Kingdom Hearts HD Collection (PS4) 31st March

[Hero-of-Time]

I put some more time into KHII today. It feels weird to play straight after CoM, mainly due to not being able to roll while in and out of battle. 

These type of enemies really need to just drop dead.

They are in every KH game and they are sooooo annoying to fight. Having to constantly try and work your way behind them is very frustrating. It is a little easier now that you have triangle commands to do more damage but they are still irritating to fight.

Spoiler

I love it when Auron shows up. When he uses the line "This is my story." I had a little grin on my face. Great stuff.

I love James Woods' performance as Hades. He was great in the Disney film and he's just as good in these games. Apparently he loves the role and it really shows. 

Spealing of voice acting, Aerith's is awful in this. In the original game Mandy Moore voiced her and done a great job but in this she is voiced by Mena Suvari and it sounds completely phoned in.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

My adventure continued today and I made some great progress. I think I'm only a couple of worlds away from the final area. 

One thing that has become clear while I've played this is that there are a crazy amount of mini games scattered throughout the game, both in boss fights and in the general areas. It kinda reminds me how loads of mini games were shoe horned into the likes of DK64 and Banjo Tooie. It's a bit like those in that you can hardly move the game forward without being hit by a mini game. At least in the first game these were kept to a minimum and were mostly just in the Winnie the Pooh area.

I did enjoy playing through the Timeless River section of the game. It was a great idea for a world and its just a shame that it's so short in comparison to other worlds. I mean, you don't even have to revisit it to progress the story, whereas all the other worlds you do.

I also enjoyed going to Halloween Town again. Sure, this was in the first game but the fact that you get to go to Christmas Town and meet Sandy Claws makes it so much better, especially given the time of year.

Another area I loved is Hollow Bastion and that's due to the segment that happens halfway through the game.

Spoiler

This section of the game is great. You have everyone thinking that Goofy has died, Mickey Mouse gets well peed off and heads into battle, Cloud and Squall from Final Fantasy fight back to back against an army of Heartless, Sora fights alongside the likes of Tifa, Squall, Cloud and Yuffie to wipeout the army, you then take on a horde of Heartless of which 1000 need to be defeated. Great stuff.

A world which I don't like, and didn't when I originally played the game back in the day, is the Pirates of the Caribbean world. The enemies are far too annoying due to not being able to damage them unless under moonlight. I ended up sprinting through that world and made up any lost exp in the next. The only good thing about that world is that the creators of the game got to use the actual theme song from the movies.

In terms of story, I think this is one of the weakest entries in the series. Nothing notable has really happened to push the story of Riku and Sora forward. Instead it's just a retelling of various Disney stories but with a tiny bit about Organization XIII scattered in between. Even CoM and 358/2 Days, which are considered side games, have a much more interesting story than this.

[Beast]

Two days until I can rot on the entire collection! I'm actually so excited to be able to play through these! I'm getting 2.8 tomorrow as I have a couple of CEX vouchers burning my wallet!

What order do I play them in to follow the story. The handheld games always confused me because of that. Also I love Chain of Memories too. I've got it on GBA.

Sent by the sexiest animal alive using a HTC One M8 with a broken screen protector

[Hero-of-Time]

8 hours ago, Animal said:

What order do I play them in to follow the story. The handheld games always confused me because of that. Also I love Chain of Memories too. I've got it on GBA.
 

The games are already in the order of what you need to play and watch on the start screen/home menu.

Did you play Birth by Sleep on the PSP? If you haven't then you are in for a real treat with that one.

[Hero-of-Time]

I've just fought in one of the new battles in this Final Mix version.

Spoiler

The battle between Roxas and Sora was hard as nails. I had to go and level up some more to stand a chance against him.

The fight itself is great and the music playing in the background was very emotional. 

The scene that plays after the battle nearly had me in tears. Roxas accepting his fate, sharing once last conversation with Axel, the emotional music playing, Axel saying goodbye and then a single tear falling from him.... yeah, this got me good. 

That whole thing should have really been in the original version of the game. 

[Hero-of-Time]

The final boss battle is now on the cards. I think I'll go do a bit of trophy hunting and levelling up before taking him on.

[Hero-of-Time]

The credits have rolled on Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix.

I levelled up Sora to mid 70's and took on the final boss with little effort. 

Things really do pick up in the final third of the game, although certain things do seem a little rushed. For example, you fight two of the members of Organization XIII one after another in some sort of Mega Man boss style doors. It's very weird when you consider most of the others have a bit of story to them and have their own worlds.

The ending is beautiful. When Sora reads the letter and then the music kicks in. This series, man... 

I can now either go for the platinum ( this would require getting 100% on this run and then replaying the game on the hardest difficulty ), start Birth By Sleep or have a bit of a break from the Kingdom Hearts games for a bit. There is a danger I may burn out before the third game hits. Still, finishing two of them in just over a week is good going and I have only got BBS to get through as I played 2.8 and DDD just last year.

[Aperson]

Having just finished World of Light in Smash Ultimate I am now turning my attention to Kingdom Hearts III's looming release and the realisation that I should probably play the games in between II and III in order to get caught up on the story. Or rather, play two games and watch the cutscene movies for two others.

 

So I started Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep with a mission to finish this game, get the true ending, watch Re-coded, play Dream Drop Distance and the KHIII prologue and watch unchained. All in just one month... it seems like an almost impossible task.

 

That being said, it seems all the worlds in Birth By Sleep are quite short. I think I'm most likely nearly halfway through Terra's story as I've just got done with Olympus Coliseum having already done Enchanted Dominion, the Cinderella World, Dwarf Woodlands, Radiant Garden, Disney Town and now Olympus.

 

I have something of a problem with the selections for Disney worlds in this game, I can see they were trying to cover every property but unfortunately I don't think Cinderella or Snow White make for very good locations for levels and Enchanted Dominion and Dwarf Woodlands seem too similar to each other given the castle locations. The Magic Mirror boss fight was awesome though.

 

Enchanted Dominion I can't argue against. If it was going to be anywhere in the series, it had to be here given Maleficent has already become the "leader" of the Disney villains in the first game. Also, it has an amazing field theme:

 

 

Edited December 25, 2018 by GenericAperson

[Hero-of-Time]

I ended up continuing my adventure on Kingdom Hearts II. 

Yesterday evening I took on the Lingering Will, who is the big post game boss. If you've played BBS then you should know who it is. I was actually dreading fighting this one due to my mate being stuck on him for a couple of weeks earlier in the year. I ended up beating it on my third attempt.  

Today I tackled the 13 Mushroom side quest which was a bit of a toughie. You have to meet the criteria for each of the shrooms, like juggle them in the air for so many hits or defeat one that is constantly healing within 10 seconds. Some of them were a right pain in the backside to complete but I persevered and managed to get through them all.

After that, I set my sights on fighting the 13 data bosses. These are battles with each of the members of Organization XIII. They play a little like how they were when you originally fought them in the game but now they have a crazy amount of HP, hit harder and have some new moves. It's been a while since JRPG bosses have given me this much trouble. Even at level 99 it took a few attempts to down each of them. I had a nice sense of satisfaction from doing so.

That should be all of the hard stuff out of the way, at least in this run. I've just got a bunch of side missions left and I need to faff on with some Gummi Shop stuff before I can move on to a fresh save but at the highest difficulty.

[Beast]

The games are already in the order of what you need to play and watch on the start screen/home menu.
Did you play Birth by Sleep on the PSP? If you haven't then you are in for a real treat with that one.

Funnily enough, I haven't. I've played them all except for that! It wasn't until my friend's brother (who is also heavily into the games) told me he was playing it too that I realised I don't have an actual physical copy of it!

I can't get over how much better and smoother it runs! Well worth the extra bit of money!

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[Hero-of-Time]

16 minutes ago, Animal said:

Funnily enough, I haven't. I've played them all except for that! It wasn't until my friend's brother (who is also heavily into the games) told me he was playing it too that I realised I don't have an actual physical copy of it!

I can't get over how much better and smoother it runs! Well worth the extra bit of money!

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
 

Yeah, the work they done on this collection is amazing. It's such great value for money. Getting 4 games and a bunch of movies for under £30 ( get for less than £20 now ) is fantastic and its collections like this why I take issue with others charging £40 for ports of single games that haven't had this kind of effort put into them.

[Beast]

Yeah, the work they done on this collection is amazing. It's such great value for money. Getting 4 games and a bunch of movies for under £30 ( get for less than £20 now ) is fantastic and its collections like this why I take issue with others charging £40 for ports of single games that haven't had this kind of effort put into them.

My adventure is just beginning. I've managed to pry myself away from FFX to play this for a bit!

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[Hero-of-Time]

I finished my 100% playthrough this morning. It took ages to farm all of the materials that were needed for the synthesis trophy. All that's left is to now finish the game again on the hardest setting.

I fired up Critical mode and flew past the Roxas sections. It's crazy how fast the game goes when you skip the cutscenes. There are a couple of points in the game that I'm expecting to struggle with on this difficulty, so I'll probably have to grind exp in order get over those hurdles.

[Beast]

Fired up Kingdom Hearts and I'm playing on Beginner mode, and I'm going to do that for them all, to play through the story and get the "complete it with no continues" trophies in the game. I'll play it properly after playing through the series but I wanted to go through the story first.

I've just finished Wonderland and got my Hero License from Olympius Coliseum. I think I'm either going to go to the Jungle or go back to Traverse Town. Cerberus wasn't an easy battle, even on beginner, which I found pretty weird.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[Hero-of-Time]

11 hours ago, Animal said:

Fired up Kingdom Hearts and I'm playing on Beginner mode, and I'm going to do that for them all, to play through the story and get the "complete it with no continues" trophies in the game. I'll play it properly after playing through the series but I wanted to go through the story first.

I've just finished Wonderland and got my Hero License from Olympius Coliseum. I think I'm either going to go to the Jungle or go back to Traverse Town. Cerberus wasn't an easy battle, even on beginner, which I found pretty weird.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
 

Cerberus is always a tricky battle in the first game, mainly because the camera keeps swinging all over the place.  

I've reached the halfway point in my Critical run on Kingdom Hearts II. It hasn't been as bad as I thought it was going to be. You take more damage and get less exp but you also dish out more damage to enemies. If you play it a little slower and more methodical then it's not that hard. I say that but I've yet to come across any of the bosses that gave me trouble during my first playthrough.  

[Hero-of-Time]

I managed to get over one of the suspected hurdles that I thought I would encounter during my Critical run and that was the fight with Xaladin. The guy is a pain in the backside to fight on the easiest setting never mind on the hardest. It took a couple of tries, as well as the help of King Mickey to safe my behind, but he eventually got defeated.

I seem to be getting through it quicker than expected. I'm under leveled in terms of what the game recommends your level to be when visiting the worlds but I'm still able to push forward. I haven't really been doing any grinding yet, mainly because there doesn't seem to be a decent spot until near the end of the game.

The fight in The World That Never Was is going to be the real sticking point. If I can get past that then I should have a clear run to the end of the game.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Well, I ended up finding a good grinding loop in Twilight Town so I stayed there for a while. I stuck some podcasts on and went from level 41 to 50.With that done, I headed for The World That Never Was and to the boss fight I was dreading. I beat him first try! He had me on the ropes in an instant but I managed to hit a pivotal triangle press/QTE and completely turned the battle in my favour. Phew! Chuffed he's out of the way. He took me a while to beat on the easy setting so I'm happy I got him out of the way so quickly on Critical.

[Hero-of-Time]

The last boss has been defeated. That whole run was a lot easier than I was expecting. It only took 12 hours to get through it all. 

That's both Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II done and dusted. All that remains is Birth By Sleep. I remember loving that one when I played it back on the PSP. I seem to remember thinking it was one of the best entries in the series. It will be interesting to see if I still think that.

As a side note, Kingdom Hearts II continues the trend of S-E games ending up being trophy milestones for myself.

• Final Fantasy XIII was my 10th platinum
• Final Fantasy VII gave me my 5,000th trophy
• Final Fantasy X was my 100th platinum
• Final Fantasy XV was my 150th platinum
• Kingdom Hearts 0.2 gave me my 8,000th trophy
• Nier Automata was my 200th platinum
• Kingdom Hearts was my 225th platinum
• Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition was my 250th platinum
• Kingdom Hearts II was the platinum that pushed my trophy level to 50

Time to get some rest. Birth By Sleep awaits me in the morning... 

 

[Hero-of-Time]

I started BBS this morning. I decided to go through it on Critical difficulty first just to get it out of them way. It's already proving challenging due to how different it plays to KH II. I forgot just how many systems there are to learn in this game. 

I started with Terra as that is the canon way to play. I've been doing some exp grinding in the first main area. I'm going to try and get to level 10 and while doing so I should level up a bunch of my attacks and magics. This should get me sorted until I figure out how to play the game properly.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Leveled up to level 10 and took on the first boss. Absolutely smashed him. I just stood there wailing on it and absorbed the damage he was doing. Love being too high of a level when playing JRPGs. 

I've just went to the Cinderella world that has a recommended level of 3. Yeah, I'll probably speed through this world and probably the next.  

Also, it feels great being able to fly straight to these worlds and not have to faff on with the Gummi Ship.

[Hero-of-Time]

The credits have just rolled on my Terra playthrough. Great stuff and I look forward to going through it with Ven and Aqua to see everything tie in.

I finally got my head around the melding/command system. This is something I didn't really faff on with when I played the game back on the PSP but now that I've spent time with it I can say I'm a big fan. I love how you can level the magic up and it kinda reminds me a little of the materia system from FFVII. It is stupidly broken, though. Mega Flare just demolishes mobs and can help level up you and your commands in a short space of time. 

Speaking of leveling up, Terra ended up at level 50 by the end of the game. This was pretty overkill as most aren't even this high when tackling post game stuff. The end boss still put up quite a fight but my defense and HP were high enough to help me survive his onslaught. That and the fact that I pretty much stacked my commands with Curagas.  

Next up, Ven's story. Both his and Aqua's side of things should go a little quicker now that I know how to craft the best spells and obtain the strongest abilities early on. 

[Aperson]

Funnily enough, I finished Terra's story the other day. I was playing on Standard difficulty and I really tried to fill the book to help towards the unlock requirements for the true ending but I couldn't seem to muster the effort to go out and get every command out there. Having to 100% a file multiple times to get the true ending is really time consuming, although it is a short game so what I did in the end was finish the game as Terra and leave open the possibility of going back to it later should my plan not work.

 

The plan now is to beat the game on Proud difficulty with both Terra and Aqua. I've read that the game takes into account the highest difficulty you beat the game on when you clear the last save file, if that is true then having completed save files for Terra, Aqua and Ventus with the latter two on Proud should hopefully be enough. If it isn't, I may go back to Terra's story to try and get everything.

 

Proud difficulty is proving really hard mind. You take so much damage and deal so little, I am currently struggling on Captain Hook, mainly because his combos can wipe me out at full health if I keep in range. I have tried to adapt my strategy in order to avoid his attacks and push him into the water, I've also found Fire moves are particularly effective but he seems to be immune when to the effects of these moves when you are attacking him. Aeroga works well for disrupting  him and gives a breather, but he's still able to kill me easily. I think I might need to do some more level grinding although I already have two Curaga spells from Melding. I've been carrying a set with healing primarily in mind on Ventus so I can access healing commands quicker and easier, similar to how in the main games there's an easy shortcut combination for spells.

[Hero-of-Time]

@GenericAperson have you unlocked things like Magic Haste and HP Boost? Those can really help turn a battle around, especially Magic Haste. Also, things like Leaf Bracer, Second Chance and Once More are key abilities on the harder difficulties.

[Hero-of-Time]

Ven sure is weaker than Terra. He is a faster fighter but it's been taking me ages just to wipe out the smaller enemies. I struggled with the Snow White escort mission as I just couldnt kill the enemies fast enough. I went back to the mine area, done some grinding and came back and breezed through it.

I've just finished the Cinderella world and spent a bit of time just leveling up my abilities and general level. I've maxed out my HP Boosts and Magic Hastes already and I'm sitting comfortably  on level 20. I've also made preparations for Mega Flare, with a few melding spells already sitting waiting for the next ingredient. Poor Lucifier the cat never stood a chance.  

I didn't really play around with D-Link during my Terra playthrough but I have found it quite helpful with Ven. Calling upon Aqua to unleash both Magnara and Thundara makes it very easy to sweep away mobs when you haven't got access to these spells yourself. 

[Hero-of-Time]

That's the Ven story now done and dusted on Critical difficulty. As expected, this went faster than Terra's run due to knowing how to deal with enemies, what moves to use and where to grind. I finished it a good 5 hours quicker.

The last boss was a pushover and much easier than what Terra had to fight. I was level 45 and had a deck of Mega Flare, Mine Trap and the rest were full of Curagas. Dude didn't stand a chance.

I was great seeing Axel/Lea in his younger days, as well as some of the other members of Organization XIII. 

Time for my Aqua playthrough.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Hero-of-Time