you got KH1, which is as excelent, and then you have recom, which is a good game too. But it has one flaw in my book: reusing worlds and characters from KH1.

But its not just that, the worlds you visit in recom are nothing but watered down versions of the originals. all worlds are basically the same box with different textures, no individuality, no gimmicks, nothing.

To make it even workse, they made these worlds nightmare fuel too. Remember all the disney and FF characters you befriended in KH1? Allow us to intruce memory versions of them who dont really exist and they are basically ghosts haunting Sora.

A good example of this is Aerith in TT. Sora talks with Aerith, she tells him she is nothing but an illusion, D&G distract Sora,when he looks back, Aerith is gone. Then D&G tell Sora he is been standing there by humself the whole time, she was never there to begin with.

im not criticizing nomura's dcision to add recom or his storytelling. im criticizng the inclusion of kh1 worlds which was a game mechanic since most of these worlds have nothing to do with the plot at all. Recom is an insult to KH1 not because of the card system but because it uses watered down boxes of the kh1 worlds.

you could say the same about recoded too. it features watered down versions of kh1 worlds, even more so than recom if I'm being really honest too. what do you think?

@yamibakura - The worlds have more or less always been just sandboxes. Even in KH3, they dolled the worlds up more than ever before, but they're still empty outside of the storytelling bringing them to life. In Chain of Memories there's a gameplay meets storytelling tragedy to Sora having to go through worlds filled with illusions of the people he met in KH1 born of his own memories of them. Aerith's self awareness is essentially Sora's brain trying to warn him of how he's being manipulated, but Sora being Sora brashly chooses to keep on going in hopes of finding Riku and Mickey, and then of course to save Namine the more she messes with his memory.

This gameplay meets storytelling tragedy continues in the Riku campaign Reverse/Rebirth in a different way; as we get Maleficent playing the same role as Aerith does in Sora's campaign, but in reverse, where Aerith is Sora's brain trying to warn him of how he's being manipulated and he chooses to ignore it, Maleficent is Riku using his own brain to berate himself through the avatar most familiar to him from his time under the influence of darkness. The voice that he keeps chatting with in Hollow Bastion is another example of this. It's left ambiguous who the voice belongs to, but it's easy enough to guess that it's Ansem SoD (namely while he was just a sentient heart inside the brown robe). Then Riku goes about mowing down the versions of the villains he allied with in his efforts to get Kairi her heart back in a very blatant reflection of his private self loathing for his prior actions, as he tries to reunite with Mickey, come to terms with the darkness that still lingers in him plus what to do with it hereafter, and find out who/what landed him in Castle Oblivion to begin with.

@RugratsNappiesFanatic - The sandbox worlds of Recoded actually feature a lot of design depth that helps them feel less like a collection of corridors which is actually way better than what was done for Chain of Memories in the both the original and the remake. For starters KH1 is known for being one of if not the most platforming and puzzle heavy KH game and Recoded really doesn't shy away from following up on that. Chain of Memories very much does.

Particularly true for the remake where not much of anything is going on in the rooms of each world unless those worlds are story related (it really shows in Reverse/Rebirth in particular since Riku never really took any time in KH1 to bond (for better or worse) with any of the villains he allied himself with in his efforts to get Kairi her heart back (outside of Maleficent and Ansem) thus he's literally going through the memory worlds mowing down these characters he wishes he never had anything to do with once he reaches their boss room). However Chain of Memories is the finest example of hardware and game type limitations come to life. It was something of a side scroller in the original version so no real need for platforming or puzzles (outside of customizing Sora's deck) was present nor needed. In the remake we still have a gameplay puzzle element at play in that we still get to customize Sora's deck, but now we have the bare bones minimum tools for platforming and puzzle solving in a springboard here and there to jump on and an object to slide or place into specific places.

Edited July 31, 20214 yr by FadedSparkle

19 hours ago, yamibakura said:

 

To make it even workse, they made these worlds nightmare fuel too. Remember all the disney and FF characters you befriended in KH1? Allow us to intruce memory versions of them who dont really exist and they are basically ghosts haunting Sora.

 

you call that nightmare fuel

2 hours ago, RugratsNappiesFanatic said:

you could say the same about recoded too. it features watered down versions of kh1 worlds, even more so than recom if I'm being really honest too. what do you think?

 

i agree with this as well. and i dont understand why they had to do this again with recoded. i just havent played recoded because it wasnt included in a collection

I don't think it's fair to blame CoM for using KH1's Disney worlds, because if it didn't there wouldn't be any Disney worlds in the game, since it's all based on Sora's memories. The worlds themselves (from a gameplay perspective) are bland and pretty repetitive when compared to KH1's larger maps and gimmicks (although I actually don't mind, haha), but I understand CoM did start as a GBA game, so it could only do so much. Even the PS2 remake was made as an addition that came packaged with KH2 Final Mix to help justify buying KH2 for a second time, so it makes sense they couldn't give the attention needed to completely overhaul the worlds in there, either.

11 hours ago, ocean's rage said:

you call that nightmare fuel

The illusions of Disney and FF characters don't bother me too much (although the Aerith part is spooky lol), although everyone has their own things that particularly bother them. But the overall concept of CoM is haunting when you think about it, considering the whole theme of gradually losing all your memories (and seemingly your connections with other people), even without the gradually-being-brainwashed thing. KH does a good job of keeping the games lighthearted and not delving too deep into the darker aspects, so it almost never feels jarring or out-of-place, but if you were to take CoM's plot and apply it just about anywhere else (to an anime, a movie, an M-rated videogame), its genre would probably be along the lines of "psychological horror."

Edited July 31, 20214 yr by DestinysUnion

9 minutes ago, DestinysUnion said:

The illusions of Disney and FF characters don't bother me too much (although the Aerith part is spooky lol), although everyone has their own things that particularly bother them

 

its creepy because the worlds have new set of events different from the kh1 ones yet the characters arent real so it doesnt matter in the end

 

10 minutes ago, DestinysUnion said:

gradually losing all your memories (and seemingly your connections with other people), even without the gradually-being-brainwashed thing. KH does a good job of keeping the games lighthearted and not delving too deep into the darker aspects, so it almost never feels jarring or out-of-place, but if you were to take CoM's plot and apply it just about anywhere else (to an anime, a movie, an M-rated videogame), its genre would probably be along the lines of "psychological horror."

 

its even sadder when you realize that the only real people sora meets in CO is axl, marluxia, larxene and namine

2 hours ago, DestinysUnion said:

 

The illusions of Disney and FF characters don't bother me too much (although the Aerith part is spooky lol), although everyone has their own things that particularly bother them. But the overall concept of CoM is haunting when you think about it, considering the whole theme of gradually losing all your memories (and seemingly your connections with other people), even without the gradually-being-brainwashed thing. KH does a good job of keeping the games lighthearted and not delving too deep into the darker aspects, so it almost never feels jarring or out-of-place, but if you were to take CoM's plot and apply it just about anywhere else (to an anime, a movie, an M-rated videogame), its genre would probably be along the lines of "psychological horror."

maybe its cause im scottish and im used to ghost stories. this place is very haunted 

Edited July 31, 20214 yr by ocean's rage

4 hours ago, ocean's rage said:

maybe its cause im scottish and im used to ghost stories. this place is very haunted 

5 hours ago, SaulGoodman said:

what?

47 minutes ago, ocean's rage said:

what?

1 hour ago, SaulGoodman said:

can you only communicate through gifs?

4 hours ago, ocean's rage said:

can you only communicate through gifs?

yes, yes i am

1 hour ago, SaulGoodman said:

yes, yes i am

so theres no getting a clear answer out of you as to why you're reacting with things that dont make any sense

Hi hi! Friendly reminder to everyone to keep things relatively on topic here! Light hearted jokes and images are fine but let's remember this topic is about KH Recom so discussion should primarily focus on that. Thanks!  

On 7/31/2021 at 1:27 PM, yamibakura said:

 

its creepy because the worlds have new set of events different from the kh1 ones yet the characters arent real so it doesnt matter in the end

 

 

its even sadder when you realize that the only real people sora meets in CO is axl, marluxia, larxene and namine

Don't forget about Repliku. He might be a clone but he's still very much a real person. Also Vexen.

Edited August 2, 20214 yr by FadedSparkle