Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix

What time do you need to score to get S rank on Mushroom VI?

Kingdom Hearts 2 is a fantastic game and it does not receive much criticism from many. There is one very notable moment in the game where people do often criticize Kingdom Hearts 2 at, that moment is the Prologue ft. Roxas. (I'm not just talking about IGN also, many people bash on this games opening segment) In this video I try my best to analyze the Opening segment of this game, talking about its good points, its bad points, and how it could have been better.

I spent hours in Sony Vegas working on this video and I would really appreciate any sort of support you can throw my way whether that be a Sub, a like, a comment, just whatever would mean a lot. 

Anyways I hope you all enjoy

Here are the circumstances for what happened, just so it makes a little more sense. 
 
So, before I start the Xemnas Battle, I decide to update the game in the background so I can install it once I'm done WITH the battle. This might be what caused this glitch, but be aware that it didn't apply/install the update AT ALL. Only downloaded it onto the system. 
 
I go through all the phases of the Xemnas Fight and I get to the amazing last cutscene. You all know it like the back of your hand. The note and the bottle and all that jazz. Well, Riku hands Sora the letter to read, the screen fades to black and...that's it. That's literally all I see. Black. 
 
I kind of find it ironic that the game crashes in pure Darkness, which is agreeing with Riku's phrase of "If we choose between light or darkness, we'll be the darkness," or whatever he said. Befitting, really. 

This, obviously, is making me quite upset that this happened. I JUST made an account so I can see if anyone else is having such a problem, or if it's just an issue with the disk. I would not be surprised if it just the disk, but I'm sharing this information to vent my frustrations and see if any other people had this problem. 

UPDATE: I'm not sure what version I was in. If the Xemnas Final Fight was still bugged, then I probably was v1.00. I'll update the game and then see if the crash with the final cutscene is still there.

Thanks in advance for reading!

Wanted to bring this up because so many people are in love with the idea of Sora and Kairi being a couple, but I honestly don't see it. At all.
 
And it's not because "KH isn't a romantic game (which it really isn't, but that's besides the point)", but because I cannot, for the life of me, see the two together. I think this is partially due to Kairi's lack of screen time and character development; as such, we really don't see much interaction between Sora and Kairi.
 
People kinda assume that the two would be a couple because "wow, main male character and main female character = madly in love couple", but that's not enough for me. The game never shows me explicitly why they should be good together. Sure, in KH1, Kairi saves Sora from submitting to the darkness. Unfortunately, much of that seen is bogged down by the fact that we don't know much about Kairi at all even up to that point in the game, so it's just kind of like...a random girl saves the main character. Now I'm not saying that's a bad scene or anything, but just think about how much more emotional it would've been IF the game had established a powerful relationship between the two at the beginning! If the game had shown me that they were excellent friends (and not just tell me; there's a difference) perhaps through increased interaction or character development as the story goes on, I would've cared more. 
 
So that's the inherent problem I have with this "couple." They don't actually SHOW that they're good friends, so I can't see the two ever getting together. Kairi has basically no personality, even after all these games. She's barely gotten any screen time in comparison to the other main characters, and the most we've seen her interact with Sora is at the very beginning of KH1...which is not enough.
 
Although that being said, I can already see the arguments coming: "They show a lot of character! For example, ________"
 
The problem with that is that all of these scenes that you list is the game TELLING me, "Hey. These two are good friends.", and not SHOWING me that they're friends. Drawing on cave rocks? Telling me, not showing me. Sora's desperation to find her? That's sweet and all, but he gets sidetracked so often and forgets about his ultimate "goal" that it doesn't even seem that realistic. Kairi sending that letter in a bottle? That's the game pretty much telling me, "HEY IDIOT. THIS GIRL CARES ABOUT SORA. YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT."
 
How do you establish a strong friendship? You imply it through the way the characters interact, develop along with each other, and most of all, have a lot of screen time together. Especially with Kairi's little screen time and basically zero character development, I don't see them becoming a couple at all.
 
If KH3 wants to make them a couple, they better do some serious renovations on Kairi's character, or else it will turn out fake and unrealistic.
Discussion welcome  
 
PS. No, I do not ship Sora and Riku, but honestly the two are more realistic as a couple than Sora and Kairi at this point.
 

So I see a bunch of misconception everywhere on what exactly KH2 "Revenge Value" is. It's understandable, as it is a confusing concept. Most people seem to have a general grasp or idea of what it does, but are never clear on its specifics or details. So I'm here to help clear up some confusion, so everyone can understand the game a bit more.
 
So yeah, KH2 is pretty much universally acclaimed to be the best game in the entire series with its incredible combat system and details. One of the reason is due to the implementation of Revenge Value in the game. Simply put, Revenge Value is an invisible counter inside the game within every enemy. It essentially determines when the enemy will retaliate, thus preventing you from infinite-comboing an enemy to death (although there are a few exceptions of these).
 
To give you an idea, no other game had a system as complex as this. KH1 had a very simple Revenge Value system for certain bosses (i.e. Riku-Ansem in Hollow Bastion can take 4 hits before retaliating, Sephiroth takes 4 consecutive hits or 7 separate hits before teleporting). ReCoM obviously didn't have Revenge Value, due to its Card system. The other handhelds (BBS, Days, Coded, DDD) all didn't have a revenge value system, and the bosses/enemies seemingly retaliated whenever they felt like with zero consistency, which is also why many criticize the gameplay of those games; and with good reason too.
 
Anyways, in regards to Revenge Value itself; most people understand what it is, but there are far more details and complexity behind it. Revenge Value is not the only counter that determines how a boss or enemy acts. There are also HP barriers to take into consideration, as well as other invisible counters such as Flinch Count or Action Count. I'm not gonna go TOO in-depth into those, or else this will turn a literal book about KH2 mechanics, but just know that Revenge Value, perhaps the most important, is not the only invisible counter that affects enemy patterns. 
 
I'll break this down slowly. There are two types of retaliation that enemies can do. 
1. You hit their Revenge Value and they retaliate.
2. You stop attacking them and they retaliate.
We'll call these "Forced Revenge" and "Normal Revenge" respectively for simplicity. Both come into consideration when fighting. When you're attacking an enemy too much and hit their Revenge Value, they strike back. If you stop attacking them but haven't reached their Revenge Value, they'll still strike back, but most likely with different attacks (this is where other counters such as Action Count comes into play, but I won't get into that once again). It's really simple to understand; attack too much, they counter. Stop attacking, they counter. 
 
So you might be asking at this point: is Revenge Value a constant thing? Or does it change and differ with bosses/enemies? The latter would be correct. Revenge Value for every boss is a number, but it differs from boss to boss. Here's a little list:
 
-Axel II = 11.5
-Pete (Timeless River) = 12.5(first phase)>10(second phase)>8.75(third phase)>7.5(fourth phase)>6.25(final phase)
-Hyenas = 7.5
-Scar = 6.25
-Luxord (Story) = 9.375(first phase)>6.875(second phase)
-Armor Xemnas = 10(first phase)>6.25(second phase)
-Final Xemnas (Zebraman) = 9.375
-Zexion(Absent Silhouette) = 15.625(first phase)>12.5(second phase)>9.375(final phase)
-Vexen (Absent Silhouette) = 18.75
-Vexen (CoR Data) = 15.625
-Saix (CoR Data) = 12.5(first phase)>9.375(second phase)
-Lingering Will/Terra = 25
-All Data Battles (excluding Vexen and Saix) = 9.375
-Every other boss = 12.5
 
That is the Revenge Value of every single boss in the game. Most have a RV of 12.5, but the ones I listed above are the exceptions. Basically, if you attack them to a point where their RV exceeds their limit, they will retaliate. Simple enough, right?
 
So in regards to how RV is actually built up: each individual attack Sora has will add a certain amount of Revenge Value. Here's another list:
 
-Ground horizontal swing = 1
-Ground vertical swing = 1
-Ground thrust = 1
-Ground Vertical Finisher = 3
-Ground Horizontal Finisher (when there are a bunch of enemies around Sora) = 3
-Aerial upper swing = 1.5
-Aerial drop swing = 1.5
-Aerial vertical finisher = 3.5
-Aerial horizontal finisher = 3.5
-Upper Slash (square) = 3
-Horizontal Slash (square) = 1.5
-Finishing Leap (square) = 3
-Retaliating Slash (square recovery) = 1.5
-Slapshot = 1
-Dodge Slash (lol) = 1
-Flash Step = 1
-Sliding Dash = 1
-Vicinity Break (or Round Break) = 1
-Guard Break finisher = 3
-Explosion finisher = 6
-Aerial Sweep = 2.5
-Aerial Dive = 1.5
-Aerial Spiral = 1.5
-Aerial Finish = 3.5
-Magnet Burst (or Magnet Splash) = 3.5
-Counterguard = 1
-Form Transformation = 0
-Firaga = 1
-Firaga Finish = 3
-Blizzaga = 2
-Blizzaga Finish = 4
-Thundaga = 4
-Thundaga Finish = 4
-Magnet = 4.5
-Reflect/Finish = 3
 
Those are all of normal Sora's abilities and their Revenge Value. It's a pretty long list, as you can see. There are even more for Drives, Summons, Limits, etc. but I obviously won't list them all out. If you're curious, check this thing out; it pretty much lists out all the Revenge Values. http://pastebin.com/mKMSsDfL (also where I got a bunch of this info )
 
Revenge Value and the type of Revenge also changes depending on where you hit the boss. For example, if you strike Roxas' Revenge Value in mid-air, he'll do his downward spiral attack. If you strike his Revenge Value on the ground, he'll do his long ground combo. It's different for every boss, and it really adds a lot to the learning factor of the game.
 
If you've ever seen any speedruns of KH2, you'll notice a lot of RV manipulation. The biggest example is probably the Roxas fight in a 2FM speedrun; it's a very specific use of combos, Magic, and well timed Reflects to perfectly manipulate Roxas to do whatever we want him to do. It's a really nifty thing to know and really adds a lot of depth into the gameplay you've never realized before.
 
There are exceptions to revenge value, of course. One example would be using Peter Pan against Saix, where by spamming aerial hits nonstop, you can basically stun lock him to death. Saix doesn't retaliate in this example because his retaliation has a really slow charge up, and Pan's dagger has a lot of stun lock properties to it. As such, every time Saix attempts to retaliate, Peter Pan will simply stun him and break him out of his retaliation animation with his dagger, basically leaving him stun locked in a loop until he dies. 
Another example of RV exception is Firaga, which has several unique properties to it. Firaga adds zero Revenge Value until the last hit of the attack. As such, a lot of speedrunners would abuse this to chain Firaga combos on bosses. In addition, Final Firaga adds very little Revenge Value if the Keyblades spinning around Sora also hits them. This is how people can chain Firaga combos on bosses.
 
There are other exceptions out there, but once again, I'm not gonna cover them in too much detail. For the most part, just understand that Revenge Value is a thing inside the game, and it works. Most of the time.
 
When a boss uses an attack, their Revenge Value will typically drop to zero. There are hacks/cheats demonstrating this, and you can probably look up "Revenge Value code" on YouTube or something and find several videos of it. Either way, it's a good illustration of how Revenge Value actually looks if we could see the counter.
 
Some skeptics might ask, "What exactly does this do in KH2 gameplay that makes it so good? If we all understood Revenge Value, doesn't that mean we can manipulate all bosses in the same way?" And to a degree, that is true; if you fully understood Revenge Value and how each of your attacks affect a boss, you would know exactly when a boss retaliates and know exactly how to counter. However, that's difficult. That's extremely difficult to do. Not even the best KH players in the world know how one boss will react to each one of your attacks.
 
You might've seen a bunch of people do no damage challenges, with crazy restrictions, etc. They can do that because they're so knowledgeable about that one fight. It differs from boss to boss, the way they retaliate, the RV they have, and fully understanding that for every single enemy in the game is pretty much impossible. For the most part, people who are playing the game on high difficulties get an idea of how RV works, even if they don't know it exists. For example, they may die several times fighting a Data battle on LV1 Critical Mode, but then they realize, "Hey, Marluxia retaliates exactly after ___ hits and attacks + a thunder, so if I Reflect immediately afterwards, I can avoid it!" 
 
That's what makes KH2 so incredible and complex; when you set your mind to "take as least damage as possible" instead of "mash X to win", you really start to learn about its mechanics. You start realizing when to avoid, when to dodge, and when to attack for an opening. You get rewarded for dying, because you learn something new. A lot of people never discover this side of KH2 because they're too busy mashing X, but those who do quickly fall in love with the game because its such a genius system. If you're one of those "mash X to win" people, I urge you to give Critical Mode a try. Don't go out of your way to grind in frustration because you can't beat a fight; instead, try learning the fight and avoiding the attacks, and at least get a vague idea for the Revenge Value of the boss and how they retaliate. I guarantee you, you'll beat it eventually, and you'll (probably) have a blast doing it.
 
Anyways I'm ranting now and this has gone on for way too long so I'll end it here. I realize it's not much for discussion, but any questions/feedback and stuff would be really cool. Hopefully I taught you something new (assuming you actually bothered to read through all this crap), and have a wonderful day