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Kingdom Hearts HD I.5+II.5 ReMIX |OT| Kingdom Hearts Final Port

It also has the best script of all the KH games (yes, even the infamous ice cream line)

It brought awesome lines such as:
"Do you always have to stare at me like I just drowned your goldfish?"
"We don't accept resignations."
"What are you looking at? ...Oh, dream on. It's not gonna happen, pipsqueak."

and of course, "Roxas, that's a stick."

It's notable that Days is the only game where Nomura penned the script from start to finish and it has the tightest characterisation of all the games.
I think Chain of Memories still has the best script out of any of the games.
 

Gulz1992

Member
It also has the best script of all the KH games (yes, even the infamous ice cream line)

It brought awesome lines such as:
"Do you always have to stare at me like I just drowned your goldfish?"
"We don't accept resignations."
"What are you looking at? ...Oh, dream on. It's not gonna happen, pipsqueak."

and of course, "Roxas, that's a stick."

It's notable that Days is the only game where Nomura penned the script from start to finish and it has the tightest characterisation of all the games.

Kingdom Hearts 1 has the best script out of all the games. It was cheesy but it was tonally consistent throughout the game. The character interactions, and to a lesser degree the voice acting, also didn't sound nearly as stiff and forced as all the other games in the series, with KH2 being the worst offender. 0.2 and Back Cover have the next best scripts due to the dialogue and voice acting in them actually being pretty decent compared to the standards of this series.
 
So just beat KH 1 yesterday and boy that game never gets old. Played on proud for the first time and also first time final mix. Was easier than I expected with my +shield -sword run. Think my continue count was about 23. Sure I played it on the PS2 when it released and once BC on PS3 but that was years ago. Maybe souls/Nioh have helped a bit but was expecting more of a challange. "Unkown" was a nice new bonus but was expecting more there as well. Was level 100 at that time so should probably reload and try him again.

Can you do the 15h + not changing equipment in the same run? Only those throphies left I belive but not sure I want to run trough it twice again.

Playing CoM now for the first time and boy did they fuck this battle system up. Just so annoying and the worlds and enemies just feels like the same shit over and over with different colors. The boss fights is the only thing that is keeping me from abandoning this game. I have just finished aquatica and have the rest on that "set" left but is it much left after that?
 

Psxphile

Member
Can you do the 15h + not changing equipment in the same run? Only those throphies left I belive but not sure I want to run trough it twice again.
Yeah, that's what I did back on the PS3. Play on Beginner and skip cutscenes whenever possible, should make it with time to spare. Just know that without advanced equipment, the final world (especially that last gauntlet) is going to chew you up and spit you out.

Playing CoM now for the first time and boy did they fuck this battle system up. Just so annoying and the worlds and enemies just feels like the same shit over and over with different colors. The boss fights is the only thing that is keeping me from abandoning this game. I have just finished aquatica and have the rest on that "set" left but is it much left after that?

There are 13 floors during the main journey. Once completed you unlock a new mode where you have to do 13 more floors to see more story, but with preset decks and little to no customization so they go by quicker.
 
Yeah, that's what I did back on the PS3. Play on Beginner and skip cutscenes whenever possible, should make it with time to spare. Just know that without advanced equipment, the final world (especially that last gauntlet) is going to chew you up and spit you out.



There are 13 floors during the main journey. Once completed you unlock a new mode where you have to do 13 more floors to see more story, but with preset decks and little to no customization so they go by quicker.

Thx for the answers will think about that run.
 
Fuck fuck fuck that
Sephiroth
fight... Definitely the most challenge I've had from a boss since Alma in Ninja Gaiden Black.

My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding after the final ars arcana. Such an awesome game.

Time to finally head back to final rest to finish this and move on watching COM cutscenes and starting II. Though I may try grinding for a bit after beating the main game to try and fight
The Unknown.
 
Fuck fuck fuck that
Sephiroth
fight... Definitely the most challenge I've had from a boss since Alma in Ninja Gaiden Black.

My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding after the final ars arcana. Such an awesome game.

Time to finally head back to final rest to finish this and move on watching COM cutscenes and starting II. Though I may try grinding for a bit after beating the main game to try and fight
The Unknown.

oh don't worry about Unknown, the fact that you have summons and that he is super weak to gravity makes him a cake walk compared to Sephiroth
 
Last stretch of the BBS Platinum quest. I have to say, I enjoyed (Mirage Arena Spoiler)
No Heart
a LOT, especially with Terra. Didn't face him before due to no FM back in 2011. It's fast, hectic, great music but it is reasonable, his moves are blockable and dodgeable. By far my favorite of the extra bosses.

Armor of Eraqus
was a hit & miss. It is a bit too unpredictable and I am pretty sure Terra has a bug where you can't hurt him for a while. But it has a method to the madness and you can block reasonably well.

I have Golden Mickey all over the reports for all characters except for Character Info. Which means I only have to do Secret Episode... and MF.

FUCK MF. Fuck. That. Boss.

Whoever designed this fight and thought it was reasonable needs to reevaluate his existence. There is literally zero skill involved here, it is a lottery whether you live or die at any given point. The only single strategy is constant surge spamming and dodging, and Terra doesn't have the invincibility frames needed during sliding. I never beat this on the PSP and I can see why. What a far cry from Lingering Sentiment, my god!

The only good thing about the whole thing is the music.
 
oh don't worry about Unknown, the fact that you have summons and that he is super weak to gravity makes him a cake walk compared to Sephiroth
Yep you were right, while the
shock and release
part was nerve wracking at first, once I just slowed down a bit and focused and picking the proper choice, I ended up beating him the second time as compared to the 10-12 tries for
Sephiroth.

On to watching COM cutscenes now!
 

Meowster

Member
Ven's segment is so much more fun in Birth By Sleep so far. He's kinda a sweet little dork. I ended up liking Terra but he and Eraqus seemed a little dumb to just be played around like that. But maybe I'm still missing some context.
 
Yep you were right, while the
shock and release
part was nerve wracking at first, once I just slowed down a bit and focused and picking the proper choice, I ended up beating him the second time as compared to the 10-12 tries for
Sephiroth.

On to watching COM cutscenes now!

the funny thing is about his
shock and release attack
is that if you have a summon out that gits rid of your party members (so just not tink) he can't do it

he is so easily loopable it's not even funny
 
the funny thing is about his
shock and release attack
is that if you have a summon out that gits rid of your party members (so just not tink) he can't do it

he is so easily loopable it's not even funny
Ah man I should've just cheesed him with Dumbo at the end like I did with
world of chaos.
 

grimmiq

Member
So I beat Kingdom Hearts 1 like a month ago, finally starting on CoM..and it's a bit jarring.

I think I understand the combat system, enemy plays a card, you need to play one that beats it or it gets deflected, right? The problem I'm facing right now, is most enemies seem to spam strength 5 or higher cards, while I have maybe 4-6 cards in my current deck able to beat that..so I seem to spending more time refreshing my cards than actually attacking. I'm assuming that when you level up more and get more CP/better cards this is somewhat alleviated..but how long does this take to happen? Very tempted to just watch a movie version of it on youtube.

Also, if I'm wrong about the system and don't understand it as much as I think I do, please let me know.
 

Banzai

Member
So I beat Kingdom Hearts 1 like a month ago, finally starting on CoM..and it's a bit jarring.

I think I understand the combat system, enemy plays a card, you need to play one that beats it or it gets deflected, right? The problem I'm facing right now, is most enemies seem to spam strength 5 or higher cards, while I have maybe 4-6 cards in my current deck able to beat that..so I seem to spending more time refreshing my cards than actually attacking. I'm assuming that when you level up more and get more CP/better cards this is somewhat alleviated..but how long does this take to happen? Very tempted to just watch a movie version of it on youtube.

Also, if I'm wrong about the system and don't understand it as much as I think I do, please let me know.

While single card play is viable, I think most players in the know just abuse sleights. What that means is that 4 out of 5 times you wanna pick CP on level up and fill your deck with powerful sleights that you can spam. Sleights (mostly) put you in the 9+ range so they can't be beaten so easily.

You don't really need "better" cards, just more of them so you can spam sleights. And maybe a couple of 0-cards.
 

grimmiq

Member
Ahh I see, I'll give that a shot, would much rather actually finish the game than watch it, I'll give it a few more hours focusing on sleights, thanks.

A couple more hours in..Is CoM pretty much just 1-2hrs of rehashed KH1 story followed by 10-20mins of new story? It sort of reminds me of that Southpark episode where they're remembering past events, mostly the same followed by a "wait, that's not how it ended, is it?"
 

Banzai

Member
A couple more hours in..Is CoM pretty much just 1-2hrs of rehashed KH1 story followed by 10-20mins of new story? It sort of reminds me of that Southpark episode where they're remembering past events, mostly the same followed by a "wait, that's not how it ended, is it?"

Pretty much, yeah. You have to suffer through the disney stuff to get to the cool bits. Honestly, if you're not feeling the gameplay and don't enjoy bulding decks you might as well watch the rest on youtube. It's really not worth it otherwise.
 

grimmiq

Member
Yeah, cleared Traverse Town, Aggrabah and Wonderland (had quite a few differences), I think I'm just going to youtube the rest. While I do enjoy weird RPG mechanics, this just feels tedious to me, I understand that it was a GBA game that was remade so it has it's limitations, but I'm not enjoying it at all.
 

jennetics

Member
Yeah, cleared Traverse Town, Aggrabah and Wonderland (had quite a few differences), I think I'm just going to youtube the rest. While I do enjoy weird RPG mechanics, this just feels tedious to me, I understand that it was a GBA game that was remade so it has it's limitations, but I'm not enjoying it at all.

Good call on watching the rest. Some people love the battle system, most don't. I actually really enjoyed the GBA version of CoM (though I still sucked at it) but the remake was all around frustrating for me.
 

Liamc723

Member
I'm playing through the first Kingdom Hearts for the first time on PS4.

Just beat Ursala in the Atlantic world, the king tells me to go back to Ariel's cottage for the keyhole.

I get there and nothing happens. No cutscene or anything. What am I doing wrong?
 

jennetics

Member
I'm playing through the first Kingdom Hearts for the first time on PS4.

Just beat Ursala in the Atlantic world, the king tells me to go back to Ariel's cottage for the keyhole.

I get there and nothing happens. No cutscene or anything. What am I doing wrong?

Strange...did you maybe skip the cutscene (I'm doubtful you did but)? You'd be able to check by looking at the world on the world map and seeing if the lock is on there. If not...idk, that's just weird. Maybe try leaving the world and going to a couple places/talking to different people and then go back and try it again?
 

Psxphile

Member
I'm playing through the first Kingdom Hearts for the first time on PS4.

Just beat Ursala in the Atlantic world, the king tells me to go back to Ariel's cottage for the keyhole.

I get there and nothing happens. No cutscene or anything. What am I doing wrong?

Did you examine the trident shaped-hole on the wall? It's not enough just to go inside. Or is it? Can't be sure anymore, event flags are tricky sometimes.
 

grimmiq

Member
So I watched Sora's side of CoM last night, then Riku's this morning, followed immediately by the entirety of 358/2 Days. I...Think I'm going to need a bit of time to process the story so far. CoM was interesting and pretty straightforward, Days kinda messed me up a little.

I feel the ending of 358/2 Days was extremely weird, but I'm guessing I get some context in the beginning of KH2. I've been going in to all of these pretty much fresh, knew only what I played up to as a kid in KH1 (Quit at Hollow Bastion for some reason) and nothing about CoM/358. The only thing I knew about KH2 was that you start as Roxas in a super long tutorial type section..I know nothing about the games that follow too.

So I'm going to run a few errands while I think about what I've seen, then try to put it into words and see if I'm understanding the story up to this point, some clarifications would be great if I'm way off on some things.
 

grimmiq

Member
Obviously spoilers for the first 3 games, just in case anyone is like me and playing through for the first time. And sorry for the wall of text

(So far) Kingdom Hearts 1 seems to be isolated with CoM being a direct sequel and Riku's portion seems to start at the same time, but continue after Sora's. 358/2 Days seems to be end of KH1 and continues well beyond CoM and Kingdom Hearts 2 is a direct sequel to 358/2 Days..I think.

My understanding of the story so far..

Riku hates being on Destiny Islands and lets The Darkness into him, along with Ansem, who wants to join with Kingdom Hearts, the Darkness that everything is born in and dies in, which kicks off the story. The Disney baddies also want this, I'm assuming we'll later get a solid connection between the 2, because as of now, I don't think they've explained how Maleficent and Ansem were intertwined and seems to be played off as either coincidence or Ansem pulling the strings from behind the curtain.

The plans are a bit confusing to me, KH1 using the Hearts of all the Princess' to gain access to Kingdom Hearts, while 358/2 The Organization are just releasing the Hearts from the Heartless. I guess maybe a Princess of Heart's Heart is just worth a shitload of normal ones?

The Kingdom Hearts itself is also a bit unclear to me, 358/2 says it's basically where all Hearts go after they're freed, it's Light and not Darkness like Ansem believed..So I guess Heartless are to Kingdom Hearts as Moths are to a flame? Which might also be similar to Nobodies who want Kingdom Hearts in the hopes of getting their own Heart, except they just want to devour it?

This brings me on to the Nobodies, losing your Heart makes you Heartless, but I'm still unclear on what creates a Nobody. They put a lot of focus on Sora unlocking his heart to release Kairi's at the end of KH1 (They showed that smile after he stabbed himself like 4-5 times..I get it, guys), so I'm assuming Nobodies are formed from the separation/disconnect of the Heart and not it's complete loss. Roxas' introduction made it clear he was Sora from the beginning, I figured Xenmas was Ansem's Nobody immediately after seeing his name, reinforced later learning Axel's name was Lea. Most of the others in The Organization are still fairly blank, mostly because of how many there were and how infrequently they popped up for short times, usually just the little text bits over screenshots. Their plan other than wanting Sora's power is still a mystery and I'm looking forward to finding out more and hopefully it's more than using the Keyblade to unlock the Door to Darkness again.

CoM's story while a bit mind-bendy, still seemed relatively straight forward. ”Here's what you did in this world, with a slight twist..wait..is that how it ended?" seemed to be the recurring problem, the slight twist either being the order of events, the lack of certain key characters, and each seemed to end somewhat happily, with nothing leading towards the actual ending of KH1. The overall story being that Marluxia wants to use Namine to make Sora into his slave through altering his memories and take over the Organization, to what end, I don't know. Bad guy loses, Sora chooses to regain his lost memory and takes a nap while Namine fixes things.

Riku's CoM story was more personal and internal, revolving around conquering the Darkness within him. Meets up with Mickey, then chooses the path between Light/Dark. In 358/2 he's basically poking and prodding the characters toward the conclusion. I was a little confused with Mickey seeing him as Ansem, having been right after Xion was shown to mirror other people based on their perception, combined with being called an Imposter over and over I thought it might have been another Puppet, but seemed to be the real one in the end.

I liked the relationship between Roxas/Axel/Xion. Roxas being the Nobody of Sora and Xion a puppet to emulate Roxas, leeching off some of his memories/power and morphing into an image of Kairi was interesting, the knowledge that you play as Roxas at the start of KH2 and Sora in KH3 leads me to think what happened with Xion merging with Roxas is going to happen with Roxas/Sleeping Sora and he'll turn to crystal/glass/ice/whatever and disappear too. The story was all over the place, but seemed mostly about Xion developing her own personality while she and Roxas grew together before returning to where they belong. The ending though, I'm not sure and I'm guessing it'll be explained early in KH2, with Roxas suddenly waking up as if he were a different person immediately following 358/2. DiZ also seems to be Ansem, there seems to be 3 worlds, Light, Dark and Twilight. Dark being KH1 Ansem/Riku, Twilight being Xemnas, so I'm assuming for now DiZ is Light Ansem.

So...How far off am I so far? Anything I misinterpreted or missed completely? I know there's likely going to be some retcons and revelations in the games to come that might change events I've seen already.
 

Psxphile

Member
Despite the fact that you were introduced to what Nobodies and Roxas are before the series properly introduces them, you managed to piece together a few things about them quite well. Naturally KH2 will fill in the blanks about certain things like Riku's dilemma, but not without throwing some twists in there to keep you guessing.
 

grimmiq

Member
Despite the fact that you were introduced to what Nobodies and Roxas are before the series properly introduces them, you managed to piece together a few things about them quite well. Naturally KH2 will fill in the blanks about certain things like Riku's dilemma, but not without throwing some twists in there to keep you guessing.

They weren't exactly subtle with the Roxas stuff (giant glowing letters, then naming him by adding an X). Namine is still a mystery to me and is the main plot point/character I'm looking forward to finding out more about, going to start on KH2 later tonight.
 
They weren't exactly subtle with the Roxas stuff (giant glowing letters, then naming him by adding an X). Namine is still a mystery to me and is the main plot point/character I'm looking forward to finding out more about, going to start on KH2 later tonight.

tbf i don't remember that scene being in KH2 which kinda left the whole naming theme up to the individual to find out but KH2 did also get roxas being sora nobody oit of the way quite fast

anyway you're in for a good time with KH2 that's for sure, things start to get some what messy from here on it but KH2 is a really fun time that i don't mind it as much
 

jennetics

Member
tbf i don't remember that scene being in KH2 which kinda left the whole naming theme up to the individual to find out but KH2 did also get roxas being sora nobody oit of the way quite fast

anyway you're in for a good time with KH2 that's for sure, things start to get some what messy from here on it but KH2 is a really fun time that i don't mind it as much

Agreed ^^ watching 358/2 days before getting into KH2 helped me piece together the story much easier. KH2 has been my favorite so far.
 

LAM09

Member
Jumped back into KH 2.5 after a few weeks. I'm at Port Royal & just encountered
Larxene but I'm only LVL 22
. Can you come back later on?
 

LycanXIII

Member
Although it's not necessarily stat-dependent, there are certain abilities you unlock through further story progress that'll definitely make it a significantly easier battle.

Oh definitely. I had trouble when I first got there, came back a couple worlds later and beat it easily.
 
DJyajBqXUAAgNwY.jpg:large

DJyavsKW4AAslAm.jpg:large

There we go! Got the Platinum after Secret Episode, just as planned. However, the "victory" was soured a bit when I saw that I had 97% Trinity Report completion and I couldn't figure out why. I bought the recipes, tickets and the Secret Gem in the Mirage Arena so I didn't really get it. Turns out I was missing one Keyblade with Ventus and Aqua, the one you get from Rumble Racing. I mean, I don't dislike the minigame but the idea was that the "completionist" quest would end at the perfect moment. But no matter.

Aside from MF I had a lot fun. I can definitely notice "chinks" in the gameplay a lot more than I did back in 2011. I get that (in theory) it is meant to be a "middle ground" between KH1 and 2 where it retains much of 2's flashiness but keeping it more "grounded" like KH1. It lacks that bit of balancing though and the Final Mix version didn't fix or flesh out the issues present before adding new content. I also honestly felt Secret Episode was pointless.

However, even with some uneven writing, this is quite possibly my favorite in the series as far as atmosphere, lore and character designs go. The end portions are (plot-wise) definitely the strongest in the series as well. And that Secret Ending is a thing of BEAUTY. I will never understand how the Secret Ending can have such good written dialogue and really competent direction compared to much of the standard of the series. If you have the potential to consistently pull it off, why don't you? I mean, just watch the exchanges between
Terra
and
Xehanort
or
Ansem
and
Aqua
. Tell me that isn't leagues better than like 90% of the dialogue across all of the games?

Oh well... Continuing the quest with KH1! I have no idea how many times I've beaten this game but I am pretty sure this will be one of my last. I want to give this good old boy a deserving goodbye with a Platinum. I think a Staff/Night playthrough is a good way to do it.
 

grimmiq

Member
8hrs in to KH2, just finished Beast's Castle.

So I was completely wrong about Nobodies, they just need to have strong hearts before becoming heartless, makes sense. Didn't pick up on Namine being a Nobody, now that they've said it, I'm assuming she's Kairi's..Which makes sense after 358/2, that scene where she and Xion are sitting either end of the table, one in white, the other in black, plus her connection to Sora.

Still waiting on finding out the connection with Nobodies to Dusks, the game stated they were nobodies, but Axel was threatened a couple of times with being turned into one.

Not sure how I feel about the Morale meter...it doesn't really make a lot of sense, zones feel like they're way simpler, no getting lost or backtracking so far, it's basically been enter a room, get a cutscene, enter the next, get a cutscene. Playing on Proud (I played KH1 on Standard and regretted it, but didn't want to start over on Proud), I haven't really come across much of a challenge yet, but it's still early.

Why does it seem like all of a sudden Goofy is the only one with a brain?

The opening, which I'd heard lots of hate about, wasn't as bad as I thought, I'm assuming that's not the end of Roxas, as I think in a couple of trailers for 2.8 and 3, I've seen Aqua and Roxas, and since she hasn't appeared yet, there has to be something that happens involving both.

Really liking it so far.
 
Still waiting on finding out the connection with Nobodies to Dusks, the game stated they were nobodies, but Axel was threatened a couple of times with being turned into one.
////
Why does it seem like all of a sudden Goofy is the only one with a brain?

Both the Organization members and Dusks are "Nobodies". They are the same type of beings. The main difference is that Org members were ESPECIALLY strong individuals so they were able to maintain their human forms and their memories. Dusks are the "lowest denomination" of Nobodies. This is either implied or explained in the story portions you've beaten so far.

/////

I know, right? The irony in a Disney game where Goofy is the most grounded of the bunch.
 

Meowster

Member
Briefly going to use a Ventus avatar since I just beat his scenario and wish to honor of his struggle (dudes with that particular face have it rough 100% of the time) and his expedition for finding new friends. I really liked the kid. Enjoyed playing as Terra, too, but I really enjoyed seeing his eager journies throughout the worlds and his determined resolve to reunite his friends. Last part got really interesting and made me really excited for what is in store next.

That final boss of his sure was frustrating. Not that he was actually too difficult but rather the gimmick in the "final" stage of that fight kept screwing up. The finishing command missed about ten times before I finally got it to work. Not sure if that was a bug or if you were supposed to aim it perfectly.

Now we just have Aqua and then I can move on to Dream Drop Distance.. though I might come back and platinum this game later. I've been really enjoying it now that I've embraced the new systems instead of getting flustered and frustrated over them. D-Link and shotlock are almost cheating lol.
 

Vashetti

Banned
Man... That Pirates of the Caribbean world didn't age well (if it looked good back in the day).

The character models themselves are great, the voices are not.

There's also a permanent gloom over all the environments which doesn't represent the movies very well which are mostly very colourful.
 
The character models themselves are great, the voices are not.

There's also a permanent gloom over all the environments which doesn't represent the movies very well which are mostly very colourful.

Well, I think it was done primarily for the pirate "weakness" gimmick. You can't hurt them without the moonlight.

Also, it added some environment variety from world to world. Honestly, I think Port Royal aged as well as FFXII did by now (since it uses the same type of realistic models). The main thing is (once again) the lack of any other NPCs to sell it as a living, breathing place.

I would love for this world to return to KH3, honestly. The story of PotC II & III has KH written all over it (keys, heart, etc.). Davy Jones would be an amazing villain to battle.
 

grimmiq

Member
Maybe it was just the clashing of styles, the whole thing just looked off to me,the voice acting didn't do it any favors either.
 
Man, Sniperwilds can go to hell. I've only beaten
Reverse Armor
so I am not far in but I am assuming I need Stop to deal with these effectively. I got to Tech19 highest but they can swarm and kill you really easily on Proud.
 
Man, Sniperwilds can go to hell. I've only beaten
Reverse Armor
so I am not far in but I am assuming I need Stop to deal with these effectively. I got to Tech19 highest but they can swarm and kill you really easily on Proud.

You're supposed to defeat them stealthily. I think if you let them spot you, they summon their allies, which don't give you any experience
 
You're supposed to defeat them stealthily. I think if you let them spot you, they summon their allies, which don't give you any experience

I am aware of that and I can reasonably manage with the abilities I currently have. The problem mostly comes when 3 of them appear. I can pretty consistently focus 2 and block them out with Stun Impact but whether or not I can get to the third before it notices me is a bit of an RNG. I think getting to 12-15 is an achievable goal atm.
 
So I got through 5 hours of 2.5 on proud and ended up getting overly frustrated and I restarted on standard. The difficulty in proud wasn't too bad until I got to the land of dragons with the stupid morality meter which coupled with Ping's AI being pretty garbage, led to a bunch of annoying deaths in a row.

I'm really digging the story though and like the small quality of life improvements, especially the gummi ship stuff. I also really like that the battle menu changes appearance based on which world you're on.
 

Meowster

Member
The Secret Episode was the hardest part of the game so far. Those Neo Shadows kept wrecking up Aqua in two hits. Now, maybe I was underleveled for that area at 32 at the start, but that place was so hard. Luckily the boss at the end was easy enough. I'm officially done with this Kingdom Hearts collection. I'm actually quite a bit farther along in Birth By Sleep than I anticipated (about 65% done) though so I might come back in a little bit to try and platinum it.
That took some work. I'm glad I gave the game a second chance because it ended up doing a real heel-turn on me once I got to the Keyblade Graveyard level with Terra and actually tried embracing the games systems instead of just running through everything. I kinda feel bad for the dude because I think I took my earlier frustrations out on him. Playing through as Ven and Aqua was just a blast; their play styles are so unique with different strengths and weaknesses. Ven is such a fast little guy and I just love gliding around from place to place. However, Aqua was by far my favorite to play as.

As for the story: it was an interesting and incredibly sad tale of two people trying to do the right thing and a third person mixed along the ride that happened to have the most importance of them all. Sometimes the writing could get a little bit stupid - people like to rag on Terra (deservedly) but Eraqus was even worse. He should have known better than to just let
Master Xehanort back into their lives after his previous deception
and not even act too worried - but I felt the melodrama really pieced itself together for the most part. The three protagonists have had such sad lives but I still felt the ending was quite hopeful and uplifting.
Ending cutscenes between Master Xehanort and Terra/Ansem and Aqua were masterful work. I let out a tear when Aqua realized that the boy she had advised earlier grew to become someone great and good
. Shout out to the incredible voice work of Leonard Nimoy as Master Xehanort and
Haley Joel Osment as Vanitas, who truly shined in the role
.

Now I have to play through Dream Drop Distance and 0.2 and I'll finally be all caught up.
 
Well looks like it's back to proud difficulty for me with 2.5. I replayed the game on standard to land of dragons and it was overwhelmingly easy and took all of the tension out of battles.

So as I'm going to go though again on proud with sword picked, does anyone have any advice as to what to set your partners AI to so their not just standing around in battle? I kept losing in the rock blasting section due to the moral meter reaching zero because I was taking awhile to beat one of those spear carrying guys and Ping/Donald were being useless and not attacking...
 

Psxphile

Member
Use Goofy? Ping has crap skills until she goes back to being Mulan. They even gave her tripping animations.

You should have Valor form at this point. If you're not abusing the ever-loving fuck out of Drive forms than you're not playing right. Every form has one unique ability they pass on to base Sora when leveled up. And what levels them up is different for each form. You can check what gets you points in the form's status screen. For Valor you just have to hit things.

In KH1 I would mess w/ ai settings, but in KH2 I never bothered.
 
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