So, I feel the need to do this kind of list type of thing. Others have most likely done the same, so I feel the need to do it too. I'll be basing this on the games I've actually played & seen reviews of for the ones that have only gotten their cutscenes redone for the HD compilations, so sorry, no Union X here. Also, no 0.2, since that's just a chunk of KHIII they sliced off & finished to completely justify 2.8. If I add III to this in the future, I'll include 0.2 to it or Birth By Sleep, since it's a middle ground between the 2 of those.
From least good to great/best:
7. Kingdom Hearts re:Coded.
I know people don't consider this the worst KH game, but I do. Gameplay that, from what I've seen, isn't nearly as good as the console games, or even Birth By Sleep or Dream Drop Distance & a story that's essentially filler & worthless, though I'd expect nothing less than something that came from the mind of a drunk Nomura. Literally this game is unforgivable FILLER in the KH series, with only the last 30 minutes or so of the plot being of any worth from the cinematic movie in 2.5, though you can also easily skip it because all it does is set up Birth By Sleep & Mickey's quest to rescue Aqua in later games, which later games establish anyways, so this game is unintentionally rendered utterly useless & pointless by this stuff. The fact that Team Four Star bypassed this game entirely for their KH marathon & were still fine just shows the effect this had.
6. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.
Yeah, I know, "but it's got a good story." A good story doesn't preclude terrible gameplay & really bad mechanics that were either forgotten or refined in later games. Those being the slower & stiffer combat than even KHI & the terrible deck system where to even gain anything from levels, you have to attach blocks to Roxas to gain stat & other stuff. However, at the same time, the story IS the saving grace of this game, which is why I think it ranks higher than re:Coded. Though this is still hindered by the fact that most of the secondary characters are expanded upon & part of the story is told through text boxes with the other Organization XIII members in game & they didn't bother including those in brand new cutscenes in the 1.5 compilation, so even the cinematics are lacking a bit. It is still enjoyable in the storytelling, though, so there's that. Also, from what I can tell, the overabundance of missions makes this game last too long for no good reason from what I hear.
5. Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance.
It's the game that directly sets up III, but man is the storytelling & combat here significantly downgraded from KHII & Birth By Sleep. The story reaches all levels of convoluted thanks to the introduction of time travel into the series just to make this plot even remotely work, answering questions no one was asking in the process, & effectively jumping the shark. The storytelling is also bad with Sora. If you haven't noticed this before, this game really hammers in the fact that in the mobile games, Sora is reduced in his characterization to something of a halfway point between Goku from Dragon Ball Super & Luffy from One Piece. In other words, an idiot hero nice guy who isn't too bright, barely has a personality, & doesn't take anything seriously until he's effectively forced to. Also, he's lacking a bit in common sense. This characterization started in Chain of Memories (though at least there was some kind of reason for it, however forced it was), then was furthered in re:Coded with Data Sora, then reached its peak here to the point that I'm glad he's back, mostly, to how he was in KHII from the look of things in the trailers. Why is this? I'm assuming it was because none of the writers from KHII were brought back in to write for these games, so Sora was flanderized because of that, which is especially odd since Nomura himself cowrote this game's story, as well as Coded's, so that's probably why. Given that this game's story was more one for Riku, I'm surprised that they didn't just make a spin-off for him by himself. He's actually in-character in this game & serves as the main protagonist, since Sora's essentially just along for the ride.
Then there's the combat. Flowmotion can be fun & I'm glad they're mixing it into Sora's move set from II in III, but geez did the game devs have to make this game revolve completely around it & completely break what worked from past KH games? In past KH games, while main bosses, like the Organization members, had their own was of defeating them, you were still free in your choices to figure out what worked best for all of them. KHII was absolutely excellent with this, giving you so many options with the physical attacks, magic, drive forms, & whatever else to defeat enemies. You were a one-man army with Sora in II. Here, you HAVE to rely on the magic abilities, which I wouldn't mind if the boss AI wasn't completely screwed to Hell & back. This was also a problem with Birth By Sleep, where the boss AI was completely randomized rather than having certain patterns that you could key in on, as well as stunlock & other things, which is also a thing that bogs down battle with the dream eaters, since they don't take stunlock at all unless you use certain magic abilities or flowmotion. This is an utterly broken system & feels completely unfair because it encourages cheesing the game with the most powerful abilities like the Balloon attacks, which you don't receive until a bit of the way into the main story, & makes everything from the previous games a complete chore to do. When you don't have a certain amount of freedom & the game stacks everything against you, that's a failure of game design.
Not helping this at all is the removal of the ability synthesis from Birth By Sleep. That system was fun to use, since you can completely break the game by mixing abilities together to make better ones. Keeping that system in this game would've helped. Also, 3 words. New. Game. Plus. The New Game Plus system in this game sucks! tot he Underworld & back. When it comes to NG+, I expect to keep all of my previous perishable items & attacks, with some other stuff. Other games had this before DDD, so there's absolutely NO excuse why I can't keep all of those things when going through NG+, especially on the highest difficulty, where you NEED those things to start out with because you're both hindered even more & the fact that you need to play through one of the other modes to even unlock that difficulty, so keeping those from my past save would've been nice, but no. Just Dreameaters & whatever else. This is something I hope they get right with III & retroactively add to 1.5+2.5 & 2.8, but better. Even copying Final Fantasy XV's homework would be a godsend for it.
So, yeah, not a big fan of this game too much.
4. Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories.
This game was created while KHII was in development & served to be KHI on the GBA...except it's also an midquel between I & II, which it serves better as. This game is just a waste of time. It sets up the Organization & Namine...sort of, & explains what happened to Sora & co, as well as Riku & Mickey before KHII, but did this game need to turn out this badly? I don't think so.
First of all the story. The heroes get trapped in Castle Oblivion & have their memories screwed with by the several Organization members that are tasked to do so. In the game, they revisit every location from the first game, except Tarzan's world because Disney lost the copyright on that property after KHI was made, & go through bare bones versions of the bare bones versions of those retold plots from the first game. However, these are, ultimately, worthless because they don't really connect to the main plot much & feel even more disconnected than in the first game.
Then there's the storytelling. This is the first episode to alter Sora's personality to fit more into the idiot hero persona which he wasn't in the first game mind you. However, due to his memories being tampered with, though also just being dumb & not actually stopping to think about what's happening around him, leaving him to treat Donald & Goofy like shit for not good reason, as well as abandon them for a bit. I don't like this because it's not consistent with the rest of his portrayals, for the most part. Then there's Riku's story, which is mercifully short ('which I thank the devs for because Sora's goes on WAY too long) at about 5 hours as opposed to the 25-30 of the main story. Riku's story only serves to show that he knows about Sora's plight to restore his memories & that he's gonna try to control the darkness in his heart. That's fine. However, it's tacked on to the main story of the game afterwards rather than woven into the main game's story. If there's anything to this game, it's its focus on Riku, whom I think should've probably been the main focus of the game rather than an after thought.
Now there's the combat. This game tries to take the formula from the first game, but mixes it with card games. This isn't really that good because, once you get a certain ways into the game, you can cheese the game & you win. The fact that the cards you get are determined by bad RNG & the fact that the bosses use strategies the game didn't teach you to defend against, thus MAKING you cheese the game. That's just bad combat design. Also, this game is easy to break with this system & becomes boring just a few hours in.
I'm sure that the novelty of having mobile KH was great back in 2004, but now that the novelty's well worn off, & the 3D remake is the more prominent version out there, I think people can see my meaning here. Just watch KingK's retrospective on YouTube to get what I mean if you don't understand fully.
3. Kingdom Hearts I (Final Mix)
Coming in at #3 is the very first game in the franchise, & specifically the Final Mix version, which added in things like new cutscenes & some new extra bosses. This game is, mostly, good, but a few things hold it back from being the best in my eyes. Naturally, though, since this is the first game in what was an untested formula of mixing Disney with Square's JRPGs & throwing in Final Fantasy elements, but that doesn't really matter if you start with this game, which you should because of that reason alone, since you have nowhere to go but up afterwards. Most of this game works, since it's a more basic tale about a boy getting betrayed by his best friend, losing their female friend, making new companions to find both of them, & defeating all of the enemies along the way. It's also the least stuffed of all of the KH games, so it's easy to understand & has no baggage behind or in front of it, so there's that.
However, there ARE some bad parts. Tarzan's world is one I'm not sad that Disney lost the license to use in their media, though I think that they COULD do so if the works have since entered the public domain, or when they do. However, in this game, it's just bad. First is that it requires a lot of backtracking & second the traversal is just bad. The controls being stiff, & archaically so, are naturally to blame for the backtracking being awful. The game isn’t built around Sora’s abilities & Sora’s abilities aren’t enough for the worlds, at least before you unlock them & upgrade him with them. Even then, his movement & combos aren’t as fluid or fast as I’d like.
I also think some parts of this game are a bit TOO dank & depressing. Like Hollow Bastion. It’s a bit too gothic for my taste. Definitely reminds me of late-90s/early-2000s. I also don’t care much for the music. The tracks are serviceable, but it all sounds like generic/stock video game music, except for Halloween Town, which just uses ‘This is Halloween’ from the film it’s based on. This is one place the later games definitely improved on, which I kind of feel disappointed to say, since Yoko Shimomura has quickly become one of my favorite video game composers.
But, yeah, decent story, but everything else needed improvements.
Also, the road to getting everything from the Moogle shops to synthesize took over 30 MORE HOURS than I was expecting. Bullshit RNG, too many synthesis items to grind to get the Ultima Weapon, & repetitive sequences. It’s everything I hate about RPGs.
2. Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep (Final Mix)
I originally had this one & 3 switched around. In fact, if you prefer KHI over BBS, I don’t blame you.
Anyways, this one’s a prequel to everything that came before it in the preceding games. It has 3 protagonists & takes a page out of Sonic Adventure’s playbook by having the 3 stories of them take place at the same time, with more of their plots revealed as you go through their stories. This is the only game where I feel the experimentation was done right both in the story delivery & gameplay. Now, it’s a bit more stiff than KHII, but nowhere near as much as KHI. The music is also so much better than KHI’s soundtrack. You’ll notice that this is the only game to get a Final Mix version other than the 2 PS2 games. That’s because, unlike 358/2, which explored more of Roxas’ past, & Re:Coded, which is just a bad game because it’s basically discount Chain of Memories, only with 0 things you absolutely need to know about rather than a few, this game actually adds mythos & important information to the KH series, so it was necessary to have this version. I don’t get why they didn’t add back in the capes to the characters when they have their armor at the last world to keep continuity with he secret ending in KHII FM, since it was only a problem for the PSP, but whatever.
Now, the stories are all tragedies, but leave open the possibility for future solving, which will be explored in III, as you all have no doubt gleaned from the trailers. In spite of that, we’re given 3 decently compelling characters. The only weak point with them is that Jesse McCartney is the only experienced voice actor of them. Jason Dohring does an ok job, but not great, & willa Holland always manages to sound bored. Basically like Aerith in KHII. I blame this on their lack of experience & the voice direction, which has always plagued this series with the actors who are more screen & stage actors than voice actors. Even some of the regulars get spotty in places with their voice direction. Though Dohring HAS improved in this department for 0.2 & I’ll see if Holland has done the same in III, which she kind of sounds like she has...if she’s supposed to be going for could & off rather than bored, which will probably work in Aqua’s case. Picking up the slack, though, is Mark Hamill as Master Eraqus & Leonard Nimoy as Xehanort. Both are great in those roles. I find this story to be a bit better told than KHI’s story.
Now, the combat is experimental, but I like it. It makes the game easy to break, but in a fun way rather than a boring way, since it’s not tied to terrible RNG, or a card game system. Instead of an MP bar, you gain abilities & meld them together to get new ones. This is also how you get permanent add-ons to the characters outside of a capacity increase for the command deck & health increases. This system is the one thing I think this game has over KHI & II; making grinding FUN. The grinding in BBS never felt like a chore to me. Mostly because I was getting something out of it outside of levels & there was always some kind of reward for doing so. Grinding, even in KHII, felt like a chore. This is a faster system that doesn’t require 100% completion & is infinitely more rewarding.
The pace of the game is also quick. Each story will take around 10 hours to do, but you don’t do the same thing twice. Each world takes around a half hour to complete, which is great for the pace of any game. Combine that with the grinding being relatively fast too (it only takes a few hours or so to grind all of the required abilities you need if you know what ones you want per character) & you have a well-paced game.
1. Kingdom Hearts II (Final Mix)
This was probably obvious, but this game is great.
First is the story. It's more involved than the first game's plot, but the way it's paced & the way it's told are really great. This game has a more bright & cheerful tone than the first game or even Chain of Memories, then mixes it really well with the more serious nature of the plot. Y'know, like a Disney film. The story is unfolded pretty well throughout the game, though the overabundance of cutscenes, especially in Final Mix CAN get pretty grating if you're looking for a more fast-paced plot.
Then there's the combat. It is MASSIVELY improved from the first game & has aged like fine wine. There's a reason why the mobile games haven't simply ported it over or improved on it. One, the repetition of the same combat engine would maybe get boring eventually to some people & two, there's no way that they COULD improve it, since it's the best system in the series thus far, so the experimentation is there. The combat is sped up to a good degree from I & there's a good amount you can do with combos. Supporting it is a great magic system, which takes what worked for the hot bar in the first game & just uses it basically unchanged, which is fine with me. There ARE new magic abilities added to the game, which are extremely useful, at the expense of losing some others. Like, I wish Aero had stuck around, but I get why it was removed in favor of Reflect. I’m really looking forward to III, since its combat system is largely a port of II’s mixed with the flowmotion from DDD, but also has a floatiness to it unfortunately, but I’ll adapt to it.
The music is also majorly improved from KHI. Rather than half of the pieces sounding generic, all of the music is really well written & composed to go with the mood of the scenes. They really make everything feel lively & engaging.
Then the voice acting. This is something I have to compliment the actors for. The majority of them do a great job, though there’s the odd line every so often that sounds off in the direction from the actors who’re usually camera actors rather than voice actors, but it’s far from Birth By Sleep, where that was ⅔ of the main characters the majority of the time. The returning actors do well as always & the new ones fit the roles well. The only person who’s performance is iffy is James Arnold Taylor as Jack Sparrow. He nails the voice tone & accent Johnny Depp uses as Jack Sparrow, but he can’t stop sounding drunk when Jack isn’t supposed to be & he doesn’t deliver the lines as Depp would. Still, it’s far from the worst voice acting in the series. No, that would go to the actors for Will Turner & Elizabeth who don’t even remotely sound like the actors from the films, but also don’t fit in their own ways. Definitely the low point for KH voice acting.
Then there’s the bonus content post game, where you hunt down the Mushroom XIII, face Data versions of the Organization members, then fight the Lingering Will, which only exist in the Final Mix version of the game. It also added in the Limit Form for the Drive Forms, which thematically works, since it lets you access a refined version of his KHI combat style & clothes.
Next, the graphics. I haven’t mentioned this for the other games since they never stood out so much, but this is the game to get this level of polish in the graphics department. The HD collection brings this out by upscaling it to HD, putting it into widescreen, & upping the framerate to 60FPS. If they ever get Xbox One ports, the X upscaling it to 4K will be the best looking version of this game bar none short of a PC release. Seriously, the graphics are only beat out by III, since it uses Unreal Engine 4 & goes for a more realistic artstyle mixed with the anime aesthetic. The only place I’d say it falls short is the Pirates of the Caribbean world, which makes the more anime-esque visuals clash with the more realistic character designs & world design. KHIII is gonna make up for this as we’ve seen from the trailers, so I think it’s fine.
The only thing I think this game is missing is a good new Game+ mode, where you retain your levels, perishable items, collectables, & the Ultima Weapon. Seriously, it would be great if Square could patch in a good FFXV-type New Game+ mode into the 1.5+2.5 HD Remix collection for the games in it as a reward for playing the games. Also, if they could remake this & KHI in Unreal Engine 4 for an upcoming anniversary, I’d buy it 10 times over, since, while I do love the graphics, having all of the necessary games be graphically the same again would be great, though it WOULD cut the framerate on the unenhanced consoles, but I’d be fine with that.
All right. That’s my ranking of these games. I’ll probably do a reorganized list in February after I play KHIII, but we’ll see. Let me know if you guys agree. We’ll have a discussion.
So, I feel the need to do this kind of list type of thing. Others have most likely done the same, so I feel the need to do it too. I'll be basing this on the games I've actually played & seen reviews of for the ones that have only gotten their cutscenes redone for the HD compilations, so sorry, no Union X here. Also, no 0.2, since that's just a chunk of KHIII they sliced off & finished to completely justify 2.8. If I add III to this in the future, I'll include 0.2 to it or Birth By Sleep, since it's a middle ground between the 2 of those.
From least good to great/best:
7. Kingdom Hearts re:Coded.
I know people don't consider this the worst KH game, but I do. Gameplay that, from what I've seen, isn't nearly as good as the console games, or even Birth By Sleep or Dream Drop Distance & a story that's essentially filler & worthless, though I'd expect nothing less than something that came from the mind of a drunk Nomura. Literally this game is unforgivable FILLER in the KH series, with only the last 30 minutes or so of the plot being of any worth from the cinematic movie in 2.5, though you can also easily skip it because all it does is set up Birth By Sleep & Mickey's quest to rescue Aqua in later games, which later games establish anyways, so this game is unintentionally rendered utterly useless & pointless by this stuff. The fact that Team Four Star bypassed this game entirely for their KH marathon & were still fine just shows the effect this had.
6. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.
Yeah, I know, "but it's got a good story." A good story doesn't preclude terrible gameplay & really bad mechanics that were either forgotten or refined in later games. Those being the slower & stiffer combat than even KHI & the terrible deck system where to even gain anything from levels, you have to attach blocks to Roxas to gain stat & other stuff. However, at the same time, the story IS the saving grace of this game, which is why I think it ranks higher than re:Coded. Though this is still hindered by the fact that most of the secondary characters are expanded upon & part of the story is told through text boxes with the other Organization XIII members in game & they didn't bother including those in brand new cutscenes in the 1.5 compilation, so even the cinematics are lacking a bit. It is still enjoyable in the storytelling, though, so there's that. Also, from what I can tell, the overabundance of missions makes this game last too long for no good reason from what I hear.
5. Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance.
It's the game that directly sets up III, but man is the storytelling & combat here significantly downgraded from KHII & Birth By Sleep. The story reaches all levels of convoluted thanks to the introduction of time travel into the series just to make this plot even remotely work, answering questions no one was asking in the process, & effectively jumping the shark. The storytelling is also bad with Sora. If you haven't noticed this before, this game really hammers in the fact that in the mobile games, Sora is reduced in his characterization to something of a halfway point between Goku from Dragon Ball Super & Luffy from One Piece. In other words, an idiot hero nice guy who isn't too bright, barely has a personality, & doesn't take anything seriously until he's effectively forced to. Also, he's lacking a bit in common sense. This characterization started in Chain of Memories (though at least there was some kind of reason for it, however forced it was), then was furthered in re:Coded with Data Sora, then reached its peak here to the point that I'm glad he's back, mostly, to how he was in KHII from the look of things in the trailers. Why is this? I'm assuming it was because none of the writers from KHII were brought back in to write for these games, so Sora was flanderized because of that, which is especially odd since Nomura himself cowrote this game's story, as well as Coded's, so that's probably why. Given that this game's story was more one for Riku, I'm surprised that they didn't just make a spin-off for him by himself. He's actually in-character in this game & serves as the main protagonist, since Sora's essentially just along for the ride.
Then there's the combat. Flowmotion can be fun & I'm glad they're mixing it into Sora's move set from II in III, but geez did the game devs have to make this game revolve completely around it & completely break what worked from past KH games? In past KH games, while main bosses, like the Organization members, had their own was of defeating them, you were still free in your choices to figure out what worked best for all of them. KHII was absolutely excellent with this, giving you so many options with the physical attacks, magic, drive forms, & whatever else to defeat enemies. You were a one-man army with Sora in II. Here, you HAVE to rely on the magic abilities, which I wouldn't mind if the boss AI wasn't completely screwed to Hell & back. This was also a problem with Birth By Sleep, where the boss AI was completely randomized rather than having certain patterns that you could key in on, as well as stunlock & other things, which is also a thing that bogs down battle with the dream eaters, since they don't take stunlock at all unless you use certain magic abilities or flowmotion. This is an utterly broken system & feels completely unfair because it encourages cheesing the game with the most powerful abilities like the Balloon attacks, which you don't receive until a bit of the way into the main story, & makes everything from the previous games a complete chore to do. When you don't have a certain amount of freedom & the game stacks everything against you, that's a failure of game design.
Not helping this at all is the removal of the ability synthesis from Birth By Sleep. That system was fun to use, since you can completely break the game by mixing abilities together to make better ones. Keeping that system in this game would've helped. Also, 3 words. New. Game. Plus. The New Game Plus system in this game sucks! tot he Underworld & back. When it comes to NG+, I expect to keep all of my previous perishable items & attacks, with some other stuff. Other games had this before DDD, so there's absolutely NO excuse why I can't keep all of those things when going through NG+, especially on the highest difficulty, where you NEED those things to start out with because you're both hindered even more & the fact that you need to play through one of the other modes to even unlock that difficulty, so keeping those from my past save would've been nice, but no. Just Dreameaters & whatever else. This is something I hope they get right with III & retroactively add to 1.5+2.5 & 2.8, but better. Even copying Final Fantasy XV's homework would be a godsend for it.
So, yeah, not a big fan of this game too much.
4. Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories.
This game was created while KHII was in development & served to be KHI on the GBA...except it's also an midquel between I & II, which it serves better as. This game is just a waste of time. It sets up the Organization & Namine...sort of, & explains what happened to Sora & co, as well as Riku & Mickey before KHII, but did this game need to turn out this badly? I don't think so.
First of all the story. The heroes get trapped in Castle Oblivion & have their memories screwed with by the several Organization members that are tasked to do so. In the game, they revisit every location from the first game, except Tarzan's world because Disney lost the copyright on that property after KHI was made, & go through bare bones versions of the bare bones versions of those retold plots from the first game. However, these are, ultimately, worthless because they don't really connect to the main plot much & feel even more disconnected than in the first game.
Then there's the storytelling. This is the first episode to alter Sora's personality to fit more into the idiot hero persona which he wasn't in the first game mind you. However, due to his memories being tampered with, though also just being dumb & not actually stopping to think about what's happening around him, leaving him to treat Donald & Goofy like shit for not good reason, as well as abandon them for a bit. I don't like this because it's not consistent with the rest of his portrayals, for the most part. Then there's Riku's story, which is mercifully short ('which I thank the devs for because Sora's goes on WAY too long) at about 5 hours as opposed to the 25-30 of the main story. Riku's story only serves to show that he knows about Sora's plight to restore his memories & that he's gonna try to control the darkness in his heart. That's fine. However, it's tacked on to the main story of the game afterwards rather than woven into the main game's story. If there's anything to this game, it's its focus on Riku, whom I think should've probably been the main focus of the game rather than an after thought.
Now there's the combat. This game tries to take the formula from the first game, but mixes it with card games. This isn't really that good because, once you get a certain ways into the game, you can cheese the game & you win. The fact that the cards you get are determined by bad RNG & the fact that the bosses use strategies the game didn't teach you to defend against, thus MAKING you cheese the game. That's just bad combat design. Also, this game is easy to break with this system & becomes boring just a few hours in.
I'm sure that the novelty of having mobile KH was great back in 2004, but now that the novelty's well worn off, & the 3D remake is the more prominent version out there, I think people can see my meaning here. Just watch KingK's retrospective on YouTube to get what I mean if you don't understand fully.
3. Kingdom Hearts I (Final Mix)
Coming in at #3 is the very first game in the franchise, & specifically the Final Mix version, which added in things like new cutscenes & some new extra bosses. This game is, mostly, good, but a few things hold it back from being the best in my eyes. Naturally, though, since this is the first game in what was an untested formula of mixing Disney with Square's JRPGs & throwing in Final Fantasy elements, but that doesn't really matter if you start with this game, which you should because of that reason alone, since you have nowhere to go but up afterwards. Most of this game works, since it's a more basic tale about a boy getting betrayed by his best friend, losing their female friend, making new companions to find both of them, & defeating all of the enemies along the way. It's also the least stuffed of all of the KH games, so it's easy to understand & has no baggage behind or in front of it, so there's that.
However, there ARE some bad parts. Tarzan's world is one I'm not sad that Disney lost the license to use in their media, though I think that they COULD do so if the works have since entered the public domain, or when they do. However, in this game, it's just bad. First is that it requires a lot of backtracking & second the traversal is just bad. The controls being stiff, & archaically so, are naturally to blame for the backtracking being awful. The game isn’t built around Sora’s abilities & Sora’s abilities aren’t enough for the worlds, at least before you unlock them & upgrade him with them. Even then, his movement & combos aren’t as fluid or fast as I’d like.
I also think some parts of this game are a bit TOO dank & depressing. Like Hollow Bastion. It’s a bit too gothic for my taste. Definitely reminds me of late-90s/early-2000s. I also don’t care much for the music. The tracks are serviceable, but it all sounds like generic/stock video game music, except for Halloween Town, which just uses ‘This is Halloween’ from the film it’s based on. This is one place the later games definitely improved on, which I kind of feel disappointed to say, since Yoko Shimomura has quickly become one of my favorite video game composers.
But, yeah, decent story, but everything else needed improvements.
Also, the road to getting everything from the Moogle shops to synthesize took over 30 MORE HOURS than I was expecting. Bullshit RNG, too many synthesis items to grind to get the Ultima Weapon, & repetitive sequences. It’s everything I hate about RPGs.
2. Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep (Final Mix)
I originally had this one & 3 switched around. In fact, if you prefer KHI over BBS, I don’t blame you.
Anyways, this one’s a prequel to everything that came before it in the preceding games. It has 3 protagonists & takes a page out of Sonic Adventure’s playbook by having the 3 stories of them take place at the same time, with more of their plots revealed as you go through their stories. This is the only game where I feel the experimentation was done right both in the story delivery & gameplay. Now, it’s a bit more stiff than KHII, but nowhere near as much as KHI. The music is also so much better than KHI’s soundtrack. You’ll notice that this is the only game to get a Final Mix version other than the 2 PS2 games. That’s because, unlike 358/2, which explored more of Roxas’ past, & Re:Coded, which is just a bad game because it’s basically discount Chain of Memories, only with 0 things you absolutely need to know about rather than a few, this game actually adds mythos & important information to the KH series, so it was necessary to have this version. I don’t get why they didn’t add back in the capes to the characters when they have their armor at the last world to keep continuity with he secret ending in KHII FM, since it was only a problem for the PSP, but whatever.
Now, the stories are all tragedies, but leave open the possibility for future solving, which will be explored in III, as you all have no doubt gleaned from the trailers. In spite of that, we’re given 3 decently compelling characters. The only weak point with them is that Jesse McCartney is the only experienced voice actor of them. Jason Dohring does an ok job, but not great, & willa Holland always manages to sound bored. Basically like Aerith in KHII. I blame this on their lack of experience & the voice direction, which has always plagued this series with the actors who are more screen & stage actors than voice actors. Even some of the regulars get spotty in places with their voice direction. Though Dohring HAS improved in this department for 0.2 & I’ll see if Holland has done the same in III, which she kind of sounds like she has...if she’s supposed to be going for could & off rather than bored, which will probably work in Aqua’s case. Picking up the slack, though, is Mark Hamill as Master Eraqus & Leonard Nimoy as Xehanort. Both are great in those roles. I find this story to be a bit better told than KHI’s story.
Now, the combat is experimental, but I like it. It makes the game easy to break, but in a fun way rather than a boring way, since it’s not tied to terrible RNG, or a card game system. Instead of an MP bar, you gain abilities & meld them together to get new ones. This is also how you get permanent add-ons to the characters outside of a capacity increase for the command deck & health increases. This system is the one thing I think this game has over KHI & II; making grinding FUN. The grinding in BBS never felt like a chore to me. Mostly because I was getting something out of it outside of levels & there was always some kind of reward for doing so. Grinding, even in KHII, felt like a chore. This is a faster system that doesn’t require 100% completion & is infinitely more rewarding.
The pace of the game is also quick. Each story will take around 10 hours to do, but you don’t do the same thing twice. Each world takes around a half hour to complete, which is great for the pace of any game. Combine that with the grinding being relatively fast too (it only takes a few hours or so to grind all of the required abilities you need if you know what ones you want per character) & you have a well-paced game.
1. Kingdom Hearts II (Final Mix)
This was probably obvious, but this game is great.
First is the story. It's more involved than the first game's plot, but the way it's paced & the way it's told are really great. This game has a more bright & cheerful tone than the first game or even Chain of Memories, then mixes it really well with the more serious nature of the plot. Y'know, like a Disney film. The story is unfolded pretty well throughout the game, though the overabundance of cutscenes, especially in Final Mix CAN get pretty grating if you're looking for a more fast-paced plot.
Then there's the combat. It is MASSIVELY improved from the first game & has aged like fine wine. There's a reason why the mobile games haven't simply ported it over or improved on it. One, the repetition of the same combat engine would maybe get boring eventually to some people & two, there's no way that they COULD improve it, since it's the best system in the series thus far, so the experimentation is there. The combat is sped up to a good degree from I & there's a good amount you can do with combos. Supporting it is a great magic system, which takes what worked for the hot bar in the first game & just uses it basically unchanged, which is fine with me. There ARE new magic abilities added to the game, which are extremely useful, at the expense of losing some others. Like, I wish Aero had stuck around, but I get why it was removed in favor of Reflect. I’m really looking forward to III, since its combat system is largely a port of II’s mixed with the flowmotion from DDD, but also has a floatiness to it unfortunately, but I’ll adapt to it.
The music is also majorly improved from KHI. Rather than half of the pieces sounding generic, all of the music is really well written & composed to go with the mood of the scenes. They really make everything feel lively & engaging.
Then the voice acting. This is something I have to compliment the actors for. The majority of them do a great job, though there’s the odd line every so often that sounds off in the direction from the actors who’re usually camera actors rather than voice actors, but it’s far from Birth By Sleep, where that was ⅔ of the main characters the majority of the time. The returning actors do well as always & the new ones fit the roles well. The only person who’s performance is iffy is James Arnold Taylor as Jack Sparrow. He nails the voice tone & accent Johnny Depp uses as Jack Sparrow, but he can’t stop sounding drunk when Jack isn’t supposed to be & he doesn’t deliver the lines as Depp would. Still, it’s far from the worst voice acting in the series. No, that would go to the actors for Will Turner & Elizabeth who don’t even remotely sound like the actors from the films, but also don’t fit in their own ways. Definitely the low point for KH voice acting.
Then there’s the bonus content post game, where you hunt down the Mushroom XIII, face Data versions of the Organization members, then fight the Lingering Will, which only exist in the Final Mix version of the game. It also added in the Limit Form for the Drive Forms, which thematically works, since it lets you access a refined version of his KHI combat style & clothes.
Next, the graphics. I haven’t mentioned this for the other games since they never stood out so much, but this is the game to get this level of polish in the graphics department. The HD collection brings this out by upscaling it to HD, putting it into widescreen, & upping the framerate to 60FPS. If they ever get Xbox One ports, the X upscaling it to 4K will be the best looking version of this game bar none short of a PC release. Seriously, the graphics are only beat out by III, since it uses Unreal Engine 4 & goes for a more realistic artstyle mixed with the anime aesthetic. The only place I’d say it falls short is the Pirates of the Caribbean world, which makes the more anime-esque visuals clash with the more realistic character designs & world design. KHIII is gonna make up for this as we’ve seen from the trailers, so I think it’s fine.
The only thing I think this game is missing is a good new Game+ mode, where you retain your levels, perishable items, collectables, & the Ultima Weapon. Seriously, it would be great if Square could patch in a good FFXV-type New Game+ mode into the 1.5+2.5 HD Remix collection for the games in it as a reward for playing the games. Also, if they could remake this & KHI in Unreal Engine 4 for an upcoming anniversary, I’d buy it 10 times over, since, while I do love the graphics, having all of the necessary games be graphically the same again would be great, though it WOULD cut the framerate on the unenhanced consoles, but I’d be fine with that.
All right. That’s my ranking of these games. I’ll probably do a reorganized list in February after I play KHIII, but we’ll see. Let me know if you guys agree. We’ll have a discussion.
Edited by Scsigs