thatkingdomheartsguy

Eh, I doubt anyone has ever said KH2's combat is perfect, and if they have, they clearly know nothing about the game. It's the best in the series, but nowhere near perfection. Mash Square as Ven/Aqua at max level dodges, and you physically cannot be hit. lol@gamedesign but yea, this has been known for awhile. It has something to do with Terra's retaliation startup and the air finisher cancelling it, since he technically should be retaliating throughout the entire fight.

yes

Hopes for this: -Fix all bugs/glitchiness in 1.5+2.5 (including crashes, softlocks, resets, etc.) -Fix load times -Do NOT change any basic/major mechanics of any of the games (perhaps except maybe BBS Level 1 or something?) -Fight scenes in Days movie

Your own opinion should be one thing that people can't change from you. There's this really important difference that a lot of people seem to misconstrue; a game being objectively bad in terms of design does not mean it's objectively a bad game. The latter is completely subjective to ones opinion, and no one can change that. I'm not gonna try and defend BBS; it was not a well designed game from either story or gameplay. However, that by no means, does it imply "everyone must hate this game". Some people enjoy the mechanics, even if they're told its objectively bad. Others enjoy the story, even if a majority would argue that the story wasn't well made. In the end, it really comes down to personal opinion. Don't let objective facts that others tell you become a factor for you to have anxiety and conflict over your own opinion, because no one should be able to change that. Do I dislike BBS? Personally, yeah, I'm not a big fan of it. That DOESN'T mean that others are obligated to dislike it as well, nor will I ever convince anyone else to ever change their opinion. Most people who criticize BBS are most likely stating their own views on the game, which is perfectly fine. If it helps, maybe even try reconstructing the reasons why you enjoy BBS. It might help you figure out what the difference of thinking between you and others are, because there's nothing wrong with just enjoying a game.

Honestly for a game like BBS that focuses so much on character development and their "tragic past", the end result is kind of underwhelming. First rule of making ANY tragic story: make relatable characters who create and demonstrate believable and legitimate friendships and qualities that MAKES you like them. The character and their interactions with one another is pivotal to any good story that's going for that type of "tragic sad ending" theme, yet BBS falls flat on its face for that. Terra, Aqua, and Ven have zero relationship. It bothers me when people claim BBS to have the saddest ending in the series, because I honestly couldn't see why. The characters and the way they interact sucks, and their friendship was rushed and seemed forced. I didn't view the three as friends even though the game told me to; I saw them as just characters, because the game failed to demonstrate they actually "care" for one another, and instead just sort of said "Yo, these people are friends. Like them." And that's the inherent issue. The game ends with the three meeting tragic ends, but it didn't hurt me because I knew so little about them...which was a pretty big disappointment. Also yeah, their personalities kinda suck too. Terra's a complete idiot, Ven is a less interesting Sora, and Aqua, while a good level-headed motherlike figure, was still bland. Bleh, BBS characters are just not very well done.

pleasepleasepleasepleasefix1.5and2.5 #pleasesquare

-Everything about DDD -Everything about BBS -Everything lol in all seriousness though, l would've been perfectly fine up to KH2, but then they needed to make a million other games explaining backstory and expanding lore, which ultimately just makes things more confusing. I'm an avid KH player, but without a guide online, I would honestly have no idea how time travel in DDD works or what the book of prophecies even is. Goes to show how convoluted the story has become.

Probly 2FM, but if it's gonna be an entire remake, they can't change any core mechanics from that game because that can end up ruining the best game in the series. Seriously tho, think of 2FM with Kingdom Shader.

-My only assumption is that you've never played the game on Critical/Level 1, because then, I'd genuinely be impressed if you got through the game without abusing OP commands. It's basically impossible to beat MF at high difficulties/low levels without Thunder and Fire Surges, even more so with Terra. -That's not the problem though. It's not like you have a choice between using combos and commands, and that you're "ruining the fun" by just spamming. What it means is that if you use combos AT ALL at, say, Level 1 Crit, you would 1. deal absolutely zero damage, and 2. die, because combos are the slowest damn things on the planet. That's the inherent problem; BBS doesn't even give you the choice to use combos on super high difficulties, which is WHY hardcore players despise it. It's like saying, "Hey I want a challenge" and then when you try to challenge yourself, the game responds with, "Nope, the only way to win is the spam OP stuff; anything else will make playing the game completely impossible." Also not sure what you mean by that last part; theoretically speaking, no games are probably programmed purely based on speedrunning. It's just another way to enjoy the game; hell, KH2 is probably one of the best speedruns that you can find. -It's fine that combos aren't as good as KH2, and I wasn't expecting it to be. However, when combos can actively get you killed on a higher difficulty is where the problem comes in. I can only assume at this point that you've never played Level 1 Crit, so let me clear this up: hardcore players would want to challenge themselves, and playing Level 1 Crit is theoretically the "highest" challenge the game can offer. In the end though, combos are completely useless and only like 5 commands are viable options...for the entire game. That doesn't make the game hard; it just makes it boring and tedious. 2FM forced you to learn the game's mechanics in and out on Level 1 Crit; BBS forced you to spam the triangle and square button until you win. See the difference? It's why people hate BBS so much; it's a huge downgrade from 2FM, and replayability values on higher difficulties is basically nonexistent. Also yeah, balancing is one of the problems, but that doesn't mean BBS is perfect aside from that. There are a ton of minor gameplay factors that make BBS so hated; to give you an idea, here's a quick list: -Invincible dodges on Aqua and Ven -Command Style changes interrupting combos/death -Non staggering bosses -Bosses without any form of revenge/randomly break out (aka Vanitas) Those are just a few off the top of my head; there's probably way more out there. Anyways, point being; you can find the game fun and all, but you have to understand that these flaws are apparent in the game. Not saying people have to hate the game for it, but saying the game is well designed is the part where you'll be wrong. Opinion: BBS is fun. Fact: BBS is a badly designed game.

Wow, this was probably the best analysis I've seen on the 0.2 gameplay. Very in-depth, very focused on the points that matter. I'm not sure if I would entirely agree on the point of the movement being better than KH2 though; although in combat, it seems a lot more fluid, normal movement outside of combat still lacks the speed and agility Sora attains in KH2 after mastering all growth abilities. Then again, this is a demo so it'd be a bit too soon to speak. I'm scared that something like Curaga will become ridiculously overpowered (similar to KH1). If it only takes half your MP and you restore a bunch of your health with it, you might be able to abuse it with added abilities (MP Haste, MP Rage, etc.) which thus leads to healing items being obsoleted. That was kinda the case in KH1 by mid-end game; Cure was better than any other magic spell and HP healing item you had, so you basically just spammed that to survive. Although it's pretty cool the way Aqua autojumps and interacts with the environment, I'm not sure if I'll be a big fan of it; it feels like it can be annoying, especially in the middle of combat. Say I'm comboing an enemy, and then accidently reach a gap where I autojump and my combo stops. Not sure if that'll be a problem or not. Other than that, Dean pretty much said everything. The end was really good too; it's important to understand that this is a demo, not the actual game, nor is it KH3; therefore, we can't judge whether KH3 will be good or not based on this. It's probably not too big of a deal to a casual player, and I can understand why many would become confused. However, for hardcore KH players, speedrunners, challenge players, etc. this is a HUGE problem. Especially in a game like KH3 where you're probably gonna want to replay it like 50 times, you want replayability. People go crazy over "floatiness" because it basically makes combos completely useless. It's so slow and weak that it's not even a viable option by mid-game. Sure, it seems like a "little more air time" than Sora, but it makes the combos so much weaker that commands are better in every single way. You can't exactly blame people for that either; it's because KH2 set a pretty high bar for the games to reach, and the handhelds just..weren't even close. The issue isn't even mainly with "floatiness" in the handhelds; it's balancing. Sure, to a casual player balancing isn't too big of an issue. However for someone who plays the game over and over and wishes to challenge themselves, playing on higher difficulties doesn't make things more difficult; it makes things more tedious, because the ONLY way you can beat the game is to spam OP attacks. That's the problem; not because "so and so said unbalanced attacks are bad", but because it makes the game lose entertainment and replay value. Which I'm sure no one wants for KH3. The expectations are high, and whether Osaka carries it out, we'll just have to wait and see. Anyways, being critical isn't a bad thing y'know. A lot of people misinterpret it as hate, but typically, the hardcore players who are being critical of the handhelds just want the best for their games, so they want to eliminate as many flaws as possible for the highly anticipated KH3.

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.

-Invisibles (KH1): Incredibly elusive, and it's just a pain in the ass to even hit them. They're tough enemies that are purposely designed to piss you off. -Crimson Jazz (KH2): I don't think I need to explain this one lol -Ruler of the Sky (Days): Just a boring fight honestly, it's not even that hard. Just takes a long time. -Dustflier (Days): Once again, boring fight. Also really tedious because you have to play it super safe, or else you die. -Like every enemy in DDD: Brick wall, unstaggerable, Balloon spamfest. Why -Vanitas (BBS): The boss can literally break out of any attacks you do and cancel his own attacks mid-animation. If that isn't complete utter BS, I don't know what is. -No Heart/Armor of the Master (BBS): Dodge roll/Cartwheel+Mine attack+Thunder Surge spamfest. Impossible to stagger. Why do people like this game again? -Iron Imprisoner IV (BBS): Some of his attacks are pathetically easy to avoid, while others depend on luck if you're playing as Terra. Also even getting to him takes forever. -MF (BBS): This is the worst designed fight in the series, and if you argue otherwise, you are completely wrong. This is an objective fact.

"It was all a dream" im sorry

Los Cite des Cloches will return as a joyful singing world. was that too early? sorry

This is a pretty tough question since it's hard to determine what you'd consider "unpopular"; the fanbase seems pretty evenly divided in two categories: one that hates the handhelds, and one that loves the handhelds. That being said, I do have a few: -CoM is undoubtedly the second best KH game ever made (KH2FM being the first). Not ReCoM, CoM on the GBA. -Days story sucks. The only positive parts is the way they developed the friendship of Roxas, Axel, and Xion, which all other games should take note of. Otherwise, the game's story is really bland and doesn't contribute much. Basically a letdown; there was so much potential behind it but it just didn't live up. Kind of a shame. Imagine what potential it could've had; the Organization, their backstories, their inner operations, all these juicy details that could reveal so much about these villains; instead, we just get a day-by-day repetitive play of the three "friends" sitting on a clock tower eating ice cream. -KH2, although my favorite, is not as perfect as people make it out to be. -KH1 has, by far, the best story in the series (not sure if this is unpopular tho) -BBS trio is the most boring trio in the entire series (once again, not sure if this is unpopular). This kind of contributes to the reasons as why I dislike its story, since they establish such a weak relationship between the three then attempts you to get sad about them meeting tragic ends. News flash: if you don't care about the characters, you won't get sad when they meet tragic ends. -Summons in KH2 are insanely useful; perhaps even more so than Drives, Limits, and Magic (you might say this isn't an unpopular opinion, but you'd be surprised at the number of ignorant comments I see everywhere about Summons being useless.) This triggered me for some reason. Like I get that it's an opinion thing and all that, but saying something like that is straight up....wrong. I think it would've made more sense if you added an "I never found Drive forms useful except for taking the growth abilities", since Drives are without a doubt one of the most useful options you had in the game. If you never found a use for any of the drive forms, that's on you. Not everyone.

So I had two primary problems with this type of character development. Firstly is that KH1 did NOT do a good job of establishing a super powerful friendship between Sora, Riku, and Kairi; that is one of it's only flaws in terms of story. Luckily for KH1, most of the motivation behind the story is translated to Sora's friendship between Donald and Goofy, which is undoubtedly the most powerful trio of friends in the series. So in that aspect, yes, KH1 did an incredible job to set up for future games. The thing with BBS is that it attempts to copy KH1's attempts at creating friendship between the beginning three characters and ends up making the same mistake, but even worse. I understand that Sora, Riku, and Kairi were friends in KH1 because of the way they interacted, the way they teased each other, had competitions; it all seems natural. You can't expect me to simplly believe the same for BBS just from one scene that's similar. I get it, the game is trying to tell me "THESE THREE ARE FRIENDS" by showing you a direct reference to the first trio of friends, but that's not enough. I see what you said, but all you mentioned above is the game desperately trying to tell you that they're friends. They live together? Sure they must be good friends. Scene similar to KH1? Must be friends. They had all these sparring matches? Yep, they're friends. And then you see them interact, and I personally just cannot come to believe they're actually friends. Simple flashbacks and references are not enough. You need to show me how they interact and joke and tease each other, because those are the signs of friendship. There's a huge difference between understanding the game telling you their friends, and realizing the game showing you their friends. You're right; you don't need a day-by-day play of their everyday activities to show that their friends like 358 did. However, what BBS did was not enough. Think to other sources; how do movies establish friendship? Do they spend hours just on the way some people interact? No, they show that the characters care about each other through the way they interact, or how they communicate or maybe tease each other. That's why Aqua is perhaps the most well developed character in the game, because she actually kind of shows these traits. Not enough for me to care about them at the end, but still shows these charactersitics of friendship and a leader. Here's my problem. The game blatantly tells you their friends (like the scene you describe) except they don't actually show the same thing. That's like two characters in a movie telling you "Hey! We're friends!" and then goes off on some crazy tragic adventure. That wouldn't matter, because I wouldn't even care about the two characters. This is what BBS does to you; they give obvious hints that these three are friends, but doesn't show you much friendship between them. They then excpect you to be sad about everyone dying. That's not enough, and thats not sad. Here's my problem: Birth by Sleep has an incredible sign of Prequel Syndrome. What that means is that it tries to go wayy to in-depth into the lore of Kingdom Hearts when it really isn't necessary, and it just makes things unnecessarily complicated. 2FM is also somewhat at fault for this for setting the game up to be that way, but BBS really expanded on it. We didn't need an entire story of the Keyblade War. We didn't need all this backstory of the Keyblade, the original X-Blade, the unversed, and all this other nonsense. In KH1, we were told that the Keyblade is a legend, and myth said that it brought ruin and destruction, while another myth cliams that it brings light and creation. That's all we needed. I don't think anyone minded that the Keyblade was a mythical weapon, because that keeps its air of mystery to us viewers. BBS chose to bring out the smallest details, and now, the Keyblade doesn't seem special anymore. So yeah, what I'm basically trying to say is (tl;dr): -Flashbacks/References are not enough to establish friendship. That's the game telling you friendship, not them SHOWING you. There's a huge difference, and it matters in a game this focused on friendship. -BBS had Prequel Syndrome which means it explains a bunch of unnecessary plot points that just makes the plot unnecessarily more complicated. That being said, other games are at fault for this too, so I can't necessarily blame BBS completely. Then again, BBS did act as the first "prequel" in the KH universe so it set precedent for future KH games to have similar issues of Prequel Syndrome. (cough cough chi)

Hey cool, I'm always up for some discussion. It's interesting to see other people's view points, especially if they disagree. I agree; it is difficult to compare their friendships with other trios, especially since it was just one game. However this could've been an obvious sign for Square, telling them that one game is not enough. For a game that so heavily emphasizes on the three character's friendship (perhaps more than any other KH game so far INCLUDING 1, that's really saying something), the connection just seemed so much weaker than necessary. Honestly I would rather have Square break the story of BBS into several games if necessary, as to really strengthen the key (no pun intended) point of the game. That being said, I do understand why it would be difficult to fit everything into a single game. I still stand by my point however; it still could've been done infinitely better. KH1 did a great job between Sora, Donald, and Goofy, and even Sora, Riku, and Kairi seemed somewhat believable (even if it wasn't the strongest evidence they were friends, you can still believe they were based off the way they acted.) BBS just didn't seem to do that. Yeah but see, that's the thing! The game doesn't spend enough time on their initial friendship before it tries to jump into its long-winded process of supposed "character development". The problem is, how can I see character development when I can't even understand the first three characters to begin with? Sure, we learn a little more, but what little "character development" we see is literally obsoleted by the fact that we don't know anything about them to begin with. They demonstrate certain tidbits throughout the game that they care about each other, but that's not enough; I need to know why. Here's my problem: the game tells you almost nothing about these characters and starts off doing a bad job of introducing them as genuine friends. Then, they rush forward to force some character development and show that these characters care about each other. That's the problem; they're rushing it too much. You can't show me their awkward dialogue and moments, and then tell me "oh, we actually care a lot about each other." Nothing fits in and it doesn't make sense. In comparison to something like KH1, we KNOW that Sora and Riku are best friends at the beginning, which is why we understand Sora's genuine concern for Riku and Kairi. BBS basically does nothing to show they were friends at the beginning, just people who kinda knows each other. And then, the game attempts to fix that mistake by getting them to "care" for each other, when in actuality, I don't know anything about the three or their relationships, so it just makes the supposed "care" they felt for each other feel really fake. So basically what I'm trying to say is that for a game that focuses so much on its "tragic end" due to the "separation of three friends", they really should've emphasized more on the friendship part. Had it been any other type of ending, I would've been perfectly fine with the way they portrayed the three friends. However, because their goal was to achieve that specific type of ending, they NEEDED to perfect the three characters, which they didn't. The friendship between the three should've been just as good as the one between Roxas, Axel, and Xion in 358/2 Days if they truly wanted the ending to have an impact. The ending of BBS should've been the saddest ending in the entire series, but for me, I barely felt anything. That's the main issue I have; the tragic ending that wasn't really tragic, because of character development issues. So tl;dr: -Started off with bad and weak character relations and personality -Attempted to fix this by bringing in clues mid-game that they were friends -All this achieved is a feeling of rushed story and illegitimate friendships -They needed to confirm they were friends at the beginning of the game, and develop MORE on that throughout the game -With a tragic ending like BBS was supposed to have, they had to nail the friendship between the three, which they didn't. Whew, that took awhile. Hopefully got my points down, I'm not a great writer either hah

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

Obviously it's opinionated whether you felt sadness or not for their tragic endings, and I'm not entitled to challenge your opinion. My point is, whatever BBS has done with the friendships of the three, they could've made it infinitely more convincing. Sure, there were a lot of obstacles between them, and they didn't have much to work with. But the game could've at least emphasized more on the three being genuine friends by focusing a little more on it; at least that would've made things more convincing. My problem is that all the game has done that shows us they're friends is straight up say it. That's not enough. You can't expect me to believe if they're friends unless you SHOW me that they're friends. Telling me isn't enough. I went into the game not caring about what happened to each of the characters because I just didn't develop a connection to them like I had for Sora, Riku, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Axel, etc. Show me they're friends. Show me in the way they interact. Show me in the way they talk, the way they act. Show me that they genuinely care about each other, don't just tell me "I care about you" because if you don't sound convincing, I don't care. It's not real. My problem is not the way that the game splits them apart. I'd be totally fine with that if they game had convinced me if they're friends; in fact, that would've made the story more intriguing because it would've been more tragic, and I would've liked to know what happens next. However, when all they show us is a couple of sparring matches between them+awkward dialogue, I would not have known they were good friends at all if the game didn't straight up tell me. Anyways I'm kinda ranting now. I guess my point is that the game should've emphasized more on their friendship and less on them meeting tragic ends, because friendship is a prerequisite for their tragic ends to actually be, well, tragic. If I genuinely cared about the three friends, the ending would've torn me apart. It would've been painful, I would've felt the sadness, and that is what makes a story so good. However if they don't establish a strong connection between the three, I don't care about the ending. All I see are three people meeting depressing fates, and that's not enough for me to care about it.

I wanted to talk about this for awhile; get my thoughts out on these forums, and maybe we can get some good discussion going. This is regarding the three main characters of Birth by Sleep: Terra, Aqua, and Ven. I don't like them. Not in the sense that they're "annoying characters" or in context of the game they're bad; it's literally because I don't think Square did a good job on establishing their personalities, characteristics, and most importantly, the character relationships between the three of them. When we compare them to the original trio Sora, Riku, and Kairi, they just seem...bland and boring. Terra is a teenage boy with a lust for Darkness inside his heart. Okay, so what's next? We basically know nothing about him aside from that. He goes to a world, becomes a villain (usually due to stupid decisions), learns his mistake, then becomes a villain again in the next world. It's unbelievably frustrating. Ventus is the youngest of the trio, and boring as hell. He acts somewhat similarly to Sora, but just less...interesting. Sora had specific traits and qualities that made him somewhat unique amongst others, even if his personality is the typical cliche "naive happy-go-lucky child". Ventus is basically a slightly diminished version of Sora's personality...with nothing else. The only thing of significance that's related to him is Vanitas, and even then, that doesn't stop him from being forgettable. Aqua is perhaps the most level headed out of the three, but honestly she doesn't have many interesting traits either. Ironically though (despite her awful voice acting in the English version), she is probably the most interesting out of the three (that's not saying much though) as she's the only one with a logical mind, and has a motivation behind her actions as she's trying to lookout for Terra and Ven, being the only Keyblade Master of the three. That being said, I can deal with these problems. However, what I do have grudge against is the relationship between the three. Their dialogue is awkward, and their friendship just doesn't seem very legitimate. The game attempts to prove their friendship at the beginning by showing them interacting for a few minutes and having a few sparring matches. The problem is that it really doesn't show me anything or give me any clue that they may be friends. They try to make up for this lack of character development by adding it on later on in the form of flashbacks, but that doesn't show me anything either. It just seems that the game is trying to desperately tell you that they're friends, even if they don't seem to act like so. You can't do that. You can't just tell me, "these people are friends" and expect me to believe that. People said the ending of BBS was depressing and sad. For me, I didn't feel anything. I didn't connect with these people throughout the game. The game told me they were friends, alright, but that's not enough for me. You have to SHOW me that they are friends with each other, that they care about each other, and show me HOW their character interaction/development strengthens their friendship. Just telling me "these three people are friends" is not enough, because if I don't see it in the way they act, I won't give a *** about their characters. Terra is left only with his lingering sentiment in the form of an armor. Aqua is stuck in the realm of darkness. Ven lost his heart and is likely to not wake up for a very long time. So what? I don't care. I don't care about these characters at all. The game attempts to build this weak friendship, and expects me to care about their tragic fates and sacrifices, but in the end, all I see are three characters meeting a tragic end. And that isn't enough for me. Perhaps a perfect example of what character development between friends should be like is actually 358/2 Days. Say what you want about the repetitive story and gameplay; the bond formed between Roxas, Axel, and Xion was unbelievably well done. You can tell they were friends. You can tell they cared about each other a great amount, even thought they supposedly can't feel. The game does so well in conveying that sense of friendship to you that you genuinely cared about them. Why do many people say Xion's death is the saddest scene in the series? It's because you formed a strong connection with the idea that those three are friends, so you genuinely felt sad when Xion dies in front of Roxas's eyes. This matters in a game where friendship is such a heavy theme. It was almost vital that BBS nails this bond between their three main characters, because that's what makes the story intriguing and captivating. Unfortunately, the way they presented the characters were poorly done, and they just didn't spend enough time on the three character's relations with each other until they progressed the plot. That is where BBS's story falls; it attempts to build a friendship, rushes it and fails, then attempts to get you to care about the characters that you know little to nothing about.

can't exactly say that unless you work for Square Enix. See, this is the problem I see in a bunch of fans. They automatically assume that Square will be careful with the game, just because it's KH3 and it's probably one of the most anticipated games they've ever made. Sure, it seems logical, but you cannot prove that KH3 will not have these issues 1.5/2.5 has. Not even I think it'll be as bad; however, Osaka has yet to make a game that impresses me like KH2 did, so I suppose that's where a bit of my pessimism comes from. Oh well. If I go on any longer, people will call me a hype killer and all that stuff, etc. etc. You guys can think what you want for KH3, get hyped up for it, be super excited and confident it will be good because "it's KH3, of course it'll be good". However, unless the game comes out and proves itself to be a fun and good game to me, I won't get my hopes up too much.

To each their own I suppose. I personally don't think there's a definitive proof of this "development hell" you're mentioning. In fact, I fear more that they'd be pressured to release the game quickly due to overeager fans, so they end up releasing a half finished product without doing much testing (basically like 2.5). Besides, seeing as Osaka Team hasn't come up with any KH games that's impressed me so far and their track record for bad and lazy ports, I'm not gonna keep my hopes up...

But how can you prove that KH3's quality won't be rushed, especially with the multitude of fans urging Square to set a release date, urging them to release it faster? You never know what can happen. It doesn't matter if they've been in development for so long; the game clearly isn't finished yet, or else it would've been released or we would at least have a clue about the release date. Right now, we have little to nothing. Now I'm not saying KH3 will definitely be a rushed product if we continue like this, but I'm just saying there is a potential risk of it happening. Yeah, I'm a pretty hardcore KH player so I've encountered quite a few of these problems, and while not enough to make me hate the game, it does lessen my gameplay experience considerably. Of course, I understand why others love the game to death, and that's completely fine; I never said you couldn't do that. What I am saying however, is denying these problems and flaws exist is not an opinion, it's a wrong fact.

Yeah, that was partially my fault too. I get a bit passionate when talking about certain subjects, and I guess it just sort of rubbed people in the wrong way. I honestly don't mean any hate nor do I want to start any arguments; I just wanted to get my point out, that's all.

Yes, and notice how I never mentioned that 2.5 was a bad game. I didn't say "you cannot defend this title" although I can see how my intial post can come off meaning like that, so that's a wording mistake on my part. I meant that you cannot defend the fact that these issues exist, which a surprising number of fans actually try to do. I even stated that these issues for the most part won't affect others that much, but people who disagree and say that it doesn't exist are the ones who are wrong. I just don't see any point in sitting around and pretending there are no issues with 2.5, which a lot of people do. Constructive criticism isn't a bad thing, but people seem to automatically assume it's hate, which is also what a lot of people thought my post was. I'm not hating on the game, I'm literally saying "hey, these issues are real, and whether it affects you or not, you should always strive for Square to provide the best gameplay experience possible, so don't rush them or else we might have a diminished KH3 experience."