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Will Kingdom Hearts 3: Final Mix secure KH3's status as the best KH game?
- Thread starter BillFromAccounting
- Start date
The problem I have with this is that it implies it's alright to learn nothing between projects.
Yes, it is true that it took a rerelease for KH II to reach the place we're used to now, but in other series that's just the kind of improvement you'll get in a sequel. Feedback isn't something that only works for one particular title. Why in the world did they forget that people didn't want the game to be too easy between II and III? Why is it unfair to expect a good level of difficulty day one?
The fact that you're saying yourself that II FM was addressing criticism is the entire reason why it's perfectly fair to compare III to II FM. They weren't just delivering more content on the same level as the base game because people loved it so much they wanted more, they were fixing a bunch of stuff that didn't work, and they learned through feedback that it didn't work. That should carry to every sequel and spinoff that comes after.
That's the beauty of the additional difficulty mode people are asking for. No one really cares if Standard or easy are easy, but Proud is supposed to up the ante (especially in lieu of a Critical Mode) and it simply doesn't. The only feasible way to make the game challenging in its current state is to force yourself to not use a bunch of things in the game, which defeats the point.
As someone who's replaying 2 right now...no. No, they do not feel smaller in 3. 2's worlds are tiny. The Pride Lands, an area that should be positively huge, is four rooms and a big empty plain with literally nothing in it.
Twilight Town, TWTNW and Hollow Bastion are decently sized in 2, but beyond that all of the Disney worlds are very small.
of course is smaller in KHII
what i meant with "feel smaller" is that in KHIII there is no sense of exploration
there are huge map but nothing interesting to do in those worlds
look "toy box" for example
Andy's room and the garden/street is just an huge open spaces but there is nothing to do
I never felt the need to return to the worlds I had already visited
And you did In Kingdom Hearts motherfucking II?
Exploration!
Meanwhile:
Edit: I feel awful trash talking one of my favorite games of all time...but jeez
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At least in 3 there was stuff to find if you revisit a world. 2 MAKES YOU revisit all the worlds and some of those revisits don't even give you a new room to look around in.
Lion King's world revisit is like four cutscenes and a boss and then it's over.
As someone who played KH2 a week or 2 before KH3 and then after 100% KH3 went and 100% KH2 on Critical I still think KH3 is better overall. if KH3 gets more end game content then yes it'll easily be the best KH game. Critical mode with no attraction flows outside of the 2 story specific ones would be a great place to start. another superboss and a org XIII hard boss rush would be even better. I'd settle for a New Game+
And you did In Kingdom Hearts motherfucking II?
Exploration!
Meanwhile:
Edit: I feel awful trash talking one of my favorite games of all time...but jeez
I enjoyed way more KHII than III, is that wrong to you?
I didn't even says KHIII is a bad game, I just didn't enjoy it as KHII
BTW, toy box is to me the worst world in KHIII
You just said that III had no sense of exploration while II did. II was empty rooms. I just reminded you what II actually was.
You're free to say that you enjoyed II more. But it's just objectively wrong to say it had more exploration options
that's more appropriate that saying than i was "trash talking"
btw im glad that is your favorite game of all time, just i didnt click on me
maybe after the DLC that will change
Every single summon in this game except for stitch is broken. You're just not using them the right way.
They need to drastically cut down on Triangle Commands. They aren't even Reaction Commands any more. There's nothing like the KH2 samurai Heartless Reaction command which is the coolest thing ever. They are just spam moves.
Attraction Commands need to activate like once per world, they are awful. Grand Magic needs to activate at at least half the rate.
Attraction Commands need to activate like once per world, they are awful. Grand Magic needs to activate at at least half the rate.
I hate that Stitch went from breaking any semblance of balance in II....to being perfectly fair and balanced...
He was a god...
Disagree on 1 per world, they should just be rarer, like FFXV summons
Grand Magic is perfectly fine as is, you just need overall tougher enemies
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Yeah so I'm playing KH2 and KH3 back to back at the moment. It's noticeable how short the first visit are in KH2 compared to the worlds in KH3. Just got through Port Royal and Halloween Town in about 10min each after skipping cutscenes. You'll be going through the same areas in the second visit in the same amount of time so the only thing it brings is some more bosses and storyfiller.
But while they're short it might also be the KH2's strength. You'll be going between different worlds in a pretty short amount of time so it's pretty hard to be bored by its empty scenery. But KH3s level design is without doubt better than KH2's flat hallways imo.
But while they're short it might also be the KH2's strength. You'll be going between different worlds in a pretty short amount of time so it's pretty hard to be bored by its empty scenery. But KH3s level design is without doubt better than KH2's flat hallways imo.
Things I wish KH3 did differently:
(Mild spoilers)
- Save aqua much earlier and she becomes more of a part of the overall story
- Incorporate the Final Fantasy characters
- Cut down some of the Disney worlds so they aren't so drawn out and use that to add a couple more SURPRISE areas/worlds
- Give the game a big middle part that leads into the Second Act; kill off Sora.
- Play the second act of the game as Kairi WITH Donald and Goofy, finally reuniting with Sora at the end for one epic duo fight.
- Incorporate the story more into the Disney worlds.
(combat/gameplay is a different list)
But that would help make this game much more worth it in my mind. Doubt that could be something added/improved in a Final Mix version, but they could possibly get it somewhat closer.
(Mild spoilers)
- Save aqua much earlier and she becomes more of a part of the overall story
- Incorporate the Final Fantasy characters
- Cut down some of the Disney worlds so they aren't so drawn out and use that to add a couple more SURPRISE areas/worlds
- Give the game a big middle part that leads into the Second Act; kill off Sora.
- Play the second act of the game as Kairi WITH Donald and Goofy, finally reuniting with Sora at the end for one epic duo fight.
- Incorporate the story more into the Disney worlds.
(combat/gameplay is a different list)
But that would help make this game much more worth it in my mind. Doubt that could be something added/improved in a Final Mix version, but they could possibly get it somewhat closer.
It's personally one of my preferred things when it comes to 2. I don't 'love' the exploration in the KH games, so KH2 basically being a bunch of arena rooms is fine with me, especially when they're in worlds that are basically filler. 3 hasn't called to me to replay partially because the worlds are so 'big' now that traversing them again seems like a pain that's longer and, due to the lackluster battle system overtyl pointless story beats, less engaging.
I would hope they fixed the pacing and story issues with updates, especially since I think a lot of them would be fixed fairly easily (by saving Aqua early and having the tower be explorable to interact with her and Yen Sid and having it explicit that Sora is trying to figure out what the Organization is plotting by visiting the worlds instead of the whole 'waking' thing which turns out to just be inside him all along anyways).
More bosses and a harder difficulty would be great too. We didn't get to fight Zurg! Or Hades! or the Cyclops titan! I'd hope we get a mix of Disney and non-Disney picks.
Ariel helped me beat the final bosses since I could just hide underwater with her anytime they did certain attacks. It felt kind of cheap, but I beat a good deal of bosses in KH1 with Dumbo so it also felt fitting.
More bosses and a harder difficulty would be great too. We didn't get to fight Zurg! Or Hades! or the Cyclops titan! I'd hope we get a mix of Disney and non-Disney picks.
Ariel helped me beat the final bosses since I could just hide underwater with her anytime they did certain attacks. It felt kind of cheap, but I beat a good deal of bosses in KH1 with Dumbo so it also felt fitting.
This is true. But ultimately useless and even pointless I might add because the difficulty of the game you never really have any need for them. I never felt I was ever in a situation where a summon would be useful to use with how often action commands appeared to clear out clusters of enemies almost just as fast. I never used them during bosses for similar reasons too.
I respect but I just can't see where people are coming from who think KH2 FM is better, basically the worlds are so much better in 3, and there's more details going on in the background to make the worlds feel alive. In 2 the worlds just feel like rooms. I agree 3 is a bit easier than 2 but they're mostly the same difficulty except 2 has a few more difficulty spikes like fighting when Xaldin, Roxas and Xigbar. Also the intro, the first impression, is a lot better and straight to the point than the 4 or so hours Roxas prologue. I made more use of the keyblade transformations than the drive forms. 3 felt like a very natural improvement to me.
Honestly I can't imagine that ever happening unless they add a f-ton of stuff to the KH3 final mix, like I think when the dust is settled kh2 will be remembered as the best
Fixed for you. 3 already surpassed Vanilla 2
However, I don't think it will ever surpass II FM+
I think if KH3 FM fixes a lot of the pain points that KH3 has then it easily will be the best game in the series but as of right now, KH3 and KH2 FM trade blows (which is a good thing!).
This is the Hercules world in KH2. The KH1 version was literally just the 3 rooms at the top:
Here it is in KH3:
Beyond the size, there's verticality and the fact that they actually bothered to put NPCs in the town. Oh and there's a town! KH2 always had this issue where places just felt devoid of life, like you were walking through empty sets that were made to look like scenes for Disney movies. The worlds in 3 feel infinitely bigger for the simple fact that they actually tried making the worlds feel alive. There's just so much more care and detail put into them. The difference between the Pirates world from 2 and 3 is staggering.
well when I say KH2 I mean KH2FM but I also think KH2 vanilla (at least vanilla in EU) was better than 3 as it is.
Also to the person saying world in 3 feel smaller I felt the exact same thing (with exception to Caribbean), especially with Olympus Coliseum, I feel though this is due to the one and done nature of the games world's and how many feel completely unfinished like you were meant to return but it got scrapped (OC literally finishes with Pandora''s box lying around right in the open for anyone to open and toybox ends with the world being split sill, and Pooh bear feels like you were meant to revisit to name some)
To be fair, Toybox ends with the world still being split so you can go back and play around there more later on. If the world got rejoined (which it does in the ending), then you wouldn't be able to go back there and you'd just lose the entire thing. And Pandora's Box isn't important, it was just a red herring that Xigbar, Maleficent and Pete were after.
But yeah, Hundred Acre Wood is a joke world and they probably shouldn't have included it at all.
O played KH 3 this week and it was one of the worst games I've ever played. What a frustrating experience
yeah but it leaves the worlds feeling unfinished, like I was expecting for way too long that I'd return to toy box to reunite the worlds, return to OC to battle the newly unleashed evil and make the connection to Pooh bear grow again like merlin literally says you can.
Then there's other worlds that feel incredibly small like San Fransokyo. basically KH2 creates the illusion better that the worlds are bigger with more stuff to do while physically being smaller (OC being a prime example) and kh3 worlds felt smaller and emptier while physically being bigger
They did that in 2 and it kinda killed the pacing and people complained about forcing a random giant heartless in each world as filler...
Again, look at the 2006 impressions thread that I posted a few pages back
Since then we hardly get 1 revisit per game
Hence why I said it's a red herring, yeah. It's A black box, but it's not THE black box they needed so they just toss it aside.
The thing is, the game is already about as long as your average KH game as it is. Having you go back to Toy Box and do even more stuff there would just drag out a world that already felt a bit too long as it is. And if you reunited the worlds, again, you'd lose access to them and never be able to go back.
The world revisits in KH2 were an okay idea but 90% of the time it was just running around the same places you already went and fighting a new boss. It was bad for the pacing and it exposed the weaknesses of the world design.
My enjoyment of KH2(/FM) is extremely personal, so probably not for me.
I definitely think there's a chance for it to at least be on par with how much people love 2FM if you give it some time to settle. After all, I think it took time for people to come around to KH2 in general. Even now people still dunk on stuff like the Roxas prologue.
Some might not be able to resolve how the story sits with them though (and that's not really going to be mended with a patch), along with the lack of fan-favorite original worlds and FF characters (this has the potential to be fixed). The graphics and level design are a hit for the most part though, so with more balancing and some additions via DLC I definitely think people will come around to it more. It's kind of absurd to see how much people either defend the game to death or act like it's a -3/10 though... definitely gives me early KH2 reception vibes. On top of that, a lot of the game's failures aren't exactly unique to KH3 when compared to other games in the series.
I think there's a lot of interesting and great criticism of KH3 floating around, but at the end of the day it will all come down to what the general consensus values more in the series. KH3 offers these really detailed Disney worlds to explore, and for a lot of people that's the sort of thing that makes them glad that Kingdom Hearts exists in general, even if it misses the mark at times.
I definitely think there's a chance for it to at least be on par with how much people love 2FM if you give it some time to settle. After all, I think it took time for people to come around to KH2 in general. Even now people still dunk on stuff like the Roxas prologue.
Some might not be able to resolve how the story sits with them though (and that's not really going to be mended with a patch), along with the lack of fan-favorite original worlds and FF characters (this has the potential to be fixed). The graphics and level design are a hit for the most part though, so with more balancing and some additions via DLC I definitely think people will come around to it more. It's kind of absurd to see how much people either defend the game to death or act like it's a -3/10 though... definitely gives me early KH2 reception vibes. On top of that, a lot of the game's failures aren't exactly unique to KH3 when compared to other games in the series.
I think there's a lot of interesting and great criticism of KH3 floating around, but at the end of the day it will all come down to what the general consensus values more in the series. KH3 offers these really detailed Disney worlds to explore, and for a lot of people that's the sort of thing that makes them glad that Kingdom Hearts exists in general, even if it misses the mark at times.
That wasn't meant for you at all, I meant that the Box thing is even set up as a joke before the reveal
I didn't mind the ice dungeon... I just wanted to do it before Monstropolis. I'm really not looking forward to Pirates (I don't feel comfortable fighting the forces of darkness alongside a wife beater), but overall I've gotta say I'm kind of disappointed by the selection of Disney worlds in this one. They clearly went for the obvious choices (asides from Hercules, jesus christ) and apart from Toy Story being AMAZING the rest have kind of fallen flat.
If it helps, Jack isn't voiced by Depp. But yeah, the world selection is probably my least favorite in the series overall even though I liked Pirates, Toy Story and Tangled a lot. Frozen, Monsters Inc and Big Hero 6 just did very little for me.
Problem with Frozen was that nothing Sora did even mattered, he just watched Frozen from afar and felt like he had a restraining order
I'd say the worst world selection is DDD, outside of the fantastic Fantasia world
Thankyou, DDD was horrible. Hunchback of Notre Dame was so disappointing, and the sublime Fantasia world is literally where I stopped playing. I mean a world based off a straight to video Mickey Mouse cartoon when you have countless other films to draw from? Yeesh.
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