The Square-Enix ☆ Fan Club

[Railgun]

Wanting to join. I have played Crystal Bearers,KH games and also FF 13 and as a matter of fact I just got FF 13-2 in the mail today. so I have played a few Square games :) Right now trying to beat Vanitas in BBS

 

[KH Fan Bixran]

Wanting to join. I have played Crystal Bearers,KH games and also FF 13 and as a matter of fact I just got FF 13-2 in the mail today. so I have played a few Square games :) Right now trying to beat Vanitas in BBS

Which vanitas fight? One of aqua's, or one of ven's?

Also, my friends refuse to give me a straight answer to this: [kh3d spoiler]

Spoiler:

Who would win between Young Xehanort(aka mf from bbs) and Sephiroth?

Also(again xD), i know that riku will get dark aura as a command! Look up chaosaura on youtube, and find either the final boss fight or young xehanort fight. It is epic!

 

[Railgun]

Which vanitas fight? One of aqua's, or one of ven's?

Also, my friends refuse to give me a straight answer to this: [kh3d spoiler]

Spoiler:

Who would win between Young Xehanort(aka mf from bbs) and Sephiroth?

Also(again xD), i know that riku will get dark aura as a command! Look up chaosaura on youtube, and find either the final boss fight or young xehanort fight. It is epic!

Oh my bad Ven's fight. I got to the last battle where you have dark attacks.

 

[ソラ]

Which vanitas fight? One of aqua's, or one of ven's?

Also, my friends refuse to give me a straight answer to this: [kh3d spoiler]

Spoiler:

Who would win between Young Xehanort(aka mf from bbs) and Sephiroth?

Also(again xD), i know that riku will get dark aura as a command! Look up chaosaura on youtube, and find either the final boss fight or young xehanort fight. It is epic!

I hope you know, I didnt know who MF was in BBS, would like it if you use SPOILER TAGS please?

Im at the end, just doing some training some of the bosses are mean ):

 

[Cherrim]

Hope you don't mind I edited posts to add the spoiler tag. As far as those go, that's kind of a huge one. :s Please use the tag! (You're lucky I beat it last night and wasn't spoilt!)

As for the question itself, I think there's no argument. xD;

Spoiler:

Sephiroth has no chance when MF/YX can turn back time in the middle of a battle. :( As far as fights go, I fought KH2's Sephiroth very easy compared to YX.

Oh my bad Ven's fight. I got to the last battle where you have dark attacks.

The first time I did that fight, I won entirely with Thunder Roll. Every time after that, I found it impossible to do the fight with anything but Dodge Roll since his attacks would hit me all the time. (Thunder Roll, while doing damage, doesn't have the invincibility frames that Dodge Roll has.) I think I just spammed Tornado and lock shots in my LV 1 run. :s

 

[KH Fan Bixran]

i wanna make a PO team themed around KH3D (at least, what ive seen of it lol), but i just cant seem to find good ones to fit the characters. for those that have played kh3d, could yall help me out here?

also, OU pokes, if able

characters i wanna try to fit into team(list will exceed 6):
Sora(duh)
Riku(even more duh xD)
Axel/Lea(fire type needed lol)
mickey(fast poke)
Braig(really not sure xp)
Mstr/Yng Xehanort(maybe lol)
Vanitas(gotta think abut him)
Ansem SoD/Xemnas(like i said, maybe)
Isa(heavy hitter, though not sure lol)

heh heh, longer list than i wanted (but at least im sure to have 6 pokes lol)

got a feeling you guys will be able to help more with this that the twewy team i wanted a while back xD

 

[Archer]

also, OU pokes, if able

characters i wanna try to fit into team(list will exceed 6):
Sora(duh)
Riku Lucario
Axel/Lea Infernape
mickey Cinccino
Braig Absol
Mstr/Yng Xehanort Alakazam
Vanitas Zoroark
Ansem SoD/Xemnas(like i said, maybe)
Isa(heavy hitter, though not sure lol)

I don't know about all OU, but here's a few ideas. :D If you don't mind a few NU/UUs. Edits above in bold. ^^

Back to other Squeenix discussion, I'm playing through FFX at the moment. I was most of the way through ages ago, until my memory card died, so I didn't bother starting over. This time, I'm emulating my own disc (PCSX2) on my PC so I can a. Render the game at 1920x1440, which is a massive improvement over the PS2's 640x480, and b. backup the memory card continuously with Dropbox.

I was younger when I first played it, so going through now with so much more understanding makes it such a great game. I love turn-based battle systems, so it's going to be difficult to move to another FF game after this. (Obviously FFX-2 is next, then I might do FFXII, which went down with the same memory card)

 

[Kevin]

(Is OP even around anymore?)

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS whew sorry I've been buried with schoolwork, but I'll be more active in the summer (hopefully).

Anyways yeah everyone's accepted and I added your names in the top post; if I accidentally skipped you then just tell me.

Omg, i laughed so hard after i watched this:

Spoiler:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTAMo8kW9hQ&feature

If u look at the end, even yen sid is going "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!"

Bahaha I love how everyone is like: "Whatttttttttt?"

And yeah post spoilers tags (that's one of the rules--although it's not like anyone really reads rules these days but it's common sense hehe).

I can't wait for August, or whenever KH3D comes out. I've been spoiling myself this whole time (though it's not like I really care, haha). ;___;

 

[Cid]

Yeah, if there's anyone in the fandom who has never really minded spinoffs, it's me. @_@ Chain of Memories was my favourite KH game before BBS came along, I was more excited for Days than anything because I really liked the Organization, and BBS is... well, my favourite game of all time now. XD; Re:Coded even gets a little bit of a pass from me because it's not THAT bad a game when I remember it was originally entirely a cell phone game. I just thought it was horribly implemented and the fact that I'd seen grainy footage of the only important part (the end) long before the remake was even announced made it not worth it for me. :P But 3D... well, it feels fine and it looks even better than BBS did so graphically. It's just got a lot of the disjointed world feel that BBS suffered from because they split up the protagonists. So you have to skip around through characters to get the whole story and since they literally pull you out of one character and throw you into another at (somewhat) random, it's hard to consider it on the same level as KH1 or 2.

I actually don't mind the spinoffs myself. I think the KH production team doesn't have that much time to keep churning out "non-spinoffs" in the likes of KH and KHII, but I'm sure they're still giving everything they've got with the games outside the consoles like how you expect SE would. Regarding these spinoffs, I'm a fan of CoM more than BBS from my brother's influence. We never really liked BBS's disjointed narrative, nor the flat worlds, but I do secretly love Ventus and Aqua behind my bro's back, haha. I enjoyed Re:Coded because it was KH, and the gameplay just sucked me in and made me not care about how shallow the story and characters are in that specific game. Hearing that KH3D looks even better than BBS is wonderful. But that disjointed feel, sure, part of me's thinking "Oh no, not again," but Sora and Riku's presence might be enough to redeem that. I actually wonder how KH3D or even BBS would play if you can only use Sora in KH3D (or Riku, seems his role is sliiightly bigger that Sora, it's up to you guys to decide) and only Aqua in BBS. Could they have fleshed out the narratives that way, maybe make the character exclusive cutscenes watchable by the player intermittently in the main character's story?

The worlds aren't necessarily large horizontally--actually what makes the game both great and easy to get lost in is how expansive the worlds are in, no pun or anything intended, a three-dimensional way. Because of the Free Flow Action system, you can pretty much infinitely wall jump if you're good at it (and it's not hard). So they have a lot of ledges and rooftops and areas that you can't access without FFA and it's really easy to miss a lot of them. But it's nice because you can do all of this from the moment you're dropped (pun intended!) into the action. So once you're in an area, you can get ANYWHERE in it by climbing up the walls, sliding over pipes to new buildings, etc. When my end-game stats came up, I'd already capped my wall jump FFA as my most-used technique at 999 uses, haha.

I see. That sounds grand and exciting to me, and the very first KH3D trailer might have influenced this direction they went with. I cannot wait to indulge myself in Free Flow, although the premise still sounds too genuine and unfamiliar. Oh well, I think I'll still enjoy it, especially because you mentioned the expansive worlds. Sounds cool.

The drop system was very silly by the end of the game. XD; I was playing as Riku and was nearly out of time, so I went ahead and dropped into Sora. I played as him for a while and when I ran out of time, it switched me back to Riku. I took THREE STEPS and because I wasn't supposed to move on with him yet (Sora had to catch up), it plot-dropped me back into Sora. Like... why even bother with the drop gauge at that point? ;_;

Haha, that must have been awkward. The game should at least know when you're close to plot-drops, but I can't imagine how they can do something like that. I guess introducing a system like that can occasionally bring awkward situations.

Finished the game last night, despite a lot of glitches during the boss fights. I'm glad I didn't click the original spoiler before that. XD;

Spoilers for 3D Ending

Spoiler:

I've had a lot of time to come to terms with Lea getting a keyblade because in one of the earlier trailers, they pretty much outright implied it. (Same with halfway through the game--they take the audio out when Lea comes right out and says he wants to train with one, but it's pretty obvious why he's standing in Yen Sid's office.) I think the only surprise from Yen Sid, at least, was that Lea could all of a sudden summon the keyblade since it sounded like he hadn't been able to manage it yet. (And of course he summons a cool one instead of the basic Kingdom Key that is all Sora/Roxas/Xion could ever naturally manage. XD)

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it kind of makes sense that they're giving away keyblades like prizes on an Oprah show. ("Look under your seats everyone... you're all taking home a BRAND NEW KEYBLAAAAADE!!!") After the events of BBS, as far as everyone knew, there were only two keyblade wielders alive in the world--Mickey and Yen Sid. TAV were missing, Master Eraqus was gone, Master Xehanort was missing, and even Mickey was only an apprentice at that point. I'm pretty sure the Xehanort Reports (or something) in BBS implied that even during the events of BBS, there was an abnormally low number of keyblade users still around. With Sora being able to bring so many people closer together, they probably see him as sort of a gateway to getting more keyblade wielders that will work toward the light. So I think we'll probably end up seeing a few more users pop up around Sora before the story is through. That way, if anything does happen to one, two, or a group of them, the weapon's lineage doesn't totally die out.

Glitches! Whoa. But you finished the game already. That's pretty awesome.
[KH3D spoilers]

Spoiler:

I never really assumed this from the early trailers. I guess it actually surprised me that Lea wasn't just trying to look for Roxas/Sora again, and that he wants to be a Keyblade master himself. I did notice Yen Sid's surprise, and I have seen a subbed video of it indicating that Axel hasn't really summoned his until that exact moment. At least I like how the Keyblade looks somewhat.

Haha, that Oprah comparison has been made around the fanbase for quite some time, and it still cracks me up. I guess the whole influx of Keyblades does make sense in some way, but I'm one of those fans who are still trying to cope with the concept of having dozens of Keyblade wielders. Makes the Keyblade less special by every released game. I don't think the Keyblade wielders will be eliminated at their current number anytime soon, especially with the villain wielding his own. Moreover, there are at least two accounts of Keyblade wielders popping up with the skill that didn't need the Keyblade inheritance ceremony, Sora being one I think, so at least that can avoid the possibility of its lineage dying out.

I'm still a little lost on some plot points in the game. x_X My "dream" vocabulary in Japanese is apparently HORRIBLE and oftentimes all I had was my phone to decipher some kanji so I didn't even bother. I want to go back to some of the more important scenes that I didn't totally understand and translate them properly so I know wtf is going on... but I'm still probably going to be relying on the Ultimania release in a few weeks for the interviews that usually explain everything anyway. (My "hearts" vocab is still top-knotch though: in one of the ending scenes, they stopped talking about dreams entirely and started talking about hearts like they usually do in this series and I didn't have to pause to look something up even once. XD)

Interesting to hear you have reserved vocabularies for the KH terms that pop-up on games you order in Japanese, haha. Even more awesome that you can understand the vocabulary regarding hearts like that. The Ultimania's contents that explain all this plot that gets more twists every game make me want to get this one, too (the only Ultimania we have was the 358/2 Days one), but I'll probably only settle with the online translations when they surface eventually. It's hard to get copies of it, after all. The first thing I'll read would probably be the usual Nomura interview that talks about the future of the series.

Also, my friends refuse to give me a straight answer to this: [kh3d spoiler]

Spoiler:

Who would win between Young Xehanort(aka mf from bbs) and Sephiroth?

Also(again xD), i know that riku will get dark aura as a command! Look up chaosaura on youtube, and find either the final boss fight or young xehanort fight. It is epic!

[KH3D spoilers]

Spoiler:

Judging from MF's BBS appearance and Sephiroth's KHII appearance, I say MF takes the cake. That guy was freakin' hard, granted since I was using sluggish Terra against him, but still. Sephiroth was much easier, besides Lightning mentioned MF's time-bending powers. That would beat Sephiroth enough on its own.

And Riku getting Dark Aura was pretty much a given. I expected as much. Cool command to have, that's for sure.

The first time I did that fight, I won entirely with Thunder Roll. Every time after that, I found it impossible to do the fight with anything but Dodge Roll since his attacks would hit me all the time. (Thunder Roll, while doing damage, doesn't have the invincibility frames that Dodge Roll has.) I think I just spammed Tornado and lock shots in my LV 1 run. :s

I only fought with Terra on that one, my other characters' saves were corrupted. And my only commands were Thunder Surge and Curaga, since the whole fight begs for invulnerability, healing and luck. Tons of luck for Terra. Oh yeah, that LV 1 run you mentioned that includes secret bosses sounds unbelievable! Whoa.

i wanna make a PO team themed around KH3D (at least, what ive seen of it lol), but i just cant seem to find good ones to fit the characters. for those that have played kh3d, could yall help me out here?

I'm not sure a PO team based on the KH series sounds fun, although an in-game challenge a la Nuzlocke wouldn't be half-bad. Why not try that? I'll just throw in the first OU Pokémon that pops in my head for each of the first six characters you mentioned. Sora, Jolteon; Riku, Gliscor; Axel, Volcarona; Mickey, Reuniclus; Braig, Skarmory; Master Xehanort, Gengar. There you go, a complete party that I didn't check for compatibility whatsoever, haha.

Back to other Squeenix discussion, I'm playing through FFX at the moment. I was most of the way through ages ago, until my memory card died, so I didn't bother starting over. This time, I'm emulating my own disc (PCSX2) on my PC so I can a. Render the game at 1920x1440, which is a massive improvement over the PS2's 640x480, and b. backup the memory card continuously with Dropbox.

I was younger when I first played it, so going through now with so much more understanding makes it such a great game. I love turn-based battle systems, so it's going to be difficult to move to another FF game after this. (Obviously FFX-2 is next, then I might do FFXII, which went down with the same memory card)

That's cool, I wonder how that could change the experience of playing FFX. I agree, I enjoyed the turn-based battle system of FFX and how much it strengthened the gameplay. FFX-2 also has a good battle system (Active Time Battle, like FFIV to FFIX, although the Dresspheres are more akin to FFV), but I still can't bring myself to finish it.

I can't wait for August, or whenever KH3D comes out. I've been spoiling myself this whole time (though it's not like I really care, haha). ;___;

I also cannot wait for August (July 31 NA release but yeah) and I have similarly spoiled myself, too. I don't mind it this time, I still left a lot of things to discover that can still make me want to play it badly anyway.

 

[Cherrim]

sdkfsls so much to talk about. i love you. :D [apologies for the sheer length of this post, lmfao]

We never really liked BBS's disjointed narrative, nor the flat worlds, but I do secretly love Ventus and Aqua behind my bro's back, haha. I enjoyed Re:Coded because it was KH, and the gameplay just sucked me in and made me not care about how shallow the story and characters are in that specific game. Hearing that KH3D looks even better than BBS is wonderful. But that disjointed feel, sure, part of me's thinking "Oh no, not again," but Sora and Riku's presence might be enough to redeem that. I actually wonder how KH3D or even BBS would play if you can only use Sora in KH3D (or Riku, seems his role is sliiightly bigger that Sora, it's up to you guys to decide) and only Aqua in BBS. Could they have fleshed out the narratives that way, maybe make the character exclusive cutscenes watchable by the player intermittently in the main character's story?

I didn't really mind the disjointedness in BBS. But I also zoomed through the game REALLY quick almost every time I played it. (I think my longest playthrough was my level 1 one, which was the 4th or 5th time I played it, and it only took me a few weeks, I think.) I think if you play it quickly, since the worlds are so short, each character finishes their story with enough time for you to remember what they did by the time you get to the same worlds with the next. Also, I know a lot of people who played all three at once, so they'd complete a world and then go do the same world with the other two. Each character's story was certainly more engaging that COM's though, I thought. Sora's plot was always interesting but perhaps because I hate Riku and disliked most of the Organization in the basement, I never ever like playing Riku's side of COM and the first few worlds of it, anyway, are horribly empty. BBS was a step in the right direction when handling extra protagonists, at the very least. I liked that you could choose the order you wanted to play the characters in and none of them felt like an afterthought like Riku always did to me in COM, but I agree that playing the whole story through when it's supposed to be intertwined was kind of awkward. :( At least with COM, aside from Vexen and then the very end, there was pretty much no overlap between Riku and Sora's stories so it didn't really matter if you played Riku's side two years later the day before KH2 came out because you'd been horribly underlevelled when you got to Marluxia in Sora's side and it took that long to beat him so you barely remembered what happened with Sora. Not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything. Gosh.

What could have been interesting--and I kind of want to sit down all day and think about how the plot would have veered off course if it had happened--is if they'd had the BBS trio go everywhere together. It would have solved too many problems and made them somewhat invincible though, I think, so plot-wise it just wouldn't work. (Ven would never have gotten into trouble on his own, Terra would have had the babysitter he needed, and Aqua would have been able to smack the boys when they started making the problems that she always ended up fixing at the end.) If they'd stuck together, you could've just picked which one you wanted to play as and the others would be handled as party members like Donald or Goofy. That would've been awesome! But... way too overpowering. XD; They were hax enough together in the Mirage Arena or even in the Radiant Garden boss. They also lagged the game too much so I guess another part of it was system restraints. :P I think it was handled fairly well, though, when you consider it's a handheld game.

Really, the only thing I liked more about how 3D handled two protagonists at once was that they shared all their commands and pets. The first thing I always have to do in BBS when I play it is do some command board grinding so I get an awesome set of commands early on. And then I have to do it for the other two when I play as them and it takes FOREVER. ;_; But there wasn't any of that in this game. When I found air slide, both of them had air slide. When I got high jump, they shared it. There are some things that are Riku-only or Sora-only (like their payback attacks out of guarding/getting hit and some commands--like Riku uses some attacks with darkness and Sora gets some Ven exclusives) but for the most part, anything you find can be used by both. It made the two of them play almost identically which was a little boring (I actually kind of liked how BBS nearly forced me to abandon magic as Terra because he was SO BAD AT IT and that's all I do in the games, usually [not that it worked too well because I distinctly remember using lots of magic with Terra anyway]).

Oh dear, I got started talking about BBS again. ._.; I love that game too much for my own good.

I see. That sounds grand and exciting to me, and the very first KH3D trailer might have influenced this direction they went with. I cannot wait to indulge myself in Free Flow, although the premise still sounds too genuine and unfamiliar. Oh well, I think I'll still enjoy it, especially because you mentioned the expansive worlds. Sounds cool.

Haha, that must have been awkward. The game should at least know when you're close to plot-drops, but I can't imagine how they can do something like that. I guess introducing a system like that can occasionally bring awkward situations.

Yeah, the expansive worlds are nice but the maps are just too big! One part I mentioned was all the treasure chests--there's sooo many to find and if you don't meticulously check your journal each time you get to a new section of a world to make sure you've gotten all of them, it's SO annoying to go back and try to find what you missed. D: It was easy enough if I did collection while making my way through the plot of each world but I didn't start doing that until more than halfway through the game, really, so I'm still missing chests with Sora. T_T; Also if you go through a big section of a room and then die in a hallway on the way to the next one, you still have to do everything over so that's pretty annoying too. XD;

And yes, the plot-drops were awkward, but I'm pretty sure there were really only two or three of them in the entire game, so I can't reeeeally complain. I wish they'd used them a bit more so the one I mentioned wasn't so abrupt and unexpected, though. Or they could have used them a bit earlier on when I finished Riku's story a world ahead of Sora's and it wouldn't let me progress to the second half of the game until Sora had caught up. x_X; So every time it would drop me back into Riku, I'd have NOTHING to do so I went to collect the treasure chests I'd forgotten about.

Glitches! Whoa. But you finished the game already. That's pretty awesome.
[KH3D spoilers]

Spoiler:

I never really assumed this from the early trailers. I guess it actually surprised me that Lea wasn't just trying to look for Roxas/Sora again, and that he wants to be a Keyblade master himself. I did notice Yen Sid's surprise, and I have seen a subbed video of it indicating that Axel hasn't really summoned his until that exact moment. At least I like how the Keyblade looks somewhat.

Haha, that Oprah comparison has been made around the fanbase for quite some time, and it still cracks me up. I guess the whole influx of Keyblades does make sense in some way, but I'm one of those fans who are still trying to cope with the concept of having dozens of Keyblade wielders. Makes the Keyblade less special by every released game. I don't think the Keyblade wielders will be eliminated at their current number anytime soon, especially with the villain wielding his own. Moreover, there are at least two accounts of Keyblade wielders popping up with the skill that didn't need the Keyblade inheritance ceremony, Sora being one I think, so at least that can avoid the possibility of its lineage dying out.

Spoiler:

I pretty much assumed it just because he was standing in Yen Sid's office and I think he said something really open ended that included the word "training"? I can't remember at this point, anymore. I just know that since that first long trailer came out for KH3D last year, I've known Lea would become a Keyblade apprentice. :x His keyblade is nicer than the previous keyblades associated with him. It's not as tacky looking as Bond of Flame and not nearly as lame as the keyblade you get based on his "weapons" in BBS with Ven. XD; It's pretty! But it'll still take lots of getting used to over his chakrams. It'd be cool if he used both in battle, though. (I'm kind of hoping he'll get his own spinoff game to show his training because the chances of other Organization members being the people he meets along the way are pretty high and I would just die of excitement if Marluxia showed up. n____n Axel's popular enough to drive sales for a game so... so hopefully this could be a thing one day?)

I'm not bothered by the amount of keyblades. I mean, they've been hinting at multiples since the first game when Mickey had his own in his brief appearance in the Darkness, right? In fact, Riku and Sora fighting over the one keyblade confuses me so much now because I'm so used to there being multiples. Especially since Sora? Yeah... he can't actually use the Keyblade naturally. Riku can use it because Terra passed it on to him. I think Kairi can use it because Aqua accidentally passed it on to her. No clue how/why Lea gets his (I guess maybe from Roxas or Xion?? Or from getting hit by a keyblade too many times! *shot*). But Sora only has his because Ven is in his heart. I think Xemnas implies at the end of KH3D that they were worried about using Sora as a vessel because he can't use a Keyblade as naturally as Roxas could. Or something like that? All I know is Sora looks confused, then hurt, then decides that even if he can only use the Keyblade because of his ~friends~, that's okay. It's really cheesy. XD;

Actually, I'm tossing this out of the spoiler because I'm confused and hoping someone can refresh my memory: why did the Keyblade switch between Riku and Sora in KH1? At the time, it seemed like it was because there could only be one Keyblade at a time so it had to choose between them and it preferred Sora's light over Riku's darkness but... was that really the case? Even if the Keyblade *did* prefer darkness and stopped working for Riku, why would that affect Sora's? The same sort of thing happened with Roxas and Xion but I always assumed that was more because Xion couldn't naturally use the Keyblade. (And now I feel the need to go check on when we first actually *see* her using it. Isn't it not until she picks up Roxas's? Is that when the ability to use it was passed on to her, even if only accidentally?)

Interesting to hear you have reserved vocabularies for the KH terms that pop-up on games you order in Japanese, haha. Even more awesome that you can understand the vocabulary regarding hearts like that. The Ultimania's contents that explain all this plot that gets more twists every game make me want to get this one, too (the only Ultimania we have was the 358/2 Days one), but I'll probably only settle with the online translations when they surface eventually. It's hard to get copies of it, after all. The first thing I'll read would probably be the usual Nomura interview that talks about the future of the series.

I've studied Japanese since I was 11 and the only words I knew were pretty much related to Yu-Gi-Oh since that was my obsession in my early teen years. Then I studied it in a classroom setting in high school for a few years. Since grade 11 though, the only way I've really kept up with my Japanese is playing import games. I've imported every KH game since KH2:FM (with the exception of Re:Coded... thank god xD) and after playing through them all, even if the FMs are in English, you reeeally start to get a feel for the vocabulary that usually happens. I remember having no problems understanding any of Days (although I never bothered with the journals which, iirc, actually revealed a fair bit of backstory). In BBS, the only thing that confused me was the χ-blade because they were saying "Keyblade" to my ears but all I could make out in the subs were xblade and it would bewilder me so much every time it came up. XD So yeah, overall, most of my Japanese vocabulary is actually tied to KH. I'm finally taking classes again in university starting May so it'll be interesting to see if I'm any good at the language academically, despite being pretty good (imo) at understanding fandom-y things on my own. :x

I'm soooo excited for the Ultimania to come out. xD My birthday present from my parents was help paying for my 3DS and KH3D and my brother said he'd get me the Ultimania for it when it came out. So it was a very KH birthday, hahaha. I mostly want it to help with completion because when it comes to some sections of the journal, I am *completely lost* with how to do it. So I've put the game down until then. I'd also really like to read the interviews, too, because I have a lot more questions about this game than I did about most of the others and the interviews in the Ultimanias are usually brilliant for clearing things up. (I also want the 3D one because it's the only one, aside from the one for the original KH, that I don't own.)

[KH3D spoilers]

Spoiler:

Judging from MF's BBS appearance and Sephiroth's KHII appearance, I say MF takes the cake. That guy was freakin' hard, granted since I was using sluggish Terra against him, but still. Sephiroth was much easier, besides Lightning mentioned MF's time-bending powers. That would beat Sephiroth enough on its own.

Spoiler:

Omg you used Terra against him? You poor, poor thing. ;_; I've had to fight MF with Terra twice and I hated it both times. He's SO BAD AT DODGING which is essentially what you need to be doing 100% of the time in that fight. I'm pretty sure he was a good 10-15 levels higher than Aqua was when I beat MF with her just to offset his bad dodges. XD; As a trade-off, he did a lot more damage since my strategy is usually to just spam a blitz/surge attack (I forget which term is the English one), but ugggh trying to dodge the laser attack or whatever? Almost impossible. Ugh! XD;

I only fought with Terra on that one, my other characters' saves were corrupted. And my only commands were Thunder Surge and Curaga, since the whole fight begs for invulnerability, healing and luck. Tons of luck for Terra. Oh yeah, that LV 1 run you mentioned that includes secret bosses sounds unbelievable! Whoa.

I think I was talking about Ven's final boss fight, not the extra fight. Curaga's bad for that fight! Every time you heal, he heals... so you have to use potions. :P My LV1 run never really included any secret bosses. I think I might have done VS on my Aqua file but I'm pretty sure MF is literally impossible at LV1 since after he's halfway, he heals every time you get a critical hit in. At LV1, I assume each hit you deal him is normally 1 damage so if he healed every time you crit hit, it would just be impossible to get him all the way down. :( Also the fight would take like three hours, haha. The bosses after MF in Final Mix are pretty ridiculous too so I made a new file with Aqua that wasn't level 1 when I took those on. (I did do all *plot* at LV1, so that extra boss in the World of Darkness with her was still part of my challenge. That was so exhilarating, to fight a boss I'd never fought before at that difficulty. I went back like a year later with a save from my not-level-1 file and the boss just wasn't as fun since it died too quickly. XD;

That's cool, I wonder how that could change the experience of playing FFX. I agree, I enjoyed the turn-based battle system of FFX and how much it strengthened the gameplay. FFX-2 also has a good battle system (Active Time Battle, like FFIV to FFIX, although the Dresspheres are more akin to FFV), but I still can't bring myself to finish it.

I never liked the turn-based system in FFX all that much. It might be because, aside from Pokemon, almost all the games I play are fairly action-based. All the Final Fantasies I like at least have the ATB to make things more dynamic, Kingdom Hearts is as much action as it is role-playing, and Tales of is realtime. Those are all my favourite kinds of RPGs so going back to play FFX just seems... difficult. I do remember enjoying it when I started playing it again last year but my disc is scratched so I couldn't get very far anyway. ;~;

Back to other Squeenix discussion, I'm playing through FFX at the moment. I was most of the way through ages ago, until my memory card died, so I didn't bother starting over. This time, I'm emulating my own disc (PCSX2) on my PC so I can a. Render the game at 1920x1440, which is a massive improvement over the PS2's 640x480, and b. backup the memory card continuously with Dropbox.

That's such a good idea. It must be absolutely gorgeous! I remember emulating a bit of KH Re:COM once so I could take a screenshot of something pretty early on and it was really pretty. I totally forgot about it until now, but I think next FF I replay will get that same treatment. :D

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS whew sorry I've been buried with schoolwork, but I'll be more active in the summer (hopefully).

You liiiiive. <3 Welcome back, haha.

I can't wait for August, or whenever KH3D comes out. I've been spoiling myself this whole time (though it's not like I really care, haha). ;___;

I also cannot wait for August (July 31 NA release but yeah) and I have similarly spoiled myself, too. I don't mind it this time, I still left a lot of things to discover that can still make me want to play it badly anyway.

The battle system and controls are worth it even if you know the whole plot already. *u* The game itself is so much fun!

 

[Archer]

That's such a good idea. It must be absolutely gorgeous! I remember emulating a bit of KH Re:COM once so I could take a screenshot of something pretty early on and it was really pretty. I totally forgot about it until now, but I think next FF I replay will get that same treatment. :D

Yeah, I grabbed a few screenshots, I think. Not that many, though. There's a few things that stand out. Large areas, such as the Calm Lands, are clear and crisp to the horizon, not a blurry green mess. Finer details, such as the textures on certain fiends and characters are surprising. Other textures show how bland they are, so you win some you lose some. :P

Even things like a cat in a tent in Besaid. The amount of detail on the face of something you would normally barely be able to make out is brilliant.

I did the same thing with KH2 (I ripped my own discs, before anyone asks). In a way, the simpler "cartoon" textures were better on KH2, because it all scaled so well at that res. Although you can't use any Antialiasing, which is quite evident at higher resolutions. If you have a decent PC, it's strongly recommended. Might try Final Mix at some stage. :P

 

[Cherrim]

Yeah, I grabbed a few screenshots, I think. Not that many, though. There's a few things that stand out. Large areas, such as the Calm Lands, are clear and crisp to the horizon, not a blurry green mess. Finer details, such as the textures on certain fiends and characters are surprising. Other textures show how bland they are, so you win some you lose some. :P

Even things like a cat in a tent in Besaid. The amount of detail on the face of something you would normally barely be able to make out is brilliant.

I did the same thing with KH2 (I ripped my own discs, before anyone asks). In a way, the simpler "cartoon" textures were better on KH2, because it all scaled so well at that res. Although you can't use any Antialiasing, which is quite evident at higher resolutions. If you have a decent PC, it's strongly recommended. Might try Final Mix at some stage. :P

Yeah, when I've emulated N64, I found anything polygon-based looked amazing but things like background/setting textures didn't hold up so well. I probably wouldn't play at too high a resolution to avoid that somewhat, but the rest of the graphics usually make up for it. HUDs are also kind of disappointing sometimes. XD; If text/icons on the battle screen and whatnot are pre-rendered and stored as small images, they usually look horrible blown up and it's always so obvious next to everything else.

I'm pretty sure I just used my own disc drive when I was playing Re:COM. :3 I wouldn't be adverse to just downloading the games I already own though. Too lazy to figure out how to rip them properly. n_n

 

[Cid]

In bold.

sdkfsls so much to talk about. i love you. :D [apologies for the sheer length of this post, lmfao]

I didn't really mind the disjointedness in BBS. But I also zoomed through the game REALLY quick almost every time I played it. (I think my longest playthrough was my level 1 one, which was the 4th or 5th time I played it, and it only took me a few weeks, I think.) I think if you play it quickly, since the worlds are so short, each character finishes their story with enough time for you to remember what they did by the time you get to the same worlds with the next. Also, I know a lot of people who played all three at once, so they'd complete a world and then go do the same world with the other two. Each character's story was certainly more engaging that COM's though, I thought. Sora's plot was always interesting but perhaps because I hate Riku and disliked most of the Organization in the basement, I never ever like playing Riku's side of COM and the first few worlds of it, anyway, are horribly empty. BBS was a step in the right direction when handling extra protagonists, at the very least. I liked that you could choose the order you wanted to play the characters in and none of them felt like an afterthought like Riku always did to me in COM, but I agree that playing the whole story through when it's supposed to be intertwined was kind of awkward. :( At least with COM, aside from Vexen and then the very end, there was pretty much no overlap between Riku and Sora's stories so it didn't really matter if you played Riku's side two years later the day before KH2 came out because you'd been horribly underlevelled when you got to Marluxia in Sora's side and it took that long to beat him so you barely remembered what happened with Sora. Not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything. Gosh.

I never really stopped myself from disliking BBS's disjointedness, so I think it's my fault that I didn't enjoy it as much as COM. Even though the latter wasn't even as rich in plot during Reverse/Rebirth like you said. Anyway, I found it annoying how much story they could have placed in BBS, COM or even 358/2 Days, and couldn't due to hardware constraints, thus making the game really short and almost empty. I believe there is just so much potential in new settings and characters, and they could have fleshed out the main trio's close friendship to make people care enough when they all fell apart in their respective games. That applies to both BBS and 358/2 Days, since COM didn't have much of a main trio. Don't get me wrong, I'm one of those fans who felt really bad for their sad ends. Anyway, I never tried playing all three at once in a way that I imagine KH3D took it. That's true, you don't really need to play Sora's before Riku's. I wonder why they didn't offer the option to play as Riku from the get-go, except his side does not hold as much juice, plot-wise and gameplay-wise. But yeah, I actually played Reverse/Rebirth almost a year after I finished Sora's story in Re:COM, although I did play both sides in COM almost continuously.

What could have been interesting--and I kind of want to sit down all day and think about how the plot would have veered off course if it had happened--is if they'd had the BBS trio go everywhere together. It would have solved too many problems and made them somewhat invincible though, I think, so plot-wise it just wouldn't work. (Ven would never have gotten into trouble on his own, Terra would have had the babysitter he needed, and Aqua would have been able to smack the boys when they started making the problems that she always ended up fixing at the end.) If they'd stuck together, you could've just picked which one you wanted to play as and the others would be handled as party members like Donald or Goofy. That would've been awesome! But... way too overpowering. XD; They were hax enough together in the Mirage Arena or even in the Radiant Garden boss. They also lagged the game too much so I guess another part of it was system restraints. :P I think it was handled fairly well, though, when you consider it's a handheld game.

I can't believe they never did a game like that. For some reason, Nomura's original KH characters always end up being partnered to the Disney characters (358/2 Days was one exception). With the scenario you mentioned, I think that would have been wonderful to play, but truly it would completely change the plot. Terra, Ventus and Aqua were always meant to all disappear from the various worlds before the first game, just like Xion before KHII (that's what happens when you introduce important characters in prequels and midquels) so yeah it would be hard to work around unless you make the villains more formidable. And you're right, if it were at least on the PS2 then it could have been plausible, but for the PSP, no. It would have still been an enjoyable experience, a cakewalk if they didn't change the external difficulty. But yeah, those few moments in the game that had them all together in arms were really cool. I really wonder if Nomura could possibly pull off something that awesome as a central mechanic of the game, of course, without being bothered by the plot.

Really, the only thing I liked more about how 3D handled two protagonists at once was that they shared all their commands and pets. The first thing I always have to do in BBS when I play it is do some command board grinding so I get an awesome set of commands early on. And then I have to do it for the other two when I play as them and it takes FOREVER. ;_; But there wasn't any of that in this game. When I found air slide, both of them had air slide. When I got high jump, they shared it. There are some things that are Riku-only or Sora-only (like their payback attacks out of guarding/getting hit and some commands--like Riku uses some attacks with darkness and Sora gets some Ven exclusives) but for the most part, anything you find can be used by both. It made the two of them play almost identically which was a little boring (I actually kind of liked how BBS nearly forced me to abandon magic as Terra because he was SO BAD AT IT and that's all I do in the games, usually [not that it worked too well because I distinctly remember using lots of magic with Terra anyway]).

Oh dear, I got started talking about BBS again. ._.; I love that game too much for my own good.

Interesting, so 3D actually combined Sora and Riku's arsenal into one. I haven't actually thought much about the Dream Eaters/Spirits, I wonder how they actually feel like as partners. Yeah, I remember grinding in command board for Terra, even though I only discovered its use extremely late (after my main Ventus save file got corrupted). It is pretty frustrating, especially when one NPC I fight with for each board always ends up mindlessly sabotaging my efforts. I remember how anticlimactic fighting Ventus and Aqua was in the last huge board shaped like that BBS symbol, I think, because they kept the bad AI they had from the first board, haha. Anyway, I don't think the lack of variation between them will bug me that much, I'll probably be more annoyed if they actually had extremely diverse gameplay styles given the Drop system.

Haha, there really isn't much to hate.

Yeah, the expansive worlds are nice but the maps are just too big! One part I mentioned was all the treasure chests--there's sooo many to find and if you don't meticulously check your journal each time you get to a new section of a world to make sure you've gotten all of them, it's SO annoying to go back and try to find what you missed. D: It was easy enough if I did collection while making my way through the plot of each world but I didn't start doing that until more than halfway through the game, really, so I'm still missing chests with Sora. T_T; Also if you go through a big section of a room and then die in a hallway on the way to the next one, you still have to do everything over so that's pretty annoying too. XD;

I'd take that challenge actually. I oddly enjoyed completing the treasure chests indicated in the journal in KHII so I'll probably be obsessive with the exploration here. Unless the plot runs dry as a side effect. But yeah, I would imagine someone like me to not even bother in that situation, not understanding the Japanese names for the items, haha. Now that you mention the possibility of dying in the middle of those huge rooms, the old small segmented rooms will be missed.

And yes, the plot-drops were awkward, but I'm pretty sure there were really only two or three of them in the entire game, so I can't reeeeally complain. I wish they'd used them a bit more so the one I mentioned wasn't so abrupt and unexpected, though. Or they could have used them a bit earlier on when I finished Riku's story a world ahead of Sora's and it wouldn't let me progress to the second half of the game until Sora had caught up. x_X; So every time it would drop me back into Riku, I'd have NOTHING to do so I went to collect the treasure chests I'd forgotten about.

Yeah, I wonder if they just discarded the actual Drop gauge and simply strategically placed the plot-drops often enough to not be too abrupt or unexpected. Could that have changed the experience? Oh yeah, you mentioned having nothing to do for a character at times. I thought they had an option to Drop immediately on the player's whim.

Spoiler:

I pretty much assumed it just because he was standing in Yen Sid's office and I think he said something really open ended that included the word "training"? I can't remember at this point, anymore. I just know that since that first long trailer came out for KH3D last year, I've known Lea would become a Keyblade apprentice. :x His keyblade is nicer than the previous keyblades associated with him. It's not as tacky looking as Bond of Flame and not nearly as lame as the keyblade you get based on his "weapons" in BBS with Ven. XD; It's pretty! But it'll still take lots of getting used to over his chakrams. It'd be cool if he used both in battle, though. (I'm kind of hoping he'll get his own spinoff game to show his training because the chances of other Organization members being the people he meets along the way are pretty high and I would just die of excitement if Marluxia showed up. n____n Axel's popular enough to drive sales for a game so... so hopefully this could be a thing one day?)

I'm not bothered by the amount of keyblades. I mean, they've been hinting at multiples since the first game when Mickey had his own in his brief appearance in the Darkness, right? In fact, Riku and Sora fighting over the one keyblade confuses me so much now because I'm so used to there being multiples. Especially since Sora? Yeah... he can't actually use the Keyblade naturally. Riku can use it because Terra passed it on to him. I think Kairi can use it because Aqua accidentally passed it on to her. No clue how/why Lea gets his (I guess maybe from Roxas or Xion?? Or from getting hit by a keyblade too many times! *shot*). But Sora only has his because Ven is in his heart. I think Xemnas implies at the end of KH3D that they were worried about using Sora as a vessel because he can't use a Keyblade as naturally as Roxas could. Or something like that? All I know is Sora looks confused, then hurt, then decides that even if he can only use the Keyblade because of his ~friends~, that's okay. It's really cheesy. XD;

Spoiler:

I see. I didn't understand the dialogue for Japanese trailers, haha, so that explains it. If I had known, then I wouldn't be this shocked. Now that you mention it, Lea's Keyblade does look way better than Frolic Flame and Bond of Flame. And yeah, adapting into a Keyblade from an existing weapon that already requires two hands would be something. Both in battle? An awesome idea! And I'd definitely buy that spinoff game when it's released, I want Larxene and Marluxia, hahaha.

I guess, but I always thought Mickey's made sense because it was simply a palette change from Sora's and it sounded reasonable for the all-powerful Keyblade to have a counterpart in Mickey's hands, Sora being based off the mouse after all. It does seem confusing how Riku and Sora fought over the Keyblade, but I think the specific Ven-like points in Sora during the first game actually gave him enough merits to claim the Keyblade from Riku's hands. I'm not particularly sure if Sora got his because of Ven but you're probably right with Riku and Kairi. Lea, sadly, didn't get the Keyblade from Roxas or Xion if you ask me (although getting hit by a Keyblade too many times being the cause is a funny thought). He probably inherited it from Yen Sid or King Mickey, with Mickey getting his from Yen Sid, too, or from his adventures in the Realm of Darkness. Oh yeah, I'll randomly ask, is BBSv2 a game under development or something? I think they could do a lot of explaining with it judging from the BBSFM clip. Lastly, I spoiled myself enough to know what you were talking about with Xemnas and Sora, but it's honestly pretty depressing to see the main character in that position. At least he's getting some character development there, and I wish they continue this with the next games chronologically.

Actually, I'm tossing this out of the spoiler because I'm confused and hoping someone can refresh my memory: why did the Keyblade switch between Riku and Sora in KH1? At the time, it seemed like it was because there could only be one Keyblade at a time so it had to choose between them and it preferred Sora's light over Riku's darkness but... was that really the case? Even if the Keyblade *did* prefer darkness and stopped working for Riku, why would that affect Sora's? The same sort of thing happened with Roxas and Xion but I always assumed that was more because Xion couldn't naturally use the Keyblade. (And now I feel the need to go check on when we first actually *see* her using it. Isn't it not until she picks up Roxas's? Is that when the ability to use it was passed on to her, even if only accidentally?)

Spoiler:

I think it had something to do with both of them not having actual Keyblades of their own yet. They simply had the ability to hold the Keyblade in their hands (with Ventus inside Sora and Terra's ceremony performed onto Riku), and the one they kept tossing around which Sora eventually continued using was probably the Realm of Light's main Keyblade (if King Mickey's is the main one from the Realm of Darkness). This probably means that no one actually owns it, it's neither Sora's nor Riku's and has its own entity (and the latter gets his actual own Keyblade later on). Maybe the χ-blade containing two Keyblades that appear just like it wasn't a coincidence. Anyway, during the destruction of Destiny Islands, that specific Keyblade probably went with Sora after sensing danger because Riku's heart was out of reach and Sora's was at least strong enough back then. Or maybe it's something else, I don't know. However, when Sora entered Hollow Bastion, this Keyblade finding an actual Keyblade wielder's heart (Riku went through the inheritance ceremony after all) that acknowledged this fact (it probably was only then that Riku remembered) initially swayed it onto Riku's hands. And then, Sora getting a Ven-like characteristic when he thought of his friends strengthened his heart, (Kairi's and Ven's inside him too) as a Keyblade wielder, enough to nab it back from Riku. It's something I've been thinking hard about, too, and it's a great example of Nomura's own Kudzu Plot.

I've studied Japanese since I was 11 and the only words I knew were pretty much related to Yu-Gi-Oh since that was my obsession in my early teen years. Then I studied it in a classroom setting in high school for a few years. Since grade 11 though, the only way I've really kept up with my Japanese is playing import games. I've imported every KH game since KH2:FM (with the exception of Re:Coded... thank god xD) and after playing through them all, even if the FMs are in English, you reeeally start to get a feel for the vocabulary that usually happens. I remember having no problems understanding any of Days (although I never bothered with the journals which, iirc, actually revealed a fair bit of backstory). In BBS, the only thing that confused me was the χ-blade because they were saying "Keyblade" to my ears but all I could make out in the subs were xblade and it would bewilder me so much every time it came up. XD So yeah, overall, most of my Japanese vocabulary is actually tied to KH. I'm finally taking classes again in university starting May so it'll be interesting to see if I'm any good at the language academically, despite being pretty good (imo) at understanding fandom-y things on my own. :x

That's so cool. It must be amazingly helpful to have that background in fandoms like this. I'm still deciding if I'll continue studying Japanese, since I've got more opportunities to than most of my peers. Again, that skill must be pretty handy in keeping up with the franchise, even something as confusing as KH. But yeah, even I got a little confused with the whole χ-blade thing playing in English, so it must be bewildering to encounter it first in Japanese haha. And if you're going to take classes soon then more power to you. You'll probably find it easy with that background.

I'm soooo excited for the Ultimania to come out. xD My birthday present from my parents was help paying for my 3DS and KH3D and my brother said he'd get me the Ultimania for it when it came out. So it was a very KH birthday, hahaha. I mostly want it to help with completion because when it comes to some sections of the journal, I am *completely lost* with how to do it. So I've put the game down until then. I'd also really like to read the interviews, too, because I have a lot more questions about this game than I did about most of the others and the interviews in the Ultimanias are usually brilliant for clearing things up. (I also want the 3D one because it's the only one, aside from the one for the original KH, that I don't own.)

I wish I had a KH birthday, haha. And since you mentioned how hard it is to explore and complete it all then the Ultimania will be a great help. I hope the interviews don't just tease on the future of the games, and explain clearly all the confusion they set-up in the recent title. And I am absolutely envious that you'll eventually have every Ultimania bar the original KH.

Spoiler:

Omg you used Terra against him? You poor, poor thing. ;_; I've had to fight MF with Terra twice and I hated it both times. He's SO BAD AT DODGING which is essentially what you need to be doing 100% of the time in that fight. I'm pretty sure he was a good 10-15 levels higher than Aqua was when I beat MF with her just to offset his bad dodges. XD; As a trade-off, he did a lot more damage since my strategy is usually to just spam a blitz/surge attack (I forget which term is the English one), but ugggh trying to dodge the laser attack or whatever? Almost impossible. Ugh! XD;

Spoiler:

I did, actually. And that was my major gripe, his sluggish ground dashes. Even Aqua can do better with her cartwheels, sigh, unbelievable. And the surge attack is the English term, I think, but yeah I remember now that I used plenty of Thunder Surges, Potions (can't remember if I used Potions or Hi-/Mega-ones, and I incorrectly mentioned Curaga) and Renewal Block. I think I also mixed in a Shotlock (Bio Barrage, I think?) but I don't know if that was during my winning run. I know what you're talking about with the instant death laser attack (looks a lot like Collision Magnet) that completely overwhelms both Once More and Second Chance, ugh, when I see MF jumping up and preparing the glowing whip/laser/Collision Magnet I dash away like crazy. I also hate the mini-tornadoes akin to Marluxia in Re:COM that blast away my commands, man that was frustrating. No Name was worth it, at least. It still looks awesome.

I think I was talking about Ven's final boss fight, not the extra fight. Curaga's bad for that fight! Every time you heal, he heals... so you have to use potions. :P My LV1 run never really included any secret bosses. I think I might have done VS on my Aqua file but I'm pretty sure MF is literally impossible at LV1 since after he's halfway, he heals every time you get a critical hit in. At LV1, I assume each hit you deal him is normally 1 damage so if he healed every time you crit hit, it would just be impossible to get him all the way down. :( Also the fight would take like three hours, haha. The bosses after MF in Final Mix are pretty ridiculous too so I made a new file with Aqua that wasn't level 1 when I took those on. (I did do all *plot* at LV1, so that extra boss in the World of Darkness with her was still part of my challenge. That was so exhilarating, to fight a boss I'd never fought before at that difficulty. I went back like a year later with a save from my not-level-1 file and the boss just wasn't as fun since it died too quickly. XD;

I see. I found Ven's final boss fight really difficult on my first try, maybe because the buttons and the analog stick weren't at their best shape and I was too busy listening to the final boss's VA. But I got the hang of it. And you're right, MF during a LV1 run would be close to impossible, hahaha. Final Mix bosses, huh. I could imagine how it would be fun to take on them like that (it's already pretty hardcore), but I probably wouldn't beat them without dying a lot of times, lol.

I never liked the turn-based system in FFX all that much. It might be because, aside from Pokemon, almost all the games I play are fairly action-based. All the Final Fantasies I like at least have the ATB to make things more dynamic, Kingdom Hearts is as much action as it is role-playing, and Tales of is realtime. Those are all my favourite kinds of RPGs so going back to play FFX just seems... difficult. I do remember enjoying it when I started playing it again last year but my disc is scratched so I couldn't get very far anyway. ;~;

I see. That's too bad, I actually enjoy turn-based battle systems when they're pulled off well, but I guess it really isn't for everyone. I actually like the Tales series because it was so much like the Summon Night: Swordcraft Story games in gameplay, and I have a fair share of fandoms including Kingdom Hearts that I enjoy for being action-based, too. Darn those scratched discs, reminds me of my unplayable Okami disc.

The battle system and controls are worth it even if you know the whole plot already. *u* The game itself is so much fun!

Man, I can't wait for more updates. I want more English KH3D now, haha.

Yeah, I grabbed a few screenshots, I think. Not that many, though. There's a few things that stand out. Large areas, such as the Calm Lands, are clear and crisp to the horizon, not a blurry green mess. Finer details, such as the textures on certain fiends and characters are surprising. Other textures show how bland they are, so you win some you lose some. :P

Even things like a cat in a tent in Besaid. The amount of detail on the face of something you would normally barely be able to make out is brilliant.

I did the same thing with KH2 (I ripped my own discs, before anyone asks). In a way, the simpler "cartoon" textures were better on KH2, because it all scaled so well at that res. Although you can't use any Antialiasing, which is quite evident at higher resolutions. If you have a decent PC, it's strongly recommended. Might try Final Mix at some stage. :P

Yeah, when I've emulated N64, I found anything polygon-based looked amazing but things like background/setting textures didn't hold up so well. I probably wouldn't play at too high a resolution to avoid that somewhat, but the rest of the graphics usually make up for it. HUDs are also kind of disappointing sometimes. XD; If text/icons on the battle screen and whatnot are pre-rendered and stored as small images, they usually look horrible blown up and it's always so obvious next to everything else.

We never had powerful hardware capable of emulating consoles like that but I can imagine how awesome that must be. I have watched a few videos of KHII being emulated in the PCSX2 and it looks lovely. It's getting harder to convince myself that graphics aren't everything, hahaha. Also, I have tried emulating N64 but I frankly never really knew the difference graphically. For one thing, I never had my own N64, and my eyes don't pay attention to detail as much as I'd like them to. I do notice odd discrepancies with textures like you guys mentioned, though, more so in comparison videos than when I'm playing.

 

[Cherrim]

Guys, I'm a little disappointed in the first monster name translations from KH3D. :(

Frog Chef -> Chef Kyroo
Ghost Clown -> Jestabocky
Koumori Bat -> Komory Bat
Wondernyan -> Meow Wow
Blazing Lobster -> Char Clobster
Denden Cargot -> Escarglow
Mimi Bunny -> Me Me Bunny
Ganmi Fukurou -> Peepsta Hoo

I like the ones that they actually translated, mostly, but the ones where they kept the names just seems lazy. And if they could keep the name for Komory Bat, why couldn't they keep Wondernyan's name? ;_; It sounds so much cuter than Meow Wow, haha. (Sorry, I just have a lot of feels about Wondernyan.)

I never really stopped myself from disliking BBS's disjointedness, so I think it's my fault that I didn't enjoy it as much as COM. Even though the latter wasn't even as rich in plot during Reverse/Rebirth like you said. Anyway, I found it annoying how much story they could have placed in BBS, COM or even 358/2 Days, and couldn't due to hardware constraints, thus making the game really short and almost empty. I believe there is just so much potential in new settings and characters, and they could have fleshed out the main trio's close friendship to make people care enough when they all fell apart in their respective games. That applies to both BBS and 358/2 Days, since COM didn't have much of a main trio. Don't get me wrong, I'm one of those fans who felt really bad for their sad ends. Anyway, I never tried playing all three at once in a way that I imagine KH3D took it. That's true, you don't really need to play Sora's before Riku's. I wonder why they didn't offer the option to play as Riku from the get-go, except his side does not hold as much juice, plot-wise and gameplay-wise. But yeah, I actually played Reverse/Rebirth almost a year after I finished Sora's story in Re:COM, although I did play both sides in COM almost continuously.

Riku's starts a little bit after Sora's (and of course, continues on after Sora goes to sleep), I think, so I guess they wanted it to be in chronological order. I do agree that the games needed more ways to feel closer to the main characters. I got so attached to the trio in BBS just from playing the game so many times. But their more touching "together" moments are in the tutorial which is skippable so it can be hard to bring yourself to care a lot when they're split up. With Days... all the bonding was usually just done in a silent cutscene because of the way the game played (by letting you do non-plot missions for random days). I also don't consider the Org trio to be on such a high level as the other trios. :( I think it's because Axel and Xion didn't really seem to be friends until pretty late in the game and Axel always just sort of... seemed to put up with Xion because Roxas really liked her. And then everyone forgets Xion anyway so. ;~; It's not a great "trio", really.

Interesting, so 3D actually combined Sora and Riku's arsenal into one. I haven't actually thought much about the Dream Eaters/Spirits, I wonder how they actually feel like as partners. Yeah, I remember grinding in command board for Terra, even though I only discovered its use extremely late (after my main Ventus save file got corrupted). It is pretty frustrating, especially when one NPC I fight with for each board always ends up mindlessly sabotaging my efforts. I remember how anticlimactic fighting Ventus and Aqua was in the last huge board shaped like that BBS symbol, I think, because they kept the bad AI they had from the first board, haha. Anyway, I don't think the lack of variation between them will bug me that much, I'll probably be more annoyed if they actually had extremely diverse gameplay styles given the Drop system.

The Dream Eaters play a lot like your party members from the first game, with the added bonus of special attacks once their dream gauge fills up. (Their gauge is essentially like the command gauge in BBS--like when Riku's monsters max it out, he can use one of them to go into a an elemental drive form. Sora gets limit breaks with them. :P) They work as normal members of the party otherwise. They're pretty great. (And adorable. <3) As for Sora and Riku themselves, Riku's like a cross between Terra and Ven and Sora's between Aqua and Ven. So they average out pretty well. :P

Hahaha omg the AI in Command Board. XD I loved stupid!Ven and stupid!Terra. On the Secret board, Ven would always play so badly. He'd go all the way out to the farthest colour-space, go back to the start, and then remember he didn't get the colour-space right next to the farthest one and go all the way back. And then there's Terra:

I'd take that challenge actually. I oddly enjoyed completing the treasure chests indicated in the journal in KHII so I'll probably be obsessive with the exploration here. Unless the plot runs dry as a side effect. But yeah, I would imagine someone like me to not even bother in that situation, not understanding the Japanese names for the items, haha. Now that you mention the possibility of dying in the middle of those huge rooms, the old small segmented rooms will be missed.

Some of the big rooms are done really well--like Traverse Town, it always feels appropriate because you have this huge space and they've got rooftops and roads and stairs and buildings and all that stuff to keep you looking around. Notre Dame is pretty good for that too. But then there are places like the Pinocchio world (especially with Riku) where they give you a huge expanse and all that's really is this big empty floor and maybe some platforms higher up that you can't even see. :/ Those ones are just boring and depressing to explore, haha.

Yeah, I wonder if they just discarded the actual Drop gauge and simply strategically placed the plot-drops often enough to not be too abrupt or unexpected. Could that have changed the experience? Oh yeah, you mentioned having nothing to do for a character at times. I thought they had an option to Drop immediately on the player's whim.

Yeah, you can drop whenever you want, but you won't collect drop points for it and you spend the points between each drop to power up the next character. I usually liked having some of the buffs on (even if I never noticed their effects). :x It also counts the number of times you've dropped and I didn't want it to be ridiculously high for no reason because I'm weird and it would bother me. XD; But I think I would have preferred having specific drop places. (Like, you can drop wherever you want but you'd be forced to drop at the end of the world you just completed or something like that.)

It doesn't help that I never figured out exactly what causes the Drop Gauge to speed up or slow down. :(

Spoiler:

I see. I didn't understand the dialogue for Japanese trailers, haha, so that explains it. If I had known, then I wouldn't be this shocked. Now that you mention it, Lea's Keyblade does look way better than Frolic Flame and Bond of Flame. And yeah, adapting into a Keyblade from an existing weapon that already requires two hands would be something. Both in battle? An awesome idea! And I'd definitely buy that spinoff game when it's released, I want Larxene and Marluxia, hahaha.

I guess, but I always thought Mickey's made sense because it was simply a palette change from Sora's and it sounded reasonable for the all-powerful Keyblade to have a counterpart in Mickey's hands, Sora being based off the mouse after all. It does seem confusing how Riku and Sora fought over the Keyblade, but I think the specific Ven-like points in Sora during the first game actually gave him enough merits to claim the Keyblade from Riku's hands. I'm not particularly sure if Sora got his because of Ven but you're probably right with Riku and Kairi. Lea, sadly, didn't get the Keyblade from Roxas or Xion if you ask me (although getting hit by a Keyblade too many times being the cause is a funny thought). He probably inherited it from Yen Sid or King Mickey, with Mickey getting his from Yen Sid, too, or from his adventures in the Realm of Darkness. Oh yeah, I'll randomly ask, is BBSv2 a game under development or something? I think they could do a lot of explaining with it judging from the BBSFM clip. Lastly, I spoiled myself enough to know what you were talking about with Xemnas and Sora, but it's honestly pretty depressing to see the main character in that position. At least he's getting some character development there, and I wish they continue this with the next games chronologically.

Spoiler:

I'm pretty sure there were subs for most of the trailers but I remember not liking one of them because they didn't translate something the way I would have. (I thought it stood out because they translated Roxas imitating Axel's catchphrase as the actual catchphrase when really, he gets the verb tense wrong so he was saying something more like "Have you memorized it?" XD) But yes, a spinoff with Lea would be amazing. ;~; And ohmygod I'd die of happy if Marluxia and Larxene came back in it... and die of even more happy if they were not at all pleased with him and became minor villains or something. XD; This needs to happen!

Lea probably did get his keyblade from Mickey or Yen Sid; possibly the former because he saves Queen Minnie immediately before they bring him back to talk to Yen Sid about it, so it would make sense. (Especially if Mickey did it before talking to Yen Sid about it since he tends to make those kinds of decisions on his own. XD)

We haven't heard anything about BBSv2 yet! It's so disappointing. :( I think all I remember hearing was that 3D was supposed to be the last spinoff before KH3. Either they meant it was the last new one to be announced (meaning BBS2 was still okay) or they scrapped BBS2. They've never answered any questions about it (since no Ultimania came out for BBSFM) and it's like the secret ending of BBSFM never happened. But Nomura did say that he wants to make a game that details what happened when Riku and Mickey were in the Realm of Darkness after KH1, so maybe they'll make it an episodic game where you control different people and go through their time there? I'd be okay with anything, honestly, so long as I get my Aqua back. ;~;

Spoiler:

I think it had something to do with both of them not having actual Keyblades of their own yet. They simply had the ability to hold the Keyblade in their hands (with Ventus inside Sora and Terra's ceremony performed onto Riku), and the one they kept tossing around which Sora eventually continued using was probably the Realm of Light's main Keyblade (if King Mickey's is the main one from the Realm of Darkness). This probably means that no one actually owns it, it's neither Sora's nor Riku's and has its own entity (and the latter gets his actual own Keyblade later on). Maybe the χ-blade containing two Keyblades that appear just like it wasn't a coincidence. Anyway, during the destruction of Destiny Islands, that specific Keyblade probably went with Sora after sensing danger because Riku's heart was out of reach and Sora's was at least strong enough back then. Or maybe it's something else, I don't know. However, when Sora entered Hollow Bastion, this Keyblade finding an actual Keyblade wielder's heart (Riku went through the inheritance ceremony after all) that acknowledged this fact (it probably was only then that Riku remembered) initially swayed it onto Riku's hands. And then, Sora getting a Ven-like characteristic when he thought of his friends strengthened his heart, (Kairi's and Ven's inside him too) as a Keyblade wielder, enough to nab it back from Riku. It's something I've been thinking hard about, too, and it's a great example of Nomura's own Kudzu Plot.

Okay, that... I think that makes a lot of sense. I'd completely forgotten that the Realm of Light had its own keyblade or something like that. XD I somehow never remember that worlds and places have hearts of their own and whatnot. I think you're probably right.

Spoiler:

KH3D also implies that if someone opens their heart too much to darkness, they can lose the ability to use the keyblade. (I think it's supposed to be why Ansem and Xemnas couldn't use the keyblade.) That's probably why Riku lost it for a while, too.

That's so cool. It must be amazingly helpful to have that background in fandoms like this. I'm still deciding if I'll continue studying Japanese, since I've got more opportunities to than most of my peers. Again, that skill must be pretty handy in keeping up with the franchise, even something as confusing as KH. But yeah, even I got a little confused with the whole χ-blade thing playing in English, so it must be bewildering to encounter it first in Japanese haha. And if you're going to take classes soon then more power to you. You'll probably find it easy with that background.

If you like the language, you should keep up with it. :3 Japanese is a lot more fun for me to study than, say, French, since it's easier to practise with it. All I have to do is watch anime/dramas without subs, play import games, or read manga without translations to practise. It's just as easy to find material for French here but not nearly as fun. :P

I wish I had a KH birthday, haha. And since you mentioned how hard it is to explore and complete it all then the Ultimania will be a great help. I hope the interviews don't just tease on the future of the games, and explain clearly all the confusion they set-up in the recent title. And I am absolutely envious that you'll eventually have every Ultimania bar the original KH.

I lied. I was price checking the new one at different sites and realized I don't have the Re:Coded Ultimania. I... I will not be getting it because I still pretend that game doesn't exist. XD;

Spoiler:

I did, actually. And that was my major gripe, his sluggish ground dashes. Even Aqua can do better with her cartwheels, sigh, unbelievable. And the surge attack is the English term, I think, but yeah I remember now that I used plenty of Thunder Surges, Potions (can't remember if I used Potions or Hi-/Mega-ones, and I incorrectly mentioned Curaga) and Renewal Block. I think I also mixed in a Shotlock (Bio Barrage, I think?) but I don't know if that was during my winning run. I know what you're talking about with the instant death laser attack (looks a lot like Collision Magnet) that completely overwhelms both Once More and Second Chance, ugh, when I see MF jumping up and preparing the glowing whip/laser/Collision Magnet I dash away like crazy. I also hate the mini-tornadoes akin to Marluxia in Re:COM that blast away my commands, man that was frustrating. No Name was worth it, at least. It still looks awesome.

Spoiler:

The command-scattering attack never bothered me that much because I already spend most of the fight just dodging around, so dodging into the commands to pick them back up was never much of a strategy change, but I hate when my cure commands are the last ones to show up. XD; The laser one was the worst no matter who you're using, though. Anything that goes beyond both Once More & Second Chance are cheap hax moves. >:O

But yes, No Name was worth it. n_n It was easily my favourite keyblade in BBS before Crown Unlimit in FM. I think it might only have to do with how difficult it is to obtain, though, which is the reason I like Crown Unlimit, at least. XD

I see. I found Ven's final boss fight really difficult on my first try, maybe because the buttons and the analog stick weren't at their best shape and I was too busy listening to the final boss's VA. But I got the hang of it. And you're right, MF during a LV1 run would be close to impossible, hahaha. Final Mix bosses, huh. I could imagine how it would be fun to take on them like that (it's already pretty hardcore), but I probably wouldn't beat them without dying a lot of times, lol.

The first time I beat Ven's final boss, I'd just rolled around using Thunder Roll and damaged him that way, and then accidentally beat him when you're floating around and the ground has broken away. I had no idea what I did and didn't think it was supposed to be hard. Then when I played the game again in English, I could not beat him. XD; The Thunder Roll strategy didn't work for me so I had to beat him legit... and then I had NO IDEA how to do the ending part. It wasn't until like a year after I originally played the game that someone pointed out that you had to fill your command gauge and use the finisher on him that I realized how it worked. Ooops!

 

[CarefulWetPaint]

Oh I have to join.

What is your favourite series made by Square-Enix?
Kingdom Hearts for sure, such a fantastic series!
Who is your favourite Kingdom Hearts character?
This is a really tough one, but I have always liked King Mickey and Riku

Spoiler:

(Especially when he goes good)

What console(s) do you hope Kingdom Hearts III will be on?
BE ON XBOX 360 OR I WILL CRY!!
What two Keyblades would you double wield?
Oh does it have two be Keyblades in the game?Or can I make up my own? (Ill answer this later) What would you name the Keyblade of Master Xehanort himself?
(I haven't played the game its in! Oh noes!) But looking at a picture I'd probably call it Gauntlet, or Gallos. Diablo could probably even work.
What new Disney worlds do you hope will be introduced in KH3D?
Ugh Disney >.> I only know what's been done in I and II sooo I don't wanna name any worlds already used >.> I think it would be cool if they used some more Final Fantasy worlds though.
What is your favourite Kingdom Hearts game and why?
Has to be I and II tied. They are both amazing and I loved them both. The story line, the combat (A square enix game with real combat... YAY!) The graphics, voice acting, just everything was great! Plus they were the only two I could play :(
If you could play as any KH villain (or, in some cases, allies), who would it be?
Sephiroth, my god. That'd be amazing!

Also I love how all these questions are about Kingdom hearts when its a Square Enix Club.
So I'd like to bring up Final Fantasy Advent Children. Did anyone watch or like this? I thought it was amazing!

And I would reply to Lightnings post but theres to much in that for me to handle atm >.>
But I will agree some of those name translations are horrible.

 

[Sakura Rain]

asdfjkl I must join had no idea the other one died, bless it.

What is your favourite series made by Square-Enix?
KINGDOM HEARTSSSSSS and Final Fantasy a little I guess

Who is your favourite Kingdom Hearts character?
VENTUS. I have so many feels about Ven asdfjkl he's adorable and naive and adorable and he has no idea what's going on for the majority of BbS BUT HE'S ADORABLE OKAY

What console(s) do you hope Kingdom Hearts III will be on?

Erm...PS3 I guess? I dunno, it'll most likely be on the 360 or the PS3 and I don't have either yet so idk

What two keyblades would you double wield?
Wayward Wind and Lost Memory. why no this has nothing to do with my Ven obsession why do you ask

What would you name the Keyblade of Master Xehanort himself?
Most likely Diablo or something like that. Something really really dark. or perhaps Xanatos Gambit. yay for references nobody will get. -spins-

What new Disney worlds do you hope will be introduced in KH3D?
I already know all the new Disney worlds in KH3D because I am horrible and spoiled myself for it :/

What is your favourite Kingdom Hearts game and why?
BIRTH BY SLEEP BECAUSE VEN it was the first game in the series where I really felt connected to the characters. sorry sora fans but I don't like him all that much. He's sort of...too happy. All of the time.

Spoiler:

Except in Dream Drop Distance. ;_____;

And it was heartbreaking and spectacular at the same time.

If you could play as any KH villain (or, in some cases, allies), who would it be?

As far as allies go...erm, does Zack count? 'cause he's awesome and all. Also, obligatory SEPHIROTH. but I wouldn't want to play as Xemnas for reasons. I don't even play as him in Days...for reasons.

Spoiler:

OHGOD TERRA ;___________;

and holy crap Lightning that is quite the wall of text 0_0

 

[Cid]

Hooray, more people! Welcome, WetPaint and Sakura! :D

And just making sure, I put some updates on the Nomura interview in the KH3D Ultimania under spoiler tags, haha.

[KH3D Ultimania spoiler]

Spoiler:

Turns out the Ultimania has pretty disappointing news on the status of the next few titles in the series, specifically how they don't have any plans for BBSV2 at the moment. I don't know but dissapointment is generally what I'm getting from it. I expected astoundingly happy news, or at least more news, haha.

There's an interview with Tetsuya Nomura in the KH3D Ultimania that went on sale today! From the interview:
They don't have any plans for BBSV2 right now, trust your imagination with the Secret Message, there's no plans for an FM for this title, the mystery KH project is stopped because they did KH3D, please look forward to whether the 7 lights are those 7 people, lots of things have already started happening for a new title in the KH series, and he thinks they will be able to make some kind of announcement in a relatively short time.

There you go! In the interview there's also 'impressions upon seeing the 3DS, the way we brought in free flow action, the title 3D, choosing which worlds to use, about the new black-coated people in Organisation XIII' etc. I also really really recommend 'Ask Mr Tetsu everything! Scenario Mysteries' for Nomura's detailed commentary! KH3D's Ultimania is pretty big, very much worth reading, go and buy it for sure!

Also, some KH3D spoilers from the Ultimania which explain spoiler-filled parts of the game:

Spoiler:

- In order to travel through time, "first" you need to give up of your form (body). When the man in the brown coat executed it, all the others got the same ability. But, except for YMX, not all of them came by traveling through time.
- Both Ansem SoD and Xemnas exist alongside Master Xehanort, after being defeated and giving birth to their old human form, in the Space-Time of KH3D.

Guys, I'm a little disappointed in the first monster name translations from KH3D. :(

Frog Chef -> Chef Kyroo
Ghost Clown -> Jestabocky
Koumori Bat -> Komory Bat
Wondernyan -> Meow Wow
Blazing Lobster -> Char Clobster
Denden Cargot -> Escarglow
Mimi Bunny -> Me Me Bunny
Ganmi Fukurou -> Peepsta Hoo

I like the ones that they actually translated, mostly, but the ones where they kept the names just seems lazy. And if they could keep the name for Komory Bat, why couldn't they keep Wondernyan's name? ;_; It sounds so much cuter than Meow Wow, haha. (Sorry, I just have a lot of feels about Wondernyan.)

I wasn't expecting them to nail the translations, but yeah some of it is pretty disappointing. And the word mimi means ears in Japanese, right? Why would they translate the bunny into Me Me Bunny, then? Oh wait, Buneary already exists. But yeah, Wondernyan sounded much better. Kinda like how a perfectly good sounding name like Yorterrie became a meh sounding Lillipup in B/W.[/off-topic]

Riku's starts a little bit after Sora's (and of course, continues on after Sora goes to sleep), I think, so I guess they wanted it to be in chronological order. I do agree that the games needed more ways to feel closer to the main characters. I got so attached to the trio in BBS just from playing the game so many times. But their more touching "together" moments are in the tutorial which is skippable so it can be hard to bring yourself to care a lot when they're split up. With Days... all the bonding was usually just done in a silent cutscene because of the way the game played (by letting you do non-plot missions for random days). I also don't consider the Org trio to be on such a high level as the other trios. :( I think it's because Axel and Xion didn't really seem to be friends until pretty late in the game and Axel always just sort of... seemed to put up with Xion because Roxas really liked her. And then everyone forgets Xion anyway so. ;~; It's not a great "trio", really.

I didn't consider that point. The lack of intersection within the stories apart from them actually being in a same room kinda sounded like it could work but I guess Sora's really does go first. Yeah, with the skippable tutorial as an example, I really found BBS lacking in scenes where the main trio shows how close they are supposed to be. There aren't too many flashbacks either, I mean, they didn't even bother making younger models for them, unless the flashbacks aren't really in the distant past. I find that last assumption hard to believe. And I haven't really thought much of the flaws of the Days trio. You mention some great arguments, and I think the odd approach they went with the three may be explained by the greater plot and characterization intervention of people other than Nomura in his Days staff, more than the other games, I think.

The Dream Eaters play a lot like your party members from the first game, with the added bonus of special attacks once their dream gauge fills up. (Their gauge is essentially like the command gauge in BBS--like when Riku's monsters max it out, he can use one of them to go into a an elemental drive form. Sora gets limit breaks with them. :P) They work as normal members of the party otherwise. They're pretty great. (And adorable. <3) As for Sora and Riku themselves, Riku's like a cross between Terra and Ven and Sora's between Aqua and Ven. So they average out pretty well. :P

Hahaha omg the AI in Command Board. XD I loved stupid!Ven and stupid!Terra. On the Secret board, Ven would always play so badly. He'd go all the way out to the farthest colour-space, go back to the start, and then remember he didn't get the colour-space right next to the farthest one and go all the way back. And then there's Terra:

Interesting. I haven't warmed up to how the Dream Eaters look just yet but I think I'll enjoy playing alongside the critters. At least that sort of diversifies the experience for Sora and Riku. I like that. And without regarding the fact that I still need to warm up a bit towards the Dream Eaters, they are cute. And yeah, they played so badly I can't even believe I was playing one of the hard to unlock boards. XD I've experienced a few Command Board games like that picture, haha. I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Some of the big rooms are done really well--like Traverse Town, it always feels appropriate because you have this huge space and they've got rooftops and roads and stairs and buildings and all that stuff to keep you looking around. Notre Dame is pretty good for that too. But then there are places like the Pinocchio world (especially with Riku) where they give you a huge expanse and all that's really is this big empty floor and maybe some platforms higher up that you can't even see. :/ Those ones are just boring and depressing to explore, haha.

Well, if Riku's inside Monstro or something then that's sort of explainable, I think. At least there are good rooms. I'll just enjoy those and not bother with the empty ones, I guess.

Yeah, you can drop whenever you want, but you won't collect drop points for it and you spend the points between each drop to power up the next character. I usually liked having some of the buffs on (even if I never noticed their effects). :x It also counts the number of times you've dropped and I didn't want it to be ridiculously high for no reason because I'm weird and it would bother me. XD; But I think I would have preferred having specific drop places. (Like, you can drop wherever you want but you'd be forced to drop at the end of the world you just completed or something like that.)

It doesn't help that I never figured out exactly what causes the Drop Gauge to speed up or slow down. :(

Ah, that mechanic. I can see now why you make the most out of each post-drop then. Hahaha, that's really weird. That last bit was what I was thinking, but I don't know how it will work if there's still a drop gauge counting on its own.

Spoiler:

I'm pretty sure there were subs for most of the trailers but I remember not liking one of them because they didn't translate something the way I would have. (I thought it stood out because they translated Roxas imitating Axel's catchphrase as the actual catchphrase when really, he gets the verb tense wrong so he was saying something more like "Have you memorized it?" XD) But yes, a spinoff with Lea would be amazing. ;~; And ohmygod I'd die of happy if Marluxia and Larxene came back in it... and die of even more happy if they were not at all pleased with him and became minor villains or something. XD; This needs to happen!

Lea probably did get his keyblade from Mickey or Yen Sid; possibly the former because he saves Queen Minnie immediately before they bring him back to talk to Yen Sid about it, so it would make sense. (Especially if Mickey did it before talking to Yen Sid about it since he tends to make those kinds of decisions on his own. XD)

We haven't heard anything about BBSv2 yet! It's so disappointing. :( I think all I remember hearing was that 3D was supposed to be the last spinoff before KH3. Either they meant it was the last new one to be announced (meaning BBS2 was still okay) or they scrapped BBS2. They've never answered any questions about it (since no Ultimania came out for BBSFM) and it's like the secret ending of BBSFM never happened. But Nomura did say that he wants to make a game that details what happened when Riku and Mickey were in the Realm of Darkness after KH1, so maybe they'll make it an episodic game where you control different people and go through their time there? I'd be okay with anything, honestly, so long as I get my Aqua back. ;~;

Spoiler:

I guess even with subs, I'm completely clueless. XD And that's pretty interesting! I wonder if they actually intended Roxas to get the imitation wrong? Yes it would, oh I love the idea. It would be so awesome if they did become minor villains, then again how did the other revived Organization XIII members act in KH3D? Of course, bar a few who were seen in The World That Never Was.

Yep, that would make sense. It would be so like Mickey from BBS, too. Although it's odd they wouldn't show a cutscene like that in the game, unless they really wanted people to be completely surprised with Lea's sudden Keyblade.

KH3D Ultimania mentions BBSV2 actually. Specifically its lack of being thereof. :( Yes, an episodic game would be nice. And that's the vibe I'm getting from the secret ending, too, with the tons of parallel characters shown in succession. I would want to play Riku, Mickey and Aqua, too!

Okay, that... I think that makes a lot of sense. I'd completely forgotten that the Realm of Light had its own keyblade or something like that. XD I somehow never remember that worlds and places have hearts of their own and whatnot. I think you're probably right.

Spoiler:

KH3D also implies that if someone opens their heart too much to darkness, they can lose the ability to use the keyblade. (I think it's supposed to be why Ansem and Xemnas couldn't use the keyblade.) That's probably why Riku lost it for a while, too.

The concept hasn't really stuck with me either. XD

Spoiler:

Oh right. How can Master Xehanort still use it, though? But yeah, that makes perfect sense for Riku.

If you like the language, you should keep up with it. :3 Japanese is a lot more fun for me to study than, say, French, since it's easier to practise with it. All I have to do is watch anime/dramas without subs, play import games, or read manga without translations to practise. It's just as easy to find material for French here but not nearly as fun. :P

I lied. I was price checking the new one at different sites and realized I don't have the Re:Coded Ultimania. I... I will not be getting it because I still pretend that game doesn't exist. XD;

This is actually the second time I've been thinking of learning more of the language solely due to PC, and this time around I think I will keep up with it. That's true, it's hard to find applications with something else especially where we live, and with that something like French would be light years away from being as fun to learn and practice as Japanese, haha.

Spoiler:

The command-scattering attack never bothered me that much because I already spend most of the fight just dodging around, so dodging into the commands to pick them back up was never much of a strategy change, but I hate when my cure commands are the last ones to show up. XD; The laser one was the worst no matter who you're using, though. Anything that goes beyond both Once More & Second Chance are cheap hax moves. >:O

But yes, No Name was worth it. n_n It was easily my favourite keyblade in BBS before Crown Unlimit in FM. I think it might only have to do with how difficult it is to obtain, though, which is the reason I like Crown Unlimit, at least. XD

Spoiler:

That was a huge gripe, I always got the cure command blown away and not restored right when needed it. And that's so true, I absolutely hate boss moves like that. I can't remember if they did something like that with the past games or this is a new thing they did, frustratingly so.

Yeah, I had nothing else more prize-worthy to collect until FM, hahaha. But I know the feeling of liking a prize more from the more difficult conditions they are retrieved from.

The first time I beat Ven's final boss, I'd just rolled around using Thunder Roll and damaged him that way, and then accidentally beat him when you're floating around and the ground has broken away. I had no idea what I did and didn't think it was supposed to be hard. Then when I played the game again in English, I could not beat him. XD; The Thunder Roll strategy didn't work for me so I had to beat him legit... and then I had NO IDEA how to do the ending part. It wasn't until like a year after I originally played the game that someone pointed out that you had to fill your command gauge and use the finisher on him that I realized how it worked. Ooops!

That's a funny story, even funnier because my brother actually had the same problem when he was trying out Ven's story for last (he went Aqua -> Terra -> Ven, I went the complete opposite) and asked me how it really worked like that. He was just spamming the commands available without building up the command gauge enough. I remember I actually luckily got my command gauge full on my first try just because I enjoyed clashing the attacks, which was coincidentally how you were supposed to fill it, hahaha.

---

Phew. You guys up for a discussion topic that anyone can participate in?
I'm out of ideas.

 

[Cherrim]

Also I love how all these questions are about Kingdom hearts when its a Square Enix Club.
So I'd like to bring up Final Fantasy Advent Children. Did anyone watch or like this? I thought it was amazing!

Well, I think this used to be mainly the KH fanclub until the FF ones and whatnot kept dying out and we'd talk about FF inevitably in the KH one so we decided to merge them. I think? But if you have any topics from other series to bring up, anything Square-Enix is game. :D

I haven't seen Advent Children in a while but I remember really liking it. It was gorgeous, which was about all I found to like about it originally, but the Blu-Ray release which had added scenes (it might have gotten a subtitle after the name but I forget) made the whole movie make so much more sense and I really liked that version.

Who is your favourite Kingdom Hearts character?
VENTUS. I have so many feels about Ven asdfjkl he's adorable and naive and adorable and he has no idea what's going on for the majority of BbS BUT HE'S ADORABLE OKAY

Veeeen. <3 I named my pet fish after him, hahaha.

Ven is hilarious because the first half of the game is spent going all "OMG I HAVE TO FIND MY FRIENDS WHERE IS TERRA" and then Radiant Garden happens and he gets mad at Aqua for babysitting Terra and from then on, his goal shifts to "I NEED NEW FRIENDS" and instead of asking everyone if they've seen his friends, he starts trying to make new ones instead. XD And his whole "hi my name is ventus but you can call me ven" spiel to everyone he makes friends with is funny too... especially since I always imagine that after he gets mad at Aqua in RG, he runs away yelling "YOU CAN'T CALL ME VEN ANYMOOOORE" and from then on in Aqua's story, instead of calling him Ven when she's thinking about him, she uses the name Ventus. Aww. xD;

I have a lot of feels about Ven (and the whole trio, really) too. T_T

aaaand cue wall of text

[KH3D Ultimania spoiler]

Spoiler:

Turns out the Ultimania has pretty disappointing news on the status of the next few titles in the series, specifically how they don't have any plans for BBSV2 at the moment. I don't know but dissapointment is generally what I'm getting from it. I expected astoundingly happy news, or at least more news, haha.



Also, some KH3D spoilers from the Ultimania which explain spoiler-filled parts of the game:

Spoiler:

- In order to travel through time, "first" you need to give up of your form (body). When the man in the brown coat executed it, all the others got the same ability. But, except for YMX, not all of them came by traveling through time.
- Both Ansem SoD and Xemnas exist alongside Master Xehanort, after being defeated and giving birth to their old human form, in the Space-Time of KH3D.

Spoiler:

I WAS SO SAD WHEN I SAW THE BBS2 NEWS. NOOOOO. Do they realize I would have bought a Vita for it or whatever they wanted to put it on? I feel like I need to write them and tell them this. (And then point out that I'll buy it in Japanese and then English and then the Final Mix, too, since Vita isn't region locked.) ;__; I'm so sad now. They say all the story is there and everything, but they just aren't going to be making a game with it? I wish they'd be more straightforward with their answers. If they're outright saying "no" over a game they already hinted at well over a year ago, they should be allowed to tell us whether they're just saving that plot for KH3 or what. I must admit, I'm not really interested in "side story" stuff (sorry Aqua dearest, but you're side story right now)/ in my main games. This is stuff that needs to be resolved before anything new happens and it makes me sad that they're either going to cram it into a cutscene in KH3 or just ignore it altogether. :( Aww.

Spoiler:

I... think I managed to gleam that from the game when I went through the cutscenes again. /pats self on back

Though honestly I'm still so shaky on the details of how time travel works. It seems so gimmicky. I wish they'd come up with a different mechanic to explain the Xehanorts. :(

I wasn't expecting them to nail the translations, but yeah some of it is pretty disappointing. And the word mimi means ears in Japanese, right? Why would they translate the bunny into Me Me Bunny, then? Oh wait, Buneary already exists. But yeah, Wondernyan sounded much better. Kinda like how a perfectly good sounding name like Yorterrie became a meh sounding Lillipup in B/W.[/off-topic]

...yeah, this is a lot like Yorterrie. XD; I mean, with NyanCat and all, a lot of people understand that Nyan is associated with cats anyway, so they could've gotten away with it. Moreso than Me Me Bunny, anyway. :| I'd be okay with Meow Wow if they'd translated/localized all of them but they obviously didn't try for all of them.

Interesting. I haven't warmed up to how the Dream Eaters look just yet but I think I'll enjoy playing alongside the critters. At least that sort of diversifies the experience for Sora and Riku. I like that. And without regarding the fact that I still need to warm up a bit towards the Dream Eaters, they are cute. And yeah, they played so badly I can't even believe I was playing one of the hard to unlock boards. XD I've experienced a few Command Board games like that picture, haha. I thoroughly enjoyed them.

The Dream Eaters look kind of out of place with Riku but they fit in 100% with Sora. Especially the small, fat, round ones. (Wondernyan is so completely Sora, it's perfect.) I usually gave Riku the big, cool-looking ones ot make up for the fact that I named them all really stupid things. (All of my Wondernyans are a variant of "RIKU SUX" because that's always the first thing I name a gummi ship or card deck when I'm playing as Sora and Wondernyan was my first monster. xD)

Well, if Riku's inside Monstro or something then that's sort of explainable, I think. At least there are good rooms. I'll just enjoy those and not bother with the empty ones, I guess.

Even in CoM and KH1, Monstro was varied. Big wide open spaces with no real ledges are weird no matter what the level is. :(

Spoiler:

I guess even with subs, I'm completely clueless. XD And that's pretty interesting! I wonder if they actually intended Roxas to get the imitation wrong? Yes it would, oh I love the idea. It would be so awesome if they did become minor villains, then again how did the other revived Organization XIII members act in KH3D? Of course, bar a few who were seen in The World That Never Was.

Yep, that would make sense. It would be so like Mickey from BBS, too. Although it's odd they wouldn't show a cutscene like that in the game, unless they really wanted people to be completely surprised with Lea's sudden Keyblade.

KH3D Ultimania mentions BBSV2 actually. Specifically its lack of being thereof. :( Yes, an episodic game would be nice. And that's the vibe I'm getting from the secret ending, too, with the tons of parallel characters shown in succession. I would want to play Riku, Mickey and Aqua, too!

Spoiler:

I have no idea. It's such an iconic phrase in the game that I can't imagine they'd have Roxas get it wrong accidentally. But it also didn't seem like it was necessary to change it up, so I feel that it has to be Roxas mixing it up, haha.

The other revived members didn't really have much of a role in 3D. We only see them when Lea wakes up on the floor of Radiant Garden. (It's interesting: he's wearing the Org jacket but the rest of them are all wearing their uniforms from RG--was Lea already wearing the jacket when his heart was released back when he became a Nobody?) Not everyone wakes up at the same time and I think we only end up talking to Lexaeus and Zexion whom I think were mostly just trying to figure out what happened and started straightening up Ansem's study lol. I'll need to go back and watch those scenes again but Lea got out of there before anything interesting (like Even waking up XD) could happen. Even Zexion didn't act badly toward Lea though, so maybe they wouldn't all necessarily be bitter toward Lea for causing the death of like half of them. :P

Spoiler:

Oh right. How can Master Xehanort still use it, though? But yeah, that makes perfect sense for Riku.

I think MX has tempered the darkness inside him so well that it doesn't actually affect his heart. You can sort of see a difference between the way MX handles darkness and the way Terra and Riku did. With the latter two, they weren't 100% sure that they wanted to turn to the darkness. They were both more tricked into the darkness than seeking it out themselves. Even when Riku DID turn to the darkness on purpose to gain power, his form changed to KH1!Ansem so it's like he couldn't deal with accepting the darkness as he was. But I bet MX never had that problem. I'm pretty sure he was told to stay away from the darkness when he was trained but he quickly tossed that advice away and never looked back. Darkness just doesn't seem to harm him so it follows that it probably wouldn't be able to take away his ability to use the keyblade. He knows who he is and what he does so the darkness has less of an effect on him. Or something like that.

Spoiler:

That was a huge gripe, I always got the cure command blown away and not restored right when needed it. And that's so true, I absolutely hate boss moves like that. I can't remember if they did something like that with the past games or this is a new thing they did, frustratingly so.

Spoiler:

I don't think there was a boss who did anything like that in Re:Coded and there wasn't one (that I've found) in 3D, so I guess it's just Marluxia and MF. The other games don't use a battle system that attaches battle action to cards/commands that could be lost, so it wouldn't work there.

That's a funny story, even funnier because my brother actually had the same problem when he was trying out Ven's story for last (he went Aqua -> Terra -> Ven, I went the complete opposite) and asked me how it really worked like that. He was just spamming the commands available without building up the command gauge enough. I remember I actually luckily got my command gauge full on my first try just because I enjoyed clashing the attacks, which was coincidentally how you were supposed to fill it, hahaha.

Yyyup that's exactly what happened for me. Though now I wonder if the order you guys did your stories in is partially what took away some of the character enjoyment? I don't think I know anyone who didn't do the story order as Terra->Ven->Aqua (which was the way Nomura said was probably easiest to understand or something waaaay back before it was released). I still agree that TAV needed more time to show what they were like as friends together before the events of BBS, but maybe playing the game in a certain order makes it clearer, since I never had much of a problem accepting their friendship to be as close (if not closer) than the other trios. :O

---

Mm, new discussion, new discussion... maybe...

Of the Square-Enix games you've played, which one had the best battle system (and/or gameplay)? The worst? Bonus question: if you could combine gameplay of different games, what would the perfect mix be?

I'll answer this after some other people have so it doesn't get lost in my walls of text. xD

 

[Sakura Rain]

Veeeen. <3 I named my pet fish after him, hahaha.

Ven is hilarious because the first half of the game is spent going all "OMG I HAVE TO FIND MY FRIENDS WHERE IS TERRA" and then Radiant Garden happens and he gets mad at Aqua for babysitting Terra and from then on, his goal shifts to "I NEED NEW FRIENDS" and instead of asking everyone if they've seen his friends, he starts trying to make new ones instead. XD And his whole "hi my name is ventus but you can call me ven" spiel to everyone he makes friends with is funny too... especially since I always imagine that after he gets mad at Aqua in RG, he runs away yelling "YOU CAN'T CALL ME VEN ANYMOOOORE" and from then on in Aqua's story, instead of calling him Ven when she's thinking about him, she uses the name Ventus. Aww. xD;

I have a lot of feels about Ven (and the whole trio, really) too. T_T

MAKE SURE YOU DON'T DROWN IT T_T I was a little bit peeved at Ven after Radiant Garden. I mean, Aqua was just following orders and trying to help and he's all "OMG AQUA YOU'RE AWFUL" I mean I just felt a little bad for Aqua is all. asdfkjl NO I still love Ven he just acted a bit like a child in that one particular scene ;____; omg I can just picture him saying that to Aqua. With his puppy dog eyes. and the glare asdfjkl and then in Disney Town he's all like "Wish I had someone looking out for me" and I was like ASDFJKL YOU ARE BREAKING MY HEART VEN

I love how he introduces himself exactly like that every time he meets someone new. Every time. well he probably didn't introduce himself to master xehanort like that but who cares about MX anyway he is a prick of the highest order and not vanitas either but he is also a prick of the highest order

Of the Square-Enix games you've played, which one had the best battle system (and/or gameplay)? The worst? Bonus question: if you could combine gameplay of different games, what would the perfect mix be?

...are you guys going to kill me if I say Birth by Sleep? Because that was the best battle system ever and not just for KH either. and I dunno about Dream Drop Distance but it's looking to have a good system as well. And worst battle system/gameplay... erm...toss-up between Re:coded and Days. I do in fact play other Square-Enix games. I just play KH the most XD um um um BIRTH BY SLEEP AND DREAM DROP DISTANCE. someone who's not a KH retard needs to answer this question lol

 

[Kevin]

So many long posts. o:

Guys, I'm a little disappointed in the first monster name translations from KH3D. :(

Frog Chef -> Chef Kyroo
Ghost Clown -> Jestabocky
Koumori Bat -> Komory Bat
Wondernyan -> Meow Wow
Blazing Lobster -> Char Clobster
Denden Cargot -> Escarglow
Mimi Bunny -> Me Me Bunny
Ganmi Fukurou -> Peepsta Hoo

The English name actually amuse me. Haha, my favourites are Meow Wow and Me Me Bunny.

Oh I have to join.

asdfjkl I must join had no idea the other one died, bless it.

Welcome to the club, CarefulWetPaint and Sakura Rain! Added to first post. :)