Alright. Since I have finished my Kingdom Hearts marathon, I figured I would share my final thoughts on each entry in the series. I was gonna rank them, but that's... kind of hard because, in my opinion, so many of them tie it's not even funny. So here we go!
Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix - The most fleshed out in terms of it's thematic identity and the most enjoyable experience. Not the most fleshed out in terms of the combat, but for reasons I will explain later that didn't really matter as much. You're still smacking around a tonne of monsters with a sword that looks like a key in a bunch of Disney worlds and meeting iconic characters from both Disney and Final Fantasy. While playing it I was getting tonnes of nostalgia from other PS2 era hack n slashes I played at the time, namely The Legend of Spyro trilogy for some weird reason. And I think it's the one of the few entries in the series where Nomura's.... let's call it.... style of storytelling doesn't really get in the way. It focuses on fanservice and I respect that, especially as a Final Fantasy fan.
Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories - 0 out of ****ing 10. That's not fair. I can't give an informed opinion on it because I couldn't get through the first chapter because my brain just can't wrap itself around a card based battle system in a real time 3D format. IMO, weather on the GBA or the Series X, Chain of Memories should have been a turn based RPG because then I could at least understand it. This is entirely a personal opinion, I'm aware. I'm sure there are people who love the card battling system and I'm sure they're wonderful people but it, combined with the fact that all the worlds are retreads of KH1 worlds, combined with the fact that all the new story was about Organization Bloody 13 (I refuse to address them with their roman numerals out of spite) make me glad that I had SomecallmeJohnny to fill me in on what happens in this game so I'm not lost in 2 because hot damn was this game ridiculous and stupid and unnecessary and poorly executed. Rant over.
Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix - If I were rating this game just on the battle system then I would easily, easily, put it over KH1 and probably over most of the later games too if I'm being honest. It's KH1 but you can do more in it. Plain and simple. The amount of stuff you can unlock to do is frankly absurd and I love it. I would have liked a way to manually select it without having to deal with the deck menu thing, which is why I will always be hoping that the series gains the kind of bullet time ability/spell selection mechanic FF7R has, just for the sake of variety, but piling all of them into my neutral combo and reaction commands made me feel OP as hell. And this was actually one of the few games I played on standard instead of easy, so in those few moments where I wasn't OP it was easy to find places to grind and get my levels up and return to my seat of power. But sadly, KH2 is not all battles. It has a story. Which is actually, mostly, pretty good. The Disney worlds are well integrated and I like how they feel like they are a little bit more relevant to the overarching story this time, not to mention the selection is ridiculous and cool. But how they managed to make it happen this time involved bringing back my nemesis from CoM, Orginization ****ing 13. And I don't give any ****s about any of these guys. So often it feels like they're hogging the spotlight when there should have or could have been iconic Disney or Final Fantasy characters on screen instead. Like, we don't even SEE Gaston in Beast's Castle, instead we get this ****ing Xaldin guy as the boss. Criminal. It's my opinion that if they were gonna spend no time developing them or making them interesting then they should have been iconic Final Fantasy villains. Because then at least the audience would already care about them. You could even still keep Roxas and Xemnas. Just have them be the nobodies of Kefka and Sephiroth and Golbez and Ultimecia and Guado and the like. Specially since, if you take out Xemnas and Roxas that leaves 11 members and look at that, there were 11 Final Fantasy games at the time. Sure. Nomura wouldn't have been able to do his grand long term whatever he's doing if he had done that... or maybe he still could have. But the point of Kingdom Hearts is Disney and Final Fantasy crossover fun. And the Organization just distracts from that. Not to mention the opening chapter my god. They could have at least cut it down to 2 or three days instead of 6. Or hey, maybe if Roxas was palling around with Final Fantasy characters I would actually care about them going on adventures. Heck, Sora was palling around with Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka on Destiny Islands so replace Hayner, Pence, and Ollette with.... Cecil, Terra, and Bartz. There. All of a sudden I want to keep watching and playing and am not just wishing I could skip. Sure. It's shallow, like a kid wanting a lunchbox just because it has an Iron Man sticker on it. But that's kind of the point of Kingdom Hearts. Also, just a side note because I'll not get to mention this anywhere else, I'm dying for the moment where we get to see Barret as the smack talking general of the Modern Radiant Garden armies. Or Kingdom Hearts versions of Red XIII, Vincent Valentine, and Gilgamesh.
We will be skipping both 358/2 Days and Re:Coded. I don't care enough about Roxas and the organization to watch the movie they turned Days into, I actually started and got bored super quickly after my 6th text box. And Re:Coded is a glorified recap game that only has a tiny bit of lore at the end that's only relevant because Re:Coded exists, and if Re:Coded didn't exist said lore wouldn't matter so I don't care. Again, praise be to Juan Ortiz.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep HD - Quaint. In one word, Quaint. I loved how bite sized the worlds were, made the game breeze buy, and I loved the process of breaking the game by melding spells early. I liked the command deck in concept, but it quickly became my Spell-Gun-Shoot Button because I just couldn't see the practicality of interrupting my melee attacks with... another melee attack. Especially since the normal keyblade combo was always more then enough to get the job done when supplemented with spells no matter the character. The only exception being Ventus with those overpowered Keyblade combo attacks I melded near endgame like Arcs Arcanum. Geese. Only superboss in the series I killed because Monstro didn't stand a chance when I had that kind of firepower. This is also the only other game in the series where I feel the story didn't trip over itself trying to handle Nomura's desire to create OC's like he want's to haphazardly turn a crossover into an original IP. My only wish is that there had been a fourth storyline in the game centered around Mickey because he felt like just as central a character to the plot as Terra, Ventus, and Aqua and I would have liked to see his perspective.
Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD - My least favorite game. Only above Chain of Memories because I was actually able to play it till the end. The story was bugnuts with Dreams and so much Organization lore dumping at the end. The Musketeer worlds inclusion just doesn't make any sense and I feel like they should have gone with a different one, like are they telling me that Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pete, and Minnie all just lived in this other world at some point?. And the fact that there are only two worlds on the second wheel bothers my OCD. Tangent, I actually came up with, what I feel was a better explanation for the Musketeer world while I was playing. You know how Maleficent and Pete attack Disney Castle in the middle of the story for no real reason other then to remind us Re:Coded is cannon? Since they do that right before the Musketeer world unlocks, what if Maleficent used a spell to put the Disney Castle world to sleep, and the world is dreaming up a fantasy about musketeer times instead of how it actually was when it was awake. That would have made sense to me at least, and it's what I thought they were going for when the scene popped up. But nope. Country of the Musketeers just had to not make sense. I did like the TWENY cameos though. I've never played it but it felt like a decent inclusion and I can imagine that if you were a TWENY fan it was amazing to see the characters up and at it again with what looked to be actual connections to their cannon story if I'm not mistaken. But then there's the games biggest sin... the Dream Eaters. I just.... why. It's like they intentionally made them level up so slowly in combat to force you into having to play those stupid mini-games just to get damn near essential abilities and upgrades that you could get on your own before in other games either by level up or melding. I just... I want to know who came up with the Dream Eaters, and who told them it was a good idea, and slap both of them in the face before docking their salaries. It made the game so much less enjoyable. Same with dropping. What was even the point of that mechanic? Especially with how prevalent drop-me-nots were making it so that I only dropped against my wished like three times. But because it was manageable everywhere else and you could just pause and drop right back to where you were exactly and continue it made those three times incredibly annoying and made me question why the mechanic even existed except for spoon-feeding you the narrative in the last chapter. And finally, a personal gripe. I just think it would have been cool if there had been a third Kairi-centric storyline in this game. As Sora and Riku travel through the sleeping worlds to take their exam, Kairi does so to learn how to wield the keyblade and become a proficient wielder in her own right. Learn through experience as her friends did. I just think it's criminal that it took us so long to get a playable Kairi and when it happened it was in such a limited capacity. Also, Ansem's second form in his boss fight. Chef's Kiss. Even if it did kick my ass many times.
Kingdom Hearts III + Re:Mind - Wow.... what happened here. It's the best of Kingdom Hearts mixed with the worst of Kingdom Hearts in equal amounts in a true Yin-Yang scenario because they just swirl around each other instead of mixing into grey. The combat is excellent and most of the worlds are actually pretty cool. The Tangled and Frozen worlds are irritating in how uncreative they feel, especially knowing Tangled has an animated series now. And I feel like Big Hero 6's world, while amazing, also could have used just a touch of influence from the show. I think the show came out after the game finished production but I can't help it because Dark Baymax is just such a lame concept to me. And while some people may say The Caribbean also suffers from the creativity problem, as someone who has never seen that movie I felt as drunk as Jack Sparrow as all the **** happened around me and it was great. Counld have done without the ship though. Both in combat and travel it felt clunky and awkward. Especially since the thing basically had Tank controls. Would have preferred if ship traveling was like... and RTS minigame or something. Sure it would have been another minigame in a game chock full of them but IMO it would have been more enjoyable. But then we get to the problems. As I mentioned before, the minigames. This was partly self imposed, I'm aware. But I wanted this to be the game where I got every keyblade, especially since this was the only game where there wasn't a keyblade tied to beating a superboss (unless you count the gummi ship ones). And I had to do so much sledding and photography and cooking and game and watch-ing and all of this stupid mingame stuff that it just felt intrusive all for a few keyblades that I didn't end up using much because I didn't get them till endgame. And by engame I had the Ultima Weapon which became the only keyblade i used. I would have liked to use it on the bosses in the limitcut DLC and beyond but they were kicking my ass. Meaning I probably would have had to grind more. No thank you. I wanted to move on. Especially since they were all Organization members. Repeat my problems with Organization 13 for the so-called "Real" Organization 13. Honestly... I think Xehanort could have done better. First off I would have benched a few more black coats and added Maleficent and Pete to my lineup. This is purely from a game-design perspective, but they're major recurring antagonists in the series. And since the meta purpose of the Real Organization was to gather together the major series villains, I think we could have left off like.... Saix and Larxene from the final lineup is all I'm saying.... or I don't know... maybe Luxord instead of Saix. I flip flop on those two. Specially since Mickey, Donald, and Goofy were allowed to participate in the final fight. I know that their motivation wouldn't have worked necessarily in that roll. But that's why you re-write and re-evaluate how you're using two of the most iconic Disney villains in existence. And while I like how the Organization members are more involved in the plots of the Disney worlds you go to, which ones get the spotlight feels.... arbitrary and stupid. Like... you throw out Young Xehanort, one of the top dogs, in what is essentially the first real world of the game after the intro stage in Olympus. And then the rest is rank and file black coats? Why are we saving Xenmas and my main man Ansem for the end when they can get next to no screen time. Ansem is a scientist, isn't he managing project Dark Baymax? Again. Most of my problems with 3 come from the story, which is honestly an achievement. The only complaint I have with the gameplay is that I wish you could pick which Situation Command you were using when multiple were popped at once. The combat felt like Nomura had a one night stand with PlatinumGames and Omega Force and this is the resulting baby and it felt amazing. I just wish the story and setup had better execution and it pulled it had finally decided to pull it's head out of it's ass. Especially after such a long development cycle.
