#kh3 critical mode

[spodthesection]

is the kh fandom finally reaching the point where they realize that kh3 really isnt that bad and was torn apart because of it not meeting people's expectations they'd built up over the thousand years waiting for it

not that its FLAWLESS, god no. i wanted a bigger twilight town and i was a bit disappointed there was no mysterious tower, plus the pacing is definitely really slow with some pretty bad worlds (hi arendelle)

but like. i forget all of that when im hitting motherfuckers with a stupidly powerful combo swapping through my keyblades like i'm dmc

[thehandwixard]

kingdom hearts re:coded is fucking insane.

there are easier ways to torment me

what if the most upgraded form of your keyblade that represents your memories of me is subtitled with your name. just boy things ig. what if the most upgraded form of your keyblade that represents your memories of me is a nebulous word that could mean anything from the concept of a heart to the real chest to the mind. one of the defining things of the series. is it defining of our relationship?

are the immaterial and natural equally important? are they equally important to you who has adventured over the universe? is it more important to share another's hurt than be shielded from it? do you resent me for holding you back when you tried to reach out? do you resent me for breaking apart everything we knew?

i gave you this wayfinder to protect you, i gave you this crown as a sign i would protect you possibly(necklace theory my dark mistress).

[theophagie]

"Air step is one of the best additions to the kh combat system" air step is my enemy and it has personally come to my house in an attempt to kill me

[frootybop]

Been a while but I'm streaming myself trying to beat Dark Inferno on critical mode tomorrow at 2pm (cst) over at twitch.tv/frootybop

[stresslitzia]

(please continue sending blorbo bingos. I like them)

(further blorbos will be bingo'd when I tire of video game)

[lightandfellowship]

Tbh Saix willingly giving up his newly-acquired heart (something he seemingly wanted very badly in KH2) in order to help bring Xion and Roxas back as a means of making amends for how he treated them in Days made the "Xion is one of the 13 darknesses" plotline in KH3 completely worth it in my eyes.

Like I stop caring about whether or not it "makes sense" for Xehanort to go through all this trouble to bring Xion back from obscurity just to turn her into one of his vessels because the payoff, vindication, character growth, and implied relationship dynamics inherent to Xion being brought back in this specific way are just. So good.

In my mind it's not so much a "get from point A to point B and that's it" thing, there's an actual story being told through the circumstances of her revival and I love that. Though I guess one criticism I can give this plotline is how much of it happens off-screen, but given the nature of Xion's return and Saix's involvement in it needing to be a surprise, I suppose it would be difficult to convey Saix and Xion's side of the story in a more visible way.

Oh, and, this plotline also gave us Xion going beast mode and wielding Saix's weapon in battle. Regardless of whether or not this represents genuine teamwork between them or Xion was just doing her replica power-copying thing, it's still very badass.

[yhrite]

My very first time clearing the data thirteen in Kingdom Hearts 2 (in critical mode no less too)

Many years of trying to get through even one or two of them and consistently having my ass beat each and every time now all these e-bitches are done and dusted... until KH3 that is

Fitting that just like when I was a child playing the original KH2 it was Demyx and Xaldin that gave me the most trouble

[shinmothra13returns]

KH3 (Mod): Ultimate Yozora [Critical mode]

This KH3 mod makes the secret boss look like a joke.

[modismod]

Going back to granblue relink after doing a critical mode kh3 is so weird, the kh controls are so fucked, they really don’t have to be this complicated to do all of that anymore get with times old man

[thedeliverygod]

a ranking of the Kingdom Hearts series thus far, by Sora with brief explanations

the games within the tiers themselves are not in any particular order

S Kingdom Hearts: The OG, my dearly beloved. The classic hero's journey. Gameplay was overall fun but definitely had some battles that felt impossible (unskippable cutscenes anyone?)

KH3: An absolute joy to play, I've never had more fun exploring worlds. It did suffer from having most of the main plot towards the end of the game and unanswered questions that were later answered by Re:Mind. The fact that employees from Disney aided with the development of this game really shines imo. A more in depth post about why I loved KH3. Battle was fun but also had difficult moments.

A

KH3D: The game that made me fall in love with Riku. The drop dynamic kind of sucked if/when you dropped in the middle of a boss fight I'm not gonna lie lol. But the story was great. Though Sora & Riku were essentially sent back in time (aka their appearance) the story and especially worlds are not repetitive. Flowmotion was extremely fun to use and the dream eaters were also another fun mechanic. Also the command deck is honestly my favorite iteration of the battle system so I was glad to see its new & improved form in KH3D and was sad to see it gone in KH3.

BBS: The introduction of the wayfinder trio, what a blessing. 3 different stories + a final episode. I loved that Terra, Aqua, and Ventus all had their own very unique playing styles (honestly I was the worst with Terra lol but I got used to him eventually). The first version of the command deck that I loved. Also the first time you could unlock treasure chests during battles (and they saved my ass). Shotlock also A+ loved it and so glad it came back in KH3. Difficulty was pretty standard; mostly a good level with a few really tough ones.

B

COM: So well written and intriguing. The worlds being 'repetitive' played into the storyline of exploring Sora's memories and it was the first time, so it felt okay. The first curse words of the series lmao aka Axel and Maleficent saying hell. This game pushed the gameboy advanced to the damn max. Also the first game we play as someone other than Sora~ enter Riku in Reverse/Rebirth. The card system sucked ass at times honestly and it was extremely hard to maneuver during certain battles on the GBA but that got a lot easier after the PS2 remake. While I'm glad the cutscenes were voiced for the remake, I will say the voice direction of RE:COM is some of the most awkward in the series. It also doesn't help that they did not put in any effort into changing the lip movements for the English language as they usually do.

Dark Road: Excellent writing and fun characters. Relatively fun gameplay at first, but quickly got repetitive. The good news was they let you use an auto function to cheat and speed through to get back to the story lol. I loved learning the back story to Xehanort and Eraqus and what made them into the adults we meet in BBS and later KH3. Shout out to my boy, Hermod. Never forgotten.

KH2: Character designs are immaculate and there are moments that are absolutely iconic. Had a good amount of fresh worlds while bringing back some beloved ones. KH2 suffered from some awkward voice direction and the game play was far too easy, imo. I beat it on critical mode with hardly any effort (other than the Roxas battle which is unique to the final mix version) and I'm honestly not very good of a gamer lol. I beat the game on my first play through in less than 20 hours which is kind of crazy. Also the 2nd visit to most worlds often feels forced and doesn't add much to the overall story of the game

C

KHX/KHUX: I barely managed to play KHX so most of this is based on KHUX. The fact that you could change your gender at any time was literally the best invention ever; signed, a non-binary person. I wish more games had that option. The customizable characters were freaking adorable and the options were limitless. The story was well written and intriguing when you got it. But... you had to do SO MANY repetitive endless missions to get to any story. I mean you'd get Disney related story sometimes but I mean like KH-core story. Not to mention essentially having to pay to win unless you got EXTREMELY lucky. And in general I'm just not a fan of MMORPGs so I dipped out after a while.

Days: Amazing story. Xion is my precious baby angel and I love her so much. The sea-salt trio reunion in KH3 was also the one that hit me the hardest tbh. But oh my god, the gameplay sucked. One of the hardest KH games to exist and I definitely nearly gave up on it a few times lol. The DS is just so awkward for KH gameplay and as we all know the graphics were.... abysmal to say the least. But there are some moments that were left out in the cinematic remake which will forever live on in our memory.

BBS 0.2: Really fun gameplay. Customizing Aqua's outfit was one of my favorite things as well and it really gave me hope that it would be a feature in KH3, but alas lol. The story overall was interesting, but it overall had to do a lot of retcons to try and make the past connect with the present so that was kind of awkward lol. Also they improved a TON from early models, but overall bbs 0.2 still looked a little weird at times compared to KH3 which had extra time to be fine tuned. Also it's essentially a KH3 demo rather than being a real game but essentially KH3 was already too massive so it made sense to separate it.

D

Re:Coded: I'll be real, I hated this game lol. It switching up the type of gameplay a lot was a fun idea in theory but actually playing the game it ended up being annoying. Also, it was essentially a rehashed idea of chain of memories when you get down to it. We explore previous worlds we've seen many times by now with Data Sora. We get little bits of new info but ultimately really the only useful thing is the very end of the game. I did enjoy the cinematic version a bit better; the voiced dialogue made a few moments a more comical.

Melody of Memory: A fun rhythm game, but the fact that it includes story that's important all buried at the end of the game is kind of pointless/annoying? lol. I loved seeing Kairi get her time to shine but I wish it was more than her just narrating over Sora's journeys and then a handful of important cutscenes at the end of the game.

[jacobbla3]

New Video Outs Like and Subscribe!

KH3 MODS: Kairi vs Master Xehanort. (Melody of Memories Boss Battle Remake) (Critical Mode)

[implausiblyjosh]

My one big criticism with kingdom hearts as a series is that the game difficulties are largely awful. You are usually taking more damage, dealing less damage, and are provided no gameplay reward for doing so. Some games give you stuff, like KH2FM's Critical Mode & KH3's Critical Mode give you tons of starting AP and extra abilities, but it doesn't really give you anything else.

Compare this to something like The World Ends With You. In TWEWY, you can both set a difficulty and the drop rate of enemies. Some pins, the items that give you your movepool, only drop at higher difficulties. Drop rates can be increased at the expense of your maximum HP. You are rewarded for both types of increases in difficulty, and these changes can be made on the fly. If you just wanna get through the story, you can play on Easy all the way through, and then when credits roll you can go back and replay chapters at harder difficulties. This provides you with the better rewards you may have missed the first time, along with TWEWY's Secret Reports which tell you more about the story and the world of TWEWY. But regardless, you're always getting rewarded for increasing the difficulty.

The only game in the Kingdom Hearts series that comes close to this is maybe re:coded? Not just in on-the-fly difficulty changes, but also being rewarded for those changes.

KH1FM's Proud Mode provides you with nothing, you take double damage in fights and in the Gummi Ship, and you deal half damage in Gummi levels. This is truly awful, especially in a game that is just bad to play. That 2nd Ursula fight just ended my run, her damage output is frankly unfair and you can only get hit once or twice before going down.

KH2FM's Critical Mode provides you with a bunch of extra AP and extra abilities at the start. You also deal 1.25x damage, and get more AP per level up increase. However, you gain less EXP, enemies do more damage, and every other aspect of leveling up is worse. While there are some minor benefits to this mode, on the whole you're being pushed with little reward.

I think the worst aspect of this is that the games encounter designs are just not good enough to support these modes. I played a little bit of KH3's Critical mode, which is similar to KH2FM's Critical, and it just felt… bad! The Wind Titan part of the final boss fight in Olympus has a move where parts of buildings will fly at you. Well, those will just sometimes hit you from behind. No reaction window or seemingly any way to tell, just a chunk of building from off-screen and behind the camera hits you sometimes and kills you. That's just not fun to play! When this happens on Beginner or Standard you have enough HP to absorb those unfair hits so there's more wiggle room on bad encounters. On Critical every single awful design choice is suddenly make or break.

On top of that, you encounter those things in these games enough times you start to wonder what the point is. Genuinely, what is the point? The only thing a lot of these modes do is cut down on boring side stuff you'd have to do to see a cool extra video at the end. Largely there is no gameplay reward for this as you play. You're not getting extra EXP or better drops or cooler moves or anything. Maybe if synthesis items dropped more by default, or there was more EXP or higher level caps, or you can get better/cooler loot, there would maybe some gameplay reason to to do this. But there isn't.

I don't mind getting my ass kicked by a hard boss, but I like being rewarded for taking the extra challenge. It's fun to finally beat a boss or encounter at a higher difficulty and get something for that specific difficulty/encounter combo, even if it's just "better gear" or "number goes up better". The design philosophy of the harder difficulty modes is not to reward you at all, but to just make things more of a slog. They're just no fun.

[amummy]

Im finally on KH3.

First thoughts are how stunning it looks. It plays very well.

I read somewhere the game was easy so I preemptively set it to Proud mode but I kinda wish I set it to critical because it’s still kinda easy.

I’ve only done Olympus, Twilight town and The toy box so far and I’m surprised how much I enjoyed the toybox.

[h-worksrambles]

A while back on Reddit, I saw a post that asked ‘list your favourite and least favourite thing about every Kingdom Hearts game. And I thought that seemed like a pretty fun thought experiment. So I wrote down my own answer to that here: The best and worst thing about every Kingdom Hearts game (that I’ve played):

Kingdom Hearts 1 (my personal favourite)

The best thing: I’m tempted to say the story, because I think 1 does an especially good job at telling its otherwise simple story through the gameplay. But instead I’ll go for the general gameplay structure. KH1 is the only game in the series to remind me of a Zelda game. Instead of going all in on action RPG combat through hallway maps, the level design combines combat, exploration, puzzle solving and even platforming. No other game in the series has even attempted this since (KH3 came closest). And it greatly adds to the immersion. I would’t say any KH game has quite made you feel like you’re going through Disney worlds entirely. But KH1 is the closest and kinda reminds me of wandering through Disney theme parks. That immersion also adds to the sense of atmosphere, which is easily at it’s best on this game

The worst thing: The camera/controls. Platforming may be a nice splash of variety, but it’s a lot less less fun when it doesn’t actually control well. Sometimes it just feels like you’re being asked to do things the controls can’t reliably pull off. And the zoomed in camera makes combat visibility much worse. KH1 is already one of the tougher games in the series and this exacerbates that for the wrong reasons.

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories

The best thing: The story. Sora and Riku are tested in new ways that showcase new sides to their characters. This was a good introduction for the Organization into the series. Marluxia is chilling as a main threat, and we get my boi Axel and my girl Larxene. They feel like a genuine threat and are mysterious but not exhaustingly vague. Donald and Goofy get proper character stuff for once. Riku’s arc is a standout that begins to subvert the series’ very black and white depiction of Light and Darkness in a way the series frankly hasn’t even attempted since.

The worst thing: The combat. I like customising decks but the actual combat falls apart in execution. Sleights are either godly, or pathetically weak with no inbetween. And every fight feels the same as they generally consist of spamming the same OP sleights in order to win…assuming the RNG gods bless you with the cards to actually pull off those sleights reliably.

Kingdom Hearts 2:

The best thing: The combat. God the gameplay in 2 is so good. You have so many more options than in the first game and practically all of them are viable. And Critical Mode especially practically demands that you know how to use all your tools effectively if you want to make it through. The controls and general flow are on point. It’s sharp, it’s kinetic, it has a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling. Absolutely superb.

The worst thing: The level design. Sadly 2 is where the series got so focused on combat that it turned into a hallway simulator. Instead of bringing back puzzles, platforming and exploration with the better controls, the game just cuts them out instead. This streamline the game sure, but now it lacks a lot of the flavour. And of course, this is largely done because your movement abilities are all tied to Drive forms, making them entirely optional, which I don’t think was a good move at all.

Haven’t played Days so no comment:

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep:

The best thing: The soundtrack. This might be my favourite OST in the series. Aqua’s theme, Rage Awakened, Dismiss, Unbreakable Chains, a fantastic set of overworld themes (with Enchanted Dominion being my favourite). It’s varied, it’s evocative. It’s Yoko Shimomura firing on all cylinders.

The worst thing: The repetition. On a macro level, doing all 3 campaigns is very tedious. Terra, Aqua and Ventus’ stories aren’t distinct enough to make playing them feel varied. They all blur together outside of a few good moments. On a micro level, this version of the Command Deck has all the same problems as Re:COM. It’s shallow. easily broken, too dependent on RNG, and makes every fight feel the same.

Haven’t played Coded.

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance (my least favourite not counting the mobile games)

The best thing: Symphony of Sorcery. One of, if not the best Disney worlds in the entire series. A fantastic musical gimmick to its sound design that makes the world feel weird and abstract in a way I wish more of DDD’s levels were. Actual platforming and light puzzle solving for the first time since KH1. And some good character stuff, including letting us see a younger Mickey, and the iconic Dearly Beloved scene between Sora and Riku.

The worst thing: The story. If you follow me, you’ve heard me give this rant before. A mess that constantly finds new ways to meander and waste your time, spends half its runtime nostalgically pandering to the previous games instead of doing anything new and butchers most of the characters. People give this game flack for the time travel but there frankly the least of my problems. The dream world premise screams wasted potential too. The only good thing is some very cute interactions between Sora and Riku, but both of them are so flanderised that even that feels hollow.

Dropped Union Cross after 200 or so chapters and just watched the cutscenes. TLDR, New characters are fun but the gacha is disgustingly invasive.

Kingdom Hearts 3:

The best thing: The variety. 3 bucks the trend of the handheld games with their heavy linearity and repetitive encounters with the most varied experience by far. You have more options in combat than ever, which means every encounter can be approached differently. It’s not quite as well balanced as 2, but I love just how much is at your disposal. The level design is FINALLY more open and closer in style to the first game and there’s just enough world gimmicks and minigames to spice things up. Exploring the sea in the Caribbean is easily my favourite of these gimmicks.

The worst thing: The pacing. I won’t say the story itself as my thoughts are very complicated and tbf, I don’t think BBS, DDD or X did a very good job setting up this finale. But 3’s pacing of its story is inexcusable. This game uses the exact same structure as DDD, and much like that game, it wastes your time. Clearing a world gets you a few cutscenes carrying on a couple of disparate plot threads, you get an Organization encounter mid world if you’re lucky, and everything else is crammed together at the very end. This game had FAR too much story to wrap up to afford to waste time like this. A restructuring of the first half alone to decompress the climax and allow for more character moments would do this story wonders, for all its other faults.

Haven’t played Melody of Memory.

And there you have it. The biggest pros and cons of each Kingdom Hearts game I’ve played. Which hopefully doubles as a kind of mini summary if my thoughts on the series as a whole. Feel free to reblog and tell me your favourite and least favourite parts of these games. I’d be interested to hear!

[yaoischolar]

my wife rly is my perfect match they watch me play kh3 critical mode and doesn't get bored that's love

[tarofel]

been in a very Kingdom Hearts mood recently so a small KH3 rant about random topics.

since it's the obvious ill just go over it, but the disney worlds have a lot of problems. several just have sora exist while the movie plays (tangled/frozen), others are just kinda bad (bighero6/monsters inc). i enjoyed olympus, toy story, and pirates most of all (they all have gameplay problems sadly), but all of the worlds mean nothing to the story in total.

there are also no original worlds you go around. twilight town is a... hub area? but not utilized barring one cutscene. it had more to it in KH2 than 3. yen sid's tower area was removed, nothing like traverse town or hollow bastion, not even like the world that never was (in this game you have a single hallway and then a gauntlet).

im not a big fan of the world design in this game. for me it's a step up from KH2 that was literally just hallways for most of it, but in a way KH3 feels like lengthy hallways of no consequence a lot of the time. though KH1 had its problems, its areas felt compact and connected. at times in KH3 i feel like im running forever getting to the next section, especially bad when grinding.

KH3 resolves all the problems set up all at once with no consequence, that'll be the next few sections.

xion comes back because the new organization just kinda found a person they didn't know and put them in a body bc they needed xehanort fodder. sure, that much is cool, but because of her being put in the final gauntlet she comes back very quickly. personally (i think i have a soft spot for xion) it feels like there's a lot more that could have happened with her that could helped sora grow. those funny nobody xion bosses from 358/2 could've made some sort of comeback too.

aqua is saved pretty easily by sora with one fight. meh.

ventus gets awoken because sora just believes in himself enough, despite the disney worlds being useless. you'd think there'd be more to either castle oblivion or the land of waking, or both even, but it's just a vanitas boss fight.

terra is probably fine (dont care too much about the bbs story too much honestly) but it still suffers being put in the gauntlet.

axel and kairi got to train in the dragonball hyperbolic time chamber but are still useless. honestly everyone was aside from sora donald and goofy (and mickey/yen sid at times) outside the gauntlet. not helped by every enemy being all-powerful in cutscenes.

i really despise xehanort as a character. he straight up is irredeemable and evil, grinning madly when he is killing and traumatizing children throughout the series. and then at the end of kh3 they go "actually you should feel bad for him, he's actually good(???). he wanted to destroy all worlds to function as a universe reset." i... straight up don't enjoy him.

attractions are incredibly unfun aside from a few times. i took too long to turn them off. the combat in the game is a mixed bag. i think shotlock dash is neat, but shotlock itself isn't that fun to me, basically just slowing down the game and needing you to point at the enemy for 5 seconds (while also losing your lock-on and pointing you in a random direction). removal of combo variations with square feels bad too.

i think this game has the worst gummi ship. it plays like a generic space exploration game with random guff scattered everywhere. WHY the HELL do you have to grind on SHOOTING ASTEROIDS to upgrade keyblades are you KIDDING ME. the golden ship makes it less painful but wow it's harder to get in critical mode.

the minigames suck. winnie the pooh is a single minigame copy-pasted 3 times. cooking is better but not by much, and im not a fan of having to find ingredients and cook them for a one-use meal.

i still haven't done the data organization in KH3 Re:Mind yet but it seems pretty fun, if a bit tough on critical mode. grinding out stat boosts is... a time. it's funny how i only got into the series only a few years ago, but it really grabbed me. wish 3 was more enjoyable, but i have some hope for 4.