to the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. There's a series of slots on a board that can be filled with chips collected throughout the game or through level up. Chips can be replaced with one another at will and can be affected by modifiers on the board, and there are awards for reaching certain parts of the board.(Such as abilities or difficulty modifiers)

Remember how cool Deep Dive was?

I remember thinking it was the coolest shit ever as a kid.

You're thinking of Another side, another story, but it was pretty solid either way.

"The Gathering" was my first secret ending, having played II first. It was mystifying.(Well, that may just be a result of the rest of the game being a bit confusing without any context but whatever.)

 

[botty]

The sheer scope of the birth by sleep secret ending is unparalleled. Which makes me wonder when are we getting a nice secret ending that shows us some of KH3...

 

[Seven Force]

Remember how cool Deep Dive was?

I remember thinking it was the coolest shit ever as a kid.

Looking back now, there's really no way any title could have lived up to how amazing that trailer was. Even considering it marked the shift in tone for the series post KH1, it's still fun as all hell to watch even today.

For my money though, Birth by Sleep is the more well put together of the CG secret endings. Some nice (and surprisingly straightforward) foreshadowing at the end, too.

Re: coded uses a system called the stat matrix, which works somewhat similarly to the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. There's a series of slots on a board that can be filled with chips collected throughout the game or through level up. Chips can be replaced with one another at will and can be affected by modifiers on the board, and there are awards for reaching certain parts of the board.(Such as abilities or difficulty modifiers)

Pretty much this. It's a decent mashup of the Sphere Grid and the Panel system from 358/2 Days, with a dash of TWEWY (Specifically being able to change the difficulty and your adjust your HP at will, in exchange for higher/better item drop rates)

It retains Birth by Sleep's Command Melding system, with the added bonus of actually being able to preview melded commands before permanently combining them, and each keyblade has an ability tree that activates passive abilities when the Overclock meter (Re:Coded's equivalent to BBS' Command Meter) fills up. It's the most useful and varied keyblades have ever been since KH1, honestly.

 

[WeaponKnight]

RE:coded is tied with Days for the best growth and customizatin system in the series. I'd be happy if we could get the Panel System or Stat Matrix in a console KH.

 

[PixyJunket]

Yep. He's one one of the biggest reasons for the mechanics in the Osaka games being so great.

Ah, so he's been on all of the Osaka games.

I was really more excited about potentially bringing more Re:Coded like mechanics to other games.

The one thing I will never fault Re: coded for is the level up system. I'd love to see them have another go at a super-customizable system like that again.

It's one of the reasons that I maintain that Re:Coded is the most purely fun Kingdom Hearts game.

Having never played Re: Coded, what is the leveling up system like?

Basically, you have a board game like area you place your level up pieces onto. Certain paths count as double (so a Level Up chip will give you two levels, or a Strength Up will give you +4 instead of +2, etc.). But beyond that, its biggest draw were the cheat engines, which all had The World Ends With You "risk vs. reward" style customization options. You could, for example, cut you HP in half to double the drop rate of items or something. That coupled with the variety of gameplay styles and the random dungeon areas really made Re:Coded a crazy awesome game to play if you didn't care about its complete lack of plot.

Remember how cool Deep Dive was?

Yup, and it still is.

It's really too bad that we got such awful anime characters under those awesome black coats tho. Ugh.

 

[sasuke_91]

Did You Know Gaming? - Kingdom Hearts

This is actually pretty cool. But there were some cool concepts being cut out of the game, which is kind of sad.

 

[Seven Force]

Did You Know Gaming? - Kingdom Hearts

This is actually pretty cool. But there were some cool concepts being cut out of the game, which is kind of sad.

Huh, I had forgotten about that unused Pleakley model in Birth by Sleep.

It's really interesting to read/hear about all of the cut content in the series, though. I didn't know until very recently that both Sephiroth and Tifa were both intended to be optional superbosses in the international & Final Mix versions of KH1, but because of time constraints, they only went with Sephiroth (Who was also intended to be in the original JP release of the game, but by the time development wrapped on that version, they had only had his character model done, so they shuffled that over to the localized version) Apparently, the rationale for having Tifa as a boss was because the dev team thought having a melee focused boss character would work well in a game focused more on melee combat than spellcasting, like in FF.

 

[SoraanTribal]

Re: coded uses a system called the stat matrix, which works somewhat similarly to the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. There's a series of slots on a board that can be filled with chips collected throughout the game or through level up. Chips can be replaced with one another at will and can be affected by modifiers on the board, and there are awards for reaching certain parts of the board.(Such as abilities or difficulty modifiers

Pretty much this. It's a decent mashup of the Sphere Grid and the Panel system from 358/2 Days, with a dash of TWEWY (Specifically being able to change the difficulty and your adjust your HP at will, in exchange for higher/better item drop rates)

It retains Birth by Sleep's Command Melding system, with the added bonus of actually being able to preview melded commands before permanently combining them, and each keyblade has an ability tree that activates passive abilities when the Overclock meter (Re:Coded's equivalent to BBS' Command Meter) fills up. It's the most useful and varied keyblades have ever been since KH1, honestly.

Basically, you have a board game like area you place your level up pieces onto. Certain paths count as double (so a Level Up chip will give you two levels, or a Strength Up will give you +4 instead of +2, etc.). But beyond that, its biggest draw were the cheat engines, which all had The World Ends With You "risk vs. reward" style customization options. You could, for example, cut you HP in half to double the drop rate of items or something. That coupled with the variety of gameplay styles and the random dungeon areas really made Re:Coded a crazy awesome game to play if you didn't care about its complete lack of plot.

Thanks everyone - that sounds pretty cool. I always avoided playing Re: Coded because I had heard it was such a terrible game (and I had sold my DS by the time it came out; I have a 3DS now though), but the gameplay itself sounds kinda fun. I know the story is pretty pointless (as I've researched what happens) minus the secret ending. Also, I love that the game has the Birth by Sleep Command Melding-ish stuff, too. Srsly loved that in BBS.

------

"Birth by Sleep" = the best secret ending in the series. At least from a "omg cooooool, wtf is thissssssssss?!?!?" factor. "ROXAS?!?! WHO ARE THESE OTHER PEOPLE OMGGGGGGG!!!!!!" xD

But I think my favorite secret ending might be the one in Birth by Sleep itself simply because of how long it is and how it actually pushes the story forward a little bit. Of course, it isn't nearly as memorable as the other CG scenes the series has done, so.. yeah.

I watched that Did You Know Gaming for KH last night, and it was pretty interesting. I knew a lot of that stuff already, but that was the first time I saw the unused world (Jungle Book). Shame that wasn't in the game.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

Did You Know Gaming? - Kingdom Hearts

This is actually pretty cool. But there were some cool concepts being cut out of the game, which is kind of sad.

Few things I didn't know about but I'm pulling my hair off every time somebody says 1.5 was made from scratch.

 

[Seven Force]

Few things I didn't know about but I'm pulling my hair off every time somebody says 1.5 was made from scratch.

Yeah. Reverse engineering missing data from a retail disc and remaking a game from the ground up are two separate things.

 

[R10Neymarfan]

Yeah. Reverse engineering missing data from a retail disc and remaking a game from the ground up are two separate things.

From the sound of it they did Chinese wall reverse engineering.

 

[badcrumble]

RE:coded is tied with Days for the best growth and customizatin system in the series. I'd be happy if we could get the Panel System or Stat Matrix in a console KH.

The stat matrix was neat, but I couldn't stand how much tinkering the panel system took. God, 358/2 Days just has no redeeming factors (outside of Shimomura's excellent Xion theme).

 

[Village]

Foreshadowing!

DDD spoilers:

Spoiler

Riku passes the exam, Sora fails... only one Keyblade Master!

Uh... if you don't include Aqua, Master Eraqus, Xehanort, Mickey, and so forth. Hmm, I'm not helping my case here, I guess.

HE is da bes one though.

Cuz he cool, and He the one that makes the plot go forward.

" There is an issue, riku fix it "

 

[botty]

Just discovered Kingdom Hearts chi has original music.......... ;_;

 

[SoraanTribal]

HE is da bes one though.

Cuz he cool, and He the one that makes the plot go forward.

" There is an issue, riku fix it "

I usually prefer Sora over Riku, but I gotta say, Dream Drop Distance made me change my mind (at least for that particular game). That was definitely a game for Riku.

 

[PixyJunket]

God, 358/2 Days just has no redeeming factors (outside of Shimomura's excellent Xion theme).

The multi-player mode is really good.

 

[botty]

The multi-player mode is really good.

And the story. Don't forget the story.

 

[Caladrius]

The multi-player mode is really good.

I wish the rest of the game had been more like that. It was great to fight in the boots of the other Org. members and I think the plot would have been far more interesting if they had focused more on fleshing out the tragically-underdeveloped members and the character dynamics between everybody, as opposed to offing half the cast before they can get more than 10 lines in. Horrible missed opportunity.