Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Perrydotto (?) » Sun Jan 21, 2018 3:01 am

do it

kill Sephiroth
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sun Jan 21, 2018 3:23 am

The problem is that Sephiroth is a nasty as hell superboss fight in a tiny arena. You basically require the Second Chance ability (imagine the Sturdy ability from pokemon, survive with 1 hp from a deathblow) and the Leaf Bracer ability (Cure spells can't be interrupted) just to even survive. His sword is long as shit, and he has long attacks that you have to dodge. It's been forever, but basically, i remember Sephiroth just being a kind of crap optional superboss. The Final Mix exclusive boss, Unknown, is arguably harder than Sephiroth, but from what i remember seeing out of him, Unknown is at least more fair than Sephiroth is.

I'll certainly give it a shot though.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by The Ghost of Ember (?) » Sun Jan 21, 2018 3:05 pm

did we ever figure out whether he was saying descend heartless angel or sin harvest lance basses delivery of that line was super muddled
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Perpetual Motion (?) » Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:22 pm

I mostly remember Sephiroth eventually summoning Meteor and blowing up the entire arena at once, killing me instantly. That's probably what you need Second Chance for. I never bothered to actually try again, though. I liked his fight in KH2 a lot more, though I still never managed to beat that one either.

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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sun Jan 21, 2018 5:06 pm

The Ghost of Ember wrote:
Sun Jan 21, 2018 3:05 pm
did we ever figure out whether he was saying descend heartless angel or sin harvest lance basses delivery of that line was super muddled
from what i looked up, it's the former
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by W.T. Fits (?) » Sun Jan 21, 2018 7:15 pm

I think I only ever beat Sephiroth once, using a strategy I found on GameFAQs.

Still felt fantastic to kick his ass, though.

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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:41 am

It's time for the postgame/endgame wrapup!

For the most part, it's just hunting down all the Trinity Marks, finding all 99 dalmatian puppies, and finishing up the Coliseum. Trinity Marks are essentially a collectible, find these marks all across the game, and you use them when you unlocked the right trinity and have Goofy and Donald in your party to usually find treasure chests and other items.

The 99 dalmatian puppies are the main collectible sidequest in this game. There's 33 chests hidden throughout the different worlds, each holding three puppies inside. As you collect more and more of the puppies, you get various items, from gummi blocks, to synthesis parts, to stat boosting items. Finding all 99 gives you an upgrade to Aero and gives you a collection of every single gummi block in the game.

And then...the Olympus Coliseum. Throughout the game, after you beat the initial story beat for this world, you unlock various tournaments of 9 battles each against various teams of heartless, with some exceptions. In the second tournament, you get to fight Leon (Squall from FF8) and Yuffie (from FF7) as the final fight. In the third tournament, you fight Cloud partway through, and then Hercules is the final fight. Once the Hollow Bastion keyhole is locked, the final tournament is open for business, and it's a doozy.

The fourth and final tournament is the Hades Cup, and it's 49 fights long. Thankfully, it checkpoints you every couple of fights, so you don't have to do it all in one go. Which is nice, because not only does it have returning boss heartless to spice things up, and not only does it include the toughest normal enemies in the game, it's got a whole bunch of bosses included in it. Leon and Cloud pair up to ruin your day. Cerberus returns from the story segment at the beginning of the world, scaled up with more HP and more damage to pose a threat once again. And Hades himself shows up at rank 10 to take you on himself in a surprisingly nasty boss fight. The last fight even faces you off against the Rock Titan, but that fight's just a gimmie. It poses very little threat, and just easily soaks up tons of damage that you unleash on his feet (and face once you knock him over)

So that's all the main sidequest wrap-up. All that's left are two remaining options in the Coliseum, and three more optional bosses hiding away on various other worlds. But that's going to have to wait until I do some additional level grinding.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 3:08 am

Basically, everything from here on out is an optional superboss fight.

Ice Titan in Olympus Coliseum's Gold Match is up first, and I'm just grinding to get MP Rage on Sora, so I can freely spam cure without having to worry about MP, since I'll get hit a lot anyways.

Agrabah has Kurt Zisa, a unique heartless boss that switches back and forth from forcing you to use only physical attacks to forcing you to use only magic attacks as the fight progresses.

Neverland has Phantom, which honestly is going to suck a lot. It casts Doom on a party member, and you gotta stop that from happening via the clock tower you're flying around. It's gonna be a lot of dumb management between damaging it with the right type of attack, and making sure that you cast Stop on the clock face to prevent Doom from counting down, as once a party member is knocked out from Doom, they're knocked out for the rest of the fight and can't be revived. And once both party members are gone, you're next. It's not a very good boss fight.

Sephiroth is the Platinum Match in the Coliseum and that won't be pretty to say the least. I'll have to grind levels so I can get the Leaf Bracer ability for this one.

And finally, the last thing in the game is Unknown, a boss exclusive to KH Final Mix. And supposedly he's nastier than Sephiroth. Yeesh.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:23 am

Yes, fight Unknown. :excellent:
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Mon Jan 22, 2018 3:51 pm

After a spot of grinding by replaying Coliseum tournaments both with solo only and with a set time limit, I've gotten to level 63, and got MP Rage. This is the big upgrade I need for Ice Titan.

Ice Titan is unique in that he's a really tall boy with only a single weakpoint: his head. And there's two ways to hit him: attack with fire spells, and by deflecting his shots back at him. See, this guy loves shooting projectiles at you, and the key to victory is timing your guards so his icicle shots are reflected back in his face. After taking almost an entire health bar's worth of damage, he'll get stunned and you have a chance to quickly run in and hit in the head a few times with your keyblade before you have to retreat into the bleachers again. And then when he gets back up, he'll usually get angry and start spewing even more projectiles at you.

It's a pretty hectic and fun fight, but it lasts a little too long for it's own good. Because of how long it takes, and how many projectiles he spews out, you are going to get hit sooner or later. And he hits hard, so MP conservation is an issue, as you'll want to quickly use cure in a pinch. Hence why I had gone out of my way to grind for MP Rage. This ability converts damage taken to MP recovered. I'll still take plenty of damage, but this ensures that I'll get enough MP back so that I'm never without MP to cast Cure. I won't get enough MP back for much else, but that's fine.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:02 am

holky fukc i beat all five of the jerks

i'll post more tomorrow about it, but basically, i'm stupified that i beat sephiroth and unknown in the same night
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Perrydotto (?) » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:13 am

Whoop :yay:
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:33 pm

So yeah, I beat all 5 optional bosses, and uploaded videos of my successful attempts cause i felt like it. Lets go over all of them:



Ice Titan, like I mentioned before, is a really interesting boss, but it's a little boring to watch, and lasts a little too long. Still, it's tough and enjoyable.



Kurt Zisa is more like a normal heartless boss, except he has a gimmick. At the start of the fight, he'll lock your spells out (hence why I summoned Tinker Bell to get constant healing), and you need to break his two orbs to use them again. Breaking the two orbs also knocks him down, letting you smack his now exposed weakpoint. He then proceeds to put up a barrier that nullifies all physical damage, and so you need to hit him with magic. Once you break that, he gets knocked down for you to damage him, and once he gets back up, he'll switch back to the physical-only phase. And then this pattern will continue until he's defeated. Kurt Zisa is a rather fun, if easy compared to the rest of the fights.




Phantom is a bad boss. On paper, it's neat, trying to deal with the constantly changing barrier to damage the boss, or perhaps working against an active timer. In practice, it's long, tedious endurance match, where you need to keep your MP up, keep your HP up, and make sure you cast stop on the clock face at all times. You need Peter Pan here, so I brought Goofy along as well, just so he can use MP Gift to help keep my MP bar up. He's a boring boss that takes a while instead of being actually difficult.




Sephiroth would be a good superboss if he just stuck to his sword attacks. He's quick, hits hard, and has a long but with the right timing and some practice, you could dodge and handle his attacks despite the fact that he's a whirling blender of death. The problem is that he has a flaming pillar attack that is basically undodgeable. If you spot his tell for the attack, raising his hand up, it's already too late. It's an AoE attack that surrounds him that comes out way too quick to reasonably handle by any means. His other stuff is also nasty, but actually manageable. When he teleports away, saying "Descend, Heartless Angel", preparing a spell, he needs to be immediately be hit, because if he finishes, your MP will be completely depleted, and your HP will be brought down to 1, leaving you entirely vulnerable unless you manage to pop a healing item before he can hit you. Other than that, his desperation attack is actually really easy to handle.



Unknown, like Sephiroth, is a ridiculously quick, hard-hitting superboss with hard to dodge attacks. But unlike Sephiroth, he's much more fair and managable. Your party members are here, so Donald and Goofy can reasonably provide support for you in this fight. The arena is very large, Unknown's melee attacks are close range, and while he throws fast projectiles at you, you can dodge them reliably (though they are very quick and the timing can be tight). He also has less health than Sephiroth, which thankfully makes the fight go by quicker. The nasty trick with this boss, however, is that he has an attack where he grabs you with electricity and curses your command menu, replacing them with a roulette of Shock/Release. If you hit Shock, you take damage, but if you hit Release, you break free and you can heal yourself. The timing is a bit of a crapshoot for me, so I get around it by pause-buffering so I can better handle it.


And that's Kingdom Hearts 1! I'm not going to do all the synthesis in this game because it's an awful grind. Next up: Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories. I hope to actually beat the game this time.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:50 pm

Grats, Genisi! Now do it on Lv1 Proud!!! :scheming:
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Jan 23, 2018 4:18 pm

Quanta wrote:
Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:50 pm
Grats, Genisi! Now do it on Lv1 Proud!!! :scheming:
no
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Thu Jan 25, 2018 11:28 am

Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories is kind of the oddball black sheep of the series, even when you include 358/7 Days and Re:Coded. First of all, it's a GBA game, presented in a 2D isometric style. More importantly, while it continues to be an action RPG (well, kinda), the battle system is now done via cards. An active time card battle.

You can carry up to 99 cards in a single deck with a total cost that does not exceed your CP (a stat you can upgrade when you level up). Each action you can do is detemined by which card you use, you can swap to whatever card you got in your deck, and when you use up all your cards (or even before that), you can refresh your cards when they get used up in the middle of a battle(with some exceptions, namely item cards). Cards come with a number, 1-9 and 0. Higher number cards win out, interrupting the opponent's card and negating any lower numbered cards while it's active. The one exception is for 0 numbered cards, which are a little different. Anything can counter it, but they can counter cards of any number. And lastly, there's Sleights, which are special attacks. You can select and hold three cards at a time, adding their numbers together. Having random cards just uses the in a combo, but certain card combinations will let you use a special attack. Like, putting two Blizzard cards in a row lets you cast Blizzara, or putting three keyblade cards within a certain number range would let you use certain special skill attacks. You can't use combos/sleights all the time though, as it'll remove the first card into the set of three you used from your deck until the end of the battle.

Oh, but that's just the battle system. The story is that it's the clip show from hell. After defeating Ansem and closing the Door to Darkness, Sora, Donald, and Goofy found themselves in a world with a large grassy field with a path that they're traveling down. Eventually, they find themselves being guided to a bizarre castle in a strange nearby void. They enter, and find a mysterious man in a black cloak. The cloaked man informs them that the entire castle works on cards, and that they'll have to explore their memories while traveling through this castle, Castle Oblivion to find what they seek.

And by memories, it's nearly all of the worlds from KH1. We're revisiting nearly all of the worlds, experiencing the same stories with differences here and there, with a lot of them involving memories in some way. There's nothing new in these worlds. It's nearly entirely filler. This is what takes up most of the game. There's content in between floors (worlds), comprising of cutscene interludes where Sora and friends talk about how their memories are being affected as they climb up the floors of the castle, or sometimes boss fights where you confront the strange black-cloaked organization that appear to control the castle.

The biggest issue is that this game's story leads into KH2. It's not some weird spinoff. It's actually pretty damn integral to the intro of KH2. You could skip this game and still get KH2's story, but it's going to be a bit harder and a bit more confusing, because some stuff doesn't make as much sense jumping into if you just go from KH1 to KH2 and know entirely nothing on CoM.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Thu Jan 25, 2018 11:30 am

Oh and I'm playing the 3D remake, Re:Chain of Memories, which reuses a lot of assets from KH1.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Fri Jan 26, 2018 10:03 am

If you were unenthused by how 1's first few worlds were a bit underwhelming, then Re:CoM/CoM's first 6 worlds are going to really suck, thanks to 1) all of the repeated worlds, and 2) nothing really happening in between either, save for a boss battle against one of the new villains, Axel (got it memorized?) at the 1F exit, and then once i'm done with 6F, another new boss will show up (they're all part of the same organization).

Floors 2F - 6F are a slow burn, learning how the new system works, and getting introduced to the idea of Sora's memories being messed with as he's ascending Castle Oblivion, and how the members of the villainous "Organization" are watching his journey in the castle with great interest. The stories that the worlds thrown at you are a bit different from KH1, but largely hit either the same or similar plot beats that KH1 hit, and are otherwise not terribly exciting, plot-wise.

However! some of the boss fights in this game are way more annoying to deal with. Unlike KH1, where it's preferable to rush down the enemies and dodge/defend/hang back as needed, CoM is best played a little slower and more methodically, dodging attacks, and building up for a chance to do powerful counterattacks. This is important because you have shit like Trickmaster at the end of Wonderland. In KH1, he's just a rather tall boy, and you use the table in the middle of the room to best reach him (though you could jump up and attack him with your keyblade from the floor. In Re:CoM, it's essentially the same fight, but you're fighting against the card system to really take advantage of the boss's weaknesses and deal damage. He's not the hardest thing, but he ends up being way harder in this version, and it feels more as a result of the battle system's issues than with the boss alone.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have fucking Parasite Cage from Monstro. This was the version of the fight that i was dreading back when I was in 1. In 1, the rematch was in the stomach, and there was some acid, but there were plenty of stationary platforms to move around the boss, and the boss platform was large enough to make standing on it viable to use, if a little easy to get hit at. In CoM, it gave you moving platforms to jump around on in the middle of a pool of acid, sometimes giving out Mickey Symbol cards that temporarily turned the acid to solid ground so you could freely attack the boss. And it sucked, from what i remember.

Re:CoM translates that same crappy boss fight into 3D, platforms and all. And I think it might actually be WORSE than i remember CoM's version being! Granted, it didn't take me as long to deal with Parasite Cage as it did for me to deal with Trickmaster, but good lord i do not like this fight at all. In trying to make it harder, it just feels like they made it way more annoying instead.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:57 pm

Halloween Town is over, and done with, signaling the end of the first half of Castle Oblivion. The most notable thing about it is that the Oogie Boogie boss fight was REALLY easy this time around. The KH1 version wasn't that hard either, but it's kind of shocking on how easy it is to clown on Oogie here. It copies the GBA version's arena, so you just have a very simple deathtrap arena, where you need to break Oogie's card attacks and attack the dice he throws so a Mickey card shows up. Using that card lowers the gate that prevents you from attacking Oogie, and stuns him for a bit, letting you unload a TON of attacks into him. He's easy to counter, and it's easy to rack up damage.

Now, getting past the first set of worlds means that you fight against another member of this mysterious Organization, which has plans for Sora. Larxene is a quick boss that doesn't deal a lot of individual damage, but she can rack up a lot of damage with her throwing a lot of knives and thunderbolts at you. She beat me a few times because I was bad at dodging her attacks and wasn't quick enough to heal when I was really hurting. But the difficulty i had was all on my messups, which was nice after the impression that bosses like Trickmaster and Parasite Cage give.

In fact, this marks the point where traditional 1v1 duels are going to start showing up more often for boss fights. Non-traditional stuff like Heartless bosses or something like Oogie Boogie just has them use attacks represented by cards and....that's about it. You can spawn mickey cards that counter everything they do and set up a gimmick effect to help you, but it's otherwise just fighting the boss and handling whatever gimmick they have.

1v1 duels like against Cloud, Hades, Axel and Larxene are a bit more interesting, because they run on the same rules of the card game as you do. They have decks, they can form sleights for their more powerful attacks, and if they run out of cards, they'll also have to stop and reload their decks. These fights (save for Hades, whose instant fire attack is annoying) feel like they were made for the card battle system for this game, and just feel more fun.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Sat Jan 27, 2018 4:52 pm

As I recall, the speedrun just Fire Raids to victory most of the time because fuck this game.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sat Jan 27, 2018 9:58 pm

Honestly, Chain of Memories isn't a bad game at heart. The card battle system is pretty neat, if a bit weird to get into at first and build into. The modular dungeon design of the worlds, using cards to create your own experience, is a neat idea. The plot in between worlds is still pretty interesting imo, and the villains in Castle Oblivion proper are fun fights (though fuck Riku 4, i'll get to him and get my revenge in this playthrough).

The game's biggest flaws are with the disney worlds themselves, retreading old ground way too much, and there's boss encounters that are just garbage. Trickmaster and Parasite Cage are standouts in this game (thus far). While they were perfectly fine bosses in KH1 (and i don't remember Trickmaster being bad in CoM), here in Re:CoM, the 3D card combat against these bosses, to me at least, just does not work well here.

And I just KNOW that Riku 4 is going to be an absolute motherfucker of a boss, with the speed and power of Riku 2 from KH1, but being fought with the card batlte system of this game.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Sun Jan 28, 2018 8:52 am

I would say the chief flaw of CoM (and Re:CoM in particular) is that it's trying to mash together the twitchy, button-mashy gameplay of an action RPG and the more strategic and methodical card game genre.

The problem that arises is thinking that card games--you know, games that are historically designed around things like reading your opponent, strategic planning, and deep thinking about the most optimal move given the present game state--aren't conducive towards action. I mean, sure, KH1 does have reading your opponent, and there's some element of strategic planning that mostly comes into play when you run into a difficult boss or are doing a subsequent playthrough...but you never have to do those things while also keeping in mind shit like the number of cards you have remaining or if the numbers on your cards are bigger than the opponent's numbers and shit like that. You execute your 3-hit combo or whatever, back off a bit to see how the opponent responds, and then react based on the action, and it goes back and forth like that, in real time, without you having to consider any other factors.

End of the day, it was an attempt to fuse two types of games that really don't pair well together and was bound to piss people off, whether they were action game fans that didn't want to deal with the card mechanics or card game players that wanted time to consider their options. It's trash garbage and belongs in the dumpster.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sun Jan 28, 2018 4:09 pm

Well, yeah, it is certainly flawed, taking the generally twitchy and button-mashy nature of action RPGs (and KH in particular) and combining it with card games, which are traditionally slower and more methodical. And yeah, it really is wonky to try to get into. KH1, despite it's flaws, is fairly easy for people to get into.

CoM? People are going to bounce off of this, no doubt. This mixture is harder to get into as you do have to keep in mind the deckbuilding component, and keeping an eye on how many cards you have in your deck as a bossfight continues on, and if you're using sleights or making general combos. And the sorts of bosses I keep complaining about, they tend to highlight the flaws of the system, as you want to be more twitchy and be able to attack more actively, but you're forced into a slower, more methodical approach: do a few attacks, taking your time to counter attacks, plan out your next attack. You have to aim for a target, and the target you want to deal damage to isn't always available, either because you're dodging things, you need to hit something else, or the target is higher up, and you just can't use all your tools.

In the 1v1 duel bosses and usually in random battles as well, you're free to go nuts. All your tools are available, and while some sleights/attacks/abilities aren't as effective, you can actually have your deck work out to always be the sort of twitchy hack-n-slash action that Kingdom Hearts is supposed to be. I'm just using a shitty deck of all trades, with a ton of various keyblade cards, a Mega Potion, an Ether, three fire, three blizzard, two cure, and two Genie cards, and as I go down the keyblade card order, combo-ing up cards, I can pull off a bunch of Sonic Blade and Blitz sleights, get a Cura off if I need to, as well as Blizzaga/Firega, or use Fire Blitz if I really need to. I don't have a lot of strategy to it, other than just "go nuts" and "heal when I need to", and I can get that fast-paced action that you wouldn't otherwise expect out of this game. Next chance I get, I'll see about getting some videos of a boss or two to try and show what I'm trying to talk about.

Honestly, playing this really makes me want to go dig up my PSP and play Metal Gear Ac!d 2 again. That game was turn-based and the gameplay is nothing like this game (and handles the implementation of a card system better than this game), but it was just extremely great.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Mon Jan 29, 2018 2:18 am

Here's another flaw that kinda compounds onto everything: the level up system.

Whenever you level up, you get your choice of three options: increase your HP, increase your CP, or learn a new Sleight (its determined by your actual level on when you can learn more via level up). And because learning a new Sleight is not always an option, you're stuck with either HP or CP. Nothing else. All other customization and improvements are determined by how you constructed your deck.

You need CP above all else to actually have a deck worth a damn, you need more Sleights to give you more options, and HP is something you should invest in a bit so you actually have some leeway in bosses especially. If you don't invest too well into HP, when you start running into harder and harder bosses, you're going to die more easily (something that really came to bite me in the ass when Vexen 1 showed up). But if you don't invest too much into CP, you're not going to have enough CP to invest in building the deck you want.

And you can *only* get these by choosing them when you level up, so you can easily mess yourself up and make things harder for yourself without even realizing it. Which was what I ran into with Vexen 1 after clearing Hollow Bastion and 100 Acre Wood. What would have otherwise been a more manageable fight (which i do not remember giving me too much grief in the GBA game) turned into an ordeal as I'd get killed way too easily.



Ultimately, it took me spamming the Lethal Frame sleight (among others) to knock down his health far enough to shorten the battle and try to keep him from doing too much to me when he ever got the chance.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Mon Jan 29, 2018 2:21 am

Basically, i'm gonna need to grab some HP level ups in the next two worlds. Riku 4 is approaching quickly, and I'm not looking forward to it at this rate.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Mon Jan 29, 2018 7:23 pm

Once you're done with the second set of worlds and fight Vexen at the end of 10F, the next world is where the clip show ends and things REALLY get interesting, with Twilight Town. All the other worlds up until this point have been repeats from KH1, where the story is remixed from the origional worlds, but with the overarching plot of KH1 excised. But Twilight Town is brand new. It's created from a memory deep in Sora's heart, but neither the characters nor the player have any idea of what the place is. We don't know what it is and we don't know why it's here, or what this turn of events even means. I really like this turn of events. It takes advantage of the game's premise and setup as a pseudo clip-show. At the end of the rather short world, Vexen shows up for round 2. After defeating him, he starts to explain what's going on with Sora's memories, the Organization, and Marluxia, the leader of the Organization at this castle, but Axel warps in and kills him before he can spill the beans.

After Twilight Town, Riku? shows up for a third fight, and leaves behind a card leading to the Destiny Islands. This one's another short world, but unlike the other repeat worlds, this one is all about the game's actual plot. Sora's memories have been messed up as everyone's been traveling up through Castle Oblivion, being eroded, and then false memories are being implanted of a girl named Namine, who is the source of Sora's fake memories to begin with. He's forgetting his friends from the Islands, and he's nearly forgotten about Kairi completely, and because he believes these memories so completely, he ran off without Donald and Goofy when they start realizing that there's something fishy going on with Sora's memories of Namine.

After another run in with the Darkside heartless from the last game, Sora finally meets face to face with Namine, but to his surprise, she tries to explain that his memories are all fake. Confused, he reaches the exit to try and talk with Namine, but the fake Riku shows up for round 4.

I've been dreading this fight. When I played the GBA game, this was the farthest I ever got. I reached Riku 4, and i couldn't defeat him. He's a nasty boss, much like his KH1 incarnation, and in this fight, he brings back his desperation attack from KH1: Dark Aura. It's a nasty and hard to dodge. And now, with a deck full of nonsense in Re:CoM?



Victory at last. My revenge is complete. I beat Riku 4, I beat the second Larxene fight that showed up right afterwards, and now I'm onto the final floor: Castle Oblivion proper. The end is in sight, and I'm in uncharted territory. This is honestly pretty damn exciting.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Jan 30, 2018 12:20 am

Castle Oblivion is a rough floor. It's large, imposing, and is filled to the brim with some of the toughest heartless you can find. And a bunch of heartless that aren't exactly super hard, but there's so many of them with so much health that my normal deck isn't cutting it anymore. I can't just sonic blade them all to death (but it certainly helps). Luckily, when you start this floor, you get the Trinity Limit sleight. "What does it do?" you may ask. Well....

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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Jan 30, 2018 11:52 am

Three bosses are hanging out on this floor: Axel 2, the refight of the boss from alllllll the way back from the end of 1F at the beginning of the game, and two fights against Marluxia. Axel 2 is a pretty standard Organization boss fight, so nothing new there.

Marluxia, on the other hand, is nasty. He's the final boss, so of course he's going to give trouble. The arena's larger, he likes to teleport away to give some distance between you(which is annoying for me, trying to use Lethal Frame spam to knock off a couple of health bars). He also has some nasty sleights that you extremely want to break when you have the chance. He definitely gave me some trouble, but again, i'm leaning more towards "i have low health, so I don't have as much to work with as i'd like", though he's certainly difficult.



Also: pet peeve: out of all the excuses that villains give to why you fight them multiple times or have multiple different forms or what not, "it's just a decoy/illusion" is probably the most annoying. Especially here since right after I beat him, I've got one final showdown in the next room to go to.

The final boss is looking to be a bit of a doozy.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Wed Jan 31, 2018 3:18 am

Final boss? It looked pretty nasty, but I kinda went nuts after the travesty that was the Marluxia 1 fight and grinded up a couple of levels to get more HP, more CP, and the Megaflare sleight. End result?



I may or may not have overprepared for this fight a bit. Marluxia 2 is the final boss in the GBA version, and here he's a total jerk. The mech-like body attacks you with the scythe hands and Marluxia himself has his various projectile attacks. The strategy is basically to get ready for the long haul. Break both scythes and then attack the main body directly, trying to make every attack count. Though at the same time, you gotta make sure that you're not using too much of your resources, because this phase will last a while.

Because this is Re:CoM, we're not done once the second form is down, because Marluxia proceeds to move onto a brand new final form, exclusive to this version of the game. The good news: the music rules, and he's firmly planted on the ground, wide open for any attack. The bad news: unlike his second form, his third form has sleights, and they're really nasty attacks. Two of which actually take advantage of the card battle system. Doom locks you in place and forces you to break a series of cards while a timer slowly ticks down. If it reaches zero, you automatically die, regardless of your health. Whirlwind to the Void blows your deck out onto the arena (including your reload slot), forcing you to pick all your cards back up. And with another sleight, he can actually get rid of any cards you haven't picked up yet.

Unfortunately for him, I overstuffed my deck full of cards for various sleights, including like, 6 or 7 Stops for spamming Lethal Frame. Combine it with Jafar-Genie's attack bracer effect, and I basically wiped out most of his health from the get go.

And now, Sora's story is done. Sora, Donald, and Goofy climb into a pod and go to sleep until KH2 to have their original memories restored, and they'll lose their memories of this game. But before I move onto the next game, there's a second story: Reverse/Rebirth, where you fight through Castle Oblivion's basement as Riku. This is gonna be fun.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:14 pm

So! Riku's story! Reverse/Rebirth is what's going on with Riku during the events of CoM, who awakens to find himself in the deepest bowels of Castle Oblivion's basement floors. While Sora was being lead along by Marluxia, Riku's arrival is a bit of a surprise to the Organization members stationed in the basement. They decide to keep an eye on him and mess with him as he climbs up the various floors, trying to find a way out.

Meanwhile, Ansem, the villain of KH1 is still actively haunting Riku. While he accidentally killed himself by opening the door to Kingdom Hearts and getting vaporized by the light within, a piece of him still remains within Riku due to Ansem's possession of him in KH1's endgame. And Ansem (with a new voice actor) still loves darkness, and wants Riku to fall back into darkness. Riku, however, wants to be rid of the darkness, and King Mickey, projecting an image of himself, helps Riku keep the darkness and Ansem at bay.

It's a pretty straightforward story. The gameplay is where it's really different. Here's a video that best demonstrates fighting as Riku:



You don't have any deckbuilding component: instead, you get prebuilt decks in each world, and slowly gain a collection boss cards to help you out. You have instant-reloads, you don't have normal sleights (except for those related to King Mickey, who is your one ally in this mode, as well as your only source of healing in battle), and instead, it's all based on Dark Mode (it's riku's Devil Trigger). Break enough enemy cards to build up your D-Meter. Once it's full, you can activate D-Mode, which gives Riku his evil outfit and lets you perform one of three different sleights based on the total number of the cards you selected. It doesn't last forever, as getting hit and time elapsing will reduce the DP meter, but it should be enough to turn the tide.

Additionally, when you counter an enemy card with a card with the same number (provided you have at least 8 cards in your deck before you have to reload), you can press triangle and go into Duel mode. Duel is kinda weird, but it's sort of like dealing with Marluxia's Doom sleight in the final fight, except it's less dire. Break all of a given number of cards before time runs out, and you get to unleash a sleight. Fail, and you'll get stunned.

And level ups are broken down to three categories: HP Boosts, Attack Boosts, and DP Boosts. HP boosts are the same as Sora's story. Attack boosts increase your basic attack (but much like Sleights from Sora's story, you can only select this once every few levels). DP boosts increase the amount of D-Meter you have when you enter Dark Mode.

And this mode is really cool! Unlike Sora's story, which put more importance on the cards and deckbuilding, is focused all about the action and combat, wanting you to use your skills and the tools you've been given. Also the story is about Riku having an angel and a devil on his shoulders. On one side, you have a darkness fetishist and his stand. On the other side? Mickey Mouse.

I love this stupid series.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Thu Feb 01, 2018 12:37 am

Break enough enemy cards to build up your D-Meter.
:-I :smirk: :starity: :anticipation: :wowzers: :spoiler: :smug: :hiii:

Just want to point out that, if you watched Digimon Adventure while growing up, then you'll realize that Riku is possessed by Myotismon.

Also, the final boss of KH2 is Leomon. :-I
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Thu Feb 01, 2018 1:26 am

Quanta wrote:
Thu Feb 01, 2018 12:37 am
:-I :smirk: :starity: :anticipation: :wowzers: :spoiler: :smug: :hiii:
look, i'm just using the game's own terminology alright :twonk:


this mode has been super short. I only started it a day ago, and I'm already at B2F. It's short and doesn't have a lot of story to it, but it's still been plenty fun, what with the premade decks, riku's mechanics, and the two fights against Lexaeus and Zexion, who are exclusive to this mode. it's a bit understandable that it's so short, given how the maingame is long enough already, and this is just a remake of a GBA game, so they probably went as far as they felt they could or whatever. still kinda wish it lasted longer with some additional new content, but oh well.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Thu Feb 01, 2018 5:10 pm

I beat Re:CoM!

In the last two floors, a few things are revealed. Firstly, that there were two Ansems. The one in Riku's heart is still haunting him. But the guy confronting Riku and throwing cards at him was actually a mysterious guy named DiZ (Darkness in Zero), who wanted to test and help Riku for an unknown agenda that works against the Organization that used Castle Oblivion as a secondary base of operations. He gives Riku and Mickey the same black coats that the Organization members wear, which are used to protect themselves from the darkness, and then Riku goes off to kick Ansem's ass.



Ansem gets defeated, but he's just repelled. He's still got a foothold in Riku's heart, but he's defeated for now. Riku and Mickey decide to go off on their own journey, working with the darkness as opposed to being afraid of it, and eventually going off to help DiZ in the leadup to Kingdom Hearts 2.

Ansem was an interesting fight. He's basically able to counter anything you have, and he's got his KH1 moveset, so instead of rushing him down, the best strategy is to take your time, avoid his attacks, and take advantage of Riku's moveset by countering him with duels. Winning duels means a free sleight. Better yet, the cards aren't gone, so I'm free to reload my deck, and wait for Ansem to throw a card out that I can match and start a brand new duel with. Going into Dark Mode and rushing him down could work, but given how his deck is so similar to yours, he has the tools to counter you, and he can really bring the hurt if you let him, and you do not want to run out of cards.


Overall, Re:CoM is certainly a flawed game. Getting into it's deckbuilding and active time card battle system can be a bit hard to get into, and if you don't really get into it, you're going to bounce off of this game real hard. That said, if you can get into it, it's certainly a fun (albiet flawed) game. The story of the game is straightforward and real interesting, though you have to revisit a bunch of scenarios remixed from KH1 in order to get there. It stands fairly well on it's own, and also sets up some important information for KH2. The music is good on the whole, but a lot of the unique music (that isn't repeats) just feels weak, compared to a lot of the series.

Basically, Re:CoM is a pretty good game once you get into it, and if you get it as part of the HD collection, it's certainly worth trying. But if you find yourself bouncing off of it, don't try and force yourself to play the game, and just watch an LP of it instead.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Thu Feb 01, 2018 8:03 pm

Next up: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. This is the second of the two games to come before Kingdom Hearts 2. It came out for the DS, and while I didn't play it, it....wasn't that great to play from what I remember hearing about it.

Then the 1.5 HD Remix compilation came out, with KH1, Re:CoM, and then 358/2 Days! Except...it's just the cutscenes. They didn't remake the game, but instead remastered the cutscenes. That's what was in the PS3 compilation, and it's what I got in the PS4 compilation. If I want to actually play 358/2 Days, I'll have to go hunt down a copy somewhere, and no guarantee on if it'll be worth picking up to begin with. The same thing happened with Re:Coded in the 2.5 HD Remix compilation. I still might hunt down a copy sometime, but not anytime soon, I think.

So today? About two hours and fifty minutes worth of cutscenes for me. Since it's only cutscenes i may just write a cliffnotes bit of commentary in a post or something.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Thu Feb 01, 2018 8:34 pm

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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:22 pm

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is the fourth game in the franchise, released after KH2, but it's events take place directly before KH2 and help clarify how things are when we get there. In KH2, everything there is eventually explained, but going from Re:CoM directly into 2, it's all a bit confusing and head-scratching, which I suppose helps in favor of how KH2's intro was presented.

This game focuses on a mysterious boy who appears out of nowhere in Twilight Town. He has no memories, no emotions, and no heart. He is a Nobody, a strong-willed being who lost their heart, leaving just a soul and a body as an emotionless, empty shell. He's soon found by a black cloaked man named Xemnas, who gives him his name: Roxas. Roxas is invited to join the Organization, a group of Nobodies working together to gather hearts and form Kingdom Hearts, which is supposed to be the way for them to regain their lost hearts once again. Hoping to find answers, Roxas joins the Organization, and quickly becomes friends with the fiery-haired Axel. As a member, he's sent off on missions to defeat Heartless with his keyblade, collecting their hearts for Kingdom Hearts, a task that only he can really do.

About a week or so after joining the Organization, a fourteenth member joins: the mysterious girl Xion. She's silent and rather distant at first, but opens up to Roxas after a while. She can use a keyblade too! She joins Roxas and Axel, usually meeting up on the Twilight Town clocktower after their missions, eating sea-salt ice cream, and the three of them become best friends.

And that tends to be the status quo for quite a number of days. Various events happen along the way: Axel is sent off on secret missions, Xion loses her powers temporarily, and so on. Roxas dutifully completes his missions, though he wonders why he has the keyblade, and why he and Xion are considered to be so special to the Organization. Oh and, he's also receiving strange dreams and visions of Sora's memories sometimes, which started showing up after the events of Chain of Memories happened. But in the end, their friendship always lasts. They meet together on the clock tower, they have sea-salt ice cream. They're friends.

But it was not to last. After some encounters with Riku, Xion begins to learn who she is and the nature of her existance. She runs away a few times, and at the end of the last time, Roxas learns of what she is: she's a replica. Xion was a puppet created in Castle Oblivion, much like the Riku Replica that showed up in Chain of Memories, and that she wasn't intended to be a person, but a tool. The Organization was always formed to have only 13 members, and Xion would never have a proper place there. She was a back-up plan. Roxas confronts Axel for the truth, and he reveals that he knew that Xion was just a replica, but kept the truth from him because of his orders. Axel has been torn between his duties in the Organization and his friendship, and he now has to go hunt down Xion one last time to bring her back to the Organization. Roxas, frustrated with this turn of events and questioning himself, decides to leave the Organization to find his own answers.

Complicating things a bit further, there's an unintended side-effect going on with Xion. She was created out of Sora's memories, and as she was gaining her own identity, she's gaining more and more of Sora's memories. Roxas is Sora's Nobody, created in KH1 when Sora turned himself into a heartless to set Kairi's heart free (which he'd been unknowingly carrying for most of the game). Because of this relationship, Xion has been gaining Sora's memories through Roxas, which affects Roxas and Sora. And in particular, her existence is preventing Sora from fully recovering his memories, and if nothing is done about her, Sora will remain asleep forever. Namine, DiZ and Riku all recognize that something needs to be done. Xion recognizes this too, as she meets with Namine to discuss having her memories removed, an act that would destroy Xion and remove any memory of her existence. Before anything can be done, Axel arrives outside of DiZ and Namine's Twilight Town hideout. Xion intercepts him outside, and while he has no choice, Axel is reluctant to have to fight her. Ultimately, she's subdued and brought back to the Organization.

A few days later, Roxas is at the usual spot on the Twilight Town clock tower, where he's confronted by Xion, who looks just like Sora now, having been reprogrammed by Xemnas to rapidly absorb more and more of Sora's memories, an act that would eventually cause Roxas to vanish forever, given enough time. So, she decided to confront Roxas and force him to destroy her, an act that would cause her to be absorbed into him and thus foil Xemnas' plan, by lying to him, saying that she's here to absorb Roxas to become a complete Sora. Xion turns into a monstrous form and the two fight, with Roxas as the victor. With the battle over, Roxas is already starting to forget Xion, as she begins to crystallize and disappear. She asks Roxas to make things right and set Kingdom Hearts free.

Angry about this turn of events, Roxas runs off to the world where the Organization's castle lies, intending to fufill her last wish and hoping to get her back, but he's intercepted by Riku. Riku's come to capture Roxas so that Sora's memories can be fully completed, and the two fight, with Roxas getting the upper hand. Roxas desperately just wants to bring his friend back, even as now he's struggling to remember that she even existed. Riku, clearly losing, has no choice but to remove the blindfold he's been wearing the entire game, releasing Ansem's latent dark power within him, physically turning him into Ansem (but keeping himself in control). Summoning Ansem's stand-like guardian, he's able to finally knock out Roxas, and he brings him to DiZ as the memories of Xion fade away entirely...

The next day, Roxas wakes up in his bedroom in Twilight Town, after having another weird dream again. He wonders what he'll do with his three friends will do this week. After all, there's only seven more days left of summer vacation...

It's a bit long after writing it all out, but it helps explain what Roxas's deal is. This is pretty important, because the intro for KH2 is played from Roxas's perspective, and the events in it are a bit odd and confusing at first. While of course, the nature of this is all explained in KH2 itself, it's probably best to learn about this stuff first, even though it ruins the mystery of what's up with Roxas during the intro of KH2. It also gives us a better look at the villains of Kingdom Hearts 2: Organization XIII.

From just watching the cutscenes, there is something lost by removing the gameplay entirely, but it's still fairly engaging, I feel. This story of Roxas and Xion is ultimately tragic and leads directly into Kingdom Hearts 2. Also the music for the fight between the two at the end is fantastic:



And now comes Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix. I've been looking forward to replaying this one for a while, and I'm absolutely going to take my time with playing it.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:28 pm

Alright, enough of that.

Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix!

I loved this game! For as much as I enjoyed Kingdom Hearts 1, like, a hell of a lot, this game is what made me a complete fan of the series. I'm excited to play it again! It's basically the main reason why I wanted to play through the series again! :plonk:

This game's got a different opening theme than Simple and Clean, and while it's certainly no Simple and Clean, Sanctuary is still an enjoyable bit of music:

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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sat Feb 03, 2018 2:53 pm

If there's one thing that no one really likes about KH2, it's the intro. First of all, instead of immediately starting with Sora, it throws you into the deep end with this new kid, Roxas, who kinda looks like Sora, and seems to be connected to Sora in some way, but is also clearly his own person. If you went from KH1 to KH2, this intro just throws you into this new scenario without any warning or foreshadowing and throws a bunch of new details. If you played CoM, some things are easier to catch on to, but a good chunk of stuff is going to throw new players for a loop

Like, you have Roxas, on the last days of his summer vacation in Twilight Town, and you're seeing memories of KH1 as his dreams between days. These strange, grey stretchy boys that aren't Heartless harassing Roxas for some mysterious reason, with Roxas suddenly getting a keyblade warped into his hands to fight them off. Time stops sometimes, and it's clear that noticing some things that everyone else is missing. At one point, a mysterious red-headed man named Axel shows up, and he clearly knows Roxas, and he claims that they used to be friends, but Roxas has no idea on what he's talking about. All the while, a mysterious, red cloaked man, DiZ (voiced by Christopher Lee) is watching over Sora's progress with some sort of memory restoration as well as trying to keep this Organization XIII away from Roxas, with....apparently Ansem helping him out! There's a girl there that has something to do with the process of restoring Sora's memories, named Namine. And by the end of the sequence, everything's kinda falling apart for Roxas, with Axel hunting him down, the town and all the people are fake (it's a digital replica of Twilight Town), and DiZ informing him that he's a Nobody. Roxas shouldn't exist, and he'll have to become part of Sora again and disappear in the process. He defeats Axel, and tries to attack DiZ, but to no avail. He sadly has no choice but to become one with Sora.

So yeah, if you went straight to KH2 from KH1, DiZ, Namine, Axel and the Organization would be entirely out of left field. But even having played CoM, it's clear that the mystery and confusion abound in this intro is intentional. It sets up for an interesting mystery to intrigue people with, but that confusion can easily turn people off. Worse, is that the game that clarifies what's going on, 358/2 Days, came out AFTER this game. Still, this game does explain what's up with the intro. It's just that it might take a while before everything becomes clear.

But by far, the part that nobody likes about it is that it's long. Like, it can easily take about 2.5-3 hours when taking your time on a casual playthrough. On your first playthrough, you might wish the intro to kinda get done a little faster, but it does the job just fine. The problem with every subsequent playthrough is that you desperately wish that there was a way to skip the Roxas sequence, or at least shorten it. 2.5-3 hours on what is essentially the basic tutorial/story prologue. Which can feel way too long for someone trying to get to the actual game proper.

And it's not a bad intro either! Far from it! It's just that it unfortunately has these problems that can get in the way for a first time playthrough or for subsequent playthroughs
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:02 pm

At least after you beat Seifer you can tell everyone that you defeated Batman. :v:
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:17 pm

one of my favorite little moments in the intro is the Struggle fight with Setzer. if you kick his ass, he starts walking away, and then stops. He turns and points at Roxas, about to say something cool and shit, but at that same moment, Roxas's three friends speak up and run up to Roxas, completely ruining Setzer's attempt at cool moment, so he instead walks away, a bit dejected.
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