I love your recent output man but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for these KH videos. Thanks for always bringing your perspective. Can’t wait for KH3
@3:40 I'm not 100% sure if it's universal, but the Flowmotion thing is usually called a "centralizing mechanic," usually by players in more competitive games; basically, it means that everything comes to revolve around one system, to the point where breaking with it makes the game substantially harder. Take things like the Armoured Core stagger system, and the Dynamax system in Pokeman for example: technically, you don't need to use either of these systems, but you will repeatedly be punished in some aspect of the game if you don't.
Alright, so I just watched the whole video, and it was really well-articulated as always. I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about this game because I got my ass handed to me trying to defend it as a teenager. I won’t pretend to be “objective,” but I would like to shed some light on a DDD fan’s perspective here: 1. First of all, regarding the time travel thing, I feel like a lot of people get hung up on the concept of introducing it in the first place. It is the classic “convoluted” plot device in a series that was already getting complicated, but I’ve always taken for granted that Nomura knew that going in. I remember reading an interview where he said that when people criticize him for drawing characters with belts and zippers, it just eggs him on to draw more belts and zippers. I took DDD in a similar way: “You want convoluted? Oh, I’ll SHOW you convoluted!” Obviously, that’s not conventionally good writing, but we have to consider genre here. KH is rooted in serialized shonen more than anything, so plot points function more to escalate drama and stakes than to fit together like a proper puzzle. Consider, for instance, Perfect Cell regenerating after blowing up in DBZ’s Android Saga-plot-wise, it’s a complete ass pull, but it puts more pressure on the characters and leads to an intense final battle. Basically, to me, DDD is setting up this rug pull for its first twenty hours, where it deliberately hits you in the face. It starts the characters out (particularly Sora) at a high point and then rips it away in one traumatic swoop. Genuinely, I think the effect is supposed to be confusing, like a dream turning into a nightmare. The almost horror movie-like direction of some of the Young Xehanort scenes (i.e., the first-person point of view, the Potato Sack Ansem jumpscare, the eerie music) show that there’s a clear emotional effect the game is going for here. It certainly breaks Sora’s cheerful demeanor, enough that he nearly DOES fall to darkness. 2. To that end, I think the endgame twists actually strengthen Xehanort as a villain overall. Set aside the time travel mechanics for a moment and consider the overall aim: he’s basically doing what he did to Riku and Terra on a grand, world-ending scale. DDD really emphasizes how Sora and Xehanort stand on opposite sides of the friendship themes. Sora mutually supports the people connected to him, to the point of wanting Roxas to be his own person, while Xehanort abuses, manipulates, and ultimately possesses the people he comes in contact with. I think that makes him the perfect villain for what the series is trying to say: the worst way to sully friendship is through abuse and control. 3. I’ll agree that Ansem SoD’s motivations in KH1 seem a bit shakier after DDD, but for Xemnas to have been lying about his intentions from the beginning checks out to me, personally. It’s pretty obvious in hindsight that Roxas, Axel, and Xion, at least, had hearts, and Days and CoM cast a lot of aspersions on the sincerity behind the Organization’s goals. After all, Marluxia and Larxene as well as Saix and Axel both made separate plans to subvert the Organization, as if they knew there was more behind it than Xemnas expressed. Besides, it fits in with Xehanort’s greater MO: he’s a parasite and identity thief, even shown by the fact that he steals Ansem the Wise’s name. 4. I largely agree with you on the Disney worlds feeling dry, though I’d be a bit more generous with, say, Sora’s visit to The Grid for the stuff with Rinzler. To a point, I think it’s intentional that Sora and Riku are disconnected from the Disney stories. The idea of “Sleeping Worlds” implies that the worlds are basically looped in events that have already happened, so Sora and Riku can’t affect their trajectory aside from dealing with the Dream Eaters. It does make their mission feel distinctly isolated, buuuuut that doesn’t excuse the lifeless writing. Seeing Flynn argue with his dad set to sad Kingdom Hearts music is, uh, definitely something lol 5. Having said that, I do think the Sleeping Worlds and Destiny Islands intro set, at least, the POSSIBILITY of time travel better than some people take for granted. Yen Sid explicitly sends Sora and Riku back in time to the Islands, and the Sleeping Worlds are basically locked in time loops. I don’t think the endgame twist comes QUITE as far out of left-field as some people say. Plus, time travel is hardly out of character for Square; the endgame twist of the literal first Final Fantasy game was time travel lol Anyway, I just kind of had to get all that out haha. Great video!
We're so back. Or maybe from another perspective, it's so over. Anyway, my pre watch comment is gonna be longer this time, because since you've started the series, I actually picked up the games myself, and this is the first one I've completed before your video came out. And honestly, this might just be my least favorite one. I dislike RE:CoM gameplay conceptually, but given how solved it is, it was never *that* frustrating, plus the story was excellent. Days has easily the worst feeling melee combat, but using lots of magic and like the one decent keyblade you have access to, it's good enough to experience the story. For Re:Coded I hated almost all the gimmicks and the repetitive code zones, but I did still appreciate its actual action gameplay and levelling. For BBS, all the issues you've noted in your video ring true, but it's still fun casually, and I enjoyed the new cast. With 3D though, I kinda struggle to really pinpoint the one thing that really brings it down for me. For one, I'm not fond of dream eaters and their progression, though this is also a bit of a personal beef, I had an issue where if I remained in the spirit menu for too long, my whole PC would freeze, and need rebooting. It made me dread interacting with them. Flowmotion is a big one too, it's a powerful system that's fun to play around with for a while, but it turns out to be *too* powerful - wall kick, super glide and the super armored attacks are basically the Skyrim stealth archer or Impact of this game. Reality shifts were a bit of a mixed bag, some were good and fast paced, others brought everything to a screeching halt. The grid just sucks in general. The drop system - while I appreciate merging the campaigns compared to BBS - the gauge is just a stupid, and I really wanted to punch people on Twitter who were complaining about the mod to remove it. No, I don't care it's easy to trivialize it, having to either waste one of my cool command slots or take time to swap it in is not fun or interesting. The story... well, that's the most complicated part. Literally. While I don't subscribe to most of the complaints about KH story being convoluted, 3D sure tries to challenge that notion, and even this wordwall of a comment isn't enough for me to really touch on it, other than how Nobodies are recompleted when they're killed. I know that's technically revealed in ReCoded secret ending, but it takes effect here, so I'm blaming DDD. Cheapening all the deaths before aside, the fact that Yen Sid apparently knew this all along is just baffling, and it really makes me hate his character. But also, if you've resorted to using time travel to bring back old villains, why not jusy also do this with the main X. What was once this tragic shell-like state has turned into an immortality cheat code. It's not all terrible though. The music is still on point. The reveal that Nobodies can effectively regrow their hearts with new bonds and experiences, to me lines up perfectly with what we've seen of them in previous games. And as much as most of the reveals didn't really land for me in the final world, I couldn't help but feel hyped going through it, the gauntlet of bosses being a breath of fresh, uh, oppressive air? Compared to blandness I've felt from most of the previous worlds. And apparently, these are all the things other people hate about this game. Maybe I'm just weird. I'm curious to see your analysis of it all. I'm open to having my opinion changed, but I can't say I wouldn't enjoy being reaffirmed.
Man, they should have just made the entire game about Flow Motion. Forget dream eaters, command decks and all that silliness, just give me that satisfying movement in a better game.
It just kills me that Kingdom Hearts hasn't been given the development resources its deserved post-KH2. I hate that I have zero desire to **ever** go back and play Birth by Sleep or DDD. The gameplay is just so... Painfully mediocre and the story matches. I've heard good things about KH3 and it's been on my list of games to play for a looong time. I just always seem to pick up KH1 or KH2 again when I get the itch to play the series. Or hell, I actually just played 358/2 Days again on an emulator and forgot how much I love that game, DS gameplay limitations and all. Because the story is great and the writing is great!
I still don't quite understand why people think KH2 is all that. Even if I ignore its combat design and the issues with it for sake of discussion, it's not really an Action RPG in practice, so it's not a very well-designed game on the whole.
Organization members growing their hearts was pretty much hidden from them except for a few key members. Thus they were made to chase Kingdom Hearts, which is just what Xehanort has been chasing for forever. I think it's an okay retcon and was clearly in plans ever since days, considering how many dialogue hints there were that they had hearts.
Ok I have to address a few things considering the story here. I will not argue with the gameplay. DDD has the second worst gameplay in the series in my opinion and yes this includes the mobile games. First of Tron Legacy. Yeah I didn't watch the movie too before I played the game the first time and after watching it I actually see that the world indeed explains basically everything important. You get told that the ISO are an complete new lifeform based of Data something Sams Dad didn't create. Meaning this is a being completely born out of nowhere in Data and Sam's Dad did try to protect them in hiding from Clu. Sam did convince his father to actually move and that is the reason he says he has already done enough because Clu gets the ability to leave with the disk from him. Clu also killed all ISO except for Quorra and since it is an entire new life form it is perfection right in front of Clu which Clu doesn't sees because every Human being makes mistakes and mistakes are not allowed in a program that tries to achieve perfection. The only thing which is not good explained in the world is who actually sam and his father is. The father (sorry I did actually forgot the name) is the one who originally created Tron and joined Tron to defeat the MCP. Later he build his own Dataworld and was going inside and created Clu who should achieve the perfect system in his own image. But Clu thought humans are imperfect and should be eradicated as well as ISO so to trap him inside the Data he closed the portal and was stuck inside. Sam later tried to find his father and got inside too. For the main plot I have to say that time travel was not randomly added too late inside the game without inside how it works. Through interviews it is clear that time travel was fully worked out already in KH2. And yes it was already present in KH2 because Timeless River still exists even if this specific time travel is still a mystery for the series. The time travel rules are also very good worked out and hard defined. I will not go over every detail because the comment is already long enough but just to address the three "whatever that means" you mentioned here what it means: Leaving your Body behind: Heart and Body are different things in Kingdom Hearts. Hearts alone can also look like bodies. The Sora and Riku on Destiny Islands at the beginning of DDD are just Hearts. The Sora in Chain of Memories should technically be just a Heart. (even if this is something people still argue about) Riku in the Realm of Darkness is just a Heart....his body is still running around with Ansem inside in KH1. He get's his body first back after Ansem is defeated. So what this means is you seperate Heart from Body because only the Heart can time travel. There must be a version of you at your Destination: Something that is later further explained is that you need a waypoint for time travel. This is basically every instance in time where a "you" exist. So from your birth until your present day basically. Or for Maleficent in UX a Data Version long in the past because a certain person created it with knowlegde from the future. That is also the reason why young Xehanort needed brown robe to meet him to time travel into the future. Him meeting himself from the future established knowlegde for him that a version of himself existed in the future and made time travel to this point possible. You can not rewrite the events that are destined to happen: Basically it is impossible to change the past. You can travel back in time but you cannot change anything which relates to change anything which you know will happen. The world itself will prevent it. Sora can time travel back to Destiny Island and take with Riku the raft because the actual real Sora and Riku at that time never used the raft...instead they did something on another point of the island. They don't know what happened to the raft too so taking the raft is absolutely possible. If they for example would have found the raft in KH2 then it would not be possible since it would establish the raft never disappeared. It is basically a timeloop explaination. This also means that brownrobe meeting young Xehanort always happened and is not a change of the past. And then the stuff with Nobodies growing Hearts...this is neither a retcon nor contradicts it story from earlier games. All the games from KH1 too Re:Coded did establish this if you looked at every hint into this and just did not fall for the lie which Xemnas spread and Yen Sid just repeated. But if you don't believe me here examples for exact this: KH1 Pinocchio a puppet has canonically a Heart in Kingdom Hearts. CoM Axel is obviously enjoying stuff in CO and he even mentions it. Zexion is clearly hardly anxious of Riku, Naminé cries and has obvious feelings. Also Riku Replika gets his memory wiped and we learn that memories are stored in the Heart. A Replika created in the same game through a puppet with Data. KH2 Not just did Demyx mention that they have Hearts....all the way the Nobodies act and talk are clearly contradictions. They are even in the scheme of Xemnas like Xigbar or maybe even Saix. Or do act like they have no Heart which is Xemnas. Everyone else acts in the proper way. Axel betrays the Organization because he wanted to see Roxas. He even says to Sora that he makes him feel. Roxas literally fights with Sora inside his Heart and has a whole Dive to the Heart in his Prologue. Days is basically the best contradiction so far. You see literally how much Roxas and Xion evolve and everytime they suffer or feel joy. But everytime they feel something it is explained with the same lie: "Maybe you remember how this feels" even if we learn inside this game that either Roxas and Xion have no memories of their past. BBS: May have not a big plotpoint in this matter but we see here the first time that the Stations of Awakening are the Hearts of the people. Re:Coded: There is litereally the plotpoint that Data Sora gets a real Keyblade because he grew a Heart and became more then a system. Since you also include Nomura interviews you should know that he already confirmed in Days that you need a Heart to have a real Keyblade. He obviously talked vague to not completely spoil this DDD plotpoint. DDD: Well if it is not enough the Grid Story has the ISO which fit perfectly in the Datapeople getting Hearts. Also the way Rinzler seem to be able to go over his program. Which is again a direct connection to the Hearts can grow storyline which was made up to this point. Saying it is just an retcon out of nowhere which contradicts established plotpoints is not true at all and I hope this list made this clear to you. The game is not the best in terms of explaining stuff...yes but it has every information you need for this. And the information were always there. Not seeing them is just falling for a lie of a charakter which was made after already showing the opposit clearly. Good after addressing this I hope you are not one of the guys who just gets angry over the established lore and deny it just because you don't like the game. From all not mobile games I like this game the least. So I really don't try to defend it in any way here.
I'll try my best to answer the design question about the drop system, having no idea where you're going with this. If there's a theme of the characters being together even when apart and the storylines both affect each other and are gated by each other, then I'd probably design the forced swapping to feel like a passing of the baton. Perhaps there could be some narrative justification for the characters tapping out to rest while the other character jumps in and progresses. If that's not how the story is set up, then perhaps it could still be used as a thematic reason for a second wind with the characters remembering what they are fighting for and continuing with renewed strength. Of course it would also serve the purpose of forcing the player to play both stories in parallel so they feel more connected to each other than if the player simply beat one story and then moved on to the next. I could probably think of more ways to integrate the mechanic into the game to make it feel necessary to include if I knew the design goals of the game, but at that point my comment would start looking like a design document.
To keep up with the story of Kingdom Hearts, you always needed to buy so many consoles. I had no clue what was happening after playing the first Kingdom Hearts and moving on to the second one. I ended the series completely after that because I don't like playing games on handheld devices.
I always just had enough drop me nots to complete each world in one sitting, you just have a deck that has drop me nots and switch to that deck, use it, then switch back. I always used them as my drop gauge was getting into the red. While the system is very wack I don't really understand how people never really had enough drop me nots to just, disregard the drop meter.
I've really been looking forward to this. Actually checked I think yesterday or the day before to see if you'd uploaded again. What a coincidence. Unfortunately can't watch it at the moment, but I'll get on top of that as soon as I can. Here's a comment anyway. By the way, you may have noticed that my tribute video that was supposed to come out in April didn't come out. Life's been nuts. Had a kid recently. Stuff was busy before that, but now I essentially have negative free time. So I'm probably looking at the very end of this year if I'm lucky or, more likely, April of next year. For one video. Them's the breaks. Just figured I'd share an update since you had expressed interest. Anyway. Looking forward to hearing you talk about this game. Thanks for trucking along.
One could say this game is the "Breaking Point" for the series' narrative. Although this game introduced me to The World Ends With You, which became a game I hold dear to my heart, DDD is right there as one of my least favorite KH games, losing only to Union X (I haven't played Dark Road, so can't say much about it)
After getting gassed up on Re:Coded my eyes lit up when I saw 3D on the shelf. I felt immensely disappointed after reading the box and not finding something. I put it back and it took me until now to know why: That thing I was looking for was the HAND logo.
here are my thoughts of the big 3 "flowmotion"s 1: flowmotion. i feel if they kept flowmotion to only evasive and traversal, and toned down the missile and freezing attacks, the balance would be better. not great, just good. 2: Drop. this shouldve been a BBS charecter select style function. it feels like the drop mechanic was soley made in the context of the handheld it was made for. short bursts of game before you "drop" out. (both ways) 3: dream eater. i have nothing to say. this game shouldve had more time. seriously square. btw: 1: i love inscryption. 2: i should take the time to mention that this game and the shitty cloud versions of the games on switch (cmon square) were the only KH games i had acess to for a good long while. nowadays i have a PS3 and a steam deck so i can play theese games. but you have those 2 for keeping me away from this series as i herd DDD is bad. 3: i guess i should delete DDD from my 3ds as i have no interest playing bad games.
🎩 To us we've always had mixed feelings on Nobodies growing new hearts. Even chopping away the fact I'm a plural system (with a Roxas introject no less), it at *minimum* represented some loss of self that can be attributed to, say, depression or another form of dissociation. So to have it *naturally* grow back is sort of like saying "oh your depression will just fix itself on its own as long as you BELIEEVE". But at the same time, in KH2, it's always been painfully obvious that Nobodies *can* feel emotions with Roxas! But is that worthy of taking the sails out of how Nobodies are on shaky grounds of existence? We can go on another psychoanalytical tangent on that (or go back to watch that one user's KH2 video relating their own experience of having alters to it), but I think our feeling on it is it's too easy an out for it to AUTOMATICALLY happen. Personally, if we were tackling this, we'd make it more in line with the themes of the series connection of friendships. Like, Nobodies CAN form hearts, BUT only if they try to make meaningful connections again with other people. So basically, Axel can come back because he put in the work to make new friends. The rest of Org XIII mostly doesn't come back because they were overall selfish isolationists who lashed out at others. (Also obv we feel that characters like Roxas and Namine reaching their original bodies and hearts is another way to find "stability" and is strong with the theme of connections by literally finding safety through sharing another's body, but blah blah system system plural) The time travel, on a very very literal sense, TECHNICALLY works and makes sense (before it gets hard broken in KH3... anyway??) but the convolution comes in the fact that Xehanort, a character who up to this point had been characterized as generally smart and manipulative but tends to get blinded by his ambitions and lack of care towards other people, can cook up a plan so ridiculously convoluted AHEAD of time. When the much simpler answer would have been Xehanort came back together and started doing the time travel *after*, because he burnt every bridge possible by this point that he has to rely on more versions of himself. It's trying to have it be so important by having it tie into absolutely EVERYTHING when it both doesn't really change majority of the plots + literally can't change past plots anyway. Also past Xehanort just isn't an interesting character who doesn't emotionally deviate enough from regular old man Xehanort to justify his time travel existence?? It's the one bad guy who SHOULD be at least a bit different who just isn't. Would it kill to have Young Xehanort stomp his foot because he WANTS to work against the flow of time but Old Man is being patient?? Also, yowza, we last played this game on our 3ds in high school and remember how much we spammed that dive attack. And, yes, we remember getting bored by the monotony of it then too. Kingdom Hearts is a less is more situation where the more is someone figuring out how to string the "lesser" elements into a big blast.
While it’s not the default option you can remove the Flow Motion techniques from your active command list if you want to do a No Flow Motion run or limit the flow motion moves you have at your disposal.
Man, those interviews from the Devs basically calling their old games bad because of "restrictions" is a sentiment I, as a Monster Hunter fan, find frustratingly familiar. To summarize, Monster Hunter is another Action RPG (Sort of) Series made by Capcom that's 2 years newer then Kingdom Hearts as a series that has had an online component since day 1 and because of that, the oldest game in this 20 year old series that can be played in full were the Portable games on the PSP that were made with no central server for hardware reasons or, if you want to play on a console people actually owned, Generations Ultimate on Switch that came out in 2017. (Nowadays things are better since the newest 2 games are on Steam at least, only took them 15 years. Kinda like another series). And since I invoked Monster Hunter, I can point out that the Series has a history of new mechanics that are so oppressive other mechanics had to bend to accommodate them like Flowmotion. Monster Hunter 2 introduced Seasons which made gathering simple supplies tedious if you did it at the wrong time (This one never came to America). Monster Hunter Tri introduced Underwater Combat, which in game isn't that oppressive you can largely avoid it save for a few monsters, but it was for the developers. A quick comparison of MH2 and MH3 monster list reveals that (Discounting variants of Monsters; 32 versus 18, yes it is that dramatic). Portable 1, 2, and 3 didn't really have any oppresive mechanics and actually removed the Gimmicks that Console games had. Then Monster Hunter 4 gimmicks were only situationally a problem but when it happened it was one. Generations Ultimate (Portable 4 basically) then introduced special moves that in general, made things a bit easier and a good bit flashier. Monster Hunter 5 (actually has the subtitle World, its one of the two on Steam) changed how map design worked but largely kept... most of the same core. Then its Expansion came out and added a Mechanic that meant the Devs had to bloat all the Monster Health to nearly double the amount they were in the past; Said mechanic was buggy and super tedious to use btw. Then MH Rise (The other on Steam) added Wirebugs, which is increased mobility and can be used for extremely powerful moves and is basically a more balanced version of Flowmotion because it has Timers for when you can do it. So... yeah there's some more examples of the problem you highlighted with Flowmotion. I'll let you know if Monster Hunter Wilds (6) does anything else, but my informed guess is Yes. I've honestly meant to mention Monster Hunter in one of these Videos as the two series have a lot of similarities with how they exist in reality (Monster Hunter regularly released "Final Mix" versions of games that added to the base game and usually let you import old saves) but also a lot of differences for contrast (Monster Games are dubiously canon with each other. Its hard to believe Rise and Tri are in the same universe that follow the same rules and their stories are usually Anemic and Utilitarian though World and Rise try to buck the Anemic trend). On a final note, I had a good laugh at the end when I realized I don't actually have my TH-cam name technically correct. For future reference, the BT at the end is an abbreviation for 12-year-old-me's cringe idea that I've kept around. So next time you can just do Quez B.T.
@@hgmd3284 That doesn't surprise me. Most Old Fans of Monster Hunter don't like Rise for... Understandable reasons. My feelings towards Rise aren't simple, but I like it but having beat Amatsu and Primordial Malzeno but none of the Risen Monsters... I don't really have the desire to go back to it unless a friend is playing. Meanwhile, I have been replaying World- Restarting it even without any friends playing it. I still enjoyed it, but it really is its own beast.
I’m sorry but if you complain about Nobodies having hearts all along as a retcon when the entirety of CoM, Days, and parts 2 are dedicated to exploring how that the idea of Nobodies not having emotions/hearts is kind of bogus, then I have to ask whether you actually paid attention to what the series has to say.
Just because nobodies conveyed emotions doesn’t mean they magically regrew hearts. Prior to DDD, the series invited you to question why they had emotions despite not having hearts, and it was a core theme in multiple games. Now, it’s a boring and uninteresting “it just happens at some randomly determined interval because the body will always try to regrow its heart”. I’m not questioning that they should ever be able to “regrow their hearts”, because of course the games were trying to imply that more was going on, but that the explanation provided herein is the lamest possible version of the events.
@@Tetramorre "doesn't mean they magically regrew hearts" There are literal dialogs in Days said by Axel and multiple other characters refuting this >Day 194 - Axel "I thought I'd never see the word "Replica" again. Any rational man would realize the Riku Replica was not likely unique, but I'm the only one in the Organization who knew of his exceptional copying functionality, and that he ultimately formed a sense of self. The fact that I knew all that and still never noticed the truth about Xion speaks to how remarkable a Replica she must be. But my questions remain unanswered. Who is she a Replica of? Naminé? Kairi? Or perhaps someone entirely different? Why did the Organization admit her into this membership? And why would such a fine Replica fall unconscious or sporadically lose its command of the Keyblade?" >Day 224 - Axel "Even if Xion is a Replica--a puppet--she's still Xion. I understand that in my head, but how do I interact with her now? Riku-Replica was just a tool, but I can't just use Xion. No, I was wrong to have just used Riku-Replica in the first place. How is a man-made puppet any less worthy than a Nobody that was never meant to exist at all?" "They're both ambiguous. Tenuous at best. And she's my friend. Even if neither of us should exist, that doesn't invalidate the bonds we form. Next break we get, I told her we'd all go to the beach. I hope we get the chance. Our little summer vacation. I know if we can get together and laugh about stupid stuff, this nagging doubt will go away." >Day 276 - Axel "Xion is gone. Roxas still doesn't know anything, but Xion found out. That's why I need to find her. We don't have hearts, so we accept the facts we're given as the truth. But something far more important lies behind that truth." "Saix would laugh at people with no hearts calling one another friends, but that doesn't make it not so." "As the Nobody of the hero of the Keyblade and the Replica of that Nobody, these two are special. Unique in every sense of the word. But that doesn't change the fact that we're friends. Nothing will. Got it memorized, Xion?" Xion: Yeah, the sound of the waves. How long was I asleep? Roxas: About twenty days. Xion: That long!? Roxas: Yeah. Me and Axel were getting worried. Xion: I'm sorry. I feel bad. Kind of... weird that we can feel anything at all, huh? Without hearts to feel with. Roxas: Yeah… Riku: DiZ...he could feel Sora. DiZ: Oh, he told you how he "felt," did he? Ridiculous. A Nobody cannot feel anything. Riku: If he had met Sora, things might have been different. Xion: Roxas, don't be sad. I came from you and Sora. I am you... the same nay that I am Sora, You'll forget me. but the memories themselves will never go away. Memories of you and me will always be together... forever inside him.
did you just read the first sentence and then go google a bunch of lines from days to gotcha me I’m not saying they couldn’t have, it’s clear that they could have, my problem is why. I’m saying that the way ddd presents it is boring because it’s just something that “happens”, by Xemnas’s own admission.
@@Tetramorre Xemnas is an unreliable source of information though. We're not meant to believe most of what he says. The nobodies and replicas grew hearts because of their interactions and bonds with the characters around them. Repliku legitimately cares for Naminé, and she for him and Sora by the end of CoM. The Days trio very clearly built a relationship from the ground up, starting as just coworkers and becoming best friends. Xemnas says that it just happens because he doesn't understand what caused them to grow hearts, so to him it's just what the body does. The overarching theme of KH has been the whole "My friends are my power!" thing, where Sora is the positive version of that, and Xehanort is the antithesis. He uses his connections to people in negative ways; Lying to them, manipulating and controlling them, and never really forming a true bond with them.
9:20 hey, this is the same brain cell I've used! But wow, these interviews are extremely illuminating. Alright, I'm done watching. This mostly reaffirmed my thoughts, but also gave some important context. The developer intention that commands would eventually phase out flowmotion actually kinda came true for me, but not really because they were stronger, but because I was so damn bored of flowmotion. It's also interesting to see how regular attacks can be useful, I'll admit I've never really gave them a try, given my issues with spirits I mostly just kept a couple as stat boosters I wanted, mostly a Frootz Cat for command recharges. I didn't know difficulty actually affected AI in this game, that's cool, but I didn't have the will to replay the game for Critical. I also feel differently about reality shifts, this might just be me trying to stave off the flowmotion rot, but the prankster paradise one in particular was always fun to use. That all said, I've gotta put my foot down on the Nobody Heart discourse. I kinda get what you're saying here, especially as this dreaded retcon of KH2/CoM, but I honestly think it just comes down to the difference in interpretation. You're just dismissing it down as something that happens automatically, undermining old lore or making figurative literal, I see it as a logical recontextualization of what we've already seen. Axel, Roxas and Xion gained or regained their humanity through their bonds, many other organization members have had their moments too. Whether they could all really feel or if they really had no hearts was put into question many times, only now answered definitively, just as many times before it's been shown that something so many people confidently believe can be wrong. It also reinforces the tragedy of the members and Xemnas villainy, that he would concoct this devastating plan with Kingdom Hearts and effectively isolate members in this little cult with the promise of getting back their hearts, instead of just letting them live normal lives.
Just pausing on the video for now because I need to go make food, but I just want to initially comment anyway that DDD had the best soundtrack in the series prior to KH3, and even then, both it and the KH3 soundtrack are pretty neck-and-neck. Personally, I prefer the DDD soundtrack overall. I was like, 13 when I first played the game, so yeah.
A bold choice. Personally I think KH2 has more great tracks, but Link to All is one of my franchise favourites. KH3 on the other hand is kinda carried by old motifs, although its original tracks are good too.
I love your recent output man but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for these KH videos. Thanks for always bringing your perspective. Can’t wait for KH3
so said the best kh essayist
@3:40 I'm not 100% sure if it's universal, but the Flowmotion thing is usually called a "centralizing mechanic," usually by players in more competitive games; basically, it means that everything comes to revolve around one system, to the point where breaking with it makes the game substantially harder.
Take things like the Armoured Core stagger system, and the Dynamax system in Pokeman for example: technically, you don't need to use either of these systems, but you will repeatedly be punished in some aspect of the game if you don't.
Alright, so I just watched the whole video, and it was really well-articulated as always. I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about this game because I got my ass handed to me trying to defend it as a teenager. I won’t pretend to be “objective,” but I would like to shed some light on a DDD fan’s perspective here:
1. First of all, regarding the time travel thing, I feel like a lot of people get hung up on the concept of introducing it in the first place. It is the classic “convoluted” plot device in a series that was already getting complicated, but I’ve always taken for granted that Nomura knew that going in. I remember reading an interview where he said that when people criticize him for drawing characters with belts and zippers, it just eggs him on to draw more belts and zippers. I took DDD in a similar way: “You want convoluted? Oh, I’ll SHOW you convoluted!”
Obviously, that’s not conventionally good writing, but we have to consider genre here. KH is rooted in serialized shonen more than anything, so plot points function more to escalate drama and stakes than to fit together like a proper puzzle. Consider, for instance, Perfect Cell regenerating after blowing up in DBZ’s Android Saga-plot-wise, it’s a complete ass pull, but it puts more pressure on the characters and leads to an intense final battle.
Basically, to me, DDD is setting up this rug pull for its first twenty hours, where it deliberately hits you in the face. It starts the characters out (particularly Sora) at a high point and then rips it away in one traumatic swoop. Genuinely, I think the effect is supposed to be confusing, like a dream turning into a nightmare. The almost horror movie-like direction of some of the Young Xehanort scenes (i.e., the first-person point of view, the Potato Sack Ansem jumpscare, the eerie music) show that there’s a clear emotional effect the game is going for here. It certainly breaks Sora’s cheerful demeanor, enough that he nearly DOES fall to darkness.
2. To that end, I think the endgame twists actually strengthen Xehanort as a villain overall. Set aside the time travel mechanics for a moment and consider the overall aim: he’s basically doing what he did to Riku and Terra on a grand, world-ending scale. DDD really emphasizes how Sora and Xehanort stand on opposite sides of the friendship themes. Sora mutually supports the people connected to him, to the point of wanting Roxas to be his own person, while Xehanort abuses, manipulates, and ultimately possesses the people he comes in contact with. I think that makes him the perfect villain for what the series is trying to say: the worst way to sully friendship is through abuse and control.
3. I’ll agree that Ansem SoD’s motivations in KH1 seem a bit shakier after DDD, but for Xemnas to have been lying about his intentions from the beginning checks out to me, personally. It’s pretty obvious in hindsight that Roxas, Axel, and Xion, at least, had hearts, and Days and CoM cast a lot of aspersions on the sincerity behind the Organization’s goals. After all, Marluxia and Larxene as well as Saix and Axel both made separate plans to subvert the Organization, as if they knew there was more behind it than Xemnas expressed. Besides, it fits in with Xehanort’s greater MO: he’s a parasite and identity thief, even shown by the fact that he steals Ansem the Wise’s name.
4. I largely agree with you on the Disney worlds feeling dry, though I’d be a bit more generous with, say, Sora’s visit to The Grid for the stuff with Rinzler. To a point, I think it’s intentional that Sora and Riku are disconnected from the Disney stories. The idea of “Sleeping Worlds” implies that the worlds are basically looped in events that have already happened, so Sora and Riku can’t affect their trajectory aside from dealing with the Dream Eaters. It does make their mission feel distinctly isolated, buuuuut that doesn’t excuse the lifeless writing. Seeing Flynn argue with his dad set to sad Kingdom Hearts music is, uh, definitely something lol
5. Having said that, I do think the Sleeping Worlds and Destiny Islands intro set, at least, the POSSIBILITY of time travel better than some people take for granted. Yen Sid explicitly sends Sora and Riku back in time to the Islands, and the Sleeping Worlds are basically locked in time loops. I don’t think the endgame twist comes QUITE as far out of left-field as some people say. Plus, time travel is hardly out of character for Square; the endgame twist of the literal first Final Fantasy game was time travel lol
Anyway, I just kind of had to get all that out haha. Great video!
We're so back. Or maybe from another perspective, it's so over.
Anyway, my pre watch comment is gonna be longer this time, because since you've started the series, I actually picked up the games myself, and this is the first one I've completed before your video came out. And honestly, this might just be my least favorite one. I dislike RE:CoM gameplay conceptually, but given how solved it is, it was never *that* frustrating, plus the story was excellent. Days has easily the worst feeling melee combat, but using lots of magic and like the one decent keyblade you have access to, it's good enough to experience the story. For Re:Coded I hated almost all the gimmicks and the repetitive code zones, but I did still appreciate its actual action gameplay and levelling. For BBS, all the issues you've noted in your video ring true, but it's still fun casually, and I enjoyed the new cast.
With 3D though, I kinda struggle to really pinpoint the one thing that really brings it down for me. For one, I'm not fond of dream eaters and their progression, though this is also a bit of a personal beef, I had an issue where if I remained in the spirit menu for too long, my whole PC would freeze, and need rebooting. It made me dread interacting with them. Flowmotion is a big one too, it's a powerful system that's fun to play around with for a while, but it turns out to be *too* powerful - wall kick, super glide and the super armored attacks are basically the Skyrim stealth archer or Impact of this game. Reality shifts were a bit of a mixed bag, some were good and fast paced, others brought everything to a screeching halt. The grid just sucks in general. The drop system - while I appreciate merging the campaigns compared to BBS - the gauge is just a stupid, and I really wanted to punch people on Twitter who were complaining about the mod to remove it. No, I don't care it's easy to trivialize it, having to either waste one of my cool command slots or take time to swap it in is not fun or interesting. The story... well, that's the most complicated part. Literally. While I don't subscribe to most of the complaints about KH story being convoluted, 3D sure tries to challenge that notion, and even this wordwall of a comment isn't enough for me to really touch on it, other than how Nobodies are recompleted when they're killed. I know that's technically revealed in ReCoded secret ending, but it takes effect here, so I'm blaming DDD. Cheapening all the deaths before aside, the fact that Yen Sid apparently knew this all along is just baffling, and it really makes me hate his character. But also, if you've resorted to using time travel to bring back old villains, why not jusy also do this with the main X. What was once this tragic shell-like state has turned into an immortality cheat code.
It's not all terrible though. The music is still on point. The reveal that Nobodies can effectively regrow their hearts with new bonds and experiences, to me lines up perfectly with what we've seen of them in previous games. And as much as most of the reveals didn't really land for me in the final world, I couldn't help but feel hyped going through it, the gauntlet of bosses being a breath of fresh, uh, oppressive air? Compared to blandness I've felt from most of the previous worlds. And apparently, these are all the things other people hate about this game. Maybe I'm just weird.
I'm curious to see your analysis of it all. I'm open to having my opinion changed, but I can't say I wouldn't enjoy being reaffirmed.
Man, they should have just made the entire game about Flow Motion.
Forget dream eaters, command decks and all that silliness, just give me that satisfying movement in a better game.
Digging the ror2 music. Chris Christodoulou would be proud.
We're so back
It's been long enough since I watched your KH catalogue that I've fallen out of my cycle of watching KH content. But I will come back for this.
It just kills me that Kingdom Hearts hasn't been given the development resources its deserved post-KH2. I hate that I have zero desire to **ever** go back and play Birth by Sleep or DDD. The gameplay is just so... Painfully mediocre and the story matches. I've heard good things about KH3 and it's been on my list of games to play for a looong time. I just always seem to pick up KH1 or KH2 again when I get the itch to play the series. Or hell, I actually just played 358/2 Days again on an emulator and forgot how much I love that game, DS gameplay limitations and all. Because the story is great and the writing is great!
I still don't quite understand why people think KH2 is all that. Even if I ignore its combat design and the issues with it for sake of discussion, it's not really an Action RPG in practice, so it's not a very well-designed game on the whole.
Organization members growing their hearts was pretty much hidden from them except for a few key members. Thus they were made to chase Kingdom Hearts, which is just what Xehanort has been chasing for forever. I think it's an okay retcon and was clearly in plans ever since days, considering how many dialogue hints there were that they had hearts.
Aw heck yeah was wondering when you would DROP another video!!
Ok I have to address a few things considering the story here. I will not argue with the gameplay. DDD has the second worst gameplay in the series in my opinion and yes this includes the mobile games.
First of Tron Legacy. Yeah I didn't watch the movie too before I played the game the first time and after watching it I actually see that the world indeed explains basically everything important.
You get told that the ISO are an complete new lifeform based of Data something Sams Dad didn't create. Meaning this is a being completely born out of nowhere in Data and Sam's Dad did try to protect them in hiding from Clu. Sam did convince his father to actually move and that is the reason he says he has already done enough because Clu gets the ability to leave with the disk from him. Clu also killed all ISO except for Quorra and since it is an entire new life form it is perfection right in front of Clu which Clu doesn't sees because every Human being makes mistakes and mistakes are not allowed in a program that tries to achieve perfection. The only thing which is not good explained in the world is who actually sam and his father is. The father (sorry I did actually forgot the name) is the one who originally created Tron and joined Tron to defeat the MCP. Later he build his own Dataworld and was going inside and created Clu who should achieve the perfect system in his own image. But Clu thought humans are imperfect and should be eradicated as well as ISO so to trap him inside the Data he closed the portal and was stuck inside. Sam later tried to find his father and got inside too.
For the main plot I have to say that time travel was not randomly added too late inside the game without inside how it works. Through interviews it is clear that time travel was fully worked out already in KH2. And yes it was already present in KH2 because Timeless River still exists even if this specific time travel is still a mystery for the series. The time travel rules are also very good worked out and hard defined. I will not go over every detail because the comment is already long enough but just to address the three "whatever that means" you mentioned here what it means:
Leaving your Body behind: Heart and Body are different things in Kingdom Hearts. Hearts alone can also look like bodies. The Sora and Riku on Destiny Islands at the beginning of DDD are just Hearts. The Sora in Chain of Memories should technically be just a Heart. (even if this is something people still argue about) Riku in the Realm of Darkness is just a Heart....his body is still running around with Ansem inside in KH1. He get's his body first back after Ansem is defeated. So what this means is you seperate Heart from Body because only the Heart can time travel.
There must be a version of you at your Destination: Something that is later further explained is that you need a waypoint for time travel. This is basically every instance in time where a "you" exist. So from your birth until your present day basically. Or for Maleficent in UX a Data Version long in the past because a certain person created it with knowlegde from the future. That is also the reason why young Xehanort needed brown robe to meet him to time travel into the future. Him meeting himself from the future established knowlegde for him that a version of himself existed in the future and made time travel to this point possible.
You can not rewrite the events that are destined to happen: Basically it is impossible to change the past. You can travel back in time but you cannot change anything which relates to change anything which you know will happen. The world itself will prevent it. Sora can time travel back to Destiny Island and take with Riku the raft because the actual real Sora and Riku at that time never used the raft...instead they did something on another point of the island. They don't know what happened to the raft too so taking the raft is absolutely possible. If they for example would have found the raft in KH2 then it would not be possible since it would establish the raft never disappeared. It is basically a timeloop explaination. This also means that brownrobe meeting young Xehanort always happened and is not a change of the past.
And then the stuff with Nobodies growing Hearts...this is neither a retcon nor contradicts it story from earlier games. All the games from KH1 too Re:Coded did establish this if you looked at every hint into this and just did not fall for the lie which Xemnas spread and Yen Sid just repeated. But if you don't believe me here examples for exact this:
KH1 Pinocchio a puppet has canonically a Heart in Kingdom Hearts.
CoM Axel is obviously enjoying stuff in CO and he even mentions it. Zexion is clearly hardly anxious of Riku, Naminé cries and has obvious feelings. Also Riku Replika gets his memory wiped and we learn that memories are stored in the Heart. A Replika created in the same game through a puppet with Data.
KH2 Not just did Demyx mention that they have Hearts....all the way the Nobodies act and talk are clearly contradictions. They are even in the scheme of Xemnas like Xigbar or maybe even Saix. Or do act like they have no Heart which is Xemnas. Everyone else acts in the proper way. Axel betrays the Organization because he wanted to see Roxas. He even says to Sora that he makes him feel. Roxas literally fights with Sora inside his Heart and has a whole Dive to the Heart in his Prologue.
Days is basically the best contradiction so far. You see literally how much Roxas and Xion evolve and everytime they suffer or feel joy. But everytime they feel something it is explained with the same lie: "Maybe you remember how this feels" even if we learn inside this game that either Roxas and Xion have no memories of their past.
BBS: May have not a big plotpoint in this matter but we see here the first time that the Stations of Awakening are the Hearts of the people.
Re:Coded: There is litereally the plotpoint that Data Sora gets a real Keyblade because he grew a Heart and became more then a system. Since you also include Nomura interviews you should know that he already confirmed in Days that you need a Heart to have a real Keyblade. He obviously talked vague to not completely spoil this DDD plotpoint.
DDD: Well if it is not enough the Grid Story has the ISO which fit perfectly in the Datapeople getting Hearts. Also the way Rinzler seem to be able to go over his program. Which is again a direct connection to the Hearts can grow storyline which was made up to this point.
Saying it is just an retcon out of nowhere which contradicts established plotpoints is not true at all and I hope this list made this clear to you. The game is not the best in terms of explaining stuff...yes but it has every information you need for this. And the information were always there. Not seeing them is just falling for a lie of a charakter which was made after already showing the opposit clearly.
Good after addressing this I hope you are not one of the guys who just gets angry over the established lore and deny it just because you don't like the game. From all not mobile games I like this game the least. So I really don't try to defend it in any way here.
I'll try my best to answer the design question about the drop system, having no idea where you're going with this.
If there's a theme of the characters being together even when apart and the storylines both affect each other and are gated by each other, then I'd probably design the forced swapping to feel like a passing of the baton. Perhaps there could be some narrative justification for the characters tapping out to rest while the other character jumps in and progresses. If that's not how the story is set up, then perhaps it could still be used as a thematic reason for a second wind with the characters remembering what they are fighting for and continuing with renewed strength.
Of course it would also serve the purpose of forcing the player to play both stories in parallel so they feel more connected to each other than if the player simply beat one story and then moved on to the next. I could probably think of more ways to integrate the mechanic into the game to make it feel necessary to include if I knew the design goals of the game, but at that point my comment would start looking like a design document.
That is how the story is set up, though the stories aren’t gated much by the others progress. from what I can remember.
To keep up with the story of Kingdom Hearts, you always needed to buy so many consoles. I had no clue what was happening after playing the first Kingdom Hearts and moving on to the second one. I ended the series completely after that because I don't like playing games on handheld devices.
Damn, great vid, can't wait for KH3 video, and I haven't even played those games!
Oh my God yes! So hyped for this video! Love your KH stuff!
I always just had enough drop me nots to complete each world in one sitting, you just have a deck that has drop me nots and switch to that deck, use it, then switch back. I always used them as my drop gauge was getting into the red. While the system is very wack I don't really understand how people never really had enough drop me nots to just, disregard the drop meter.
I've really been looking forward to this. Actually checked I think yesterday or the day before to see if you'd uploaded again. What a coincidence. Unfortunately can't watch it at the moment, but I'll get on top of that as soon as I can. Here's a comment anyway.
By the way, you may have noticed that my tribute video that was supposed to come out in April didn't come out. Life's been nuts. Had a kid recently. Stuff was busy before that, but now I essentially have negative free time. So I'm probably looking at the very end of this year if I'm lucky or, more likely, April of next year. For one video. Them's the breaks. Just figured I'd share an update since you had expressed interest.
Anyway. Looking forward to hearing you talk about this game. Thanks for trucking along.
Somebody had the idea of making the game 2 player and having one person control one character and it made it so much better.
One could say this game is the "Breaking Point" for the series' narrative. Although this game introduced me to The World Ends With You, which became a game I hold dear to my heart, DDD is right there as one of my least favorite KH games, losing only to Union X (I haven't played Dark Road, so can't say much about it)
Risk of Rain 2 music? A MAN OF CULTURE.
INSCYRPTION MUSIC? A MAN OF CULTURE!!!
After getting gassed up on Re:Coded my eyes lit up when I saw 3D on the shelf. I felt immensely disappointed after reading the box and not finding something. I put it back and it took me until now to know why: That thing I was looking for was the HAND logo.
The mob fights being dangerous is true but only on 3DS and that’s cause they don’t stagger as much.
here are my thoughts of the big 3 "flowmotion"s
1: flowmotion.
i feel if they kept flowmotion to only evasive and traversal, and toned down the missile and freezing attacks, the balance would be better. not great, just good.
2: Drop.
this shouldve been a BBS charecter select style function. it feels like the drop mechanic was soley made in the context of the handheld it was made for. short bursts of game before you "drop" out. (both ways)
3: dream eater.
i have nothing to say. this game shouldve had more time. seriously square.
btw: 1: i love inscryption. 2: i should take the time to mention that this game and the shitty cloud versions of the games on switch (cmon square) were the only KH games i had acess to for a good long while. nowadays i have a PS3 and a steam deck so i can play theese games. but you have those 2 for keeping me away from this series as i herd DDD is bad. 3: i guess i should delete DDD from my 3ds as i have no interest playing bad games.
🎩 To us we've always had mixed feelings on Nobodies growing new hearts. Even chopping away the fact I'm a plural system (with a Roxas introject no less), it at *minimum* represented some loss of self that can be attributed to, say, depression or another form of dissociation. So to have it *naturally* grow back is sort of like saying "oh your depression will just fix itself on its own as long as you BELIEEVE".
But at the same time, in KH2, it's always been painfully obvious that Nobodies *can* feel emotions with Roxas! But is that worthy of taking the sails out of how Nobodies are on shaky grounds of existence? We can go on another psychoanalytical tangent on that (or go back to watch that one user's KH2 video relating their own experience of having alters to it), but I think our feeling on it is it's too easy an out for it to AUTOMATICALLY happen.
Personally, if we were tackling this, we'd make it more in line with the themes of the series connection of friendships. Like, Nobodies CAN form hearts, BUT only if they try to make meaningful connections again with other people. So basically, Axel can come back because he put in the work to make new friends. The rest of Org XIII mostly doesn't come back because they were overall selfish isolationists who lashed out at others.
(Also obv we feel that characters like Roxas and Namine reaching their original bodies and hearts is another way to find "stability" and is strong with the theme of connections by literally finding safety through sharing another's body, but blah blah system system plural)
The time travel, on a very very literal sense, TECHNICALLY works and makes sense (before it gets hard broken in KH3... anyway??) but the convolution comes in the fact that Xehanort, a character who up to this point had been characterized as generally smart and manipulative but tends to get blinded by his ambitions and lack of care towards other people, can cook up a plan so ridiculously convoluted AHEAD of time. When the much simpler answer would have been Xehanort came back together and started doing the time travel *after*, because he burnt every bridge possible by this point that he has to rely on more versions of himself.
It's trying to have it be so important by having it tie into absolutely EVERYTHING when it both doesn't really change majority of the plots + literally can't change past plots anyway. Also past Xehanort just isn't an interesting character who doesn't emotionally deviate enough from regular old man Xehanort to justify his time travel existence?? It's the one bad guy who SHOULD be at least a bit different who just isn't. Would it kill to have Young Xehanort stomp his foot because he WANTS to work against the flow of time but Old Man is being patient??
Also, yowza, we last played this game on our 3ds in high school and remember how much we spammed that dive attack. And, yes, we remember getting bored by the monotony of it then too. Kingdom Hearts is a less is more situation where the more is someone figuring out how to string the "lesser" elements into a big blast.
70+ hours only 1 glitch, and I think it's one of the best mobile non numbered titles
While it’s not the default option you can remove the Flow Motion techniques from your active command list if you want to do a No Flow Motion run or limit the flow motion moves you have at your disposal.
I literally just rewatched everything up to BBS on a long road trip, let’s goooo!!
I fucking hate this game like really hate it
Same
This was the point I stopped loving the franchise
And then KH3 made me despise it
Aayy! I was just thinking about rewatching these!
i thought you died.
welcome back
Thanks for another great video
Man, those interviews from the Devs basically calling their old games bad because of "restrictions" is a sentiment I, as a Monster Hunter fan, find frustratingly familiar. To summarize, Monster Hunter is another Action RPG (Sort of) Series made by Capcom that's 2 years newer then Kingdom Hearts as a series that has had an online component since day 1 and because of that, the oldest game in this 20 year old series that can be played in full were the Portable games on the PSP that were made with no central server for hardware reasons or, if you want to play on a console people actually owned, Generations Ultimate on Switch that came out in 2017. (Nowadays things are better since the newest 2 games are on Steam at least, only took them 15 years. Kinda like another series).
And since I invoked Monster Hunter, I can point out that the Series has a history of new mechanics that are so oppressive other mechanics had to bend to accommodate them like Flowmotion. Monster Hunter 2 introduced Seasons which made gathering simple supplies tedious if you did it at the wrong time (This one never came to America). Monster Hunter Tri introduced Underwater Combat, which in game isn't that oppressive you can largely avoid it save for a few monsters, but it was for the developers. A quick comparison of MH2 and MH3 monster list reveals that (Discounting variants of Monsters; 32 versus 18, yes it is that dramatic). Portable 1, 2, and 3 didn't really have any oppresive mechanics and actually removed the Gimmicks that Console games had. Then Monster Hunter 4 gimmicks were only situationally a problem but when it happened it was one. Generations Ultimate (Portable 4 basically) then introduced special moves that in general, made things a bit easier and a good bit flashier. Monster Hunter 5 (actually has the subtitle World, its one of the two on Steam) changed how map design worked but largely kept... most of the same core. Then its Expansion came out and added a Mechanic that meant the Devs had to bloat all the Monster Health to nearly double the amount they were in the past; Said mechanic was buggy and super tedious to use btw. Then MH Rise (The other on Steam) added Wirebugs, which is increased mobility and can be used for extremely powerful moves and is basically a more balanced version of Flowmotion because it has Timers for when you can do it.
So... yeah there's some more examples of the problem you highlighted with Flowmotion. I'll let you know if Monster Hunter Wilds (6) does anything else, but my informed guess is Yes. I've honestly meant to mention Monster Hunter in one of these Videos as the two series have a lot of similarities with how they exist in reality (Monster Hunter regularly released "Final Mix" versions of games that added to the base game and usually let you import old saves) but also a lot of differences for contrast (Monster Games are dubiously canon with each other. Its hard to believe Rise and Tri are in the same universe that follow the same rules and their stories are usually Anemic and Utilitarian though World and Rise try to buck the Anemic trend).
On a final note, I had a good laugh at the end when I realized I don't actually have my TH-cam name technically correct. For future reference, the BT at the end is an abbreviation for 12-year-old-me's cringe idea that I've kept around. So next time you can just do Quez B.T.
Yo thanks for the detailed reply, Monster Hunter has escaped me but glad to see some different examples of this phenomenon.
the only people ive talked to online really hate rise from what ive been hearing from them. i really dont share those feelings.
@@hgmd3284 That doesn't surprise me. Most Old Fans of Monster Hunter don't like Rise for... Understandable reasons. My feelings towards Rise aren't simple, but I like it but having beat Amatsu and Primordial Malzeno but none of the Risen Monsters... I don't really have the desire to go back to it unless a friend is playing. Meanwhile, I have been replaying World- Restarting it even without any friends playing it. I still enjoyed it, but it really is its own beast.
I think Dream Drop can be succinctly described as a video game version of those Spider-Man Elsa baby sensory videos.
Honestly true
I’m sorry but if you complain about Nobodies having hearts all along as a retcon when the entirety of CoM, Days, and parts 2 are dedicated to exploring how that the idea of Nobodies not having emotions/hearts is kind of bogus, then I have to ask whether you actually paid attention to what the series has to say.
Just because nobodies conveyed emotions doesn’t mean they magically regrew hearts.
Prior to DDD, the series invited you to question why they had emotions despite not having hearts, and it was a core theme in multiple games. Now, it’s a boring and uninteresting “it just happens at some randomly determined interval because the body will always try to regrow its heart”. I’m not questioning that they should ever be able to “regrow their hearts”, because of course the games were trying to imply that more was going on, but that the explanation provided herein is the lamest possible version of the events.
@@Tetramorre "doesn't mean they magically regrew hearts"
There are literal dialogs in Days said by Axel and multiple other characters refuting this
>Day 194 - Axel
"I thought I'd never see the word "Replica" again. Any rational man would realize the Riku Replica was not likely unique, but I'm the only one in the Organization who knew of his exceptional copying functionality, and that he ultimately formed a sense of self. The fact that I knew all that and still never noticed the truth about Xion speaks to how remarkable a Replica she must be.
But my questions remain unanswered. Who is she a Replica of? Naminé? Kairi?
Or perhaps someone entirely different? Why did the Organization admit her into this membership? And why would such a fine Replica fall unconscious or sporadically lose its command of the Keyblade?"
>Day 224 - Axel
"Even if Xion is a Replica--a puppet--she's still Xion. I understand that in my head, but how do I interact with her now? Riku-Replica was just a tool, but I can't just use Xion. No, I was wrong to have just used Riku-Replica in the first place. How is a man-made puppet any less worthy than a Nobody that was never meant to exist at all?"
"They're both ambiguous. Tenuous at best. And she's my friend. Even if neither of us should exist, that doesn't invalidate the bonds we form. Next break we
get, I told her we'd all go to the beach. I hope we get the chance. Our little summer vacation. I know if we can get together and laugh about stupid stuff, this nagging doubt will go away."
>Day 276 - Axel
"Xion is gone. Roxas still doesn't know anything, but Xion found out. That's why I need to find her. We don't have hearts, so we accept the facts we're given as the truth. But something far more important lies behind that truth."
"Saix would laugh at people with no hearts calling one another friends, but that doesn't make it not so."
"As the Nobody of the hero of the Keyblade and the Replica of that Nobody, these two are special. Unique in every sense of the word. But that doesn't change the fact that we're friends. Nothing will. Got it memorized, Xion?"
Xion: Yeah, the sound of the waves. How long was I asleep?
Roxas: About twenty days.
Xion: That long!?
Roxas: Yeah. Me and Axel were getting worried.
Xion: I'm sorry. I feel bad. Kind of... weird that we can feel anything at all, huh? Without hearts to feel with.
Roxas: Yeah…
Riku: DiZ...he could feel Sora.
DiZ: Oh, he told you how he "felt," did he? Ridiculous. A Nobody cannot feel anything.
Riku: If he had met Sora, things might have been different.
Xion: Roxas, don't be sad. I came from you and Sora. I am you... the same nay that I am Sora, You'll forget me. but the memories themselves will never go away. Memories of you and me will always be together... forever inside him.
did you just read the first sentence and then go google a bunch of lines from days to gotcha me
I’m not saying they couldn’t have, it’s clear that they could have, my problem is why. I’m saying that the way ddd presents it is boring because it’s just something that “happens”, by Xemnas’s own admission.
@@Tetramorre Xemnas is an unreliable source of information though. We're not meant to believe most of what he says. The nobodies and replicas grew hearts because of their interactions and bonds with the characters around them. Repliku legitimately cares for Naminé, and she for him and Sora by the end of CoM. The Days trio very clearly built a relationship from the ground up, starting as just coworkers and becoming best friends. Xemnas says that it just happens because he doesn't understand what caused them to grow hearts, so to him it's just what the body does. The overarching theme of KH has been the whole "My friends are my power!" thing, where Sora is the positive version of that, and Xehanort is the antithesis. He uses his connections to people in negative ways; Lying to them, manipulating and controlling them, and never really forming a true bond with them.
9:20 hey, this is the same brain cell I've used! But wow, these interviews are extremely illuminating.
Alright, I'm done watching. This mostly reaffirmed my thoughts, but also gave some important context. The developer intention that commands would eventually phase out flowmotion actually kinda came true for me, but not really because they were stronger, but because I was so damn bored of flowmotion. It's also interesting to see how regular attacks can be useful, I'll admit I've never really gave them a try, given my issues with spirits I mostly just kept a couple as stat boosters I wanted, mostly a Frootz Cat for command recharges. I didn't know difficulty actually affected AI in this game, that's cool, but I didn't have the will to replay the game for Critical. I also feel differently about reality shifts, this might just be me trying to stave off the flowmotion rot, but the prankster paradise one in particular was always fun to use.
That all said, I've gotta put my foot down on the Nobody Heart discourse. I kinda get what you're saying here, especially as this dreaded retcon of KH2/CoM, but I honestly think it just comes down to the difference in interpretation. You're just dismissing it down as something that happens automatically, undermining old lore or making figurative literal, I see it as a logical recontextualization of what we've already seen. Axel, Roxas and Xion gained or regained their humanity through their bonds, many other organization members have had their moments too. Whether they could all really feel or if they really had no hearts was put into question many times, only now answered definitively, just as many times before it's been shown that something so many people confidently believe can be wrong. It also reinforces the tragedy of the members and Xemnas villainy, that he would concoct this devastating plan with Kingdom Hearts and effectively isolate members in this little cult with the promise of getting back their hearts, instead of just letting them live normal lives.
Just pausing on the video for now because I need to go make food, but I just want to initially comment anyway that DDD had the best soundtrack in the series prior to KH3, and even then, both it and the KH3 soundtrack are pretty neck-and-neck. Personally, I prefer the DDD soundtrack overall. I was like, 13 when I first played the game, so yeah.
A bold choice. Personally I think KH2 has more great tracks, but Link to All is one of my franchise favourites. KH3 on the other hand is kinda carried by old motifs, although its original tracks are good too.
DDD had some of the best tracks in the series. However, you'll be listening to the fucking dream eater Theme 50% of the playtime.
@@NieOrginalny I don't dislike KH2's soundtrack, but I think it's overrated, not unlike the game itself.
@@niklasw.1297 I don't mind the Dream Eater menu and mini-game music. They're cute.