Dive to the Heart: A Kingdom Hearts Retrospective | Part 1 - The Birth of a Classic
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- Hey look, yet ANOTHER Kingdom Hearts retrospective on this... the year of Kingdom Hearts 3's Initial release. I feel my perspective is still worth watching however, as I'm bringing some... less than popular opinions to the table. Not to spoil too much in advance, but I DON'T think that Kingdom Hearts II is the best game in the series, so begin sharpening your pitchfork's now!
This is part 1 of a 10 part series, covering everything from the main series as well as Union X and Kingdom Hearts VR, so sit back, relax and enjoy the journey as I rant and rave about the series successes and failures one title at a time.
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Finally got to this in my sub feed.
For the most part, I agree. Sure, I have some minor nitpicks, like that I think calling KH a 'mostly great series' is really pushing it, lol. But overall, I agree.
The two main places where I disagree... or, maybe disagree isn't the right word... maybe it's more accurate to say that I only kind of agree, are with the platforming (and its relationship to level design), and the tech system. I don't think either is bad on their own, or wholly bad in execution. Just not quite what I would call great.
The platforming in KH1 is massively over-criticized. It's not really bad, especially - as you said - considering what other action games were doing in that regard at the time. But whether it was a technical limitation, an aesthetic choice, or a conceit related to allowing the design of Sora's jump to both be balanced for combat and platforming, because the levels are designed around platforming, it's not uncommon for levels to feel too cramped or cluttered for combat. Granted, it's also equally common for zones to work for both just fine. But there are many places where the design is so complex or cramped that the difficulty of a combat encounter can come not from the encounter itself, nor intentional level design perils (like falling off of the Oogie Boogie manor fight), but from an inability to not smack your keyblade on every object, platform, and wall, or the camera having a complete fit trying to keep everything in view properly. This is a large part of the reason why I don't think KH2's level design is actually worse like so many people do. Because while it does severely dumb down the platforming, and leads to levels that may feel bland to some, it also perfectly accommodates for far faster, more chaotic combat with a much greater emphasis on movement, which was the focus of the title. KH2 more or less always succeeds in that regard, where KH1 has a good chunk of rooms that just straight up suck for combat. Like 90% of Neverland.
My other issue is with teching. I agree that the tech system is a great system in theory. Not only is it interesting to be able to time attacks to parry those of enemies, and get rewarded for it with experience and an opening. But it also adds a bit of depth to keyblade choice that isn't present in future titles, because the tech system itself isn't present. Sometimes it's worth picking a keyblade with more parry frames, which is cool.
But once you move into the late game - in particular The End of the World - you're constantly barraged by enemies that have absolute tons of their own parry frames. Pulling off even just a single, full combo can become a nightmare, because you're extremely likely to be parried by nearby enemies while attacking your target. It makes the combat feel like a car that starts, but refuses to stay running, because you lose all sense of flow when you're parried into a recovery animation every few attacks. And this only compounds on the aforementioned issue, since there are several places where if you're not being parried by something you didn't intend to hit, you're accidentally rebounding your keyblade off of a nearby rock or wall or whatever. I think it's a shame that they didn't try to carry the tech system forward. But at the same time, I never look forward to those encounters in KH1 where I'm up against half a dozen or more enemies that spend half of their time in animations that parry my attacks. Fun to deal with on their own (most of the time), but the collateral parries that aren't under your control can just be super frustrating.
Overall though, good video :D I'm excited for the rest of them!
For some reason youtube labeled this comment as 'likely spam' which couldn't be further from the truth. APPROVED! lol.
Secondly, obligatory thanks for taking the time to watch and comment and so on... especially comment as this is an incredibly in-depth discussion piece that has now been pinned so others can more easily read it. I don't want to get TOO into my feelings on KH2 since that video will be coming fairly soon (The script is fully written already) but we've discussed KH at length many a time and level design is almost always our sticking point lol.
I never really have trouble with my keyblade bouncing off walls in the first KH... I hear that complaint all the time and it is an incredibly rare occurence for me... so I just don't get it. I'm not saying it's not true, I'm just saying that it has not been an issue for me.
And I do think the KH series is mostly great from a gameplay stand point alone. The only consistent complaint I ever see is, "The combat isn't as good as KH2!!!' which... completely neglects KH's position among action RPGs as a whole.. it is by far one of the most successful action RPGs on the market in terms of gameplay.. the majority aren't very good at all... Of course I'm going to get into this as time goes on... but even the ones people like to complain about do what they are intending to do quite well (I'm looking at you BBS).
Watched the whole thing. Good job bro. As someone that has been playing these games since childhood, there really is something special about growing up with them.
Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment, always greatly appreciated!
Yep, that intro music gets me every time. Hits me right in the feels ❤️
The directors really don't understand what made the game great and memorable in the first place, it's better focusing on the teenage drama and feelings of melancholy and not overly complex conspiracy theories.
I definitely agree on this... though complexity could have worked well... it's more that they just jumped into a pool of crazy.
Surprisingly, that KH2 not being the best in the series opinion is slowly becoming more popular recently.
As well as my personal opinion, though I actually watched and played the game myself first to come to that conclusion.
Extremely high-quality content, as always, Stiles. I've never played a KH game, but Your analysis and opinion on the first one have me thinking I should give it and the series a try.
Thanks for watching and commenting as usual!
6:50 And funnily enough, Ratchet & Clank 1 came out in the same year.
Now that I think about it, I feel like that’s the reason you included that in this video. lol
Great video Stiles! I'm not as much of a fan of KH now as I was a long time ago, but I can't deny that despite their ups and downs almost every single one of those games is a hell of a time to play. The only one I really hate is 358/2. Also, people who say that KH1 has aged poorly, never had the displeasure of playing stuff like Drakengard, who plays like absolute garbage nowadays.
Drakengard is definitely a bad one in terms of gameplay.. the novelty of jumping on your dragon at any time is pretty awesome... buuut that novelty wore off pretty quickly. Weird as hell story though.. I'm still not sure if I like or hate Drakengard's story, and I've played it three times all the way through to try and find out @.@
Anyway, thanks for watching!!
I thoroughly enjoyed this video, and I agree with you. While I'm only played up through Kingdom Hearts 2 (I'm playing the order they're in on the The Story So Far Collection) Kingdom Hearts 1 is still by and far the most enjoyable of the series, even if there are elements of Kingdom Hearts 2 that I like better.
Yeah, Kingdom Hearts 2 definitely does some things better, but as an overall game with multiple elements I think it really drops the ball in a lot of ways.
@@StilesReviews It certainly doesn't have as much heart as the first one...no pun intended.
@@Theheckifiknow COWARD!! INTEND YOUR PUNS!
@@StilesReviews I think the creators were a bit in the dark about what gave this game so much heart....better? :D
to be honest, i only ever tried to play the first game, and i watched only the playthrough of the first game. to me, only the first game is canon, all the others is thrown out as noncanonical derivatives that try, and fail, to capture what made the first game so magical.
Ah, KH1, I played this back in 2013 and I remember being letdown by it all though I was probably expecting too much.
Honestly, I would rather compare KH's story to Naruto and Bleach for more than DBZ. Naruto and KH have far more parallels to me. All though I never really liked Kingdom Hearts' story even down to it's very premise, a crossover that is inherently silly taking itself super seriously. And I feel like Square wrote themselves into a corner, it's either be serious or come off as silly or be silly and have a premise that would not work for a 20 hour rpg
I do think your vid describing KH's level design is rather interesting, I did not like it when I first played it but I was unfamilar with mid 90s to mid 00s level design or I was but only understood it better with certain games. It's kind of level design that AAA games now tend to be lacking in. I remember KH1's execution of platforming and backtracking to be rather flawed when I played it. It's been a while and I do think it was a big mistake for future games to do away with it entirely. The levels have far more personality here than they do in 2, 3 and BBS where they are basically just a series of interconnected corridors, it's like Max Payne 3 and CoD campaign level design but not as scripted as either game.
10 parts of Darkity Darkity Darkness? My somebody is ready.
First comment, and I'm fairly certain it's going to be the best xD. Thanks for watching and commenting.
The next 9 are gonna be fun, I can tell.
On combat:
I think the combat in KH1 is really good as well. To me it felt like it was more function over form, something the later entries in the series neglect. Also, thank you for saying that there is a ranged attack for those pesky airborne enemies. Gods, it's so irritating when discussing that singular point of the game. It is good combat and good enemy variety to work around. I enjoyed this review.
There is not enough sarcasm in my body to describe the series's story. I will only say this: It is silly. -W
Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment! Greatly appreciated!
28:33 I fully agree with this.
Do you think you might do one on Chain of Memories, or KH 2 at some point?
That is still the plan eventually. My Script for KH2 and 358/2days have been finished for years, but i got stuck on my CoM script so those other two didnt come out, This project isnt abandoned, just very, very, delayed.
@@StilesReviews Ah, ok.
Was just wondering, as I had watched your video for the original recently and saw it was a while ago, so was wondering if you would be getting back it.
Is there anything in particular you got stuck on with COM?
@@MegaSpideyman I Appreciate the interest. Honestly It's been a long time since I've looked at the script so I don't remember where I got caught up. Working on a few different things right now, but I'm keenly aware that I left this hanging and haven't forgotten about it, I promise.
@@StilesReviews Very good.
Anytime.
Always up for more discussions of my favourite videogame series.