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Third installment of wonderfully thrilling review by this guy! If you're curious, here's my first two: http://kh13.com/forum/topic/103316-kh15-review-from-a-first-time-player/ http://kh13.com/forum/topic/103580-kh2fm-hd-review-from-a-first-time-player/ So BBS took me awhile to make and playthrough because I actually played the game twice; I just felt my thoughts on it weren't very finalized when I first finished, so I figured a 2nd playthrough would help. And it did, so here we go: I'm gonna talk about the story first. We're immediately introduced to three completely new characters: Terra, Aqua, and Ven. You can clearly see what Square was going for here: Ven = Sora, Terra = Riku, Aqua = Kairi. Their personalities kind of reflect the original trio too; Terra's the angsty teenager who has darkness in his heart, Ven is almost a less enthusiastic replica of Sora, and Aqua is the motherly figure (which is sorta like Kairi? I dunno, Kairi really wasn't fleshed out too well in the first few games). The story of BBS (which, I assume if you're reading this, you'll know it so I won't explain it thoroughly) expands upon the past of KH1 and how Keyblade Wielders came to be. While I do appreciate the expansion of lore to a degree, there's somethings that sort of bothered me. Firstly, the retcon of the idea of the Keyblade "choosing" its owner as a sentient sort of being: instead, they made it some sort of inheritance ceremony in conjunction to choosing an appropriate wielder. The whole thing is super unclear; Terra underwent the inheritance ceremony with Riku, which is how I understand Riku being the original "chosen wielder" prior to succumbing to darkness. On the other hand, Kairi's Keyblade in KH2 is also explained, but literally all she did was touch Aqua's Keyblade and that was enough? The game didn't do too well explaining the whole thing, and that sort of bothered me. So from what I can understand at this point, Xehanort's sort of the "main villain" that we're targeting. And yeah, all things considered, he's got a pretty cool design. Maybe somewhat cliche to some, but the idea of an "all powerful Keyblade Master" is pretty neat to me. This does bring up the question though; why couldn't Xemnas/Ansem (seeker of darkness one) wield a Keyblade? This is especially confusing since Xemnas' GOAL was to create an artificial Kingdom Hearts by collecting hearts that can only be done with a Keyblade...so why did he stop? To me, this seems like a plothole for now, but if they do decide to answer it in future games, it'll be pretty obvious it's retconned. My ideal plot in terms of lore expansion is that you can expand lore to a degree where you don't have several plotholes; anymore than that, and you've explained too much. Unfortunately, the story of BBS seems to do that somewhat, and even if several of my questions are answered in future games, it's very likely that its merely a retcon that Square realized after releasing the game. Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against expanding lore, but if the original story was perfectly fine (I mean, I completely accepted the whole "keyblade = legendary myth in KH1), and expanding the lore further will cause a lot of confusion and plotholes, that's where it gets sort of overwhelming. Character motivations in here were also somewhat confusing. I personally felt the fight between Eraqus and Terra could've been completely avoided, had Eraqus told Terra about Ven sooner instead of being the typical "vague and mysterious" master he was. I mean seriously; Terra comes in, sees his master about to kill his best friend, so he'll naturally get angry. What does Eraqus do? No, he doesn't quell his anger and explain; he says sorry and raises his Keyblade to KILL TERRA. What??? The same can be said about the whole Terra and Ven taking off, forcing Aqua to go after them. Terra takes off instead of consulting his master, Ven follows Terra instead of consulting HIS master, and Aqua is forced to do the dirty work and follow them to make sure they're safe. The whole thing feels sort of contrived, and that was the big thing that sort of bothered me. I love the idea of Xehanort, but his motivation, at least to me, seems a little bit weak. From what I understand, he wishes to recreate the X-Blade out of sheer curiosity, and is literally willing to bring the world to an apocalypse to do that. It seems very far-fetched, but that may be because I can't relate to it. This kind of applies to other characters too; for some reason, I just can't relate to them very well, which goes back to my slight annoyance at the motivations behind certain character's actions. It just doesn't make sense to me. The idea behind Vanitas is pretty cool, but I felt his character was a bit too generic and we really didn't get to explore a lot of it. I think this applies to a lot of other characters too. And yeah, I understand they introduced a TON of new characters in the game, but if that means lessening character development and giving them less of a personal identity, I'd rather them only introduce a few characters but give them all unique identities. That being said, that doesn't mean the other KH games are exempt from this (cough cough Kairi), but it just seems so much more noticeable in this game since the three main characters just seem like...more boring copies of the original trio (excluding Aqua; she was a nice breath of fresh air). Something I did personally enjoy; the way the story was told was pretty interesting, and by the end of the three character arcs, I can piece together everything that happened and then make sense of it. The story was also similar to KH2/ReCoM's story where Disney Worlds just sort of stopped having meaning in the overall plot. I really LOVED how KH1 integrated the two together so well, but now it just seems like Disney worlds are mere filler until we get to the worlds where plot is revealed (Badlands/Keyblade Graveyard, Hollow Bastion, Land of Departure). The entire game is sort of a wild goose chase, until they finally end up in one area at the end and prepare for the final battle. Also, I love the design and decision of using a Keyblade Graveyard as a final battleground; seems very fitting. On the otherhand, the literal THOUSANDS of Keyblades make me wonder if they'll expand the plot even MORE in future games (go even further past and talk about the Keyblade War/X-Blade and what happened and stuff), and that worries me because explaining EVERYTHING will almost guarantee plotholes of some degree, and I really don't want to see this series go in that direction. Of course, I full understand those who enjoy more lore, but this is once again, just my personal view. ALRIGHT, that was long; moving on to gameplay and I'll try to make this a little shorter (although it probably won't be). Holy CRAP this game was different from the other KH games. My immediate impression was that it was a dumbed down version of the cards I loved in ReCoM, and...I was right. I really love how each KH game changes up the formula so much. The various commands we're allowed to choose demonstrates a HUGE variety of attacks, and I honestly loved it in the beginning. I think it's really my 2nd playthrough where I began to realize a couple of fundamental issues with the combat system: -Command Styles are annoying. Yeah, they boost your attacks and make them all fancy, but changing in the middle of a fight can actually get you hit because you dont have any i-frames afterwards. I actually died twice on Critical Mode (2nd playthrough) because I changed into a Command Style at a wrong time and an enemy hit me the moment the animation was done. Obviously it's not noticeable on lower difficulties, but still; it was kind of annoying. -I personally rarely found an incentive to use D-Links. I think this is sort of the whole KH2 syndrome, where the game gives you a bunch of stuff but doesn't explain how to use them so you never really will use them to their fullest until you choose to explore, which, from my understanding, a lot of people don't. However, I just never saw a D-Link better than my own Command Deck. Sure, you get special abilities and stuff, but they just weren't...good enough to use over my own commands. It's not a big deal; it's just immediately after playing KH2 on Critical Mode where I was forced to use my resources to the fullest, it was kind of a let down to see that most enemies can be beaten with mere commands. Speaking of which... -My experience, and this is from my experience only. Magnega, Thunder Surge, Fire Surge, Thundaga (maybe Mine Square sometimes). As far as I can tell, that's more or less all you need to beat the game, even on Critical Mode. This was super apparent by the end of my 1st playthrough. Thunder/Fire Surge did such an ABSURD amount of damage, even in comparison to the other powerful commands (Ars Solum, Timer Splicer, etc.) and they only took up 1 command slot. Magnega is perfect for rounding up enemies, and Thundaga obliterates them. No other commands are really needed when these are the ones you need to finish the job. It's even worse on Critical Mode, where I really learned the full extent of how insanely useful these commands were, to the point where they surpassed the other "2-slot" ones. I tried using Time Splicer on Final Vanitas, I really did. I ended up dying 3 times because he just kept hitting me during my attack and I couldn't do anything about it. It's just the other attacks are...so much better. I also wanted to mention Curaga really quickly; they sort of went back to KH1, where you can abuse Cure given the correct abilities (Magic Hastes and stuff), since it recharges so quickly. Not a HUGE deal, but just something I thought I'd point out. Now that doesn't mean I despise the combat; on the contrary, I still found it to be somewhat enjoyable, although I can see why a lot of the fanbase dislikes the system. It just wasn't very well balanced out, and especially on higher difficulties, it seems the only viable methods of attacking are through spamming those overpowered attacks. Even normal attacking is ruled out, because it's just not as good. I think it's mainly disappointment, because having played KH2 where you were given a bunch of good options to use and these cool combos, we go back to the normal 3 hit, and even weaker this time around. Terra's Slide is good, but Aqua and Ven's Cartwheel/Dodge Roll seem completely broken. When fighting the final bosses, I noticed by mashing Square, I can literally avoid any attack. That might just be luck on my part, but from what I can tell, you seem to be completely invincible while using their dodges. Obviously that's bad design, because it kinda destroys the skill and purpose behind dodging. The previous KH game's dodges didn't function like this, so it baffles why they decided to do this for this game. Another issue I have is with certain boss designs. You have to understand my perspective, after coming from a Critical Mode (and blind, mind you) playthrough of 2FM, I had the mindset of learning a boss's patterns and punishing accordingly. BBS didn't really give me any of that opportunity, as far as I can tell. The whole "Revenge Value" system is gone, and bosses just kinda do their thing. This wasn't too big of a deal until endgame, where certain fights in the final boss rush was a game of "run away, use Thunder/Fire Surge". I tried doing other methods on Critical; I honestly tried. I tried going in and being aggressive and died for it. I tried using powerful commands like Meteor or Magic Hour or Timer Splicer or Tornado, and I died. I even tried using Shotlocks (oh my god I haven't even talked about Shotlocks yet), and while it was useful on a few (notably Final Vanitas), I realized running away and using the Surge attacks during an opening was still the best option. Terra-Xehanort was also kind of bothersome, since he can heal himself (not sure if there's a pattern or just luck) and the only feasible method of getting damage on him quickly and not have the fight drag out for an hour is to reflect his dark bullets back at him. And don't get me wrong; I have nothing against that, but I guess I just expected a bit more sophistication after playing 2FM's bosses. Speaking of which, I haven't personally unlocked the Mysterious Figure fight but I've seen it on a YouTube video, and once again, it seems like a lot of Surge spamming and rolling. There's just not much strategy involved. I'll go over shotlocks really quickly; they're pretty damn useful, and I used it a LOT on my 1st playthrough. On the other hand, my 2nd playthrough sort of stopped using Shotlocks, just because I realized other options were better and more efficient. So yeah, a pretty neat and viable technique that was unfortunately undermined by other OP moves. So yeah, I know I said a decent amount of negative things about the game's story and gameplay, but that doesn't mean I hate it, nor does it mean I'm hating on the game. I'm just being critical, because that's generally how I am with my games. Good parts of this game? I liked the more expansive world design, even if platforming in certain areas are a bit janky. I absolutely loved the music and cinematics. I loved the atmosphere of certain areas. Mirage Arena was an absolute blast to play through, especially when overleveled as hell and you can just smash through wave after wave of enemies without a care in the world. However, these are all surface level enjoyment, and when I tried to go a bit more in-depth and learn about the game's mechanics, it just didn't have the same effect KH2 did on me. I can definitely see why some people love this game, while I can other see why others dislike it. For me, it's sort of an inbetween; I haven't had enough experience to fully comprehend what I truly think of the game, but I think this is a pretty solid answer from me. There's clunkiness here and there, but ultimately, I had fun playing through it (mostly), and that's what a good game should be all about, right? Final score: 7/10 I'll be playin through DDDHD next (PS4 coming in a bit!) and then 0.2, then maybe later Days/ReCoded. Who knows, I might even give Unchained X a try