Πέμπτη 20 Φεβρουαρίου 2014

Kingdom Hearts 1-DDD Retrospective

I finished Kingdom Hearts 3D and found the secret ending (which someone told me was going to be far better that it actually was METAX),which actually made me kind of proud.And with KH2.5 coming this year and KH3 maybe probably next year-ish I decided it would be a good idea to make this retrospective of  all the Kingdom Hearts I have played.
Lets set some rules thought.For the sake of treating games equally I will:
A)Ignore the graphics QUALITY.I will in a sense asume that all the games from 1 to 3D has the excact same graphics.That doesn't mean I won't discuss em.I will just be more fair to them.This rule is also here because SQUERE ENIX CAN'T AFTER 28 YEARS CLIP THE FUCKING SWORD IN THE FUCKING HAND!
B) Grade out of 10 and then give the Metacritic's ranking, mostly because I am NOT a professional critic.I *could* say the same about metacritic but its not the time nor the article for my sick burns.
C)Will completelly and totaly ignore final mixes, .5s ,remixes and multigame multimixes.I made up the last one,but you get the point.Exception of this rule will be the RE:coded,for reasons explained later.
And before we begin in our epic journey thought Disney worlds I will note that I am going to "review" those games as they came out.For your sake thought here is the timeline of the games.It starts with Birth by Sleep,Kingdom Heart 1,Chains of Memories,358/2,Kingdom Hearts 2,Coded and finaly 3D.
Now kids sit by the fire and get ready for a story about monster depts,great perils and a hero whose ingenuity has been foretold in ancient prophecies.It's the year 2000.Square Enix is at the top of the world. Final Fantasy's success is so big that they decide to make a movie about it.Final Fantasy comes out early in 2001 and single handedly threatens SE with bancruptcy.But then the great hero Tetsuya Nomura appeared and started developing a game crossover between Final Fantasy and Disney, with the hopes to actually save SE.And on March 28th 2002 out came
Kingdom Hearts :
With beautiful worlds,amazing graphics for the time(well all praise given here,SE back then was pretty good with graphics anyways) and an above average story KH1 became super famous super fast.The fact that it had Donald and Goofy as main characters(Mickey became main later,he barelly in this one) as well as the existance of FF characters may or may not have helped that fame.But lets face it:this game was GREAT! The combat system was action packed and the boss fights pretty cinematic even for the noob gamers(like the author of this article,who was such an noob that finished the game with the kingdom key because he didn't know better).The story is not too deep however,to the point that it bears almost no significance to the overall series.Three kids Sora(our main character),Riku (a guy whose clothes,attitude and hair SCREAMS antihero) and Kairi(the we all know she is gonna be a love interest/damsel in distress later on girl) live on Destiny Islands,a tiny world/island.Kairi apparently is not from this world,so the guys decide to to help her find her world BY BUILDING A RAFT!Before they can make it thought their world is swalloed by Darkness and divides our heroes.Thought some magic mumbo-jumbo Sora appears to be able to summon and use the Keyblade,a key-shaped sword that is able do lock the world doors so that the Heartless can no longer enter and ends up in Traverse Town,a world between worlds.Meanwhile in Disney Castle,King Mickey(lol) asks Donald and Goofy to find and follow the person that holds the keyblade,and to eventually find him (Mickey). The duo begins their search from (of course) Traverse Town,where they find and follow Sora.The rest of the game has the jumping from world to world,closing doors and defeating Heartlesses(which are in a sense creatures whose hearts has been swallowed by Darkness,the stronger the heart the stronger the Heartless). But something is wrong as it appears that people,or rather specific girls, are being abducted from their worlds.Riku is also acting weirdly and Kairi seems... off .It appears that Maleficent is trying to collect the seven Dragon balls princesses with hearts of pure light to ressurect Goku Ansem,who has actually embraced darkness in his heart.Thought a series of events,Sora becomes a Heartless(it's gonna be important , sorry), Kairi brings him back,Ansem is defeated and Riku and Mickey are stuck in a world of pure darkness.While the story is full of cliches and rants about the importance of hearts and light, the game was revolutionary.So in my oppinion it totally deserves an 8/10(85/100 metacritic).The next in our list is 
Kingdom Hearts:Chain of memories
A GBA game.I am not going to lie,this is the black sheep of kingdom hearts.The story is amazing,don't get me wrong.Sora,Donald and Goofy are trapped in Castle Oblivion,a place where as they keep progressing they lose their memories.They keep going on thought because they sense Riku and Mickey.The castle is run by The Organization XIII however.The trio realizes that in this castle they can enter worlds from their memories,even if they keep losing them.They also learn about Nobodies,the other half of the people that lose their hearts to darkness and become Heartless.The Organization is a team of strong Nobodies that try to get their hearts back,and they (naturally) need Sora's keyblade for that.Or Riku's,who is also there.A million rants about memories and a complicated story later,Sora's memories are so fucked up that he needs to go to sleep to get them back,ending the story.But the problem lies in the gameplay.The amazing combat of KH1 is replace by a stupid card system which,in turn,forces gamers to a "correct" path of worlds just to be able to finish the game.It's possible to actually get so stuck that you may need to RESTART the game.And that is why I think it is worth a 6/10(76/100 metacritic).I guess it was kinda good for the game boy advance thought.They did remake it for the PS2 a couple of years later( earning the lower score of 68/100 on metacritic).Personally you are better of reading the manga and skip all the card bullshit.
Kingdom Hearts II
Kingdom hearts is back on the PS2 and the hype is so fucking on!Better story,better graphics,better combat and the promise of Mickey and Riku being playable?If you weren't a fan yet,you were socially forced to join the fray now.Almost everyone considers this game as the best KH game nowadays, and I will have to agree(but it's not my favourite).The story begins with Roxas and his friends in twilight town,and for some reason the days are being counted.A bunch of shit happens and you are so fucking confused.But the week passes and you are back to controling Sora,who finally after a year wakes up,not remembering the events of Chain of memories(I don't blame him).Our trio of cosmonauts keeps jumping from world to world with The Organization hot on his track.Nobodies are the main baddies this time around,and are greatly expanded upon,main trait being that they don't have feelings.Apparently The Organization wishes to complete Kingdom Hearts so that they can get their hearts back,finally giving the series title a meaning.Sora clears his way thought its members to the top,leading to a fight to Xemnas,Ansem's Nobody and Leader of the Organization.Lastly it is revealed that Roxas is Sora's Nobody from when he was divided in KH1.The game ends with Sora,Riku and Kairi on Destiny Islands getting a letter from Mickey,exciting us all for Kingdom Hearts 3,but little do we know that we HAVE TO WAIT FOR 11 YEARS FOR IT!The combat is amazing too,the boss fight are cinematic yet again and did you fail in one?Well worry not CAUSE KING MICKEY WILL SCHOOL HIS ASS.And for all thos reasons KH2 personally gets 9/10(86/100 metacritic).
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Ok I'm going to be simple and clean with this one.The gameplay has taken a small step backwards,the worlds are the same as KH1 and the graphics are kinda bad even for DS standards.And the story...umm how do I say this?Ok I promised I will be fair.The story is so boring in the begining I never finished the game. Neither the gameplay nor the story kept me going and after a couple of hours I gave up.BUT!I have seen the entiretty of the game's story(and realized how stupid I was) thought KH1.5.Our main character is Roxas this time around.He is a member  of The Organization.Once again the days are being counted,eventually reaching (drum roll please) 358 days after the "birth" of Roxas.Accompaning Roxas we have Axel( an awesome dude from Chains and 2 which I skipped talking about because spoilers on both occasions) and Xion, my first videogame girl crush.Yes I said it.Its now in the open for everyone to read.I fell in love with an imaginary charecter.It doesn't matter that she can't feel,I have enough love for both of us.Oooh wait did I say she can't feel? Well scrap that because if the game makes ONE thing clear is that NOBODIES FEEL.If it makes two things clear is that and that not everyone on The Organization is bad.Some just want their hearts back and the best way to do that is Organization XIII, even if it means fighting Sora even if they don't want to.Eventually the story gets quite complicated and VERY sad,even for KH standards and I promise that when I will get the chance I will return and finish this game.However what SHINES in this game is not it's story.Oh no!The best aspect of this game is it's Multiplayer.You can pick anyone from The Organization,all with their weapons and everything,and you can unlock Sora,Riku,Mickey and for the first time Donald and Goofy,to join a friend on a co-op mission or to try to kick each other's butt on PvP!All this makes this game hard to overall grade.The game is worse than KH1 but better than Chains,the story is also quite good and the multiplayer is there,yet the grade should not be as good as KH1.So I guess I will give it a 7.5/10(surprisingly 75/100 on metacritic even tought I grade before I look). I will have to now admit that if I wasn't being fair I would completely give 358/2 a 9/10 just for the well polished multiplayer,which better be in KH3 the way it is HERE or it better not be at all.Fuck, at this point in time when it cost 16$ on amazon go and fucking buy it just for the multiplayer if you have a friend or simbling that owns it.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep.
Οk.Here it comes.It's time for the entire Internet to explode.Whether it's in my face or if everyone follows me to admit the same time only will tell.Birth by sleep is my favourite KH,the best PSP game EVER made and I believe it's the best KH game to date in my opinion.I said I wasn't going to critic graphics but BBS has the best KHs graphics,something worth mentioning.Gameplay is about the same as KH2,with the awesome addition of command fusing,a great mechanic to get new abbilities and magic.The story is amazing too,even for for KH standards.This time around you get to play as 3 people:Terra(a guy that you would not wish to fight),Ventus ( a kid that looks eerily like Roxas) and Aqua (my second crush from this series,DAMN YOU SQUERE!).All three are keyblade wielders,all living in the same world and all training to become Keyblade Masters.Judgment day comes for Terra and Aqua but Master Xehanort messes it up by using some magic mumbo-jumbo,in case you didn't guess he was a baddy by just looking at him.After that its 1v1 between Aqua and Terra,with the second letting a bit of darkness out ruling him out as a Master.Now they leave their world because Terra must strungle with his darkness,Aqua must make sure Terra doesn't lose to darkness and Ventus leaves because......his boyfriend is strungling with darkness?Gay jokes asside,you get to play their stories individually and as a gamer that has played this game thrice I would like to suggest Aqua first,which brings up the most questions,Terra second,because it answers most questions and Ven last for the dramatic end.Before I give my score I would like to mention that A) we learn that you can be absorbed by light the same way you can be absorbed by darkness B)There is a copy of the Days' multiplayer,but you can only chose one of your own 3 characters,making it obvious this was just an afterthought,making it the only shortcoming of this game.Ok some stupid worlds here and there,some kinda bad dialogs and some small plotholes (first to this series) are shortcoming but nothing to cry over.This game get undoubtedly a 9/10 (82/100 metacritic).
Kingdom Hearts Re:coded
Why Re?Well KH Coded came out only for Japanese mobile phones( with AMAZING graphics for 2008 phones might I add) in episodic form,like Telltale games.As you can guess by EVERYTHING in this blog I am not japanese.So I guess I am going to review the DS remake.Gameplay wise this game has the combat system of Days,the command fusion of BBS and it adds the quite lovely "Hacks" system,in which I will get a bit deeper in a few lines.Our story starts at Disney Castle,where King Mickey ask from Chip and Dale to make a machine so that they can read a strange Journal.This machine requires a "hero" to travel the Journal and that's how Data-Sora is "born".The whole games happens in Datascape a digital place.And that's where the "Hacks" come in.For Data-Sora to become better you must upgrade him by adding chips in him.Once some connections have been made you can access some Hacks which allow you to manipulate stuff like drop rates,enemy power and enemy life at the expence of lower life ,lower drops etc.Its a nice risk-reward thing,and what I did at the end was give Sora a item that leaves him with 1% life,cranked my life to 2%,the enemy life to as low as possible and the dificulty to Maximum and blaze thought everything with my commands.Back to the story front,I will admit the story is too forgettable and meaningless you could really skip it.It add very little to the overall series,the world are the same as KH1 with some twists here and there,like Traverse Town going 2D for a while and Hercules' world being like entirelly like FF like RPG.I'm sad to say but this game gets a 6.5/10(66/100 on Metacritic).
Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance.
Here we are.Last in this series.Let's get the big lie out of the picture:3D(as in the graphics 3DS has not the game)was 
clearly an afterthought.Like they were preparing this for normal DS and they just changed course mid-project.If you put it next to,let's say Kid Icarus, you can see the difference.Gameplay is kinda the same yet kinda different.Combat is the same with the addition of Flowmotion,which is,for lack of better term, magic parkour.What was also added were the Spirits(UGH).You can create Spirits to help you fight,give you new abilities and they are also the multiplayer kinda like pokemon battles.Quite frankly I hate em.Story is strange too.The story follows both Sora and Riku thought their Test for Keyblade Mastery.Problem is,you play both stories at the same time,unlike BBS.This is done thought the Drop system.You are given a  time limit with both characters and once thats done your character "drops" i.e. goes to sleep.And that could happen anytime like during a boss fight.Most of the worlds are new, and even the old ones like Traverse Town are given new stories (Traverse Town is now inhabited by the characters from The World Ends With You).The middle worlds do feel a bit rushed but thats okay.I will not mention any further story because this would spoil all of the beans, but I will say that the overall story is pretty good.I give this game a 7/10(75/100 on metacritic).
And this is it all folks.I will write eventually what i expect for KH3 on another article but now all my energy is spent.

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