Graphically looks incredible. No complaints there.

Combos are faster than Aqua's in BBS and also good options in gameplay, but there's not many options to begin with.

Magic Combos are cool, and the way Magic effects enemies is neat. Kinda reminds me of Port Royal in KH2.

Shotlocks are super situational, but can be useful if used correctly.

Unfortnately, those three are ALL the options you have for damage output (not counting Style Changes which I consider as attacking or Magic Finishers which I consider as Magic obviously). Here's my issue, and I've noticed a lot of recent KH games falling into this trap:

They're making the harder difficulties hard. And in the wrong way. 

You can use up to 3 Magic spells on Critical Mode before running out of MP. Magic is literally eliminated as a reliable option for attacking in this mode. This means out of the 3 options you have for damaging enemies, one is pretty much useless, so you only have 2; normal attacks and shotlocks. What does this mean? Yeah sure, it makes the game harder and longer; it also makes the game LESS FUN. We don't CHALLENGE ourselves for punishment; we do it for the fun in the game, and when you literally eliminate a combat option as a method to make a game harder, it doesn't make the game any more fun to play.

This can be reflected in BBS and DDD; Critical Mode reduces your HP, lowers your damage output, and increases enemy damage output. THERE IS NO ADVANTAGE OR INCENTIVE TO PLAY ON THESE HARDER DIFFICULTIES, ASIDE TO PUNISH YOURSELF. Yeah, you get extra command slots in BBS, but you start of with crappy commands anyways, and you still ultimately end up with the same 8 slot command deck. So you don't get anything out of it.

What happened to 2FM? What happened to crippling you severely by reducing your MP, HP, and EXP received, but also giving you buffs such as more damage output and abilities to make you want to play the game? I want a REASON to play the hardest difficulty, aside from "make me hate my life." 2FM gave me that reason, but it seems like every other KH game from there on out makes me hate playing on the hardest difficulty. It sucks, and I'm almost sure they'll fall into the same trap the same way for KH3. 

Another annoying thing is that Square seems to have gotten the idea that a hard boss is one with 5 billion bars of health and takes forever to kill, when that really isn't what we consider a boss that's "hard" as; it just makes the fight that much more tedious and boring. I don't want to be hacking away at a 12 goddamned bar final boss when the rest of the bosses have 6 or 7 bars maximum. It doesn't even make the fight hard; it just takes forever, especially when that boss is never truly open to punishing. You're never safe to attack the Final Devil's Wave; it can easily hit you out of your combo, and on Critical Mode, you're dead. 

0.2 hasn't been living up to standards unfortunately. Apparently this is the game that's suppose to surpass KH2...clearly, Osaka team is doing something wrong, because it doesn't come close.

​Phantom Aqua

She's hard as heck! Crazy darkness lady! I wanted to be done with the battle! She beats me 3 times. Regarding the items, I wasn't sure if she embargoed me or the game did that, and just make you to use a number of items in this battle. I know some of you will say that I need to fight her in Critical Mode. When it comes to a Kingdom Hearts game or any game with a difficulty, I start off at the easiest difficulty first. Then work my way to the next difficulty. 

I'm not talking about 2.8, I'm talking about just 0.2

2.8's file size is about 30 Giga bytes with all what's included with 2.8 including the updates. 

This comes only a day after the figure's listing on the Square Enix (Japan) e-Store and AmiAmi, which list the Japanese release date of the figure to be July 8, 2017.

You can view images of the figure below. The Square Enix Online Store description follows.

Aqua, the first female protagonist in the KINGDOM HEARTS series, has the inner fortitude to withstand adversity. This Play Arts -KAI- figure is sure to please as it showcases her unwavering spirit in its expression.

 

The various included accessory parts allow for a multitude of action poses. The paintwork, varying calculated intensities of light and shadow, gives her a realistic presence, all while taking great care to show off of her signature blue color. We also aimed to give her armor and keyblade a heavy feel through the paint-applied metal textures.

 

Whether she is charging gallantly into battle with Rainfell or showing her softer side in scenes with Terra and Ventus, we have condensed every bit of her charm into this figure to make it quintessentially Aqua.

 

Figure includes display stand.

 

Figure Size (inches): W 3.62” x D 1.9” x H 9.1”

Will you be pre-ordering this figure? Let us know in the comments!

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Now, the questions I have may have already been answered, yet I could not find clear explanations in the topics from several pages back.  So, here goes:

1. I originally had asked about 0.2's placement in the KH timeline.  While the game did reveal that most of it is parallel to KH1, does 0.2 take place before or after the Secret Episode?  We also know that Aqua would continue to wander during the events of COM and KH2, as well.

I ask this (again) because Aqua and Mickey eventually make their way to what looks a lot like the area in the Secret Episode, called the Depths of Darkness in 0.2.  This area then leads to what is left of the Destiny Islands in the ROD.  I was under the impression that Aqua had been wandering a VERY long time once the Secret Episode begins, and thought she may have met Mickey AFTER her encounter with good old Red Eyes. 

Now, it would seem that 0.2 all takes place BEFORE the Secret Episode, with Aqua once again being transported to the Depths of Darkness after her last battle with the Demon Tide.  I know this is a detailed question.  I am just trying to make sense of all of this, as so much happened before and during KH1, more than we could have ever known when the series consisted of only KH1 :lol:

2.  My other question is, just how long had Aqua already been wandering when she first makes her way to Castle Town (the Dark World), and then sees illusions of Terra and Ventus?  Although time flow is totally different in the ROD, it did not take long to get through the three main sections of the Dark World, at least for us players. 

So, to sum up what I think is my understanding of the ROD timeline, it goes like this:

• Aqua's story in BBS ends 
• Final Episode begins 
• Final Episode ends, Aqua enters the ROD 
• Aqua begins wandering ROD and is saved early on by T and V's Keyblades 
• Secret Episode begins, wandering and fighting Heartless for a presumably long time
• Aqua defeats Red Eyes (Hunter of the Dark)
• She continues wandering and sees the Castle of Dreams in the distance
• 0.2 begins, revealing the existence of the Dark World
• Aqua makes her way through the Dark World, "seeing" Terra and Ventus 
• She meets Mickey and follows him to the Depths of Darkness
• Aqua and Mickey find the Kingdom Key D at Destiny Islands just before it is restored to the ROL
• Aqua is separated from Mickey and is sent back to the Depths of Darkness while fighting the Demon Tide swarm
• She wanders even more for another 1-2 years
• She finally meets with Ansem the Wise (towards the end of KH2)
• Riku and Mickey better not screw up the rescue attempt - Aqua has been in the ROD long enough!  Oh, they should probably save Ansem, too (maybe). 

This is the best possible understanding I have of the Aqua/ROD timeline.  Thanks to Lealixx, I made some important changes to the summary, so everything should be in the right order now!

Shaved off almost 6 minutes from the first time I ran this game. 

Edit: 

You can take a look at the video below:

Thanks to KHInsider for the tip!

In October, 13th Vessel uploaded a couple videos showcasing inaccessible areas in Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage- as well. He also shows off Destiny Islands and The World Within in Dwarf Woodlands, where he tried out some room codes and got a rare debug message, which stated "Continue as normal, the flag isn't raised" (in Japanese).

You can check out the video below:

Also, the video of the full gameplay can be viewed below:

What do you think about the areas' graphical showcase? And what do you expect to see from Kingdom Hearts III in terms of graphics? Feel free to tell us in the comment section!

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When asked more about the assets, 13th Vessel gave some more insight on the structure of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-, which you can read below:

"Kingdom Hearts 0.2, it's basically a video with playable levels. Every cutscene that you see in-game is just a video."

When asked about which characters' assets they have found so far, they replied with:

"We have also found models for other characters (Yen Sid, Kairi, and Riku). Sora, Donald, and Goofy haven't been found as of yet."

UPDATE [Dec 18, 2017]: KeytoTruth has found unused commands in the assets of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-. Some of the commands that weren't used for the final version of the game were Water, Aero, Holy, WaterFire, WaterBlizzard, and WaterAero. You can view the full list of commands here.

UPDATE [Dec 31, 2017]: @Xeeynamo has found untextured models of Sora and Goofy from Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-. Their pictures have been added to the album embed above.

UPDATE [Jan 1, 2018]: 13th Vessel has reported that they have uncovered "almost every model," including untextured character models for Riku in his Kingdom Hearts original outfit, Donald, Ansem the Wise and Terra; he has also found Riku's and Mickey's suitcases model. He has also found the files for Ventus and shirtless Mickey and many more, but there are no images available for those models yet. In the mean time, you can view all of the ones available in the gallery with the other images above.

UPDATE [Jan 2, 2018]: 13th Vessel has uncovered the untextured character model for Terra-Xehanort's Guardian, which you can view in the gallery above. He's also found Kingdom Key, Kingdom Key D, Donald's weapon, and effects for the previously reported on Water magic, which were not viewable. Some maps and textures of models are still there even after having been deleted. For example, in the NPC folder, 13th Vessel found some folders for Daybreak Town, but they only had textures of scrapped models in them. (Note that there he didn't find any maps for Daybreak Town.)

The next step would be to find a way of seeing these textures to identify them, but 13th Vessel says that that's a very complicated task. He states that because of this, there could be many things that are scrapped that we are not able to view.

UPDATE [Jan 2, 2018]: 13th Vessel has uploaded the soundtrack's file names from Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep -A fragmentary passage- that he pulled from the game's assets. This list does not contain the game's opening song, "Simple and Clean (Ray of Hope Mix)."

You can see the list below:

The list comprises the following tracks, which can be heard throughout the game:

• Always on My Mind
  
• Dearly Beloved -Reprise-
  
• Destiny's Force
  
• Devil's Wave [1]
  
• Devil's Wave [2]
  
• Dive into the Heart -Destati-
  
• Illusion Aqua
  
• Hand in Hand
  
• Bond*
  
• Light and Dark**
  
• Miracle
  
• Missing You
  
• Magical Mystery
  
• Aqua
  
• Sora
  
• Terra
  
• Ven
  
• Dearly Beloved
  
• Title launch***
  
• Dark World battle theme
  
• Dark World boss theme
  
• Dark World field theme
  
• Dark World field theme (Sleeping Beauty)
  
• Dark World field theme (Snow White)
  

*This could be referring to the track "Destiny's Union" that plays when Terra is talking to Aqua.

**This could be referring to the track "The Key" that plays when King Mickey finds the Kingdom Key D and when he is ready to seal the door to Kingdom Hearts.

***This could be the brief music that plays when the player starts a new game.

Translations were provided by KH13 staff member Mio-chan.

13th Vessel commented that he was not able to view the soundtrack from Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover as it is a movie, not a game.

UPDATE [Jan 5, 2018]: We had another chance to speak to 13th Vessel about the NPC folders and the textures (with no models) found in them, and he explained to us, in detail, that some of the characters' models are found in folders whose names are identifiable with the code of the area those characters are seen during the game.

For instance, the untextured models for Yen Sid, Riku, Riku's and Mickey's suitcases, Kairi, Sora, Donald, and Goofy were found in folders with the code "yc" - for Yen Sid's Castle. Similarly, the models for Aqua and Terranort were found in Dark World ("dw") folders; and the models for Luxu and the box he carries, as seen in the Keyblade Graveyard, were appropriately found in a Daybreak Town ("db") folder.

UPDATE [Jan 6, 2018]: Keytotruth has uploaded an image of the model of the Gummi Ship found in the files of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep -A fragmentary passage-.

You can see the picture below. Note that the colors were added to the render.

Back in October, 13th Vessel uploaded a couple of videos on the Destiny Islands area in Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage- using hacks and mods. You can check out more about that in the article here. What do you guys think about these assets? What else do you think we will find? Let us know in the comments below.

View full news article

UPDATE [Jan 2, 2018]: 13th Vessel has uncovered the untextured character model for Terra-Xehanort's Guardian, which you can view in the gallery above. He's also found Kingdom Key, Kingdom Key D, Donald's weapon, and effects for the previously reported on Water magic, which were not viewable. Some maps and textures of models are still there even after having been deleted. For example, in the NPC folder, 13th Vessel found some folders for Daybreak Town, but they only had textures of scrapped models in them. (Note that there he didn't find any maps for Daybreak Town.)

The next step would be to find a way of seeing these textures to identify them, but 13th Vessel says that that's a very complicated task. He states that because of this, there could be many things that are scrapped that we are not able to view.

UPDATE [Jan 2, 2018]: 13th Vessel has uploaded the soundtrack's file names from Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep -A fragmentary passage- that he pulled from the game's assets. This list does not contain the game's opening song, "Simple and Clean (Ray of Hope Mix)."

You can see the list below:

The list comprises the following tracks, which can be heard throughout the game:

• Always on My Mind
  
• Dearly Beloved -Reprise-
  
• Destiny's Force
  
• Devil's Wave [1]
  
• Devil's Wave [2]
  
• Dive into the Heart -Destati-
  
• Illusion Aqua
  
• Hand in Hand
  
• Bond*
  
• Light and Dark**
  
• Miracle
  
• Missing You
  
• Magical Mystery
  
• Aqua
  
• Sora
  
• Terra
  
• Ven
  
• Dearly Beloved
  
• Title launch***
  
• Dark World battle theme
  
• Dark World boss theme
  
• Dark World field theme
  
• Dark World field theme (Sleeping Beauty)
  
• Dark World field theme (Snow White)
  

*This could be referring to the track "Destiny's Union" that plays when Terra is talking to Aqua.

**This could be referring to the track "The Key" that plays when King Mickey finds the Kingdom Key D and when he is ready to seal the door to Kingdom Hearts.

***This could be the brief music that plays when the player starts a new game.

Translations were provided by KH13 staff member Mio-chan.

13th Vessel commented that he was not able to view the soundtrack from Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover as it is a movie, not a game.

UPDATE [Jan 5, 2018]: We had another chance to speak to 13th Vessel about the NPC folders and the textures (with no models) found in them, and he explained to us, in detail, that some of the characters' models are found in folders whose names are identifiable with the code of the area those characters are seen during the game.

For instance, the untextured models for Yen Sid, Riku, Riku's and Mickey's suitcases, and Kairi, were found in folders with the code "yt" - for Yen Sid's Tower. Similarly, the models for Aqua and Terranort were found in Dark World ("dw") folders; and the models for Luxu and the box he carries, as seen in the Keyblade Graveyard, were appropriately found in a Daybreak Town ("db") folder.

UPDATE [Jan 6, 2018]: Keytotruth has uploaded an image of the model of the Gummi Ship found in the files of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep -A fragmentary passage-.

You can see the picture below. Note that the colors were added to the render.

Back in October, 13th Vessel uploaded a couple of videos on the Destiny Islands area in Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage- using hacks and mods. You can check out more about that in the article here. What do you guys think about these assets? What else do you think we will find? Let us know in the comments below.

View full news article

The final product pictures reveal that the figure will not only come with the Play Arts Kai base, optional hand parts, and the Rainfell Keyblade, but also the Master's Defender Keyblade.

UPDATE: Square Enix is now accepting pre-orders on the Square Enix Japan store for 13,180 yen (about $120 USD) and the figure is set to be released on July 8th, 2017. It's currently unknown when it will be available in the North American store.

You can view pictures of the figure below:

View full news article

Well anyway, I decided to put together a video comparing the two clips side by side to see how much better the final version changed and how much was actually improved. (*Note, one small but interesting change I noticed was that when Aqua is talking about there not being any time in the realm of darkness, the dialogue happens out loud while in the final game she says it in her head.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PheMfAZ6Nc

The figure will be released in July 2017.

UPDATE 1: An advertisement for the Kingdom Hearts Play Arts Kai Aqua figure has been spotted in a Japanese store. View a photo of it, provided by @Phamboola on Twitter, below:

UPDATE 2: AmiAmi has added a listing for the Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage- Aqua Play Arts Kai, with pre-orders starting on April 5th, 12am JST. The figure was previously shown at the New York Toy Fair and Nuremberg Toy Fair in February, where the release date was first revealed to be July 2017. The figure has a listed price of 13.824 yen, with AmiAmi advertising a 29% discounted price.

The final product pictures reveal that the figure will not only come with the Play Arts Kai base, optional hand parts, and the Rainfell Keyblade, but also the Master's Defender Keyblade.

UPDATE 3: Square Enix is now accepting pre-orders on the Square Enix Japan store for 13,180 yen (about $120 USD) and the figure is set to be released on July 8th, 2017. It's currently unknown when it will be available in the North American store.

You can view pictures of the figure below:

View full news article

Will you order a Aqua figure? Who do you want to see as a Play Arts Kai figure? Tell us in the comments below.

UPDATE 1: A clearer photo of the Play Arts Kai has been taken, now displaying a clear release date of July 2017 for the figurine (far left photograph).

UPDATE 2: The official North American Twitter account for Square Enix Merchandise has revealed a new image of the Aqua figure at the New York Toy Fair. You can view the image below:

The figure will be released in July 2017.

UPDATE 3: An advertisement for the Kingdom Hearts Play Arts Kai Aqua figure has been spotted in a Japanese store. View a photo of it, provided by @Phamboola on Twitter, below:

UPDATE 4: AmiAmi has added a listing for the Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage- Aqua Play Arts Kai, with pre-orders starting on April 5th, 12am JST. The figure was previously shown at the New York Toy Fair and Nuremberg Toy Fair in February, where the release date was first revealed to be July 2017. The figure has a listed price of 13.824 yen, with AmiAmi advertising a 29% discounted price.

The final product pictures reveal that the figure will not only come with the Play Arts Kai base, optional hand parts, and the Rainfell Keyblade, but also the Master's Defender Keyblade.

UPDATE 5: Square Enix is now accepting pre-orders on the Square Enix Japan store for 13,180 yen (about $120 USD) and the figure is set to be released on July 8th, 2017. It's currently unknown when it will be available in the North American store.

You can view pictures of the figure below:

View full news article

1. Defeat 30 Shadows
2. Defeat 45 Flutterings
3. Defeat 40 Flame Cores
4. Defeat 30 Neoshadowa
5. Defeat 20 Water Cores
6. Defeat 20 Earth Cores
7. Test of Strength I ~ Raise Aqua to level 60
8. Test of Strength II ~ Raise Aqua to level 70
9. Test of Strength III ~ Raise Aqua to level 80
10. Master of Counters ~ Defeat 5 Heartess using Counter Blast
11. Master of Fire ~ Use Fire-Based magic to defeat 30 Heartless
12. Master of Ice ~ Use Ice-Based magic to defeat 30 Heartless
13. Master of Lightning ~ Use Lightning-Based magic to defeat 30 Heartless
14. Frozen Rail Ride ~ Use Ice-based magic to create a rain, then ride the rail a long distance
15. Ice Breaker (lol the Gum pun) ~ Freeze at least 5 Heartless & shatter 5 of them
16. Magic Advantage
17. Fight & Fight ~ Defeat 5 Heartless while in midair
18. Excellent Aim ~ Earn an Excellent rating 6 times in a row using Shotlock
19. Stylish Moves ~ Use a Style Change to defeat 50 Heartless
20. A Fine Finish ~ Activate Spellweaver's Finish command
21. Wardrobe Weaver ~  Equip an item in all wardrobe slots, then activate Spellweaver's Finish command
22. Trendsetter ~ Equip an item in a Wardrobe slot
23. Streetlamp Striker ~ Hit 20 Streetlamps
24. Top of the Town ~ Climb to the highest point
25. Starlit Wish ~ Watch for a meteor shower
26. Heartless That Dwell
27. Mystery Within ~ Solve the mystery of the World Within & win the battle
28. Treasure Within ~ Uncover the mystery of the World Within & obtain the special item
29. Gem Gatherer ~ Find the brightest of jewels in the mines where the Seven Dwarfs work
30. Connected ~ Discover the secret in the mirror ties to the mysterious rocks
31. Queen of the Rink ~ Perform a spin during the fight with the phantom Aqua
32. Defeat the Darksides
33. Prickly Problem ~ Destroy 50 ivy branches. Some require magic to be destroyed
34. Fairy Bouquet ~ Find flowers that represent Flora, Fauna, & Merryweather
35. Work Together with King Mickey ~ Link with King Mickey 5 times
36. Turn the Tide ~ Defeat the Demon Tower with Spellweaver's Finish command
37. Treasure Hunt in the Castle Town
38. ingering Memories in the Castle Town
39. Treasure Hunt in the World Within
40. Lingering Memories in the World Within
41. Flawless Victory (lol now a Mortal Kombat reference) ~ Defeat the 3rd phanton Aqua w/o taking damage
42. In the Mirror ~ Enter the mirror that appears in the middle of the 12 zodiac symbols & win all battles
43. Quest for the Zodiac ~ Find & restore the light of the 12 zodiac symbols
44. Treasure Hunt in the Forest of Thorns
45. Lingering Memories in the Forest of Thorns
46. Slide Along the Ivy Rails ~ Use Rail Slide to dodge the Darksides's attacks w/o taking any damage
47. Keeper of the Orb ~ Defeat the Darkside supporting the dark orb w/o taking any damage
48. Treasure Hunt in the Depths of Darkness
49. Lingering Memories in the Depths of Darkness
50. Combined Strength ~ Link with King Mickey to defeat the Demon Tower
51. Critical Conquest ~ Need I say more?

An image of the patch can be found below thanks to Twitter user @xenosaga7.

Update: In addition, the patch also allows the player to see which magic spells deplete their MP bar as shown in the photo below

Lastly, the counter animation can now be interrupted by performing a Barrier spell or a Cartwheel. Credit goes to @everglow8444 for the tip.

View full news article

This isn't my video but there are certain things I agree with which I will edit later because I have to play Dream Drop Distance.

The most obvious thing you notice is the awesome graphics. Unreal Engine 4 is very impressive, and the emphasis on specific lighting in certain areas is very aesthetically pleasing. Overall, the game is a beauty to look at.

The layout works like this; there's four main areas, 3 of which are the first worlds that Terra, Aqua, and Ven goes through in BBS (Castle of Dreams, Dwarf Woodlands, Enchanted Dominion). The final area is the realm of darkness itself, that eventually leads to Destiny Islands. What I found really cool was the music in these areas. Yoko really outdid herself this time around; they give an amazing sense of atmosphere with the whole "Dark World" theme, but at the same time incorporates part of the respective world you're located in.

Other features before we get onto the core combat; Customization is pretty interesting. While I'm not a big fan of the stuff you can put on Aqua, it is neat and I can see some people enjoying it. I'd still stick with plain old Aqua personally though. There are no Abilities you equip; rather, you just sort of...have them. The whole game is approximately 2-4 hours long, depending on how you play. I played on Proud Mode to start, so I do have a good idea of what the game is like at some of its hardest. As a result, I also started Critical (but haven't finished yet) so I can give some impressions on that as well.

Anyways, gameplay: Aqua running super fast is the first thing you notice. I initially believed it to be a demo thing, but it turns out that's just how she runs in the game. While it does look a bit funny, it's actually really nice because you can move across vast worlds so much quicker. Cartwheeling was a big concern of mine, since in BBS you can chain Cartwheels for infinite invincibility. Luckily, they put a startup and an ending animation to the Cartwheel, thus making spamming it without any timing quite trivial. Which is a good thing obviously; it adds more skill required to play the game. I don't really have an opinion on the automovements Aqua makes; it just seems as a cheap way to capture someone's attention to this game, although in actuality, all you're doing is pushing forward on the Analog stick. I also feel like those might hurt you in battle at some point; while it hasn't happened to me, I have a faint feeling it may occur to someone.

A common misconception I see people talking about is "floatiness" of BBS and DDD. It isn't the fact that the characters are "floaty"; that doesn't necessarily mean the combat is bad. It's the fact that their attacks are pathetically slow and weak, which makes attacking with the Keyblade not a viable option over other commands. So no, it's not the floatiness of the characters, but moreso how that floatiness largely hurts their use of normal attacks in battle. I'm glad to say that, while the game doesn't quite live up to KH2's standards of combos, it does feel miles better than the handhelds. The attacks are fast and crisp. Spellweaver attacks were heavily buffed as well; in BBS, they were slow and had a lot of lag to them. This time, it becomes a powerful option to use in combat since your attacks come out twice as fast.

Magic is great; you can chain Magic so easily into your combos and while moving that it makes the entire process feel even more fluid than KH2. Aesthetically, the spells look beautiful, and I absolutely love the effects they have, not only on the enemies, but the environment around you. Activating spell finishers such as Thundagun, Firagun, and Blizzagun will create a ridiculously powerful version of the spell which has a lasting effect on the environment, and it looks beautiful. Cure takes away all your MP, which is obviously modeled after KH2's magic system. This is actually really great because it nerfs the power of Cure so you're forced to use other items and think of other methods of healing. However, this is only true for Proud Mode. From what I've seen, you get more MP on Standard and Beginner Mode, so these things I say may not apply. Nevertheless, Proud Mode offers a decent challenge.

Style changes and Magic finishers are activated by attacking a lot, which will fill up three arrows on top of your command menu. Filling them up will lead to a Reaction Command to appear, which will then allow you to select whichever finisher you wish to use. All seem to be viable in battle so far, so balancing isn't too big of an issue. In addition, I never found myself spamming a single attack to win in all situations, which is great because that's a big problem many were worried about. It could be too soon to judge though; people may eventually find a single attack that works really well on all enemies and bosses. As for now though, it seems to be pretty well done in that aspect. 

The worlds themselves are pretty huge, but I found Enchanted Dominion and the Realm of Darkness to be rather linear. At first you don't even realize it because there's so much stuff everywhere, but then you realize that all split paths lead to dead ends, and it's basically just one linear path forward. Not saying it's a problem, considering the game is more or less open world, and I'm sure we'll be seeing more variety in KH3. Dwarf Woodlands was super cool to me; the mirrors and everything created some pretty interesting puzzles, which, while not that difficult, were still pretty interesting. Other than that, World design seems pretty typical. 

The bosses were...interesting to say the least. You fight several Mirage Aquas, several Darksides, and several Heartless Swarms(Devil's Wave?) throughout the game, with a final Devil's Wave to finish it off. The Darksides were very similar to KH1, with the exception of the final one which had an awesome looking Desperation Move. Devil's Waves gets gradually stronger and stronger, although I will admit by the third one, I was kind of sick of fighting them. The final Devil's Wave still needs more tinkering around with; I'm not sure if I fully understand that boss. It's patterns seem completely random, and the final phase seems to have some sort of Desperation Move that looks like it's literally undodgeable. 

I wanna talk about Mirage Aqua though. It seems as if she is programmed with some form of auto-retaliation, which hints at Revenge Value being a thing in this game. This is incredible because none of the handhelds had this mechanic, and it's also this mechanic what made KH2's boss battles so great. Obviously I can't confirm this, but the fact that Mirage Aqua retaliates exactly after two combos every time makes me believe that Revenge Value has returned, and it will very likely be a thing in KH3. Good stuff. Something else interesting to note is that the Fire Darkball enemies also seem to have Revenge Values programmed into them, as with the Water ones. Obviously I can't confirm this, but it would show an example of more advanced AI.

In regards to overall gameplay and how it compares: Overall, it's excellent. It shows a lot of potential and I think it can really be made into a great system if done correctly. On the otherhand, this game itself doesn't stand anywhere near as close as KH2 in my opinion, just because of the lack of options you have for attacking. Shotlocks are here, Command Styles are here, but that's it. Of course, it's a 3 hour game so I won't expect anymore, but it goes to show that we'll need more than 3 hours to simply surpass the best game in the series. Things I hope in KH3 that they add onto this game? More actions, more movement tech, more options for attack, and most of all, more combo modifiers. Aqua's combo, while useful and cool, gets boring after 3 hours of playing as her. As such, I'm hoping for combo modifers similar to KH2 (Flash Step, Guard Break, Aerial Dive, Horizontal Slash etc.) to come back in KH3 as equippables, and will thus boost gameplay experience and variety so much more. 

I've heard and seen of the game crashing many times for other players, and I can atest to this because the game actually DID crash on me once; I died to the 2nd Devil's Wave and the loading screen just loaded when I hit Retry...forever. So yeah, that was obnoxious. There are also minor frame rate drops just scattered whenever there's a lot of stuff on screen, and that was pretty annoying too. It's really a shame; Square seems to have lost the capability of making a stable game. First the HD Ports, then FFXV, and now this. Really hoping KH3 isn't like this.

Annnd that's basically all I have. First impressions are long and all, but hey it's a pretty complex game and there was lots to talk about. This one really shows potential, but also shows potential dangers at where KH3 can fail. Anyways though, here's the final veredict: it was fun and I enjoyed the experience, but it could've been improved all the same. 

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