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

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

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Jan 02, 2018 4:19 pm

Kingdom Hearts is an action RPG series developed by Square Enix working with Disney. It's a fun hack-n-slash series about adventuring through these various disney themed worlds and recreating famous moments with the characters from their movies and taking down the villains trying to spread darkness across the many worlds. It's also a gloriously stupid mess of a series where Leonard Nimoy enacts several plans (which are somehow convoluted in such a way that it ends up connecting up into a greater plan) to get a hold of the titular Kingdom Hearts (the source of all light in the universe and the heart of all worlds), and only a spikey haired dork who teams up with mickey, donald, goofy, and all his friends can stop him.

It's a fun series with a rocky start and a storyline that while it can be summed up and put fairly simply, starts getting really messy when you get into some of the details.

After all this time and after various sequels/prequels without any real numbering, Kingdom Hearts 3 is finally on it's way to resolve the series as it is now, and you can currently get the entire damn series on the PS4, thanks to Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 HD, which covers KH1, two sequel spinoffs that show up before KH2, KH2 itself, a sequel spinoff to that game, and a prequel to the series. On top of that, there's also Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, which while it gets a lot of flack for the numbering and it's title, covers everything remaining to get you up to speed for Kingdom Hearts 3.

And there's a f2p mobile game, Kingdom Hearts Union X that's pretty alright.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Jan 02, 2018 4:25 pm

not gonna lie, i'm mainly making this topic to chronicle my journey through playing (and replaying) through the entire series this year thanks to picking up the 1.5+2.5 collection last month: four games, and two "movies" that go over everything important in two of the less important spinoffs. I still have yet to pick up 2.8 but that can wait for now.


if anyone wants to ask me about anything with this series, feel free to ask and i'll answer as best as I can.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Juju&Lulu (?) » Tue Jan 02, 2018 4:39 pm

How hype for 3 are you?

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

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Jan 02, 2018 5:00 pm

On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest, I'd say.......I'm about a 75 on the scale.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Juju&Lulu (?) » Tue Jan 02, 2018 5:01 pm

Understandable

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

Post by Perpetual Motion (?) » Tue Jan 02, 2018 5:05 pm

Not being able to catch up on Kingdom Hearts really makes me wish I had a PS4 to play 3 and the compilations on. I'll just have to live with watching LPs for now, I guess. This series just has a ton of... heart, for lack of a better turn. Even as the lore spirals in on itself creating a convoluted black hole of important plot details, the Disney/Final Fantasy backdrop of the whole thing keeps it lighthearted enough to not feel like a chore to sift through. The gameplay being a pretty damn solid action RPG doesn't hurt, either.

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

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Wed Jan 03, 2018 7:20 pm

I'm starting out from the beginning of the series, mostly to just get KH1 over with.

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix is, from the outset, easily the wonkiest of the entire series. It's rather weird from the outset, with the rather dreamlike opening and initial tutorial area, Dive to the Heart. You can see that they were trying something new here, and threw a bunch of things at the wall, trying to get them to stick, but nothing's been refined. Not yet, anyways.

So what we got is this: starting the first game with the most basic, kinda klunky setup of a single combo string, you can counter some attacks with proper timing, a lock on and selecting actions via a menu.....and not much else. There's the neat idea of choosing how you want your playthrough to go by picking a stat to focus on (Strength, Defense, or Magic), and then picking a stat to give up on, where you don't grow as much in that area. The only problem is that magic in this game suuuucks. MP is handled wonkily, you gain magic only via story progression, and the spells themselves aren't that effective anyways, outside of cure spells.

And then another odd part of it is that you have a three part questionnaire that gives you vague questions that don't seem to make much sense, but actually determine your exp gain throughout the game. You can level up quickly at first and then level up slowly later on, level up slowly at first and then quickly closer to the end, or just have a normal level progression/exp gain. It's...there? I've never liked this, and it always felt half-baked.

That aside, the intro goes by pretty quickly, and after getting through the beginning (Dive to the Heart, Destiny Islands, Traverse Town Part 1), the game's opened up, and it's time to visit a bunch of disney worlds with donald and goofy
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Wed Jan 03, 2018 7:25 pm

I do have to say, all these years later, I still love the opening to this game. simple and clean is great, and there's a dreamlike quality to the entire sequence that really draws me in

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

Post by Juju&Lulu (?) » Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:10 pm

Simple and Clean pretty much blew my mind as a child.

After all these years... still good

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

Post by Perrydotto (?) » Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:42 pm

There are two main reasons I've never tried this series:

1) I never owned any of the consoles the games came out for when they were new
2) Now that I could own said consoles, the plot seems to have reached critical weirdness mass and appears to stretch across a trillion different and weirdly named games

Is there hope for someone like me to figure this shit out or should I better just, I dunno, read an LP?
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Juju&Lulu (?) » Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:50 pm

Well now that all the games (that matter) can be played on just one console it solves the series' biggest hurdle.

As for the plot being weird, there's several videos on YouTube that do a good job of boiling it all down to have it all make sense, but it kinda makes sense as you play the games themselves.

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

Post by Juju&Lulu (?) » Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:52 pm



This is the briefer 20 min version



And this is the more fleshed out 50+ minute version

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

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:16 pm

Perrydotto wrote:
Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:42 pm
Now that I could own said consoles, the plot seems to have reached critical weirdness mass and appears to stretch across a trillion different and weirdly named games

Is there hope for someone like me to figure this shit out or should I better just, I dunno, read an LP?
It all feels more weird and convoluted than it ultimately is. As you play through it all and go through it (or watch someone else play it. whatever floats your boat), it makes more sense, I feel. There's still instances that might be a little unclear or confusing, but when you sit down and think about it, it's not the entirely impenetrable, nonsensical plot that it appears to be after like 7 or 8 games thus far.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Fri Jan 05, 2018 6:25 pm

Wonderland cleared, Olympus Coliseum started, and I'm in the middle of Deep Jungle. Stuck firmly in the first tier of worlds at the moment.

Traveling between the worlds is done via Gummi Ship, a sort of Star Fox style shmup thing. Build your ship from parts you collect throughout the game, go flying through the pathways, shoot down all the heartless ships that fly at you. Here in KH1, it's rather basic. It's an easy (if a little slow) flight from world to world, flying past easily avoidable obstacles and ships that don't fire back at you.

iirc, the gummi shop doesn't show up until the Traverse Town Keyhole, so there isn't much point in messing with the gummi garage or anything. I still enjoy the gummi ship segments as a change of pace, but man tier 1 world travel, having to go one step at a time through non-threatening, sort of long segments, is a bit dull.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Jan 16, 2018 11:43 pm

Cleared Deep Jungle, Olympus Coliseum, Traverse Town Revisit, and Agrabah. After clearing the first tier (or rather, Wonderland and Deep Jungle), you unlock the Traverse Town Revisit, where nearly everything gets unlocked. You get the gummi ship shop unlocked (as well as the Warp Drive for the gummi ship), the Traverse Town Keyhole unlocked, you get the 100 Acre Wood sidequest unlocked, and summons get unlocked. The only thing that's missing is the synthesis shop, which gets unlocked after getting the Green Trinity from clearing Agrabah.

Once you clear the Revisit, everything really starts opening up a lot. It's not perfect, mind, but it's still a meaningful difference. Gummi ships in particular start getting interesting, as you can start upgrading your ship for real. You can get parts from shooting down enemies during flight sections, but being able to buy new parts, as well as upgrade the workspace is key to actually making something where normal gummi flight isn't this awful slog with an entirely garbage ship. It's still not great, mind you, but having a ship with multiple guns, better wings and better armor makes the gummi ship flight a lot more enjoyable, even when your ship looks like trash.

Summons, I've never used. They aren't very good. You can do stuff like summon Simba, Bambi, and Genie, and it's kinda neat, but it's really not that great in KH1. Mostly because it works on the pretty shit magic system in KH1.

So, tier 2 worlds! Always start at Agrabah. Sonic Blade surprisingly tore Pot Centipede in half. Whenever I fought him in the PS2 version, he'd break out into main street and the fight would last a reasonable length of time. Here? Sonic Blade (which I got from Olympus Coliseum's main story) let me just do multiple dash slashes, destroying his main body quickly, and cause his HP to just melt. I remember Cave of Wonders (the dungeon) being more annoying, but maybe i just was bad at it back in the day? Jafar is a real jerkass in his fight though, flying away across the entire (fairly large) arena at the drop of a hat. Not very hard though, and especially not in his Genie form, with Iago carrying his lamp. He tried.

So with Agrabah down, I'm starting to get upgrades to my magic spells (which is something?), I get the Three Wishes keychain (I got Jungle King from clearing Deep Jungle, but who cares), allowing me to equip a better keyblade, and now the rest of tier 2 is at my fingertips. And I unlocked the Synthesis Shop but fuck item crafting.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Jan 16, 2018 11:48 pm

Special shoutout to both Aladdin and Jafar for generally being very bad at coming up with good wishes. Especially Aladdin, who wastes his first two wishes on rather mundane tasks that we could have actually handled ourselves. Jafar wastes his second, but at least the first wish makes sense, and his third wish is to turn into a genie out of nowhere. which, fair enough, phenominal cosmic power and all that. Too bad he forgot about his itty bitty living space and let Iago try to keep it safe. RIP.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:41 am

Monstro always struck me as an odd bit of filler in this. Yeah, you got Pinocchio and then notable main story bits regarding to Riku, but other than the vauge Pinocchio theming (Monstro is the whale that eats them near the end of the movie, and you find both Pinoch and Gepetto here. Jiminy Cricket hangs out with you from Traverse Town and beyond and is the guy recording all your stats, the lore bits throughout the game, and the beastiary), the level is basically just Jabu Jabu's Non Euclidian Technicolor Belly. You chase down Pinocchio for a while, story happens, and you fight a kind of annoying boss twice. Parasite Cage 1 was alright, but the added platforming and nasty attacks to the second Parasite Cage fight you encounter 5 minutes later is kind of annoying.

Still, Monstro IS kinda cool, since while you find him in his home world later in the series, you encounter him as this giant goddamn space whale that eats your spaceship, and play through a whole world in his belly. While in practice, it feels a little more like filler, the concept for the world is pretty awesome.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Thu Jan 18, 2018 1:20 pm

And now, it's Atlantica. From what i remember, it's the one level no one really liked a whole lot, thanks to the fact that it changes how the controls work. Sora's a mermaid in this world (thanks to Donald's magic), and you're entirely underwater, so the circle button (the jump button) and the square button (the button used by your defensive skills) raise and lower your height respectively. You're free to move around in open water, and the game never expects you to do some crazy nonsense with it, but it just always feels off.

Also I'll get around to talking about how music is in this game more when I get to Halloween Town, but now that I'm in Atlantica, it's time for one thousand years of Under the Sea playing nonstop
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by W.T. Fits (?) » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:58 pm

Aria Genisi wrote:
Thu Jan 18, 2018 1:20 pm
Sora's a mermaid in this world (thanks to Donald's magic)
Technically, he's a male merperson, not a mermaid. :spike101:

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

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Thu Jan 18, 2018 4:35 pm

whatever

donald is part octopus and goofy is a turtle (but is somehow still able to fight with his shield like the most natural thing in the world)

the world specific forms/costumes are a great thing that shows up in this series, but sadly doesn't show up nearly enough
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Juju&Lulu (?) » Thu Jan 18, 2018 4:57 pm

I'm hoping we get more of them in 3.

Also all I remember of Atlantica in the first one is that I think I found a spot in the Ursula fight where she couldn't touch me so her fight was surprisingly easy.

Course this was over a decade ago.

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

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:20 pm

3 is getting the Toy Story world, so there's at least one. Hoping that there's more though.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by W.T. Fits (?) » Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:49 pm

Aria Genisi wrote:
Thu Jan 18, 2018 4:35 pm
whatever

donald is part octopus and goofy is a turtle (but is somehow still able to fight with his shield like the most natural thing in the world)

the world specific forms/costumes are a great thing that shows up in this series, but sadly doesn't show up nearly enough
I actually think it's kinda neat that Donald's part octopus, since he's the team's dedicated magic-user; it's a nice bit of continuity with Ursula, the sea witch, being part octopus.

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

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Thu Jan 18, 2018 6:12 pm

yeah donald's transformation is honestly rather inspired
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:47 am

Atlantica is over. Swimming controls/combat is awkward. Because you don't have a normal floor to stand on, it fucks with a lot of movement options that you'd normally have due to your skills. And it takes away a good chunk of skills, making them essentially useless to you. It's not the worst, but it's not very good.

The first Ursula fight went down relatively quickly, but the second Ursula fight is where the pain is. Sort of like Death from Castlevania, she has bolts of lighting just appearing around her as you fly around her head, aiming to smack her right in her face. The random lightning is awful, but the real pain is when you get about halfway through the fight. She gains an attack where she yells out "This won't be pretty!", raises the trident above her head, and call down a ring of lightning bolts surrounding her head. It's one of those attacks where once you see it coming, you immediately get away from the boss to dodge it. It hurts, and if you aren't dashing away as soon as you catch the tell, it's gonna hit you. And she likes to use it fairly often.

But she's done, and I'm out of that world, and it's off to Halloween Town.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Fri Jan 19, 2018 3:29 pm

Water levels are always terrible.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Fri Jan 19, 2018 5:33 pm

Halloween Town and Neverland knocked out of the park!

Halloween Town is notable for 1) giving everyone a spoopy makeover (including the heartless!), 2) having This is Halloween playing as the world's music:



It's a good song. Hell, the entire soundtrack is Quite Good. But this song and Under the Sea in Atlantica do highlight how repetitive the music can feel at times. You're going to get this song drilled into your head, and the battle music sounds like it could easily fit in with the world music:



Thankfully, Halloween Town isn't quite as long as I remember. It's got a surprising amount of platforming at the end though. Oogie's Manor serves as the finale to the world, and it looks pretty cool, but you're basically climbing up around the twisted structure to find the goal. Lock, Shock, and Barrel are a minor midboss right before the actual Oogie Boogie fight, but Sonic Blade kicked the crap out of them. The Oogie fight is neat, but not too difficult, just dodge the room's deathtraps when he activates them, and be sure to hit the right button to rise up and attack him when they light up.

The real final boss of the world comes at the end though. After beating him, he falls apart, with the bugs that make him up spewing out everywhere. When Sora and co are about to leave, Oogie fuses with his own manor, and you gotta destroy the globs of darkness that hold him together. It's a whole bunch of platforming, with projectiles and enemies starting to harass you as the fight progresses. From my memories of doing this fight as a kid, it was a bit rough. And i wasn't great at the game either. But here, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Probobly because I'm better at the platforming.

Neverland was really short. It takes place on Captain Hook's ship for the most part. Climb up through the hold, reach the sub-boss heartless, find Wendy, and then confront Captain Hook on the deck of his ship. He's a bit of a nasty swordsman, but you get the ability to fly, which makes getting away to heal easier. After beating him, you fly off to the London clocktower, you seal the keyhole for this world, and that's that.

The second tier is done and dusted. Next is the endgame with Hollow Bastion.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 2:53 am

Alright, Hollow Bastion. This is where the endgame begins. All throughout the game,we've been hopping from world to world, just following the basic premise:

At each world, Heartless are causing all sorts of trouble, usually at the behest of a Disney villain. Sora, Donald, and Goofy team up with a hero from the world and fight against the Heartless, trying to find the keyhole for that world, solve whatever problems are going on, and sometimes also trying to look for information related to the overarching plot of finding Sora's friends and finding King Mickey. In the Disney worlds, things usually hit similar beats to those from their respective sources, or it just does something themed after the source material. Each world usually climaxes with a fight against a Disney villain, followed by Sora sealing the world's keyhole, protecting the world's heart from the Heartless.

Usually it's just been following this formula, but once you hit the Traverse Town revisit, the overaching plot starts to creep in, as we see Riku mixed up with the WRONG CROWD, and he just starts nosediving into villainy thanks to Maleficent's influence and his desire to help out Kairi. And after a lead-in to this in Neverland, it all comes to a head, here in Hollow Bastion.

Hollow Bastion is an origional world. It's a giant, imposing, twisted, ruined castle, standing as the sole landmark in a world that was destroyed by the Heartless. Maleficent, the leader of the cabal of Disney villains, has made this castle her base of operations. It's got all sorts of various magics and technology flowing through it, and it's filled with absolutely powerful Heartless. Here, the overarching plot starts kicking into high gear, with a few confrontations between Sora and Riku, Kairi's fate finally resolved, and a showdown with Maleficent. At the top of the castle, you fight Maleficent in both her normal form and her dragon form, and she's definitely no slouch, especially in her dragon form. But, she's not the boss of the world. Oh, no, that would be too easy.

Once you beat her for good, you head to the grand hall and have a second fight with Riku. Early on in the world, you fight Riku, and he's not terribly difficult. He can certainly deal damage, but he's not going to cause too much trouble. The second fight, however? That's infamous. Riku 2 is a terror. You fight him solo, he deals a truckload of damage, he's rather sturdy, and has some nasty attacks up his sleeve. The worst of which is his desperation attack, Dark Aura, which not only is likely to vaporize you if you get caught by it's fast series of hits and you don't have Aero up, it's also an attack that he will spam. A lot.

And what made this fight truly infamous back in the day, is that in the original version, every time you attempted this fight, you had to sit through a 2(?) minute long cutscene before the fight began. That was unskippable. And he's easily one of the hardest non-optional fights in the game. Yeah. It really fucking sucked.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 3:03 am

Luckily, in the remaster (and I think the original KH Final Mix?), they added a Skip Cutscene feature.

And thankfully, I beat Riku 2 first try in this playthrough. Outside of the endgame optional superbosses, I'm not expecting too much trouble from here on out.

But now, I'm worried that the other shoe is going to drop by the time I get into Chain of Memories...
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 10:00 am

My advice for CoM is...don't. :-I
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 11:06 am

too late :twonk:

i already decided that i'm playing through the entire KH series this year, and I have both Re:CoM (via the PS4 collection) and my old GBA cart of CoM. I've played through most of CoM as a kid, right up until just before the final floor. I'm going to attempt to get my revenge this time.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 12:24 pm

Aria Genisi wrote:
Sat Jan 20, 2018 11:06 am
too late :twonk:

i already decided that i'm playing through the entire KH series this year, and I have both Re:CoM (via the PS4 collection) and my old GBA cart of CoM. I've played through most of CoM as a kid, right up until just before the final floor. I'm going to attempt to get my revenge this time.
My advice is to do the speedrun route on Beginner and make it as painless as possible.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 12:48 pm

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

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 12:51 pm

i will get my revenge on Riku 4 no matter what
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Quanta (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 2:10 pm

I see you enjoy pain. Good luck.
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Re: Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness? - Kingdom Hearts Megathread

Post by Perpetual Motion (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 4:04 pm

The final Riku fight in CoM (GBA) was where I stopped playing too. I just couldn't beat it. Shame, since there's a whole second campaign in that game that I never got to play through. I hope you get your revenge!

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

Post by Quanta (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 4:27 pm

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

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sat Jan 20, 2018 4:51 pm

Nah
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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 12:31 am

After beating Riku 2, you get sent back to Traverse Town to regroup story-wise, before having to go all the way back up to the Grand Hall of Hollow Bastion, to fight the first (of like, 10) Behemoth as a boss to seal the keyhole. Doing so signals the proper endgame, where the actual villain, Ansem, shows up as the true driving force of the heartless in this game. He possessed Riku after he fell too far into darkness, and lead Maleficent to unwittingly complete his plan to reveal the Door to Darkness, found deep in the End of the World, where the remains of all the worlds lost to the heartless drifted to and collected into.

End of the World serves as the final level, a patchwork collection of ruined worlds collected together by darkness. There's less heartless here than say, in Hollow Bastion, but the heartless that inhabit this world are the strongest normal enemies in the game. Randomly, you end up finding Chernabog, from Fantasia, who awakens from the remains of the Bald Mountain that is in the middle of this world and you fight him as a boss fight. He's...just kinda there. At the end of End of the World, you reach the Final Rest, which serves as the point of no return, right before the final bosses...
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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 1:36 am

So yeah, I beat the final bosses, and at the end of the game, it just reminded me of how much I actually enjoyed KH1. Before I started playing, I expected that I wanted to just get through this game as quick as possible, so I could get to KH2 quicker. And by the time I got through the intro, I was all on board to get it over with. The combat was basic, the MP/magic system sucks, and the tier 1 worlds (wonderland, deep jungle) are kind of crap.

Then the tier 2 worlds show up with Agrabah, and the game starts to hit a turning point for me. The worlds get better and more interesting (imo at least) with better level design. Better abilities start rolling in, making combat more interesting and less of a basic slog, and the more advanced spells start rolling in. Specifically, Aero and Gravity. Aero improves defense for a limited time, and Gravity removes a chunk of the targeted enemy's health bar, making it perfect for the bigger heartless. Things still aren't as amazing as they could be, but it's a lot better than it was at the very beginning. Going through the worlds, there's still rough spots, and some tough enemies and bosses, but it's rather enjoyable.

Hollow Bastion is a fantastic world, and I just love this giant evil fortress, and the enemies here make it fun to clobber everything. Dragon Maleficent is still a nasty boss, and Riku 2 is an absolute terror, but it's fun. End of the World is also really enjoyable, but the final boss is a treat. Ansem monologues about how much he loves darkness, and his VA is chewing the hell out of the scenery. He's a delight. Two fights against Ansem and his stand (yes, he has what is essentially a JoJo stand), and then you get sent to the void, and Ansem shows up in his goddamn living demon battleship form, World of Chaos:

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You have this giant flesh battleship heartless thing, World of Chaos, with a giant version of Ansem wielding a twin-bladed halberd connected to this monster at the helm via a bunch of tubes stuck to his back. And it's this really kind of amazing fight where you beat Ansem up, blow up parts of his ship, and then beat him up one last time. There's better fights in better games, sure, but there's something truly fun and amazing about this final boss where you're beating up a GIANT LIVING DEMON BATTLESHIP.

Oh and, I got to say, the Hundred Acre Wood is the best world in the game. There's a sidequest where you gotta collect torn pages to restore the world of Winnie the Pooh, and you proceed to do little scenarios with Pooh, with Sora taking the place of Christopher Robin. There's no combat here. It's mainly just having fun with Pooh and doing minigames. It's an extremely charming little sidequest area with background music that melts my heart. :3: Stuff like this is why I love this series. It's a mix of just this charming, heart-filled visit to these fun worlds, a bit of hilarity when you mix Disney and Final Fantasy-esque elements and characters together, and it's just....*fun*.


Technically, I'd be done with KH1 from beating the game, but I still have the final SPORTS to finish first: the Hades Cup. Three other arena tournaments show up throughout the game, but the Hades Cup is the endgame one. It's the big one. Not to mention that there's still some other optional bosses that show up after sealing Hollow Bastion's keyhole.

I haven't decided on if I'm going to try to beat Sephiroth though....
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