I picked this video back up a couple days later and I was like "damn, maybe we shoulda let BBS's plot cook". Then I remembered that this is Sight's categorically superior AU and the only thing BBS should be cooking is a bowl of cereal.
It's never said that kairi "borrowed" a keyblade from Riku. He GAVE her one. It has a completely different design from his, and he never takes it back or anything. Also, Sora didn't get the ability to use a keyblade from Ventus. The kingdom key chose him, even though it was bequeathed to Riku. I don't mean any offense, neither do I want to start an internet argument, but it bothered me a little so I thought I'd correct that.
@mafra3117 that simply because of the fragmented piece of Ventus' heart in Sora's. Has nothing to do with keyblade. The most you could argue is the keyblade went to Sora after Riku fell to darkness due to a bit of Ventus' heart but again that's just a no-prize explanation.
@mafra3117 so at some point in BBS Ventus was in super danger and was almost eradicated but sent his heart to the nearest place for safety and it found Sora even he was a kid. Sora agreed to protect his heart when he was young and sorta forgot so when he went Heartless in KH1 the nobody that showed up took shape because of Ventus being pure light at that point gave him some material to take shape and formed Roxas. It's partially why Wanitas looks like evil Sora too but that's even harder to explain
Yeah, but even this explanation has holes in it. If Sora got the keyblade that was supposedly bequeathed to Riku, how did Riku just manifest his own independent of Sora's later on? The difference in appearance could also just be explained as the keychain being swapped out. We don't see him take it back from Kairi, but we also don't really see her use it again for a LONG time (and only in a later entry), so in the context of KH2, it's plausible that he just took it back off screen. I'm not saying I agree with Sight's "borrowing" explanation, but the fact is that the rules relating to keyblade ownership and inheritance are vague and convoluted, largely due to numerous retcons, making some level of interpretation necessary. Sharing a heart or being someone's Nobody/replica is sufficient in other entries to bestow the ability to wield a keyblade (see Roxas and Xion), so it stands to reason that Sora could wield a keyblade because he was a vessel for Ventus. Thematically, it also lines up since the game clearly establishes Ventus, Terra, and Aqua as being parallels to Sora, Riku, and Kairi, respectively, even down to the etymology of their names. Each of these pairs have an event in BBS that links them to each other: Terra's encounter with Riku on Destiny Islands, Aqua's encounter with Kairi in Radiant Garden, and Sora sheltering Ventus' disembodied heart. Given that it's strongly implied that Terra and Aqua bequeathed their keyblades during these moments, it would be a weird and incongruent choice to not have the same hold true for the pair of Ventus and Sora. That said, the whole "keyblade bequeathing" thing is really stupid, sucks the remaining magic and mystery out of the keyblade, and has its own share of inconsistencies. Clearly, bequeathing a keyblade isn't a hard requirement to using one since Axel just kind of manifests one despite not going through the ceremony. The ceremony also doesn't literally give that keyblade to the bestowee, since Lingering Will still has his keyblade despite Sora supposedly wielding the one Terra bestowed. Even if the one Terra bestowed is actually Riku's Way to the Dawn, that one is still accounted for. The keyblade warriors during the Age of Fairytales just made and used them as replicas of the X-blade, so that doesn't match, either. So if bestowing isn't a requirement to wield a keyblade, and it doesn't transfer ownership of an existing keyblade, what does it actually do? How can the game simultaneously claim that a keyblade chooses its wielder and also that it can be bestowed, when these two things are clearly contradictory? Etc, etc.
@@kbm_seymour nomura has already come out and said that ventus had nothing to do with sora wielding the keyblade, the keyblade canonically choose him. the story never says that sora has a keyblade because of ventus it just says that hes asleep in sora's heart
I don’t remember but I don’t think anyone passed the ability like aqua and terra did but sora was chosen because riku turned to the darkness And then the whole thing with ven and keyblade is that he’s the reason sora can hold 2 keyblades in KH2 This technically means sora can’t do that anymore as of KH3s end ( although if kiari could have a keyblade that early on as well it’s interesting that as far back as KH1 sora could have been zoro with 3 keyblades
Just a reminder that Aqua was about to kill 3 ultimately "innocent" humans (even if they are jerks) because she heard that they might have darkness inside of them. But Terra is treated as the "bad" one because he got forcefully manipulated by a powerful sorceress to "kill" a princess.
Which three were they again? I forgot so much about this game because, like, all the cutscenes amount to 12 hours and a bog to go through here on UA-cam
Lol Aqua was completely justified Cinderella's fam were jerks Lol nah, I love that cutscene. I was thinking "She was gonna kill them....?? ..... Christ Aqua! Relax!!"
What do you think about Vanitas appearance? Vanitas: I look like Sora because I am your other side and Sora was the part you needed to complete your heart again. Ventus: WTF?!
I think the forgetfulness of Ventus’s story is only highlighted in the character selection. All three of their descriptions describe some personality traits before also describing an aspect of their characters outside of personality. Terra’s says he feels compelled to find greater strength, which lines up. Aqua’s says her sense of right and wrong never wavers. Also lines up. Both of these describe a pretty crucial aspect of their journeys, with Terra wanting to become more powerful and Aqua’s consistency in her black-and-white worldview (even if it isn’t done well). Ventus? His says he holds his Keyblade backhand. Not some key part of his character or his story, just “he holds his weapon funny”.
Oh just wait, the reason Ven holds it funny is gonna somehow change how we understand everything whenever Nomura gets around to explaining it in a spinoff trilogy where each platform only gets one of the three games
okay, the protection charm was how Kairi was able to meld into Sora's heart. Kairi touched Aqua's keyblade and it saw her as a person who shall wield a keyblade. hence why the keyblade she had received from Riku didn't leave her hand, with Leon and jack Sparrow it leaves their hand after a couple seconds not seeing them worthy.
While i get that you dont like how the keyblade is less special as the series moves foward, i don't get it how is Retcon to have multiple keyblades or that was always finite. By ReCom we are shown 3 active Keyblade wielders. By 2 that numbers goes up to 5 and starts to mention a keyblade wars and how there's clearly more keyblade wielders in the past.
Back when kh2 was first released, before bbs was even teased and I thought Sora was going to die in the next game, my first assumption upon seeing an entire field of keys stuck in the ground was that there was a large battle of some sort, hence a war. It definitely carried a largely desolate feeling. It was just confirmed in BBS after that, so it was mostly an implication that was confirmed after the fact. Much like how the hooded figure (Roxas) dual wielding keyblades in the KH1 secret ending implied that there was more than 2 Keyblades which then was answered in KH2
@@CaleMcGowan fellas, worst games are obviously between BBS, DDD, and KH3. The h.a.n.d. DS games were at least true to what came before. The abilities systems took a portable turn sure, but the combat was smooth and innovative. Osaka started a floatfest, all over their command deck/attack animations being lazily slopped together. They kept the trend going by reusing the same system in DDD, and toned it down making KH3 animations just a LITTLE floaty. The floats ruin the gameplay, ruins pretty much the whole game for me, I haven’t touched those games since I beat them.
@@mistayoutubah kh3 is no where near the worst game in the series, disappointing? Definitely. I agree with DDD solely because of the stupid dream eaters and the fact that it poorly introduces time travel.
Dream Drop Distance's glossary explains that the Keyblade of Heart is actually a third type of Keyblade, although we know almost nothing about it than it's type and that it IS a Keyblade. There are a total of three types: Light (which almost everybody on the cast uses including Riku, Sora AND Xehanort), Dark (Mickey's Kingdom Key D) and Heart (that one from KH1 that doesn't have much to do with the plot).
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall I really enjoyed and agree, it IS convoluted. The worst thing is that the Keyblade Type explanation is really useful if mentioned by the characters and being shown more effectively. But anyway, Nomura didn't even bother to give Xemnas a Keyblade (even though he had one), so guess I can't expect much from him trying to fill the gaps he made.
@@ilucasz about xemnas I thought it was obvious that he can't use the keyblade since he's a nobody and nobody are just hollow shell with no hearts and you need a strong heart to wield one
I respectfully disagree with a decent amount of this but you make very valid points, this was the first step in KH becoming overly complicated, but I think DDD was even worse about that and while I still love the games including these 2, I miss the simple times before Bbs
Just because 3D was worse with it doesn't excuse the fact BBS started it. It was just continuing what BBS started, plans within plans, story details meant to sequel bait, taking away the magic of the series. It effectively killed in narratively, and it's gameplay is surprisingly incompetent
@@cryguy0000 "Just because 3D was worse with it doesn't excuse the fact BBS started it." On a core level, sure. Three's some writing stuff that probably carried over and never corrected (except the EN voice drection, that did improve). But on an execution level, I kind of disagree. The thing I hate the most about DDD is what it retroactively does to other games AND future games. Because it adds mechanics that let people mess with the timeline and entire world order. I could do an entire rant on retroactive time travel but I think people watching a 2 hour KH video gets that. What I think is REALLY underhated is the whole "power of waking" ability. Which was a horrible mcGuffin in Kh3 that made it feel the most meandering game yet, and is now a convenient, barely explained excuse to just jump to new dimensions. Also Sleeping Worlds were a meh excuse for new worlds, even if I love Symphony of Sorcery. UX kinda saves some of the hate I had for Dream Eaters, but also angers me as yet another mechanic used to bridge timelines. Cool, now anyone in UX (that didn't *spoiler*) can be in KH4 because they were hibernating (and we know eventually they will find a way to turn dream eaters back. Probably Power of Waking), and the rest of the UX crew has time travel. Good job DDD. While people may not like the retcons in BBS (I like them fwiw), they don't fundamentally change much of the OG trilogy or Days. So even if I hated BBS I can't hate it more than DDD because it's harmless in the grand scheme of things. They could never show the wayfinder trio in KH4/5/6 and it wouldn't really miss much. Even stuff like Bequeathing could be explained by Dark Road instead of BBS (Mark of Mastery is covered by DDD if you skip BBS). It may introduce OG Xehanort, but TBH it would be kinda cool if you skipped BBS and then you get a reveal of the OG by the end of DDD. You'd just miss the chance to see him flex his power like he did in that cool KH2 secret ending)
@@cryguy0000BBS did start the messy crap, that's absolutely true and there's no excuse for it all, but it's ALSO true that DDD just did everything worse aswell. Both of these suck, but for different reasons Except for getting Magnet or Ars Solum early, that's actually fun at least
@d.saunders2506 Say what you will about KH2 overcomplicating things - and there is in fact plenty to say on the matter - all of the information and lore KH2 introduced was digestible and understandable within the context of its runtime, without any additional context required to understand or appreciate what's going on. BBS, in comparison, introduces so much absolute nonsense, and elaborates on... well, less than half of it, with concepts that they actually try to explain still not making sense. Arguably it does this even worse than DDD, if only because it has so many more things that require more context, while DDD mostly just utilizes time travel with the worst execution I've ever seen.
I don't think keyblade "borrowing" in the pre-BBS games is as clear-cut as you make it seem. The scene with Jack Sparrow isn't meant to show that Sora can lend out keyblades. It shows that a keyblade can't be used by anyone that isn't its master and will immediately warp back to them. It's like an anti-theft mechanism. This is further backed up by the scene before the Sephiroth fight. But then again, maybe Riku can?? Like, he clearly hands one to Kari. Where did it come from? How long can she keep it? idk. confusing stuff
I think the true but unfortunate answer is that lending out keyblades was never a thing, and that scene with Riku handing Kairi a keyblade was more or less a narrative mistake. Every other interaction in the series prior to BBS related to keyblades is pretty consistent about the keyblade only being usable by someone it deems worthy, which explains what happens w/ Leon and Jack Sparrow. The anti-theft explanation doesn't quite line up since Riku is able to "take" Sora's keyblade in KH1 (who arguably "took" it from Riku first) and Riku is able to use Roxas' keyblade during their fight. If the keyblade only cares if the wielder is worthy and not if the wielder is its single master, this all still makes sense. Roxas being able to use the keyblade can be explained as him getting that ability by proxy through Sora, which would also hold true for Xion. Riku just handing Kairi a keyblade with its own unique thematically-fitting keychain out of thin air while still having his own is so contrary to the established rules of the keyblade that it's honestly baffling. My guess is that they wanted Kairi to have a more pro-active role towards the end of the story in KH2 and make good on her promise to protect Sora for a change, so they contrived this scenario to make that possible at the expense of the established rules of the universe.
Although I disagree with some of your points I do agree that BBS was the start of the convolute mess that lead into Dream Drop. Most fandoms use retcons at one point or other and it's understandable. I love BBS despite the character and story flaws. I'm going through the series with my wife for the first time. We went through BBS before KH1 and it hit different. I enjoyed the series in a different way now that BBS is a prequels. I can respect your opinion unlike most of the other comments here. I get the same hate when I'm on star wars content talking crap about the sequel trilogy.
I think the most fundamental disagreement I have that covers a lot of Sight's critiques is this: BBS was a PS2 game that got scaled down to a PSP game and probably had a crapton cut. It is one of the most ambitious PSP games along with FF Type 0, but it is also being compared to some of the best Action RPGs in the PS2 era (some would argue the best ARPG gameplay of all time). I will have my biases here simply because I originally played this on PSP and it was mind blowing in a very early smartphone era (for reference, this was during the Iphone 3G days, a full year before IPhone 4 would show off Infinity Blade) to have something like KH1.5 in my pocket. The glow up going from Days a year prior was simply unheard of. So wihle I agree with many critiques I also excuse them I suppose. Is the camera rough? Yup, but the PSP didn't have a right analog stick. Could there have been more story/playtime? I guess, but a 30 hour RPG on a handheld was already on the longer side, and this thing was one of the largest PSP games as is if you dowloaded an ISO. Are the worlds empty? I guess... but lack of environment detail would be an issue until DDD (Good details and verticality, but the had to make areas HUGE and make it feel empty anyway).
My God, a civil, well adjusted human being. In 2024? I can't believe it. I'm with you in that I don't really agree with all of sights points or opinions, but he does raise some good ones. I'm glad there is some level of healthy discussion, and especially glad that you got pinned. Awesome display of character on sights part for giving light to the people that don't agree with him in a healthy manner.
Arguing your point is different from not being able to handle opinions. From what I've seen, people are just debating their side. Saying things along the lines of "Your opinion sucks, and I hate you" would be not being able to handle an opinion. Saying "I disagree with you, and here's reasons why:" is just debating. A lot of people don't seem to be able to differentiate between debating and not being able to handle differences.
One thing i definitely dont get about this games story is how eraqus isn't aware xehanort is evil. And how he just lets xehanort beam a evil darkness on his face. And eraqus does nothing about it. Instead he just wants to kill ventus and terra instead of handling his old friend xehanort.
Totally. This is sort of explained in KH:Dark Road where you see the friendship of YX and Eraqus. But even then it's odd Erqaus just overlooks this and is never concerned or does anything to fix it
I'm assuming that first cutscene with Xehanort bodying Eraquis was many years apart to where Xehanort wrote Eraquis apologizing to him and/or bringing Ventus there. Before that happened, i don't think could've really done anything against Xehanort at their clash at the Land Of Departure. Xehanort was pretty strong bit was also growing stronger due to the power of darkness, which has been used many times to give huge amps. Not to mention, there wasn't many reliable ways to track him down. You could also mark it up as Eraquis bring pretty naive to accept his apology too 😅
@@taecampus That basically is what happened, yeah. Eraqus basically went "Well, he IS one of my only surviving friends and my children, effectively, ARE having a big day, it'd be stupid not to invite him if HE'S willing to reach out, right?" only for things to then break down completely. Great tragery of betrayal and everything Then that was retconned in KH3
@@PixelHeroViish yeah, I love KH3 alot but I wasn't a fan of them switch Xehanort's true intentions towards the end. I know in Dark Road it covers that, goes deeper into that and actually does pretty well with that plot/future intentions.... It was just never really hinted beforehand that he wanted to essentially restart everything. Be just seemed like an old guy who thought darkness was the true essence of everything
@@taecampus It's extra funny cuz the whole "Balance" thing was at some point mentioned BY HIM, I believe, so he was just a straight-up extreme about his methods curious old man Honestly they could've laid the building blocks for his KH3 motivation in this one quite easily
It’s kind of weird to say that BBS is the worst KH game (barring the mobile game), since I’ve played it the most out of every KH game. But… it really is the worst. The combat is the worst the series gets, as it’s a broken, convoluted, exploitable mess. As for the story of BBS… yeah no. It’s the beginning of the end times. It’s not the WORST story in KH, as that goes to KH3, but it’s pretty bad. It’s a much worse Revenge of the Sith; it’s like all good aspects of the movie was stripped away, and replaced with cardboard cutouts to represent where those things WOULD be (such as the story and characters).
Also random thing. You mention that the VAs didn’t do good in this game because of some reasons that I don’t care about. If I’m not mistaken, didn’t Christopher Lee read the ENTIRE script of KH2 so that he could portray Ansem the Wise the best he could? Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant though, since even if he didn’t, he clearly gave it his all. I don’t know why the BBS team/VAs decided to both write and make the main trio speak in such a way that makes them the audio equivalent of watching paint dry, but boy do I hate it.
It's funny because kh2 has a terrible story. But because it has the Best gameplay ( i almost agree) no one bats an eye. BBS does have some problems from being portable, sames as mgs peace walker. But they are so impresive as portable games that i think they deserve some Slack.
@@Metalgearfox2000 No, people “give KH2’s story a pass” because it isn’t bad at all. What are you on about? As for “give it credit for being a portable game”, reminder that 358 Days came out before BBS, on weaker hardware (the DS), and was still a better game than BBS.
@@Metalgearfox2000 If you think that over half the game was a waste of time, you weren’t paying attention to the story of KH2 at all. Your first visits to most of the Disney worlds isn’t pointless. For starters, you are unknowingly working to help Org 13 by trekking through the Disney worlds, as releasing the hearts helps Org 13 with their goals. You don’t know that until you’re hit with the revelation in Hollow Bastion’s revisit, which wouldn’t have as much of a punch to it if you had known beforehand that you were helping the villains. You’re lulled into a false sense of security; that the game will be very story-lite and it’s just a nice romp through the Disney worlds, until you have the rug ripped out from under your feet. By no means do I think KH2’s story is the best or anything, but it has a reason for being structured the way it is. I prefer KH1’s story, but I’m not going to pretend like 2’s is bad because it’s structured in a way I don’t prefer. Could the 1st visits to Disney worlds have used more foreshadowing and symbolism for Org 13, like how the Experiment enemy from Halloween Town is a clear parallel to the nobodies? Absolutely, it absolutely could have used more of it. Setups and payoffs, friend. Claiming that half the game is “objectively a waste of time” is disingenuous. As for BBS, the game’s story isn’t a “waste of time” in the sense that nothing happens, a lot happens actually. It’s just that what happens is complete garbage, where every character acts like a moron and makes stupid decisions that the game pretends are rational and wise.
While I personally dislike Dream Drop Distance infinitely more than any other game in the series, I still appreciate everything you've brought here. To this day I see so many people defending this game both gameplay and story wise which I just never got, it always marked a severe downfall in quality for KH games for me.
Aqua and terra had already been learning under eraqus for 1-2 years before Ventus joined them, that's why they were allowed to take the mark of mastery test and Ventus wasnt, they are upper class men graduating and Ventus still has years left to train The mark of mastery isn't a contest between terra and aqua, just because you are sparring with someone doesn't mean the outcome of the fight matters, they could both pass, they could both fail, or only one of them could pass as it turns out aqua did, the judges watch the participants on their form and composure to determine whether to graduate them, eraqus is blind like a fool about xehanort manipulating tera, but his decision to fail terra for channeling dark energy is understandable based on his metrics for keyblade master You asking "who is this terra guy and why are they calling roxas Ventus?" Is no different than asking "where's sora?" At the start of KH2, you need to play the game(s) or watch the movie to understand the plot of something you can't knock a story because you don't understand the plot that hasn't been explained yet It's fair to say Nomura is too mysterious or cryptic with full context of the whole story, most people would agree KH in it's entirety is too convoluted but it's not fair to say BBS is a bad story right out of the gate because you don't understand what hasn't been explained yet BBS and DDD are set up for the pay off that was supposed to come from KH3, it's more correct to blame KH3 for not satisfactorily paying off what BBS started, and also Nomura for going back further to khux and dark road, which answers some questions but opens many more You can also blame Nomura for not making KH3 the final game in the series and instead choosing to go to KH4 and beyond to answer questions But you cant blame BBS for destroying the story because BBS was never meant to have answers or an ending it was always set up, it matters what they do with the set up whether the set up mattered
The setup was a bad mess that kh3 had to clean up, overcomplicated mess, too many answers to stuff unto one game, with the questions themselves executed horribly. Should have had half the games we had as 'setup'.
I've watched your previous retrospectives covering KH1, Re: CoM, 2, Days and Re: Coded. I have now watched this and I've got to say... I don't think I've seen so much negativity towards anything in a long time. In all of these videos you kept pointing how you find so many bosses/levels boring, the worst, etc. It's not pleasant to hear a guy talking mostly negative things about games you love. As for BBS itself, I'm not a huge fan of this game either, but it's definately not a 1/10 as you've claimed. The game has its issues like the combat being floaty and broken and the story being cheesy, but a lot of people (including myself) still find joy in this game and we can just respectfully disagree in that regard, HOWEVER calling it a 1/10 game was such a dumb statement. Come on, the music? The setpieces? The content? I'm still not sure if the fact that you've put so much time into making all those videos saying negative things should concern me or should I appreciate your hard work...
For Kairi gaining a keyblade, Aqua accidentally bequeathed her it's so funny to me 😭 (Kairi ran up to Aqua and touched her keyblade, IT'S THE EXCUSE I HEAR AND IT'S DUMB)
the combat in this game sucks, but every plot-relevant critique you have just comes from you not understanding (or sometimes straight up ignoring) context given in the previous titles. I understand not wanting to read the Ansem reports, but they DO explain away a lot of your gripes.
Ok, to get this out of the way... There was _never_ supposed to be one Keyblade. Triton mentioned several Keyblade wielders, describing them as people who brought nothing but death and destruction. There was also Mickey wielding a Keyblade, and the Keyblade of Heart (Which, as explained in-game, was made up of the 7 Princesses of Heart's pure lights, or at least it would've if Kairi wasn't inside Sora's heart.). As for Kairi, by touching Aqua's Keyblade, she effectively was bequeathed one, even if it was never official. She unconsciously summoned one, but because she never had experience, it ended up with Riku, and so when he gave it to her, he was essentially returning what was hers. As for Way to the Dawn, it was the result of Riku gaining enough strength of heart, plus light, to finally be able to wield one of his own. As he still uses the darkness in tandem with Light, it's based off Soul Eater.
I mean...do you really want to do this? Because everything you listed is either wrong, based on your own individual interpretation of eventsand not canonical, or retroactively explained in a future game, with the exception of the Keyblade of People's Hearts
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall From Nomura himself in the Director's Secret Reports XIII: p. 28; Tetsuya Nomura: "There isn't just one Keyblade for the side of light and one for darkness. There are as many Keyblades in existence as there are hearts qualified to wield them. At this stage, the only requirement that has been made clear is that someone must have a "strong heart", but there are other requirements that haven't been spelled out yet which I plan to reveal another time when I have the chance. Riku's Way to the Dawn and the Keyblade Kairi wields are of the same nature as Sora's Keyblade. However, what with one having developed with the Soul Eater as intermediary and one having been handed to Kairi by Riku, I would like you to think that something not fully explained, outside the usual method of acquirement, is going on here."
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall Also, the bequeathing, as shown with Riku, happens through the receiver touching the bequeather's Keyblade. Kairi touched Aqua's Keyblade, and thus, even if accidental, was bequeathed.
So, let me get this straight: you expect me to trust an extra report that came in a limited edition of a Japanese exclusive booklet for the limited edition of KH2FM? From a guy that changes his mind and introduces new out-of-nowhere twists very regularly because he thinks it's cool? You don't have any examples in the games themselves, no argument based on evidence that the games present to us? Where was this information in KH2FM. I read the reports in that game, and there was nothing of the sort mentioned. If it isn't clear, I heavily believe in this: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathOfTheAuthor
See, that's an example of you projecting your interpretation and/or pulling from future entries. Nowhere is that stated clearly in BBS. You might be able to point to future entries, but in BBS and before, there's nothing of the sort.
This was definitely a pretty thorough critique. I used to like BBS a fair bit but overtime and with a few more replays I’ve grown a lot more critical of it. Thing is, I can split my feelings on KH games pretty neatly: you’ve got entries with both strong gameplay and enjoyable stories (for all their um…quirks) like KH1 and 2. You’ve got entries here I think the gameplay is satisfying but the story is either flawed or outright bad, like Coded or to an extent 3. And games which have pretty good storytelling but weak gameplay, like COM, Days or to some extent Union/Dark Road. BBS is definitely on the lower end of the totem pole because it falls short in both. On a gameplay level it has a lot of the same problems as COM. Unsatisfying, easy to break combat with little incentive to experiment and get better and a lack of variety outside that lacklustre fighting. I don’t know if it was a result if the PSP’s hardware limitations, Osaka Team’s inexperience, rushed deadlines or all 3, but it drags down the experience a lot. And while I like the idea of multiple campaigns on paper, in practise they’re just way too repetitive. To the point that I’m glad the game is so short. As for story, there’s some good ideas and interesting character concepts. But the execution is very flat. I don’t really buy Terra, Aqua and Ventus’ friendship. And they’re all desperate in need of deeper exploration to reach their full potential (and tbf, Aqua did kinda get that in 0.2) As a prequel it’s way too fanservicey and focused on over explaining things that didn’t need it (often with unsatisfying answers). And, to come back to your Star Wars analogue, Xehanort is, for better and worse, KH’s Palpatine. He’s fun to watch but I never bought him as the manipulator the game frames him as because his plan is contrived as all get out. I don’t know if I’d call it quite the worst KH game. COM and the mobile games, despite some decent writing are less enjoyable to play for me. And DDD has a lot of the same issues for me as BBS but slightly worse. But BBS is definitely very low in my personal ranking of the series and was the turning point for a lot of problems that became really glaring in the series’ later years.
"Unsatisfying, easy to break combat with little incentive to experiment and get better and a lack of variety outside that lacklustre fighting. " Mini-rant, but even tho COM is my least favorite gameplay... isn't the incentive to experiment just for fun's sake? Like IDK. You don't need to unlock that many commands to beat BBS, but you also don't need to do a lot of things in the main entries that turn out to be really fun or outright broken. I never used summons in KH1/2/3 after first usage but it was cool they were in the game, and how others have used them to speedrun some hard fights. I didn't unlock too many growth skills in KH2 my first time, but in Final Mix they were insanely fun to use. I feel like part of the magic lost in critiques like this is the role playing aspect (and yeah, easy to forget but KH are RPGs). Aqua's Inferno Storm is unwieldy as heck and is never used casually because you basically unlock it at endgame. but MAN does it feel good to use. That's how a lot of those endgame stuff feels. ------ But if you want a more pragmatic explanation for these incentives: I believe the Mirage arena was that incentive. People playing the collections won't know, but the Mirage arena on PSP was an entire co-op battle arena that you could connect locally with friends to play through (or if you jumped through hoops and has a PS3, online). And in the PSP versions they designed the hardest bosses (which are REALLY cool btw, look them up if you never played Mirage Arena) under the assumption you would be using 3 players to take them down. it's a LOT of content that most people in the West would have never experenced, because the PSP couldn't do online multiplayer by itself and I wager 90%+ players simply lacked the friends with PSPs and BBS to do this with. If Pokemon couldn't overcome this gap, KH wouldn't. More importantly, I'm sure that was a lot of time being spend on development. So if you feel BBS was half-baked, you may have the Mirage Arena to blame. A cultural difference where the JP devs fully expected players to come together and duke it out together. Funnily enough, that dream may finally come to fruition over a decade later with Missing Link.
I'm glad to hear critiques of this game. You talk with KH fans and they treat BBS like the second coming of Christ, however to me it felt like a step back in every regard. Gameplay is boring, characters aren't interesting, and the plot is needlessly complicated and tries to set up this big backstory that came out of no where.
Yeah I think a lot of them have nostalgia goggles on. I was expecting the game to be a little worse than kh2 but upon playing I found the game to absolutely be a 1/10 for me from the floaty ass combat, to the shitty boss design, to the fact that you have to grind out commands and abilities to actually get the ones you want. Just a fucking slog of a game that I wanted to be over after I beat the Terra route
The best thing from bbs is the music when Ven gets frozen and the command board. Especially the command board. I played that game for hours and I was always sad when my stuff was maxed out. Don't remember much else lol
Check out the kh2fm secret cutscene it's the original version of that song and the video Fate of the Unknown is the song's name. The cutscenes in the game are based on taht short film.
Eh… I’d still pick DDD as the worst KH game, but that’s just me. At least you can beat this game at Level 1 without doing chip damage, and you can do some funny tech like Ignite and the Peter Pan D-Link thing. DDD doesn’t have Damage Floors, ergo you *always* do minimum damage, ergo using Balloon/Firaga Burst strats is the primary way to get anything done within your lifetime. EXP Zero means nothing in that game, unlike this, KH2, and KH1.
While the damage floor point was technically true, it's interesting to note that that issue was only fixed in the HD remaster of BBS, and even then, they overcompensated and made level 1 crit one of the easier ways to play by buffing your damage after a certain point. While I stand by my statement that BBS is the worst, perhaps a better way of framing it within the context of the series is that BBS had the most squandered potential. DDD was always going to be subpar with the story it had. BBS had tons of potential, and it was wasted.
You can do fine damage in DDD lvl1. With optimized spirit builds and magic boosts you can do maybe even better damage than bbs. DDD YX lvl1 no commands is one of my favorite kh videos on youtube and it proves this
@@johangodojolo8652 You… do understand that *one optimized fight* doesn’t prove anything other than “being the exception and not the rule?” Anything that requires the time, tedium, and RNG involved in the optimization of the spirits… JUST to make DDD *function like a normal KH game* is not a good defense. You are jumping through so many hoops, just to meet the *base standard* of what your damage output *should have been,* had damage floors been a thing from the get-go. Instead of providing me an *end-game* fight as your “proof,” did you ever stop to think about how *getting to that point* would’ve looked? Please. *Play the game* up to that point and tell me how that worked out for you for every World.
@@Deoxys_Used_Mimic Pls look at my channel. I've uploaded an entire DDD lvl1 no spirits run. I'm well aware of how DDD functions. Pls dont assume stuff you don't know to make a point. I have no idea what you're talking about in terms of sprit optimization tedium. It's a very simple process to get the right spirits for a good build and there's next to no significant rng involved. And yea there is a little but of grinding to get a build suitable for a fucking lvl1 run but that's to be expected isn't it. KH3 has you grinding for star medals and keyblade upgrades. KH2 has you grinding growth abilities and equipment. BBS has the most grindy lvl1 run by miles with its absurdly long command/abilities grinds. I used Young Xehanort as the example here because hes the hardest fight in the game. You can just as easily use a powerful strength build in any other fight in the game to do comperable levels of damage. I'm also not exactly sure why you're using the lvl1 run as some sort of standard for the entire games quality here. Yeah DDD doesn't have very good damage scaling but I'm not seeing how it makes the game on any playthrough thats not lvl1 bad. BBS also has dogshit damage scaling with no damage floor. They just threw in a random hidden ability on 0 EXP to make lvl1 possible instead of actually fixing the issue at its source. Only on the console version tho. PSP has to live with a lvl1 that is incapable of letting you do anything more than the smallest chip damage possible.
You open with "BBS has none of the nuance or theming of Kingdom Hearts" but every point you make is just you being bewildered and confused by actual nuance. For one, the Unversed are Vanitas, taken shape through his negative emotions(and later other people's). Negative emotions are not darkness, and darkness in KH is not "Evil" in any way (See CoM, and Riku's story in general throughout the games), darkness is entropy and finality, which is made very clear just about everywhere in the entire series, with the exception of KH1 maybe. Lines like "The protagonists should know the full scope of the villain's plan" make me wonder if this is your first KH game. That has literally never once been a thing in KH. Or lines like "The Kai blade is a worthless object, it's formed and then it's destroyed 2 minutes later by only 2 keyblade wielders, 3 if you count Ventus fighting Vanitas in his own heart", like you really didn't get the exposition about the XBlade? I don't believe you. I think you're just trying to make it sound incomprehensible. The Xblade is forged when pure light and pure darkness fight. Once it is formed, it is visually revealed that the pure light and darkness are locked in a perpetual fight inside it, which is what fuels it. The one to actually break the XBlade is Ventus, by ending the perpetual fight, through Aqua's help, weakening Vanitas' body from the outside. Obviously if the XBlade is forged and Xehanort gets a hold of it, that's it. That opens the door to the true Kingdom Hearts for Xehanort, so to say that it has no importance to the plot is obviously stupid, and I think you knew it was stupid as your voice shakes when you say it. I mean some of the stuff you're saying is really over the top, sounds like parody. "The trio doesn't get any development from going through the disney worlds", is just plainly insane. You could maybe make a very disingenuous argument about Terra learning to not succumb to darkness (by being obsessed with gaining power to defend his friends) through his interactions with the Disney characters being worthless because he technically ends up succumbing to darkness in the end anyway, but that's as far as you can push it. Aqua learns that there's more to life than just following Master Eraqus' mission, and that other things, like Terra and Ventus, are more important to her. She learns to be more empathetic, caring and flexible by the end, when at the beginning she's ready to murder anyone who harbors darkness. Ventus learns that he's actually very capable, earns confidence and builds character and his own set of morals. He's a baby at the beginning of the game, and only follows Terra like a puppy because he childishly wants to be considered a grown up like the others. Other claims about the gameplay are even dumber, stuff like Terra not having a good dodge, when Terra is very obviously a stand-your-ground type character, who guards and counters better than Ventus and Aqua. Where Terra has dead recovery frames between dodging, Ventus and Aqua have those after guarding or countering. They're different characters and you're trying to play them all the same way. Moreover, any claim of difficulty in BBS is crazy when D-links exist and Peter Pan or Mickey oneshot almost every boss in the game on Lv1 Critical. Agree on shotlocks, but that's quite possibly the lowest hanging fruit in the series. Honestly I just feel stupid even responding to this.
Ventus didn't qualify because he was too young, Xehanort's reports show that the keyblade war was ancient more so than any of them, at no point is it hinted that the key blade given to Kairi is a loaner, and all the dialog that hinted that there was only 1 was spoken by people who knew nothing about the keyblade.
You have to consider that Prince Philipp was in that cell and Aqua meets him when Maleficent sends her there, it would have had them to make Ventus meet Philipp just because of a small room, maybe it was locked by Maleficent's magic.
Then that should have been explained, instead of just "What, there might something be in there? Well, not for me tho!" It's literally as easy as implementing a textbox saying something akin to "The door won't open. Must be locked."
I know it’s your opinion, but 1/10 is kind of harsh, I would give it like maybe a 6/10 it’s not the worst, I’d say 358/2 Days is the worst game in the series, I literally only beat that game one time, and never touched it again. Each Kingdom Hearts game, I have came back for a replay, I tried to do 358/2 Days again, and I just couldn’t do it, it’s just so soulless and boring and mundane and clunky.
I see we have a CoM enjoyer here. Jokes aside I do agree with most points but the game is so non-challenging that just casually going through the game as flawed as it is was still fun to me. Flashy cool stuff happening(as impractical as it becomes at the end game) is still cool to look at. There are some very good moments and though the story is weak its not convoluted as later entries. I actually like the mini-games for what they are. I rarely ever take a KH title seriously enough to fully complete every single task anymore. Also I like the re-write of making Aqua related to Eraqus especially considering KHX has recently started to make bloodlines a theme now.
i'm 5 minutes in and every complaint has been from a misunderstanding of Kingdom Hearts lore (even prior to BBS, lots of BBS lore was established in 2 if you actually beat it) or from a misunderstanding of things, I just got to the part where you say "It's not a competition between them so why are they fighting" It wasn't to see who was better it was to make sure neither of them would exploit darkness which is why Terra failed.
hey, thanks for being approximately the 400th person to claim I don't know the Kingdom Hearts lore! if you'll direct your attention to my other multi-hour long KH videos, you'll see that I did indeed play the other games, and I'm sorry I came away from them with a different interpretation of some of the worst, most vague and unhelpful lore ever seen in a video game. Enjoy the rest of the video!!!!!!
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFallbut you dont understand kh lore tho? Lol you can 100% every game and still misunderstand things( this goes for every game or show or book ever etc)
I don't understand why these writers can't treat Aqua as an actual master with the stamina, strength and maturity required for that title. It's like there's some unwritten rule in KH that female characters have to play the damsel in distress when "push comes to shove."
What....? 😅 Besides given the title of being a Master, she kinda proved it as well mate. Besides trashing the Unversed in the many worlds, helping and saving people in those worlds. She kicks Vanitas butt like 3 times, granted Mickey was there the last time but Vanitas (Ventus fused) had the literal X-Blade. She pretty much beats Braig without resorting to darkness like Terra did. Changed her dying world into another, pretty much saving it from falling completely into the Realm of Darkness, while keeping Ventus safe and out of harms way. Beats up TerraNort, then saves him from falling into darkness. Then, while in the Realm of Darkness (aka KH Hell), she spends like 10 years fighting powerful heartless, saved Riku, got saved from the ROD and still fought evenly with an amped up Vanitas, without even resting. Not to mention the stuff she pulled off in the Keyblade Graveyard. She's far from a damsel in distress and definitely earn her title of being a master 😅
My biggest problems with this game's combat is it has too many systems and NONE of them are in service to one another. Like in kh2, the mp bar and the drive gauge are in service to each other, if you use magic or a limit youre in mp charge and your drive gauge fills up faster. If you use a drive form or a summon, your mp bar fills up completely. In bbs: commands, shotlocks, d-links, command styles, and finishers all have almost nothing to do with one another, the game has too many systems for no good reason. Shotlocks are op, but they have no reason to be in the game, they dont improve or add anything meaningful.
4:27 the Xehanort Reports in BBS literally talk about there not only being Keyblades of Light and Darkness, but also the Keyblade of Heart as well (Xehanort Report #6), which also shouldn't need much explanation as it's pretty much laid out in KH1 that it's made up of six of the seven hearts of the Princesses of Heart, only missing one piece, that being Kairi's (the negative space in the teeth is a heart, and it's missing a piece of metal to complete that shape. When Sora stabs himself to free Kairi, the keyblade separates into the seven hearts and they return to their respective persons) Riku did not let Kairi borrow a keyblade... if he did, which keyblade did he let her borrow? His own? He is literally holding Way to Dawn in that cutscene. Mickey's? He still had his. We don't know where Kairi's keyblade comes from yet. The likely explanation is that it's her own, but then the question comes up over why she doesn't have it before Riku gives it to her, which I have a theory about regarding the novel, but currently there is no canon explanation, though Nomura has said he may do something about it.
The reports still don't answer the question of why there are so many Keyblades of light and darkness now, when there were only pke each before now. Riku gifts Kairi a Keyblade in KH2, she doesn't have one of her own yet. We know there are other realms between light and darkness because of the existence of the Nobodies who exist between them, and they must exist in some space. So, I positited the possible of a Keyblade existing for a realm in-between light and darkness so Riku could use the Keyblade. KH2 never directly refers to Way to the Dawn as a Keyblade either, so my justification is a bit unnecessary anyway. Those reports you mentioned also don't explain the functional difference between Keyblades of light and darkness that would necessitate splitting them between light and dark, which is a whole other issue. Since when were Keyblades made of 'hearts'? That thing definitely made no sense, because they had to invent a whole new category of Keyblade to do so, according to another commenter.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall did you read my comment? I said that the keyblade of heart is literally made of the Princesses of Hearts' hearts. Watch the cutscene again, you'll see balls of light (their hearts) flying back to their respective bodies If Riku gifted Kairi a keyblade, under the explanation of there only being one keyblade per realm (which there are not; there is merely just a RoD counterpart to each RoL keyblade, not one per realm) where did that keyblade come from? If there is only one keyblade per realm, Sora has the RoL, Mickey has the RoD, and Riku (I guess, in your explanation, even though it's untrue) has the Realm Between. Where did hers come from, if Riku is wielding his own keyblade in the scene he gives her Destiny's Embrace?
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall also, the reports literally say "the first and second families differ only in origin," already explaining the difference between the Keyblades of Light and Darkness, in that there really isn't one, only that one of each is needed to seal the door to darkness from their respective sides (which we see in KH1, and is explained in 0.2 Fragmentary Passage if you want them to outright say it. Probably mentioned in some Nomura interviews at the time of KH1 as well, like with the confirmation that Sora was never the original recipient of the keyblade and Riku was, and how Sora only got the keyblade by reaching for the light in Riku's heart and *not* because Ventus was in his heart; that was never the reason. The reason has always been that Sora reached for the light of Riku's heart, and the keyblade went to Sora because Riku entered the corridor of darkness. Ventus never impacts Sora's ability to wield the keyblade. The only thing it *may* have allowed was his ability to dual wield, but that may as well have also been Roxas recombining with Sora. However, the presence of his heart was never the reason he was able to wield a keyblade, because even now, in the end of KH3, Sora can use Double Form and dual wield without the presence of Ventus, Roxas, or Xion's hearts) (this was meant to go into an edit of the original comment but for some reason it wouldn't allow it)
@@DaybreakTownGSA While I disagree with the rationale of the videocreator on Kairi's Keyblade being some sort of rent-blade making sense, I feel as though that's less contributing to BBS being justified and moreso KH2 also very much sucking interms of lore and story, because it just does whatever. Oh noes, the walls between worlds have been restored, so we can't just fly to them anymore! Do we use some sort of clever way to get there, like opening up the walls again with the Keyblade or sth at the risk of dankness coming in or use Disney Backward's magic to port around or possibly even some sort of advanced technology? Nah, we just write in Deus Ex World-pathways. Pathways that don't even make sense, because they are connected to absolutely random objects in the worlds that sometime didn't even exist 5 minutes ago.(Also, we ignore the fact that by lore, the worlds that Sora didn't visit in KH1 still have the doors to their hearts unsealed.)
@@lpfan4491 I mean, I disagree? The worlds Sora didnt visit likely fell to darkness before the events of KH1 (as is the likely case for most of the princess of hearts' worlds, confirmed to be the case for Beast's Castle as he arrived in Hollow Bastion using a Dark Corridor that destroyed his home world, also same goes for Mushu, Simba, any of the summons in kh1 as Fairy Godmother says they survived their worlds falling to darkness), or during the final stretch of the End of the World, after which Sora defeated Ansem, closed the door to darkness, and all worlds were returned to the realm of light (or in-between in the case of Twilight Town and Yen Sid's Tower), the only ones that weren't fully restored became the sleeping worlds we unlock in DDD After the worlds were restored after KH1, they restored their world barriers, and as defense mechanisms while they were reforming, created gates to ward off darkness and intruders, only being opened by Sora, or someone wielding the keyblade, unlocking them by finding an object central to the specific world or its inhabitants, or that represent the bond Sora has forged with the hearts of said world/inhabitants None of them are just "random objects," they all mean something to either the world's inhabitants or the connection Sora has with them. The only one that is actually random is Atlantica I guess, but KH2 Atlantica also threw out the lore of King Triton knowing of other keyblade wielders so [shrug]
eh, I really loved this game, but I understand that BBS is one of those games everyone either really loves or hates. for me the worst game was probably Re:Coded
@@tigerfestivals5137gameplay of coded is actually very fun, it’s a complete 180 to 358/2 days which the story while good it’s gameplay pacing is absolutely horrendous
When aqua gives kairi the charm its assumed that it activates in kh1 when she becomes apart of sora hence the light within you will lead you to another light
Doesn’t Nomura specifically state in an interview that Sora inherited nothing from Ventus’. Sora only got the keyblade because Riku succumbed to darkness in order to leave the islands. I also believe Roxas never had Ventus’ heart. If he did, I don’t think Roxas would have grown his own heart.
The only thing Sora got from Ventus was an accidental inheritance of the keyblade when Ventus heart was looking where to find refuge. The reason why Roxas looks like Ventus is because Ventus heart was inside of Sora so he took that look. And Vanitas looks like Sora cause he copied that form at his creation. Also this guy just doesn't give a shit about anything in the story he himself doesn't pick so ignore him.
This comment section made me realize the community is split between people who take Nomura at his every word despite him being known for basically making shit up as he goes and people like you who realize certain things will fall apart the moment you start to question them
It's funny when people deny Retconning in the series as well. Nomura himself has admitted that he hadn't planned everything out and left a lot of plot points open ended, yet some people in the fanbase truly believe that the first game was always meant to lead up into time travel, puppet bodies and dream eaters.
Really great breakdown of the game and pointing out all its strengths and its many flaws. In a time when there was no 3D KH game on handhelds, it was great to have this game, but it indeed set a standard for many ideas that help the series to this day. I love the story ideas you suggested at the end and it really made the story sound so much more rich and interesting.
BBS is not a bad game but it gets old real fast, I don't know why some people put it at the same level of KH2 when there is a massive divide in quality, I even find DDD better than BBS because at least DDD is respectful of my time and it doesn't force me to play a game 3 times.
I can't use that backstory because it wasn't presented in BBS proper, nor in a game that came out before it. Just like I can't take Poe Dameron's backstory from Star Wars Episode IX when considering how his character is presented in Episode VII. Knowledge gained from future entries can't count toward the analysis of a product, because the analysis is based on the game as it stood when it released.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall You don’t need to explain a character story in their debut game, especially since it’s an ongoing story. Ventus was a complete mystery in BBS, we had no idea where Xehanort found him, and now thanks to Union X, we know his past and now we know why Xehanort was invested in him.
I'm playing it right now after having beaten KH1 & 2 years ago and I'm not enjoying it as much as I expected it to be my biggest grip right now is gameplay but after seeing your video it becomes more apparent how lame the story really is
Genuinely love the story tweaks you gave out as it really naturally fuels the tension and emotion between the trio and everyone else. The way Terra actually SHOWS HIM FALLING TO DARKNESS (understandably so here, too) with his backstory leading to his love for those he cares about fueling his fear of not being strong enough -> making him more susceptible to the corrupting forces of the darkness all while being jealous / fearful / etc of vanitas and hostile to aqua later sounds SICK. As a LORE game, i expected this to finally reveal more about the nature of dark and light as star wars animated shows have thanks to Filoni & crew, but we BARELY GET SHIT! Xenahort needed to be shown more time corroding to darkness in the way you described as "it now controlling him instead of the other way around", with his belief of a "balanced" light/dark scale being what drives him, though for him he should also have something similar to terra but the opppsite: overabundance of the light implies the narrative that its comfort weakens people to the point of being susceptible to greed, jealousy, laziness, etc. and xenahort should have revealed (or someone/thing should have revealed) a secret about his past being that his family or planet or whatever lost themselves in this gluttonous way when the light came, and sees darkness as almost a spiritually eugenic force to keep people strong- hinting at the bad fascist motto "good times create weak men, which create bad times, which bad times create strong men, which create good times, etc". The staunchness from aqua really would be great to see against xehanort here cause she would contrast heabily against him from both of their naivetes. Some other things too is that the keyblade war could very well have been humanity's first war of sorts, and the "god" or divine force that guides the wisdom of keyblades whether fragments of Chi blades or not began to "believe" more in the validity of the mark of mastery exams (which shouls have been played up more and shown as monumental, as its implied in the land of departure it used to be an acadamy of many wielders that fell dramatically short due to the ramifications of said war, as even characters mention that there may be few surviving wielders out there, etc) but basically therefore we see the divine keyblade only choose those with both the proper wisdom AND heart to wield, in which case sora was chosen in a rare instance of desperation via ONLY judging him based on his heart as said divine force felt "a disturbance in the force" per se when the first princess of heart was abducted and the barriers between worlds were traversed by the disney villains. Sure the charms of protection and whatnot by terra and aqua may have helped accelerate the process or allow the keyblade god (lol) an easier time making such a desperate decision, but to me its still much more coherent while also implying the keyblades are granted to those with strong conviction and heart but also have an agenda to keep some sort of cosmic balance. Atp its impossible to not make star wars repeats but thats what you get when a series follows so similarly in its footsteps. Still, i agree and understand alot of where youre coming from for most of this video, and good lord please this dialogue and voice direction needs an immediate overhaul. Crazy to finish kh2 only to jump into this.
You lost all credibility when you claimed the prequels were terrible. You're more than welcome to an opinion, but when you start complaining about how the lore about keyblades changed you just sound bitter. Nowhere did it say before that there are only two keyblades. And on top of that this is nowhwere near the worst KH game. Re:coded and CoM still exist.
Thank goodness for Leonard Nimoy, Mark Hamill and Yoko Shimomura lol… I think BBS’s story was always semi-dependent on KH3 since BBS was the setup for KH3. KH3 having such a half-hearted main scenario seems to have retroactively soured people’s impressions of the entire Xehanort “saga,” which is sad because it did have great potential. Now that we know the “payoffs,” it has taken out the mystique of BBS’s story and it’s hard to look at it without thinking about where most of its intriguing mysteries all led. As a self-contained story for a PSP title, I do think BBS works well enough as a “fall of the hero” story and is surprisingly ambitious with its 3 storylines. If it had been made for PS2 it surely would have been able to put more story in the game and make the heroes more interesting. It was worth it for Master Xehanort, though. Nimoy put way more effort into the role than he needed to, and his performance (combined with Nomura’s character design) made the old man memorable. And obviously we’ve got to be grateful for that excellent OST. “Silent Forest,” “Rustling Forest,” “Night of the Dark Dream,” “Destiny’s Union,” “Dismiss,” “Dark Impetus,” “Disney Town!” (Okay now I’ve gone too far in a few places…) Oh well. All the roads not taken, I guess. Sad that SQ never gave KH the treatment it deserved over the years. Some of the experimentations were fun, but it’s painful wondering what could have been.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall the problem is that KH3 has awesome combat compared to KH2 level of awesome, but the story was hugely spoiled and when we got to play we had already seen everything in the trailers basically. I don't care what they say about KH3 combat being bad, vanilla KH2 also had it's fair share of bad stuff that were addressed in FM and the same happened to KH3 with RM, so fuck it if anyone says the combat in 3 is bad, it's not. I think we could have some things from other games, like more variety of spells and more defined classes so we can properly play the game as an action RPG, and less flashy stuff like some finishers that we have in both 2 and 3 that are faster in 2 and makes the combat flow really well compared to when I have those moves in 3 (I'm looking at you magnet burst and explosion). The whole rest of the KH3 is equally fun to play, fast paced combat, very cool moves, animation cancelling, the shot lock dash and so on.
The algorithm says hi. Big fan of your writing and delivery which made it a very engaging watch, especially going more in-depth with BBS's mechanical shortcomings than most other critiques of this game do. You earned the sub, and now I'm gonna have to go watch your other KH breakdowns.
An extra note is that the damage formula is extremely bad in this game in a way that definitely needed to be fixed. It's (Strength or Magic - Defense) * Ability Strength and/or passive boosts. Then and only then the game takes the number and if its less than 1 set it to one, which leads to you literally doing 1 damage with all attacks if you fall behind on stats. For example the time you were doing chip damage with Ventus might've been entirely fixed if you put on the keyblade with 1 more strength assuming that you were tied with enemy defense. This leads to an all or nothing where you have say Blizzaga which has a power of 5.7. if you had 11 magic vs an enemies 12 defense, that Blizzaga would do 1 damage, so you grind for 2-3 levels to get your next magic up but since 12-12 is not greater than 1, your Blizzaga still does 1 damage. So then you go grind for another 2-3 levels to get your next magic up, Since you finally have a magic value higher than your opponents defense value, your damage immediately shoots up to 5.7 before passives, and if you kept grinding? your next magic upgrade would double your damage against the same enemy which is just wild. It also means you should only use multihit commands if your under leveled because they suddenly become miles better then any single hit. An interesting side effect of this is making Crit much more painful as Crit give you .75 times EXP making it much easier to fall into chip damage than other difficulties.
Except the KH2 Ansem Reports and the secret ending set up that fact that many Keyblade wielders existed and a massive Keyblade War between many wielders had already happened. KH2 was always setting this up. Also, everytime it is claimed that there is only supposed to be one (or two) Keyblades are from unreliable narrators who in truth never knew jack shit about Keyblades. Leon and the gang just went off of some legend that is never explained how they know even that and Triton only knew that Keyblades can be trouble. There are many inconsistencies in Kingdom Hearts' narrative, many people wielding Keyblades isn't one of them.
Honestly, I don't mind there being many Keyblade wielders, but they need to keep the process of getting a Keyblade special. You can't just "give" someone the ability to use the Keyblade. I think this is the biggest problem people have when it comes to the Keyblade. "The Keyblade chooses its master" established in KH1 needs to stay.
Important detail to remember was that BBS was re-written from what was planned originally during KH2. In 2005, BBS was being developed on PS2 with Sora as main protagonist, and it would’ve been a sequel to KH2. The same Tokyo devs/artists/masterminds from KH1 and KH2 were on development. EVERYTHING CHANGED when Square got PS3 devkits in 2006, they sent Final Fantasy 13 from PS2 to PS3 along with FFvs13 and Type-0, and they sent BBS to PSP to be restarted with Osaka. FF went back to AAA status, KH became AA handheld series for 10 years. KHBBS had a separate writer, with Nomura directing with a co-director Square hired on for the first time ever, to “assist” Nomura; which really meant censoring his more dark and mature themes he wanted to introduce to the series via the Keyblade War. He instead was assigned to direct FFvs13, which would give him his creative freedom (somewhat). Now as for WHAT Nomura was cooking with the original Sora BBS? Nobody knows, but it was presumably intended be tied directly to lore established in KH1 and KH2 (which suggested Keyblade wielder’s are chosen ones, although never fully explained). Not only did the BBS restart effect the lore of BBS, it has effected the LORE UNIVERSE in every title moving forward, except for arguably 358/2 Days since that was Nomura’s final time fulfilling the role as sole “writer”, written before BBS as a way to explain Roxas’s Organization XIII drama from KH2. More people with Keyblades WAS always intended via Keyblade War (post KH2)… but it’s worth noting that there was an entirely different continuation of events written to follow KH2, and we are for all intents and purposes in an alternate lore timeline which exists out of sync with KH1’s and KH2’s narratives (as you pointed out). Nomura wrote what he wrote, then they took the wheel from Nomura and changed it and just kept truckin’. I’m sure Nomura’s original plan for explaining multiple wielders (including explaining Kairi’s Keyblade) was at least going to make sense, rather than taking such a sharp and uncomfortable turn into random new wielders spawning out of literally nowhere and not needing to be chosen by the key at all. It went from “the key chooses” to “the master chooses”… only problem with that narrative is that our current MAIN PROTAGONIST (Sora) never had a master choose him (his later adopted “master” for purpose of MoM Exam alone, is Yen Sid - who we’ve never seen with a Keyblade once even as the world is ending) and it also defeats the whole purpose of KH1 Sora and Riku fighting over the Kingdom Key and Sora being left with his wooden sword. I agree with the uploader, and I believe that corporate SE did a worse job of telling Nomura’s story, that Nomura should have told by himself.
@@mistayoutubah You see, the problem with everything you just, is dependent on Nomura having been locked out of BBS and Kingdom Hearts as a franchise and unable to have any control over it. Which was absolutely not the case. Nomura was still in charge of the franchis as a whole and Osaka worked under him and wasn't just some corporate team that took over the franchise away from Nomura. BBS going from a sequal to a prequal was not something forced by SE, that was still Nomura's decision. He decided that BBS would tell the story of the three armored Keyblade wielders from their point of view rather then have Sora learn of it second hand. Also, all the stuff of BBS being a sequal was very early planning and development. It was all early concept with vague ideas and never left that stage before it was switched to a prequal. Also also, my point still stands that there being multiple Keyblade wielders was not something BBS just invented with no set up to it. KH2 set up a past where many people weilded keyblades and set up the armored Keblade weilders having a connection to Xehanort. Nothing in BBS was just out of the blue.
@@kevinbell5674 You see, the problem with all of what you just said is that it is spoken strictly through the lens of an unconcerned product consumer. You clearly have no knowledge of NDA’s or what they are or how powerful they can be to sometimes even control someone’s entire life… but I will save this educational paragraph on NDA’s for after my main correction of your comment. BBS was a year and a half into development on PS2, it was no “very early concept” at all. It began DEVELOPMENT on PS2 in June of 2005, and was cancelled when PS3 devkits came in November of 2006. You saying it was only “vague ideas and never left that stage before it was switched to a prequal” is entirely false. BBS, Coded, and 358/2 Days were all announced together at Tokyo Game Show in September of 2007, less than a year after the hardware/budget change. Also, KH2 did set up Xemnas’s armor to be expanded upon later in BBS; it also featured the three armored heroes we see in the secret movie with the Kingdom Key D, Way To Dawn, and RainFell (Aqua’s Key). This was RETCONNED and CHANGED from what was being WRITTEN and DEVELOPED originally for BBS. No BBS didn’t “invent” new Keyblade wielders, but the WAY they introduced them is thematically incorrect and not in sync with the lore that was pre-established. The WAY is equally as important as the WHAT. An NDA is abbreviation for Non-Disclosure Agreement, which is a contract which you sign promising not to speak or reveal information about certain topics, an NDA can even REQUIRE YOU TO LIE (such as Andrew Garfield lying about not being in Spider-Man No Way Home). If you violate this type of contract, you can be sued for pretty much whatever is in your particular contract and obviously if it’s on purpose you’ll lose your job and career since nobody in any corporate industry will ever work with you again for fear of bad PR (public relations). A recent example was the DOOM Eternal drama with Mick Gordon, the music producer for the DOOM games for years. He was offered hush-money and an NDA promising to take blame for Bethesda even though it was their fault, and he wouldn’t be allowed to speak about it ever or even so much as publicly criticize Bethesda if he’d agreed. He declined their settlement and he’s suing them now, making it all public and Bethesda hates their life. Did you know that EVERY SINGLE employee of Square Enix is required to be contracted under NDA to do ANY job within the company? That’s right, no sign, no job. They’re all working there now because they already signed their NDA’s. Literally almost every game company does this with their devs, designers, artists, directors, voice actors, HR departments EVERYTHING. Furthermore, Square Enix has even gone as far as to hire UA-camRS under NDA in the past, giving them exclusive access to demos/information as long as they promise not to reveal certain details of the game to the fanbase… You can be contracted under NDA to only speak positively about a product and never criticize it, and most NDA’s don’t allow you to even tell people you’re under NDA. There are very few companies who will allow their devs to go on Twitter and post status updates for their community (these are usually fighting games, since the fanbase is heavily concerned regarding patches/updates). FOR CLARIFICATION, NOMURA HAS BEEN AT SQUARE SINCE FF6 IN 1994. He signed a looooooooong time ago, and continues to sign NDA’s as they pop up so that he may continue his work. So back to your comment about him being locked out of BBS and having basically no control; that is very correct. He could pitch an idea, but he wasn’t even writer and had a co-director credited for doing at least as much as he was… Nomura is the original creator of the series, and now he stands by as the face of the brand to wave in whatever new changes SE feels like. He could leave, but then he wouldn’t be able to continue to do what he loves, and they’d just keep making KH without him anyway. Did you know the “officially stated reason” by Nomura himself for moving BBS to PSP from PS2? He says officially, and I cannot make this up, that HE HIMSELF made the choice to restart the whole game for cheaper on PSP for sake of… Multiplayer in the mirage arena. THAT IS A LIE. PS2 could’ve handled mirage arena fine, and not only that but WHY NOT MOVE TO PS3 FOR MULTIPLAYER LIKE ALL THE OTHER MULTIPLAYER GAMES OF THE GENERATION??? Because BBS isn’t freaking multiplayer outside of 1 single feature that they didn’t even care enough about to bring back for the remaster because “waaah server cost”. It was a budget move. We got screwed. Nomura covered for stinky corporate SE and they payed him for it, because rightfully it was his only option. He is a captive scapegoat for SE cash grabs. SE and Disney HATE the secret movie of KH2 and they HATE the fact that they revealed they were making it on PS2, because of accountability. They made a greedy decision, SE did not “accidentally” save millions of dollars by making handheld games and charging full price. Look at every project they’ve released, every ReMix on every console and PC which failed to feature a 358/2 Days and Coded Re:Make (which they’re capable of), every unplayable $100 Switch Cloud Port KH collection, every Melody of Memory with PS2 graphic model quality, every handheld and every mobile game that should’ve all been console games (Union X especially because it’s the literal lore-seed). Square Enix ain’t ya friends, they want your MUNNY, which you will soon realize as they break out their ridiculous NFT scam later this year (SE wrote a letter to the community on Jan 1st, 2023 claiming they’re delving fully into NFT’s unapologetically). It’s a pattern to be honest.
While you did pick up on it in the video, I would like to add to specifically the port of BBS to PS3/PS4. I've said it before, i'll say it again, Birth By Sleep was the most poorly ported KH game from the remixes. VERY little optimization, very lazy work on the upscaling. Look at the textures, they are half BLURRED in even game-important areas. Almost as if they are still the PSP originally downscaled textures.. c'mon, when 2.5 for PS3 came out in 2014, the Photoshop files MUST have still been around after 3 years (BBSFM released in 2011). Same for some character sprites btw, mainly noticable when playing command board. The development time for 2.5 definitely was 70% KH2, 20% BBS (at BEST) and 10% putting days together as a movie, animating some cutscenes. Then there's the missing TV optimization. KH1, ReCoM and KH2 all had an appropriate text size for subtitles, optimized the FOV (which you also mentioned), generally made it all fit on a bigger TV. BBS of course, a psp game, had to have some of these aspects because the screen was just that small and had lower resolution.. but they did NONE of that for the remix. Thankfully for 2.8 they did; but for a game as important as KH1 and KH2? ouch.. The intro with the credits. certain blue colors turning grey (rip Aqua's hair). It has been on the PSP version, it.. was ported over, atleast for the PAL version (and maybe NTSC version). The creditless version when you start a new game is fine, why did they not bother to fix this?
What’s even more stupid imo is that shouldn’t it be made from the kingdom key and kingdom key D? Why is it two light keyblades instead of one keyblade representing pure light and one keyblade representing pure darkness like this game suggests as the recipe to forge it?
@@taputrainer8463and it looks more like a standard sword than a keyblade. They could have atleast put teeths on it. The only keyblades without teeth i can think of are the modern looking ones (fenrir, Braveheart)
@@brotbrotsen1100 Yeah, and in complete fairness, *even those are still explicitly "keys",* they're just shaped like modern keys. The X-Blade is shaped like a sword.
@@taputrainer8463 I believe that eventually it's going to have some form of lore connection to Kingdom Key and Kingdom Key D. It would explain why the two are so different than other keyblades and also why they reside on destiny islands (the place where Ventus was split and Vanitas was born. It only makes sense that when Ventus heart returned to Sora, the pieces of the X-blade did as well.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall Nah, I think everyone is mad because you made poor points, and when people point it out to you, you say "NUH UH". Someone who critiques something should at least have some grace when it comes to counter points. You, obviously, do not posses such grace.
02:18:38 Also the reason why Ars Solum worked there is because, for some unknown reason, Terranort cannot retaliate if you hit him while in Dark Volley, Stickman Sham made a video on this called "if birth by sleep had proper stagger".
From a story perspective, I agree. This game completely muddied the waters and made the series exceptionally more convoluted than it was already beginning to be. But the biggest thing that bothers me about this game is that despite all it does, it’s the first game that actually feels kind of lazy. Particularly in the character design. Ventus looks like Roxas because Ventus’ heart made contact with Sora. So why then, does Roxas not have qualities from both of these characters? Roxas looks like a carbon copy of Ventus and shares zero likeness with Sora’s looks, or personality wise. Honestly, I feel like the only reason Nomura made Ventus and Roxas look the same was because he didn’t want to have to draw a corresponding Somebody for each Nobody. Ergo, Axel looks exactly like Lea minus the markings under his eyes. And I do not think this was always meant to be the case because of Namine. She looks nothing like Kairi supposedly because of Kairi’s heart contacting with Sora. So why does Naminé not look like Sora? She supposedly has blue eyes like Sora, but she’s a pure platinum blonde so where is the continuity in all that?? Why does she not have brown or red hair?? This laziness is even demonstrated in KH3 where literally the entire Wayfinder trio looks the EXACT SAME from BBS despite it having been over 10 years since they were in the realm of light. I genuinely think that Nomura either couldn’t or didn’t want to come up with 13 different designs for the Organization’s somebodies and as a result, Ventus gave him the perfect excuse to avoid that.
@@Snzn_7 I mean I get it for Terra, but there's just so many contrivances otherwise. Like why does time in the realm of darkness not work the way it does in the realm of light? Time stands still but if these two realms are two sides of the same coin, then why do they not function on similar rules and laws? And for Ventus, his heart was gone. He was in a state of rest. But you mean to tell me he didn't even kind of age? Not even a little? Why? Ven is over a thousand years old at this point. Give this man a mustache or something??
@@sadboijokes Look at Dizz. A character introduced in KH 2 and if you know his lore. He stayed in the Realm of Darkness way longer than aqua and the dude never aged a day inside there. The realm of Darkness time shenanigans is not a thing BBS made up. It was always like that since KH Chain of memories and KH 2. Same with Castle Oblivion thinks don't just work normal there. Like Each freaking room in their ihas their own kind of logic. And heck even combat system works different in there. And also Ven alone has a lot of ??? To begin with. Like Ven is actually older older. And the dudes been thrown and future timelines got possessed by ancient pure darkness and has been fractured thus producing Vanitas. In some way Ven alone is in a something similar fashion with a Nobody. And since they have a missing piece of them they really don't age after that. So in short the things that allowed these characters to not really age is not a thing made for BBS, they are stuff that already was introduced in earlier games. Ventus was planned to have some sort of mystery to begin with by the time KH 2 decided that Roxas don't look like Sora. Anyways I don't get your gripes with "aging" logic since you have Disney Characters, like Mickey, Donald and Goofy who basically don't age anyway and just "shift in artstlye" depending on the timeline they are shown.
@@Snzn_7 I'm sorry but what do you mean? In KH:CoM, we never see DiZ or rather, Ansem the Wise. Like we see him in his red mummy garb, but we never see him without the bandages until KH2. But we had no point of comparison for Ansem the Wise until BBS, which going back to my point, is when I feel like character design took something of a back step. Like I get the arbitrary story reasons for why Ven and Aqua don't age. And I don't expect to see elderly Mickey, in my mind, the Disney characters are aging outside the main human cast. I think I'm just disappointed because I feel like in previous games, characters changed and those changes in appearance were something I kind of looked forward to. My issue with BBS really has to do with its many implications and the retconning I feel it did to the story I originally knew and loved growing up. Cause I've been playing these games literally since they came out. I remember Sora's transformation from KH1 to KH2. I remember BHK and RHG. It felt like every game we were getting a new character or at least a new design and that was so fascinating. And the first time I saw Ventus, I, like literally everyone else thought, "Oh is this an image of the future? Because that clearly looks like Roxas" only to find out that no, it's not Roxas, it's Ventus. And Ventus looks like Roxas because he's been in Sora's heart. But why does Roxas look like Ventus and not act like Ventus or Sora? Who knows? But my issue with this design philosophy is that Roxas's entire arc in KH2 was about having an identity and expressing his desire to be seen as a real person in his own right. So the fact that Ventus is here as an outward carbon copy of Roxas, should raise some kind of red flag for him. This should be an existential crisis all over again because not only is Roxas not his own person, he isn't even his own likeness. But it's not. Roxas and Ventus just look at each other a little confused and the only other person that brings it up is Lea who has basically become like the voice of the KH Fandom in that particular scene I'm describing. Like I could go on and on about that particular story element, but there are soooo many issues with character design that literally make certain elements of this franchise's story collapse. There's no cohesion and that's what bothers me so. It feels almost stagnant in a way.
@@sadboijokesThis is Nomura, they don't put Diz on CoM without really having a decent of amount of bacstory already detailed. And they made him quite mysterious because they have been building his mystery ever since he appeared. Just because they don't shove it in people's faces means it wasn't there. That is basic storytelling. Characters in KH since they one, although the significantly do "relatable" stuff and react in a normal conventional way. The KH world is basically balls to the walls fantastical in nature and even characters don't really get surprised by seeing a talking humanoid mouse, duck amd dog. Talking mirrors, etc. Etc. The writing also don't put emotional crisis usually in the forefront and just give "subtle" context to it. They usually make that more relevant when it's on the breaking point or us relevant to the situation at hand. Different series do stuff differently than other series in general. So don't expect things that some series highlights on to be highlighted as much in other series. KH in general needs to juggle the Disney spirit and Final Fantasy existential crisis stuff in a blender. That is part of what makes the series stands apart form other series. Like I can give explanations about you are queries but I am pretty sure your mind is pretty made up in not reconsidering other perspective on this so I gave up. I am so-so with a some stiff in KH also but usually there is enough context to explain stuff in it whether we will like the explanation or not. Ain't got no time to discuss this further so I am gonna dip
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall It is like one of the best KH games by many fans...But ok, your intitled to your own opinion of course...Just so happens your opinion on the game is vastly disagreed on by a large mile..
@@brujbruh1489 He never even said the phrase "style over substance" in his video. You're putting words in his mouth in order to push your own personal agenda, and that's frankly disgusting. I think he's objectively wrong to call Birth by Sleep "bad", and he didn't make any convincing arguments to prove his own claims at a bare minimum, but the idea that the game has no substance at all to anything is just ridiculous and has an extraordinary burden of proof in its own write. To be very clear, because this community often makes this crucial mistake, the terms "shallow" and "style over substance" aren't synonymous, and the word "shallow" doesn't mean "no depth", it means "lacks depth", or in other words "it has low/less depth". You can think of difference between a deep game and a shallow game as being the difference between the deep end of a swimming pool and the shallow end of a swimming pool. That being said, I would describe KH2 as a shallow game as well. You need more than a semi-decent combat system to make a good Action RPG, and the RPG elements of KH2 are incredibly streamlined and lackluster, more so than any other game in the series, Dream Drop Distance, both versions of CoM and ReCoded included.
@@boyishdude1234 idk how you even think my own statement is me trying to make it seem like what I said is what Sight Avery said. And while you try to say I put words in people’s mouth your next paragraph has to do with something I never said. Why are you arguing with me about what the community says if I haven’t said that, either argue with me or don’t directly reply to me 💀🤡
I adore your rewriting but, personally, I would change the positions of Aqua and Terra regarding Eraqus, mostly so Aqua can have a direct opposition towards Xehanort like Terra and Ventus have as Aqua... she kinds just has a connection to Xehanort from secondary alignments. Also, it would have a tighter role on Aqua, since of her world was destroyed then she would be scared of the darkness and she would have that black and white view which also adds to her following Eraqus since it is some type of idol for her as he was her savior. It would also tighten the reasons on Aqua wanting to reunite them as she does not want to lose the family she got, she would be the one that forces that overtly familial relationship with them because she wants a family after she lost one. Even more after the issues with them and the structure with Eraqus and Xehanort broken she would come into despair and seeing herself as the mother, Terra the father and Ventus their son in some way to not lose the familial connection. It also helps to add drama to Terra, why would he as the biological son not be chosen over an interloper? It also helps that Terra would have an inferiority complex not only against Aqua but also against Eraqus, he is his son but he is not as strong so he relies on darkness to finally be on the same level as Eraqus which Eraqus would be a disapproving father to Terra since the beginning for never being as strong as he was. Specially with the light like Eraqus was so he finds his own route to be as strong as Aqua and Eraqus using the dark, it also adds even more tension since he killed his own father who he came into losing faith after learning that Xehanort trashed Eraqus meaning that darkness was stronger. Which now Terra would reject, falsely, his connections with his friends only to try once again in despair to keep it safe... to fail in his eleventh hour. Anyway, I adore the ideas with Vanitas since it finally gives him personal reasons, in general the rewrite goes to give the characters personal motivations and make them more proactive into chasing Xehanort and Vanitas and it also gets their downfall better since they chased their wantings... and failed. I adored your video and I am glad the algorithm helped it to explode.
How I always viewed Riku-Ansem's keyblade in kh1 is that it's a THING made from the other 6 princesses' hearts because the heart missing (Kairi) was needed but was out of reach within Sora's being. It's not a true keyblade. It's an aberration, a thing malformed that was never meant to exist in this reality.
Riku-Ansem's "Keyblade of Heart" itself is, canonically, of the type of the same name. Keyblades of Heart, that is. It's the only one we see in the series, and we never even see it complete. Just like the Kingdom Key D, being a Keyblade of Darkness, it's one of those things important for... basically just that specific game slash sequence that never matters otherwise and gets forgotten immediately, at least as near as I know.
When it comes to how others get keyblades I believe there are a few ideas floating around but again this is my idea. The scene showing Terra holding his keyblade to Young Riku and saying a sort of oath, I’ve heard that it’s only if a keyblade master who is skilled and strong enough can in a sense ‘Knight’ someone. This is also shown in KH2 remixed when you fight lingering will, and thinks Sora is Riku at first. It makes sense with Ven heart inside Sora that he can then wield a keyblade as Ven heart is shared inside him, however after all the training even after Ven wakes up Sora is still able to use the keyblade he gained the training to be able to. (The same reason why Roxas also can use keyblades as well as Xion same I just explained. Another idea is that someone heart must be strong, in Dream Drop we see Lea formally Axel want to warn to wield a keyblade to help by the end he can call it out, but again we don’t know what kind of small training or understanding he went though. Because even then he and Kari spend all the 3rd game training. Amazing video ether way but when o heard that question I wanted to throw at least my two cent it may not be 100 true or maybe the proof is somewhere on the net but that’s my thoughts
I'm certain that Nomura stated that Ven is not the reason Sora can wield a Keyblade. Up to this point, Sora is the only person we've seen who was seemingly chosen by his Keyblade outright. What Ven's heart actually offered Sora was the ability to wield more than one simultaneously, as a single Keyblade is tied to a single heart.
@@sword_of_dusk Your actually partially right, Roxas actually is the one who gains the ability to dual wield thanks to is connection to both Sora and ventus and once he get recompleted with sora that is how Sora gain access to is dual wield (trough Roxas) its basically the same but with a extra step XD
The more I critically think about kingdom hearts as a whole everything post 2 (excluding days) is a writing crap shoot you can see fragments of a story that could make sense but shoots into the opposite direction because something new has to be added and the characters don't think critically about their actions the way finder trio, Sora in DDD and 3 not to mention the plots just give that go aimlessly till the plot demands "growth".
Me: Has no interest in watching this video. UA-cam algorithm: I’m gonna recommend this to you anyway I still don’t intend to watch it, I just think that it’s funny that the algorithm tries to keep recommending it to me.
Not me watching a 3 hour scathing critique of one of my fave entries and actually kind of agreeing… When it comes to the gameplay I actually really enjoy this one. I don’t know, maybe I like how easy and flashy it is. I also really enjoy melding commands to try and get all the little abilities, as well as playing the Command Board game over and over again to gain more stuff to meld! Even if I predictably win every single game, I do still enjoy seeing the little nuances in the way each Disney character on the Disney boards play the game. Some characters play “dirtier” than others, i.e. Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Pete, Stitch, and Gantu frequently make moves that work directly against you when given the opportunity (of course I think that has at least some part to do with the slight differences of each of the board maps, but still), while other characters play with more mild manners and have their own little nuances in their decision making, and I think that’s fun. I can not argue against the story and voice acting delivery though, it is a given that it’s just plain terrible. This trio really is pretty hollow with no pre-established connection that is fleshed out and instead just told to us unconvincingly over and over again, all paired with horrible lines with no life to them whatsoever. I remember frequently cringing at both Terra and Aqua’s line deliveries being so flat, and only feeling that Ventus sounded consistently decent the whole way through. I think Ventus being a pre-Roxas clone essentially is what makes me have a HUGE bias towards this game because Roxas has always been my fave, and by extension Ventus too. I really love his reverse grip too, in spite of how functionally flawed it would actually be. I really, REALLY like your rewrite ideas at the end of this. Making them an actual adopted family unit and establishing that bond, as well is utilizing Vanitas in a much more interesting and redeemable way would have been so great!
I also enjoy getting and mastering all commands due to my obsession as a player to grab everything and 100% percent everything. Even though I tolerate and kind of enjoy playing this game (and i used to love it when i was younger), after playing KH2 and finishing Critical Level 1 on KH2 and KH3, the combat system in BBS is dog shit because of all the reasons previously mentioned. * Normal attacks have no variation, no damage, no stun, leave you kind of open. Air attacks are floaty. * Command style are bad because of normal attacks being bad, because they cannot be controlled (you can not simply choose when to choose it) and are a free resource. * Commands leave you wide open and are mostly useless, except those that offer some utility, nice damage and are fast. Status effects are nice for groups but magnet and gravity are broken. Surges are broken. Megaflare is only usefull for mobs and farming. Arcanums and other command that last for a while are baaaaaad, baaaaaaaaaaad. * Dodges are too good or too bad. Aerial recovery sucks. Teleport sucks. Fire and thunder dodge sucks. Terra sucks. * Shotlocks are broken. Seriously, try to play KH3 Critical Level 1 (because it is easier than KH2) and you will see the utility of magic and summons. You will really have to learn enemy attacks to block properly and dodge those attacks that cannot be blocked. Rarely the game just one shots you but it happens with some attacks (or combos) from time to time.
If you really like the game, retroachievements, a web page for achievements in older games, has a set for PSP birth by sleep Final MIX that works with the FAN translated version. It has achievements for doing the story, minigames, beating records, command boards, arena missions, finishing the game in Critical Level 1 and killing bosses without too much leavel with restrictions, like "Kill Xehanort (Level 25 Max, no shotlocks)". This kind of challenges will FORCE you to see that cracks in the system and throw 90% of the commands to the trash bin.
I have to disagree, I prefer a good flow, but this game has no flow. It is slow and clunky and it seems like even the command system is an enemy, which makes it hard for me to enjoy playing.
Shotlocks and command styles are actually probably my favorite part of the game. They're fun to use and my your attacks stronger. Which for Terra is a problem. Why hes still slow he does more damage because command styles and shotlocks are strongef than most commands and combos
Command Styles are most certainly not more powerful than commands. they're slow, don't deal more damage than normal attacks, or at least don't increase damage by much, get rid of some of your attacks, and are activated against the player's will. Commands are 'press a button and win' if used intelligently. Now, if you're talking Shotlocks, while I hate them, we can at least agree that they're very powerful.
Depends what style commands you use. They actually are a boost up to deal more damage. Getting the command Styles for me Is a must when fighting mysterious figure (can beat him in less than 8 minutes). Shotlocks can take out a couple of bars of a boss so they are extremely good assests for the characters.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall i know that Is the way but they deal less damage when you don't have a style command triggered( the 8 minutes was to give more of an honetly and reasonable time frame; i Remember people spending days on him lol). Even the damage by shotlocks Is greater with the use of command Styles.
The biggest crime was taking the neat finish that KH2 had and turned the story into the dumpster fire that was the following games. I will never forgive them for what they did (or should I say didn't do?) to Terranort in KH3. He should have been the final enemy, not old Nort.
Yeah, I don't get why Terranort was a minor antagonist in KH3. I'm not necessarily opposed to Old Man Xehanort coming back to be the final boss of KH3, but it would make more sense if it was the result of Terranort being defeated and Terra regaining his body, forcing Xehanort to fight as his original self.
@@TheAzulmagia Yeah, I think the final boss fight being against his old man form could easily have been justified by the fact that you're fighting him inside his own memories.
Yeah that's what I'm saying, and it's even worse when the whole plot of bbs was explaining who xemnas and Ansem came from. The whole games story is basically xehanort trying to steal this young guys body and possessing him for evil, and terra body is a younger stronger body, that's why he chose terra, but in kh3 they throw it all away and just make old xehanort the main villain again 😂. And terranort is originally where Ansem and xemnas came from, but nope they had to introduce time travel 😂.
So True Just KH 1,KH COM and KH 2 should have been The "Xehanort Saga" and Then with The Following Titels they should have Started a New Saga and Not this Stupid Mess we have today.
Depends on perspective, but imo, not really. Days has combat that actually works and characte-building that's more engaging than collecting commands for 30 minutes to win the game.
@@lpfan4491 if you played on beginner and had no idea what you're doing yes. 358 had combat that barely functioned with some of the worse bosses in the entire series
Finally, someone says this. Seeing so many people have this game as their favorite in the entire series never becomes less shocking. I've liked this series since I was 11 and I'm 23 now. Over a decade of hearing it and I feel like I'm going crazy many times every time I hear it. I think this game was doomed the moment they decided to make it a PSP game instead of a full-fledged PS2 game. Just another victim in the KH series of FFXV's development. The story is too ambitious, wants to add too much new lore, and 3 new main characters, introduces the actual villain of the series, has big set pieces, and tries out too many things to explain in one c-tier PSP game. The voice acting is some of the worst in the series and the voice director didn't do the actors any favors. The pure amount of wasted potential and how much damage from this game ripples out into the rest of the series (gameplay-wise especially) and lore-wise is such a huge factor to me of what makes it so terrible.
1. I mean it is a fantastic game afterall 2. Why? Worked well and the video is being torn to shreds over a pretty god awful analysis 3. Not really. As the game was planned and written before FFXV 4. Ambitiousness js bad now? Wow. Let’s never do anything ambitious ever again 5. Calls it C tier. Is still regarded as one of the best PSP games ever made. Comedy is what we call it 6. Calls it the worse. Forgets re:coded exists and that BBS has some do the best performances in the series 👀 7. Damage? Weird the series got better after its release. Makes sense. It introduced main stables in the series, introduced some of the best elements and characters in the IP, and set the standard for what a portable KH game should play like Honestly it’s easy to see why the video has far more dislikes then likes nowadays lmao
@@benpage11 BBS has some of the shittest performances in the franchise what are you literally talking about??? The only good performances are Hamill and Mccartney*. Even Nimoy's amazing voice couldn't say some of the worst dialogue and directing in the series. I think its ambition is bad because once they realized they couldn't do even half of the shit that they set out to do, and do it WELL, they should've pulled back and reset their expectations. Instead we got an undercooked story with half baked characters that only work on paper, not on screen, and tries to add too much into the lore while having some of the biggest limitations the franchise has had. Had this game been a full PS2/PS3 title like it was intended to be before Disney/Square butted in saying they wanted a game on the PSP then maybe it would deserve all the praise it gets from fans. And at least 358/2 Days and Re:coded knew it couldn't achieve much on the base DS and so told a smaller and more limited story. (358/2 Days beats BBS into the ground in terms of writing anyway, even with less cutscenes. Hell, even Re:coded improved on something BBS did. Re:coded perfected BBS' command deck system by having better melding system and better fluidity.) I have similar complaints for DDD for trying to tell such a big story on a underpowered handheld console but it doesn't get my anger as much bc it's gameplay was much better and the performances were good (not the disney character's performances tho, they were pretty bad). I do think he has some dumb crituqes but for the most part he's spot on. Its just that BBS is the KH fandom's golden child just because the ending is "sad" for all three MC's and you can't critize its story or characters without being attacked. Especially when the characters are some of the worst written and underbaked in the series :/. Also, I would call it C-Tier. It being considered one of the best games on a console that didn't have much on it to begin isn't a big achievement to be writing home about. And yeah I would say it caused damage to the series. So many major complaints about the gameplay post KH2 stem from BBS and the Osaka team has only just perfected their gameplay in KH3, almost a decade after BBS's release. If this game set the standard for how all KH handheld games should play, like you said, then it makes sense why they're all pretty underwhelming.
@@wholockedholmes5600 1. And yet. RE:Coded exists. 2. Only good ones? Pffft no 3. “BUT NIMOY WAS BAD” that’s one way to discredit yourself lmao 4. Weird that they did it well and knew they could 5. Undercooked where? All seamlessly together without issue with some incredible moments to boot. Great performances too 6. “Half baked” someone never played the game or just skipped all cutscenes lmao 7. Too much lore = lore that was established or teased in previous entries. 8. Biggest limitations where? 9. Wrong. It was Nomura decision to make it a PSP game. It was originally for the PS2 but he switched it to the psp to take advantage of the online capabilities. Also no. By the time this game started development, the PS3 didn’t even exist. So you didn’t even get that right either 10. “BUT DAYS BETTER” and throwing any and all credibility into the nonexistent void lmao. As someone who loves days, you are absolutely wrong) 11. Where? It was actively worse on the DS and over complicated the system needlessly 12. The performances were funnily enough, worse in DDD. Still good. But not better 13. Where? So far he got everything wrong and then some. Got shredded by anyone with a brain cell and is being endlessly ratio’d in both the comments and dislikes. Makes sense. Didn’t make a single good point 14. No it’s because the story is fantastic, the gameplay is great, the addictions are great, and etc etc. 15. Criticized*. Learn to spell 16. Where? So far you never seemed to have played the game and understand it’s story 17. “Didn’t have much” = over 50+ classic titles exclusive to the PSP and still fondly remembered to this day with countless top ? Lists 18. Where? 19. Well no shit they only made DDD and RE:Coded afterwards. KH3 was the next actual title in the series. Not that long :) 20. Underwhelming where? All great so far. Even you admitted that titles after BBS “improved” with the system :)
@@benpage11 You sound really hurt. Is it because your illusion is shattered? That your nostalgia is ruined by the fact that BBS is objectively a bad game?
@@ShadowbannedAccount Oh hey it's Yoloking again. still endlessly mad that he keeps getting proven wrong lmao. Jan 14, 2022. subbed to no one. so damn fake lmao
I'm always surprised how many people get mad over BBS criticism. When I played it again years after it's release it was super obvious to me how many issues the game has.
The downfall of this game came from it being on handheld. The idea it presents and story it tries to tell is absolutely fantastic. A prequel to an amazing game series? After the height of 2? I think everyone was gassed up for this. But the console limitation prevented it from reaching its full potential in many, many ways. Choppy/janky combat for one. Terrible command deck. Sure, do I enjoy grinding and melding commands? Yeah it’s not bad. But… there’s not much reward to it. I BLEW through Terra’s story in 8 hours, on critical mode, WITH breaks to grind and meld to get cool ass commands… just to beat the game primarily using a basic combo, shotlock, and guard/parry? Not to mention immediately playing BBS after kh2fm makes the shitty combat even more apparent. Also, the story. How long have they been students? Were they born at the land of departure or did they come there to train? Shouldn’t eraquas have known xehanort was bad?? How does one become a key blade wielder? And so many more questions I want answered that won’t be. The story feels incredibly rushed and if it’s supposed to tell a story as big and crucial to the overall plot as a numbered title, it should’ve painted a better picture and gave us so much more detail and nuance, ESPECIALLY following the masterpiece that 2 was/is. Do I like what they were going for? Yeah. Was the execution as good as I thought it was as a 14 year old? Not at all. Playing it on the ps3/4 doesn’t help either cause it makes it’s inadequacies more apparent and profound. It doesn’t translate well onto a bigger console and larger screen. I still love the characters and seeing how everything got set into motion and how things connect to the later games, but I wish it would’ve been treated as a numbered title.
While I do not think BBS was the worst in the series, this was officially the game where the series fell apart into the joke it is today, and where die hard KH fans will suck the devs dry for whatever further entry is made. Because after KH2, there was no plans to make a continuation but rather just small teasers. Even if BBS wanted to exist, making it a prequel and ruining the canon’s lore was the dumbest decision they could possibly make. Having the whole franchise now be nothing but just “the Lore” is the same issue why the latest FNAF games have failed too cause the devs refuse to make a proper video game and just want to see how they can bridge together a broken plot, even if the series never NEEDED one to begin with
Great review! I especially liked the story rewrite you did towards the last quarter of the video. I agree that Birth by Sleep was pretty bad, but you did make me think about some aspects that I hadn't considered before. It is interesting how Osaka Team basically just introduced the Wayfinder trio without explaining their origins. It was such a little thing that I glossed over it while first playing the game; however, the more I think about it, the fact Osaka chose to overlook this demonstrates the lack of care that went into this prequel--at least in terms of the story.
Not having an origin story is basically just a Kingdom Hearts thing. Basically it's up to the current events that we get to learn whobthevcharactwrs are. Like we don't know shit about Sora, Riku and Kairi on KH 1 before the events on the beginning and same goes for the Wayfinder trio and Seasalt trio. It's wierd to complain about that with the Wayfinder trio only.
Wow, just found this channel recently and glad I did! Your in depth reviews are fantastic and very well put together, subbed, looking forward to your DDD and KH3 review. And I hope you dont take all the hate comments to heart, I really dont understand why some people cant just accept someone's opinion on something might differ, from politics to video games, and hating on someone for expressing there opinions is incredibly childish and disrespectful. Anyway, keep up the great work man!
Hey thanks! Despite the sometimes vitriolic discourse we partake in, I don't hold anything against these folks. I'm sure they've got their own garbage going on. Might be they were just having a bad day, might be they're a bit too prideful as all of us are nowadays, or whatever. No harm no foul lol
5:40 the keyblade graveyard showed up in KH2's secret ending first 47:29 nitpick; only once more doesn't activate because you're not in a hitstun animation 1:38:32 i mean, KH mickey mouse slaps pretty hard i did like the idea of elements on a basis of world to world, back in KH1, you learned spells or upgraded them after
Yes, it did. And? Roxas appeared in KH1's secret ending, didn't make sense, and then they provided a reasonable explanation with the Nobodies. There was no reasonable explanation for the Keyblade Graveyard in BBS that didn't retcon all of the lore. Yes, because the hitstun is stupid in this game. Yep, KH Mickey slaps way harder than he needs to. Leaves a fucking mark, man.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall It seems to me like "reasonable explanation" is really just code for "spend several minutes going into [unnecessarily exhaustive] detail about tertiary background information that has nothing to do with the story at hand". Most people play video games to PLAY a video game, not read a book. If you can't prove why the information we didn't get is both necessary as well as explain how and why its inclusion would improve the story, then cram it.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFallthe kh one post credit scene was originally a proof of concept and technically not canon at all because Roxas is seen wielding the kingdom key D which he doesn’t in the game and Mickey is seen using the normal keyblade
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall Honestly, if your argument begins with a "And?" Or "So?", it proves you don't care for a discussion. I can't take you seriously in the video or in the comment section 🤣
Let me revoke my year old comment. This game is very good. I love the storyline and the characters. And also you know Coded’s story exists right? That’s objectively worse than this story. And it wasn’t never said that there was only one keyblade. And also also, ITS KINGDOM HEARTS! Nothing makes sense here 😂 But yeah, your opinion made me mad but hey, that’s your (obviously wrong) opinion.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall All sources indicated that to be the case, yes. Sorry you're not the target audience you seemed to convince yourself you were. You're chasing the echo of a rabbit that was never even there.
I picked this video back up a couple days later and I was like "damn, maybe we shoulda let BBS's plot cook".
Then I remembered that this is Sight's categorically superior AU and the only thing BBS should be cooking is a bowl of cereal.
i don't even know if this was meant to be a positive comment, but it's definitely the best comment
This aged badly lmao
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall positive lol. I barely remember leaving it though. I was saying your AU is better than the real thing... probably?
I did attempt to play birth by sleep but it never managed to hold my attention like the first 2 games did.
@@talison461 2 games
You mean rechain of memorys
You could have just made a 5 second video with an image of the mysterious figure but ok this works too
Ok I believe you
😂😂😂
Bro😂😂
@@Unstable_45_degree_angle I had to get it out of my system bro😂😂😂
Just a pancake is watching
@@Genesis-ty8fr I bet he’s proud
It's never said that kairi "borrowed" a keyblade from Riku. He GAVE her one. It has a completely different design from his, and he never takes it back or anything. Also, Sora didn't get the ability to use a keyblade from Ventus. The kingdom key chose him, even though it was bequeathed to Riku. I don't mean any offense, neither do I want to start an internet argument, but it bothered me a little so I thought I'd correct that.
@mafra3117 that simply because of the fragmented piece of Ventus' heart in Sora's. Has nothing to do with keyblade. The most you could argue is the keyblade went to Sora after Riku fell to darkness due to a bit of Ventus' heart but again that's just a no-prize explanation.
@mafra3117 so at some point in BBS Ventus was in super danger and was almost eradicated but sent his heart to the nearest place for safety and it found Sora even he was a kid. Sora agreed to protect his heart when he was young and sorta forgot so when he went Heartless in KH1 the nobody that showed up took shape because of Ventus being pure light at that point gave him some material to take shape and formed Roxas. It's partially why Wanitas looks like evil Sora too but that's even harder to explain
Yeah, but even this explanation has holes in it. If Sora got the keyblade that was supposedly bequeathed to Riku, how did Riku just manifest his own independent of Sora's later on? The difference in appearance could also just be explained as the keychain being swapped out. We don't see him take it back from Kairi, but we also don't really see her use it again for a LONG time (and only in a later entry), so in the context of KH2, it's plausible that he just took it back off screen. I'm not saying I agree with Sight's "borrowing" explanation, but the fact is that the rules relating to keyblade ownership and inheritance are vague and convoluted, largely due to numerous retcons, making some level of interpretation necessary.
Sharing a heart or being someone's Nobody/replica is sufficient in other entries to bestow the ability to wield a keyblade (see Roxas and Xion), so it stands to reason that Sora could wield a keyblade because he was a vessel for Ventus. Thematically, it also lines up since the game clearly establishes Ventus, Terra, and Aqua as being parallels to Sora, Riku, and Kairi, respectively, even down to the etymology of their names. Each of these pairs have an event in BBS that links them to each other: Terra's encounter with Riku on Destiny Islands, Aqua's encounter with Kairi in Radiant Garden, and Sora sheltering Ventus' disembodied heart. Given that it's strongly implied that Terra and Aqua bequeathed their keyblades during these moments, it would be a weird and incongruent choice to not have the same hold true for the pair of Ventus and Sora.
That said, the whole "keyblade bequeathing" thing is really stupid, sucks the remaining magic and mystery out of the keyblade, and has its own share of inconsistencies. Clearly, bequeathing a keyblade isn't a hard requirement to using one since Axel just kind of manifests one despite not going through the ceremony. The ceremony also doesn't literally give that keyblade to the bestowee, since Lingering Will still has his keyblade despite Sora supposedly wielding the one Terra bestowed. Even if the one Terra bestowed is actually Riku's Way to the Dawn, that one is still accounted for. The keyblade warriors during the Age of Fairytales just made and used them as replicas of the X-blade, so that doesn't match, either. So if bestowing isn't a requirement to wield a keyblade, and it doesn't transfer ownership of an existing keyblade, what does it actually do? How can the game simultaneously claim that a keyblade chooses its wielder and also that it can be bestowed, when these two things are clearly contradictory? Etc, etc.
@@kbm_seymour nomura has already come out and said that ventus had nothing to do with sora wielding the keyblade, the keyblade canonically choose him. the story never says that sora has a keyblade because of ventus it just says that hes asleep in sora's heart
I don’t remember but I don’t think anyone passed the ability like aqua and terra did but sora was chosen because riku turned to the darkness
And then the whole thing with ven and keyblade is that he’s the reason sora can hold 2 keyblades in KH2
This technically means sora can’t do that anymore as of KH3s end ( although if kiari could have a keyblade that early on as well it’s interesting that as far back as KH1 sora could have been zoro with 3 keyblades
Just a reminder that Aqua was about to kill 3 ultimately "innocent" humans (even if they are jerks) because she heard that they might have darkness inside of them.
But Terra is treated as the "bad" one because he got forcefully manipulated by a powerful sorceress to "kill" a princess.
To be fair, that's consistent with Eraqus' extremist anti-darkness mentality.
Eraqus has always been training her fight the darkness it makes sense that to fulfill her duty it blinded her in the process
Which three were they again? I forgot so much about this game because, like, all the cutscenes amount to 12 hours and a bog to go through here on UA-cam
@@zero1zerolast393 Cinderella's stepfamily.
Lol Aqua was completely justified
Cinderella's fam were jerks
Lol nah, I love that cutscene. I was thinking "She was gonna kill them....?? ..... Christ Aqua! Relax!!"
What do you think about Vanitas appearance?
Vanitas: I look like Sora because I am your other side and Sora was the part you needed to complete your heart again.
Ventus: WTF?!
He doesn't just look like Sora, he looks like an *adult* Sora when *adult* Sora didnt exist yet.
Remember when Keyblades CHOSE their wielders; now you can just go and get another one from Keyblades R Us.
You might was well get a new puppet body and regrow your heart while you're at it.
I think the forgetfulness of Ventus’s story is only highlighted in the character selection. All three of their descriptions describe some personality traits before also describing an aspect of their characters outside of personality.
Terra’s says he feels compelled to find greater strength, which lines up. Aqua’s says her sense of right and wrong never wavers. Also lines up. Both of these describe a pretty crucial aspect of their journeys, with Terra wanting to become more powerful and Aqua’s consistency in her black-and-white worldview (even if it isn’t done well). Ventus? His says he holds his Keyblade backhand. Not some key part of his character or his story, just “he holds his weapon funny”.
Oh just wait, the reason Ven holds it funny is gonna somehow change how we understand everything whenever Nomura gets around to explaining it in a spinoff trilogy where each platform only gets one of the three games
He was the first weilder to use 2 keyblades.
They should have described Ventus wanting to learn more about himself and his true identity.
@@ZeranZeranreally?
@@ElevatedScvrecrow Really!
okay, the protection charm was how Kairi was able to meld into Sora's heart.
Kairi touched Aqua's keyblade and it saw her as a person who shall wield a keyblade. hence why the keyblade she had received from Riku didn't leave her hand, with Leon and jack Sparrow it leaves their hand after a couple seconds not seeing them worthy.
While i get that you dont like how the keyblade is less special as the series moves foward, i don't get it how is Retcon to have multiple keyblades or that was always finite.
By ReCom we are shown 3 active Keyblade wielders. By 2 that numbers goes up to 5 and starts to mention a keyblade wars and how there's clearly more keyblade wielders in the past.
The Keyblade War was never mentioned in kh2. Only the secret ending showed a random battle with tons of dead keyblades
Back when kh2 was first released, before bbs was even teased and I thought Sora was going to die in the next game, my first assumption upon seeing an entire field of keys stuck in the ground was that there was a large battle of some sort, hence a war. It definitely carried a largely desolate feeling.
It was just confirmed in BBS after that, so it was mostly an implication that was confirmed after the fact. Much like how the hooded figure (Roxas) dual wielding keyblades in the KH1 secret ending implied that there was more than 2 Keyblades which then was answered in KH2
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFallSo, it was mentioned in KH2
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall 🤦🏼
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep is NOT the worst entry in the KH games!
Recom is but bbs is still pretty bad
Edit: I meant re:coded
@@nothanksfools no i think most people agree that ReCoded (or the mobile games if you count them as games) are the worst
@@CaleMcGowan fellas, worst games are obviously between BBS, DDD, and KH3.
The h.a.n.d. DS games were at least true to what came before. The abilities systems took a portable turn sure, but the combat was smooth and innovative.
Osaka started a floatfest, all over their command deck/attack animations being lazily slopped together. They kept the trend going by reusing the same system in DDD, and toned it down making KH3 animations just a LITTLE floaty.
The floats ruin the gameplay, ruins pretty much the whole game for me, I haven’t touched those games since I beat them.
@@nothanksfools at least Re:CoM works how it’s supposed to, most just complain about difficulty.
@@mistayoutubah kh3 is no where near the worst game in the series, disappointing? Definitely. I agree with DDD solely because of the stupid dream eaters and the fact that it poorly introduces time travel.
i disagree with everything you said somehow, huh
The actual worse KH experience was Unchained X/Union X.
Nothing even comes close.
At least these aren't predatory with excessive gambling aspects.
Dream Drop Distance's glossary explains that the Keyblade of Heart is actually a third type of Keyblade, although we know almost nothing about it than it's type and that it IS a Keyblade. There are a total of three types: Light (which almost everybody on the cast uses including Riku, Sora AND Xehanort), Dark (Mickey's Kingdom Key D) and Heart (that one from KH1 that doesn't have much to do with the plot).
Yeah, that sounds like the kind of convoluted lore I would expect from post-KH2 KH. Thanks for the insight, and I hope you enjoyed the video!
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall I really enjoyed and agree, it IS convoluted. The worst thing is that the Keyblade Type explanation is really useful if mentioned by the characters and being shown more effectively. But anyway, Nomura didn't even bother to give Xemnas a Keyblade (even though he had one), so guess I can't expect much from him trying to fill the gaps he made.
@@ilucasz about xemnas I thought it was obvious that he can't use the keyblade since he's a nobody and nobody are just hollow shell with no hearts and you need a strong heart to wield one
Roxas?
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall yea I didn't of him hahaha in that case idk
I respectfully disagree with a decent amount of this but you make very valid points, this was the first step in KH becoming overly complicated, but I think DDD was even worse about that and while I still love the games including these 2, I miss the simple times before Bbs
Just because 3D was worse with it doesn't excuse the fact BBS started it. It was just continuing what BBS started, plans within plans, story details meant to sequel bait, taking away the magic of the series. It effectively killed in narratively, and it's gameplay is surprisingly incompetent
@@cryguy0000 "Just because 3D was worse with it doesn't excuse the fact BBS started it."
On a core level, sure. Three's some writing stuff that probably carried over and never corrected (except the EN voice drection, that did improve). But on an execution level, I kind of disagree.
The thing I hate the most about DDD is what it retroactively does to other games AND future games. Because it adds mechanics that let people mess with the timeline and entire world order. I could do an entire rant on retroactive time travel but I think people watching a 2 hour KH video gets that. What I think is REALLY underhated is the whole "power of waking" ability. Which was a horrible mcGuffin in Kh3 that made it feel the most meandering game yet, and is now a convenient, barely explained excuse to just jump to new dimensions.
Also Sleeping Worlds were a meh excuse for new worlds, even if I love Symphony of Sorcery. UX kinda saves some of the hate I had for Dream Eaters, but also angers me as yet another mechanic used to bridge timelines. Cool, now anyone in UX (that didn't *spoiler*) can be in KH4 because they were hibernating (and we know eventually they will find a way to turn dream eaters back. Probably Power of Waking), and the rest of the UX crew has time travel. Good job DDD.
While people may not like the retcons in BBS (I like them fwiw), they don't fundamentally change much of the OG trilogy or Days. So even if I hated BBS I can't hate it more than DDD because it's harmless in the grand scheme of things. They could never show the wayfinder trio in KH4/5/6 and it wouldn't really miss much. Even stuff like Bequeathing could be explained by Dark Road instead of BBS (Mark of Mastery is covered by DDD if you skip BBS). It may introduce OG Xehanort, but TBH it would be kinda cool if you skipped BBS and then you get a reveal of the OG by the end of DDD. You'd just miss the chance to see him flex his power like he did in that cool KH2 secret ending)
@@cryguy0000BBS did start the messy crap, that's absolutely true and there's no excuse for it all, but it's ALSO true that DDD just did everything worse aswell. Both of these suck, but for different reasons
Except for getting Magnet or Ars Solum early, that's actually fun at least
KH was only simple in KH1
@d.saunders2506 Say what you will about KH2 overcomplicating things - and there is in fact plenty to say on the matter - all of the information and lore KH2 introduced was digestible and understandable within the context of its runtime, without any additional context required to understand or appreciate what's going on. BBS, in comparison, introduces so much absolute nonsense, and elaborates on... well, less than half of it, with concepts that they actually try to explain still not making sense. Arguably it does this even worse than DDD, if only because it has so many more things that require more context, while DDD mostly just utilizes time travel with the worst execution I've ever seen.
I don't think keyblade "borrowing" in the pre-BBS games is as clear-cut as you make it seem. The scene with Jack Sparrow isn't meant to show that Sora can lend out keyblades. It shows that a keyblade can't be used by anyone that isn't its master and will immediately warp back to them. It's like an anti-theft mechanism. This is further backed up by the scene before the Sephiroth fight.
But then again, maybe Riku can?? Like, he clearly hands one to Kari. Where did it come from? How long can she keep it? idk. confusing stuff
Another one is the Roxas fight, when he calls back the keyblade at the end
I think the true but unfortunate answer is that lending out keyblades was never a thing, and that scene with Riku handing Kairi a keyblade was more or less a narrative mistake. Every other interaction in the series prior to BBS related to keyblades is pretty consistent about the keyblade only being usable by someone it deems worthy, which explains what happens w/ Leon and Jack Sparrow. The anti-theft explanation doesn't quite line up since Riku is able to "take" Sora's keyblade in KH1 (who arguably "took" it from Riku first) and Riku is able to use Roxas' keyblade during their fight. If the keyblade only cares if the wielder is worthy and not if the wielder is its single master, this all still makes sense. Roxas being able to use the keyblade can be explained as him getting that ability by proxy through Sora, which would also hold true for Xion. Riku just handing Kairi a keyblade with its own unique thematically-fitting keychain out of thin air while still having his own is so contrary to the established rules of the keyblade that it's honestly baffling. My guess is that they wanted Kairi to have a more pro-active role towards the end of the story in KH2 and make good on her promise to protect Sora for a change, so they contrived this scenario to make that possible at the expense of the established rules of the universe.
Kingdom Key seems special however, as it's the only keyblade I can remember that another person can even hold, let alone use.
Although I disagree with some of your points I do agree that BBS was the start of the convolute mess that lead into Dream Drop. Most fandoms use retcons at one point or other and it's understandable. I love BBS despite the character and story flaws. I'm going through the series with my wife for the first time. We went through BBS before KH1 and it hit different. I enjoyed the series in a different way now that BBS is a prequels. I can respect your opinion unlike most of the other comments here. I get the same hate when I'm on star wars content talking crap about the sequel trilogy.
I think the most fundamental disagreement I have that covers a lot of Sight's critiques is this: BBS was a PS2 game that got scaled down to a PSP game and probably had a crapton cut. It is one of the most ambitious PSP games along with FF Type 0, but it is also being compared to some of the best Action RPGs in the PS2 era (some would argue the best ARPG gameplay of all time).
I will have my biases here simply because I originally played this on PSP and it was mind blowing in a very early smartphone era (for reference, this was during the Iphone 3G days, a full year before IPhone 4 would show off Infinity Blade) to have something like KH1.5 in my pocket. The glow up going from Days a year prior was simply unheard of.
So wihle I agree with many critiques I also excuse them I suppose. Is the camera rough? Yup, but the PSP didn't have a right analog stick. Could there have been more story/playtime? I guess, but a 30 hour RPG on a handheld was already on the longer side, and this thing was one of the largest PSP games as is if you dowloaded an ISO. Are the worlds empty? I guess... but lack of environment detail would be an issue until DDD (Good details and verticality, but the had to make areas HUGE and make it feel empty anyway).
My God, a civil, well adjusted human being. In 2024? I can't believe it. I'm with you in that I don't really agree with all of sights points or opinions, but he does raise some good ones. I'm glad there is some level of healthy discussion, and especially glad that you got pinned. Awesome display of character on sights part for giving light to the people that don't agree with him in a healthy manner.
Arguing your point is different from not being able to handle opinions. From what I've seen, people are just debating their side. Saying things along the lines of "Your opinion sucks, and I hate you" would be not being able to handle an opinion. Saying "I disagree with you, and here's reasons why:" is just debating. A lot of people don't seem to be able to differentiate between debating and not being able to handle differences.
One thing i definitely dont get about this games story is how eraqus isn't aware xehanort is evil. And how he just lets xehanort beam a evil darkness on his face. And eraqus does nothing about it. Instead he just wants to kill ventus and terra instead of handling his old friend xehanort.
Totally. This is sort of explained in KH:Dark Road where you see the friendship of YX and Eraqus. But even then it's odd Erqaus just overlooks this and is never concerned or does anything to fix it
I'm assuming that first cutscene with Xehanort bodying Eraquis was many years apart to where Xehanort wrote Eraquis apologizing to him and/or bringing Ventus there. Before that happened, i don't think could've really done anything against Xehanort at their clash at the Land Of Departure. Xehanort was pretty strong bit was also growing stronger due to the power of darkness, which has been used many times to give huge amps. Not to mention, there wasn't many reliable ways to track him down. You could also mark it up as Eraquis bring pretty naive to accept his apology too 😅
@@taecampus That basically is what happened, yeah. Eraqus basically went "Well, he IS one of my only surviving friends and my children, effectively, ARE having a big day, it'd be stupid not to invite him if HE'S willing to reach out, right?" only for things to then break down completely. Great tragery of betrayal and everything
Then that was retconned in KH3
@@PixelHeroViish yeah, I love KH3 alot but I wasn't a fan of them switch Xehanort's true intentions towards the end. I know in Dark Road it covers that, goes deeper into that and actually does pretty well with that plot/future intentions....
It was just never really hinted beforehand that he wanted to essentially restart everything. Be just seemed like an old guy who thought darkness was the true essence of everything
@@taecampus It's extra funny cuz the whole "Balance" thing was at some point mentioned BY HIM, I believe, so he was just a straight-up extreme about his methods curious old man
Honestly they could've laid the building blocks for his KH3 motivation in this one quite easily
It’s kind of weird to say that BBS is the worst KH game (barring the mobile game), since I’ve played it the most out of every KH game. But… it really is the worst. The combat is the worst the series gets, as it’s a broken, convoluted, exploitable mess. As for the story of BBS… yeah no. It’s the beginning of the end times. It’s not the WORST story in KH, as that goes to KH3, but it’s pretty bad. It’s a much worse Revenge of the Sith; it’s like all good aspects of the movie was stripped away, and replaced with cardboard cutouts to represent where those things WOULD be (such as the story and characters).
Also random thing. You mention that the VAs didn’t do good in this game because of some reasons that I don’t care about. If I’m not mistaken, didn’t Christopher Lee read the ENTIRE script of KH2 so that he could portray Ansem the Wise the best he could? Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant though, since even if he didn’t, he clearly gave it his all. I don’t know why the BBS team/VAs decided to both write and make the main trio speak in such a way that makes them the audio equivalent of watching paint dry, but boy do I hate it.
It's funny because kh2 has a terrible story. But because it has the Best gameplay ( i almost agree) no one bats an eye. BBS does have some problems from being portable, sames as mgs peace walker. But they are so impresive as portable games that i think they deserve some Slack.
@@Metalgearfox2000 No, people “give KH2’s story a pass” because it isn’t bad at all. What are you on about? As for “give it credit for being a portable game”, reminder that 358 Days came out before BBS, on weaker hardware (the DS), and was still a better game than BBS.
@@pikachufrankie it's terrible, im not Even gonna argue if you like it. Objectively is a waste of time more than half of the Game.
@@Metalgearfox2000 If you think that over half the game was a waste of time, you weren’t paying attention to the story of KH2 at all. Your first visits to most of the Disney worlds isn’t pointless. For starters, you are unknowingly working to help Org 13 by trekking through the Disney worlds, as releasing the hearts helps Org 13 with their goals. You don’t know that until you’re hit with the revelation in Hollow Bastion’s revisit, which wouldn’t have as much of a punch to it if you had known beforehand that you were helping the villains. You’re lulled into a false sense of security; that the game will be very story-lite and it’s just a nice romp through the Disney worlds, until you have the rug ripped out from under your feet.
By no means do I think KH2’s story is the best or anything, but it has a reason for being structured the way it is. I prefer KH1’s story, but I’m not going to pretend like 2’s is bad because it’s structured in a way I don’t prefer. Could the 1st visits to Disney worlds have used more foreshadowing and symbolism for Org 13, like how the Experiment enemy from Halloween Town is a clear parallel to the nobodies? Absolutely, it absolutely could have used more of it.
Setups and payoffs, friend. Claiming that half the game is “objectively a waste of time” is disingenuous.
As for BBS, the game’s story isn’t a “waste of time” in the sense that nothing happens, a lot happens actually. It’s just that what happens is complete garbage, where every character acts like a moron and makes stupid decisions that the game pretends are rational and wise.
While I personally dislike Dream Drop Distance infinitely more than any other game in the series, I still appreciate everything you've brought here. To this day I see so many people defending this game both gameplay and story wise which I just never got, it always marked a severe downfall in quality for KH games for me.
Aqua and terra had already been learning under eraqus for 1-2 years before Ventus joined them, that's why they were allowed to take the mark of mastery test and Ventus wasnt, they are upper class men graduating and Ventus still has years left to train
The mark of mastery isn't a contest between terra and aqua, just because you are sparring with someone doesn't mean the outcome of the fight matters, they could both pass, they could both fail, or only one of them could pass as it turns out aqua did, the judges watch the participants on their form and composure to determine whether to graduate them, eraqus is blind like a fool about xehanort manipulating tera, but his decision to fail terra for channeling dark energy is understandable based on his metrics for keyblade master
You asking "who is this terra guy and why are they calling roxas Ventus?" Is no different than asking "where's sora?" At the start of KH2, you need to play the game(s) or watch the movie to understand the plot of something you can't knock a story because you don't understand the plot that hasn't been explained yet
It's fair to say Nomura is too mysterious or cryptic with full context of the whole story, most people would agree KH in it's entirety is too convoluted but it's not fair to say BBS is a bad story right out of the gate because you don't understand what hasn't been explained yet
BBS and DDD are set up for the pay off that was supposed to come from KH3, it's more correct to blame KH3 for not satisfactorily paying off what BBS started, and also Nomura for going back further to khux and dark road, which answers some questions but opens many more
You can also blame Nomura for not making KH3 the final game in the series and instead choosing to go to KH4 and beyond to answer questions
But you cant blame BBS for destroying the story because BBS was never meant to have answers or an ending it was always set up, it matters what they do with the set up whether the set up mattered
when kh3 is better than all of the games setting it up
@@johangodojolo8652 the logic? Isn’t that how it should be? You expected kh3 to be worse??? What’s your point?
@@sketchtheparadigmyork1217 what
The setup was a bad mess that kh3 had to clean up, overcomplicated mess, too many answers to stuff unto one game, with the questions themselves executed horribly. Should have had half the games we had as 'setup'.
@@jesterjaded73 Again, that's not BBS fault, that's fucking Nomura dude. If KH3 disappointed why are you directing your hate to BBS?
I've watched your previous retrospectives covering KH1, Re: CoM, 2, Days and Re: Coded. I have now watched this and I've got to say...
I don't think I've seen so much negativity towards anything in a long time. In all of these videos you kept pointing how you find so many bosses/levels boring, the worst, etc. It's not pleasant to hear a guy talking mostly negative things about games you love.
As for BBS itself, I'm not a huge fan of this game either, but it's definately not a 1/10 as you've claimed. The game has its issues like the combat being floaty and broken and the story being cheesy, but a lot of people (including myself) still find joy in this game and we can just respectfully disagree in that regard, HOWEVER calling it a 1/10 game was such a dumb statement. Come on, the music? The setpieces? The content?
I'm still not sure if the fact that you've put so much time into making all those videos saying negative things should concern me or should I appreciate your hard work...
For Kairi gaining a keyblade, Aqua accidentally bequeathed her it's so funny to me 😭
(Kairi ran up to Aqua and touched her keyblade, IT'S THE EXCUSE I HEAR AND IT'S DUMB)
JACK SPARROW NEXT KEYBLADE WEILDER CONFIRMES
@@d.saunders2506 Donald and Goofy next welders cause of the final trinity
the combat in this game sucks, but every plot-relevant critique you have just comes from you not understanding (or sometimes straight up ignoring) context given in the previous titles.
I understand not wanting to read the Ansem reports, but they DO explain away a lot of your gripes.
Ok, to get this out of the way...
There was _never_ supposed to be one Keyblade. Triton mentioned several Keyblade wielders, describing them as people who brought nothing but death and destruction. There was also Mickey wielding a Keyblade, and the Keyblade of Heart (Which, as explained in-game, was made up of the 7 Princesses of Heart's pure lights, or at least it would've if Kairi wasn't inside Sora's heart.).
As for Kairi, by touching Aqua's Keyblade, she effectively was bequeathed one, even if it was never official. She unconsciously summoned one, but because she never had experience, it ended up with Riku, and so when he gave it to her, he was essentially returning what was hers.
As for Way to the Dawn, it was the result of Riku gaining enough strength of heart, plus light, to finally be able to wield one of his own. As he still uses the darkness in tandem with Light, it's based off Soul Eater.
I mean...do you really want to do this? Because everything you listed is either wrong, based on your own individual interpretation of eventsand not canonical, or retroactively explained in a future game, with the exception of the Keyblade of People's Hearts
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall
From Nomura himself in the Director's Secret Reports XIII:
p. 28; Tetsuya Nomura: "There isn't just one Keyblade for the side of light and one for darkness. There are as many Keyblades in existence as there are hearts qualified to wield them. At this stage, the only requirement that has been made clear is that someone must have a "strong heart", but there are other requirements that haven't been spelled out yet which I plan to reveal another time when I have the chance. Riku's Way to the Dawn and the Keyblade Kairi wields are of the same nature as Sora's Keyblade. However, what with one having developed with the Soul Eater as intermediary and one having been handed to Kairi by Riku, I would like you to think that something not fully explained, outside the usual method of acquirement, is going on here."
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall
Also, the bequeathing, as shown with Riku, happens through the receiver touching the bequeather's Keyblade.
Kairi touched Aqua's Keyblade, and thus, even if accidental, was bequeathed.
So, let me get this straight: you expect me to trust an extra report that came in a limited edition of a Japanese exclusive booklet for the limited edition of KH2FM? From a guy that changes his mind and introduces new out-of-nowhere twists very regularly because he thinks it's cool?
You don't have any examples in the games themselves, no argument based on evidence that the games present to us? Where was this information in KH2FM. I read the reports in that game, and there was nothing of the sort mentioned.
If it isn't clear, I heavily believe in this:
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathOfTheAuthor
See, that's an example of you projecting your interpretation and/or pulling from future entries. Nowhere is that stated clearly in BBS. You might be able to point to future entries, but in BBS and before, there's nothing of the sort.
My god the idea of support conversations in bbs via flashback wouldve been great
This was definitely a pretty thorough critique. I used to like BBS a fair bit but overtime and with a few more replays I’ve grown a lot more critical of it.
Thing is, I can split my feelings on KH games pretty neatly: you’ve got entries with both strong gameplay and enjoyable stories (for all their um…quirks) like KH1 and 2. You’ve got entries here I think the gameplay is satisfying but the story is either flawed or outright bad, like Coded or to an extent 3. And games which have pretty good storytelling but weak gameplay, like COM, Days or to some extent Union/Dark Road.
BBS is definitely on the lower end of the totem pole because it falls short in both. On a gameplay level it has a lot of the same problems as COM. Unsatisfying, easy to break combat with little incentive to experiment and get better and a lack of variety outside that lacklustre fighting. I don’t know if it was a result if the PSP’s hardware limitations, Osaka Team’s inexperience, rushed deadlines or all 3, but it drags down the experience a lot. And while I like the idea of multiple campaigns on paper, in practise they’re just way too repetitive. To the point that I’m glad the game is so short.
As for story, there’s some good ideas and interesting character concepts. But the execution is very flat. I don’t really buy Terra, Aqua and Ventus’ friendship. And they’re all desperate in need of deeper exploration to reach their full potential (and tbf, Aqua did kinda get that in 0.2) As a prequel it’s way too fanservicey and focused on over explaining things that didn’t need it (often with unsatisfying answers). And, to come back to your Star Wars analogue, Xehanort is, for better and worse, KH’s Palpatine. He’s fun to watch but I never bought him as the manipulator the game frames him as because his plan is contrived as all get out.
I don’t know if I’d call it quite the worst KH game. COM and the mobile games, despite some decent writing are less enjoyable to play for me. And DDD has a lot of the same issues for me as BBS but slightly worse. But BBS is definitely very low in my personal ranking of the series and was the turning point for a lot of problems that became really glaring in the series’ later years.
"Unsatisfying, easy to break combat with little incentive to experiment and get better and a lack of variety outside that lacklustre fighting. "
Mini-rant, but even tho COM is my least favorite gameplay... isn't the incentive to experiment just for fun's sake?
Like IDK. You don't need to unlock that many commands to beat BBS, but you also don't need to do a lot of things in the main entries that turn out to be really fun or outright broken. I never used summons in KH1/2/3 after first usage but it was cool they were in the game, and how others have used them to speedrun some hard fights. I didn't unlock too many growth skills in KH2 my first time, but in Final Mix they were insanely fun to use. I feel like part of the magic lost in critiques like this is the role playing aspect (and yeah, easy to forget but KH are RPGs). Aqua's Inferno Storm is unwieldy as heck and is never used casually because you basically unlock it at endgame. but MAN does it feel good to use. That's how a lot of those endgame stuff feels.
------
But if you want a more pragmatic explanation for these incentives: I believe the Mirage arena was that incentive. People playing the collections won't know, but the Mirage arena on PSP was an entire co-op battle arena that you could connect locally with friends to play through (or if you jumped through hoops and has a PS3, online). And in the PSP versions they designed the hardest bosses (which are REALLY cool btw, look them up if you never played Mirage Arena) under the assumption you would be using 3 players to take them down. it's a LOT of content that most people in the West would have never experenced, because the PSP couldn't do online multiplayer by itself and I wager 90%+ players simply lacked the friends with PSPs and BBS to do this with. If Pokemon couldn't overcome this gap, KH wouldn't.
More importantly, I'm sure that was a lot of time being spend on development. So if you feel BBS was half-baked, you may have the Mirage Arena to blame. A cultural difference where the JP devs fully expected players to come together and duke it out together. Funnily enough, that dream may finally come to fruition over a decade later with Missing Link.
I'm glad to hear critiques of this game. You talk with KH fans and they treat BBS like the second coming of Christ, however to me it felt like a step back in every regard. Gameplay is boring, characters aren't interesting, and the plot is needlessly complicated and tries to set up this big backstory that came out of no where.
Yeah I think a lot of them have nostalgia goggles on. I was expecting the game to be a little worse than kh2 but upon playing I found the game to absolutely be a 1/10 for me from the floaty ass combat, to the shitty boss design, to the fact that you have to grind out commands and abilities to actually get the ones you want. Just a fucking slog of a game that I wanted to be over after I beat the Terra route
A 2 hour video titled the worst KH game
And its not about the worst KH game
@@noVva555 *3 hours, don't disrespect my name lolol
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall yeah sorry forgot to round it up
@@noVva555 seriously though, you can go watch my KH3 streams to see me agree with you slowly in real time lol
The best thing from bbs is the music when Ven gets frozen and the command board. Especially the command board. I played that game for hours and I was always sad when my stuff was maxed out. Don't remember much else lol
Check out the kh2fm secret cutscene it's the original version of that song and the video Fate of the Unknown is the song's name. The cutscenes in the game are based on taht short film.
Eh… I’d still pick DDD as the worst KH game, but that’s just me.
At least you can beat this game at Level 1 without doing chip damage, and you can do some funny tech like Ignite and the Peter Pan D-Link thing.
DDD doesn’t have Damage Floors, ergo you *always* do minimum damage, ergo using Balloon/Firaga Burst strats is the primary way to get anything done within your lifetime.
EXP Zero means nothing in that game, unlike this, KH2, and KH1.
While the damage floor point was technically true, it's interesting to note that that issue was only fixed in the HD remaster of BBS, and even then, they overcompensated and made level 1 crit one of the easier ways to play by buffing your damage after a certain point.
While I stand by my statement that BBS is the worst, perhaps a better way of framing it within the context of the series is that BBS had the most squandered potential. DDD was always going to be subpar with the story it had. BBS had tons of potential, and it was wasted.
You can do fine damage in DDD lvl1. With optimized spirit builds and magic boosts you can do maybe even better damage than bbs. DDD YX lvl1 no commands is one of my favorite kh videos on youtube and it proves this
@@johangodojolo8652
You… do understand that *one optimized fight* doesn’t prove anything other than “being the exception and not the rule?”
Anything that requires the time, tedium, and RNG involved in the optimization of the spirits… JUST to make DDD *function like a normal KH game* is not a good defense.
You are jumping through so many hoops, just to meet the *base standard* of what your damage output *should have been,* had damage floors been a thing from the get-go.
Instead of providing me an *end-game* fight as your “proof,” did you ever stop to think about how *getting to that point* would’ve looked?
Please. *Play the game* up to that point and tell me how that worked out for you for every World.
@@Deoxys_Used_Mimic Pls look at my channel. I've uploaded an entire DDD lvl1 no spirits run. I'm well aware of how DDD functions. Pls dont assume stuff you don't know to make a point.
I have no idea what you're talking about in terms of sprit optimization tedium. It's a very simple process to get the right spirits for a good build and there's next to no significant rng involved. And yea there is a little but of grinding to get a build suitable for a fucking lvl1 run but that's to be expected isn't it. KH3 has you grinding for star medals and keyblade upgrades. KH2 has you grinding growth abilities and equipment. BBS has the most grindy lvl1 run by miles with its absurdly long command/abilities grinds.
I used Young Xehanort as the example here because hes the hardest fight in the game. You can just as easily use a powerful strength build in any other fight in the game to do comperable levels of damage.
I'm also not exactly sure why you're using the lvl1 run as some sort of standard for the entire games quality here. Yeah DDD doesn't have very good damage scaling but I'm not seeing how it makes the game on any playthrough thats not lvl1 bad. BBS also has dogshit damage scaling with no damage floor. They just threw in a random hidden ability on 0 EXP to make lvl1 possible instead of actually fixing the issue at its source. Only on the console version tho. PSP has to live with a lvl1 that is incapable of letting you do anything more than the smallest chip damage possible.
You open with "BBS has none of the nuance or theming of Kingdom Hearts" but every point you make is just you being bewildered and confused by actual nuance.
For one, the Unversed are Vanitas, taken shape through his negative emotions(and later other people's). Negative emotions are not darkness, and darkness in KH is not "Evil" in any way (See CoM, and Riku's story in general throughout the games), darkness is entropy and finality, which is made very clear just about everywhere in the entire series, with the exception of KH1 maybe.
Lines like "The protagonists should know the full scope of the villain's plan" make me wonder if this is your first KH game. That has literally never once been a thing in KH.
Or lines like "The Kai blade is a worthless object, it's formed and then it's destroyed 2 minutes later by only 2 keyblade wielders, 3 if you count Ventus fighting Vanitas in his own heart", like you really didn't get the exposition about the XBlade? I don't believe you. I think you're just trying to make it sound incomprehensible.
The Xblade is forged when pure light and pure darkness fight. Once it is formed, it is visually revealed that the pure light and darkness are locked in a perpetual fight inside it, which is what fuels it.
The one to actually break the XBlade is Ventus, by ending the perpetual fight, through Aqua's help, weakening Vanitas' body from the outside.
Obviously if the XBlade is forged and Xehanort gets a hold of it, that's it. That opens the door to the true Kingdom Hearts for Xehanort, so to say that it has no importance to the plot is obviously stupid, and I think you knew it was stupid as your voice shakes when you say it.
I mean some of the stuff you're saying is really over the top, sounds like parody. "The trio doesn't get any development from going through the disney worlds", is just plainly insane.
You could maybe make a very disingenuous argument about Terra learning to not succumb to darkness (by being obsessed with gaining power to defend his friends) through his interactions with the Disney characters being worthless because he technically ends up succumbing to darkness in the end anyway, but that's as far as you can push it.
Aqua learns that there's more to life than just following Master Eraqus' mission, and that other things, like Terra and Ventus, are more important to her. She learns to be more empathetic, caring and flexible by the end, when at the beginning she's ready to murder anyone who harbors darkness.
Ventus learns that he's actually very capable, earns confidence and builds character and his own set of morals. He's a baby at the beginning of the game, and only follows Terra like a puppy because he childishly wants to be considered a grown up like the others.
Other claims about the gameplay are even dumber, stuff like Terra not having a good dodge, when Terra is very obviously a stand-your-ground type character, who guards and counters better than Ventus and Aqua. Where Terra has dead recovery frames between dodging, Ventus and Aqua have those after guarding or countering. They're different characters and you're trying to play them all the same way. Moreover, any claim of difficulty in BBS is crazy when D-links exist and Peter Pan or Mickey oneshot almost every boss in the game on Lv1 Critical.
Agree on shotlocks, but that's quite possibly the lowest hanging fruit in the series.
Honestly I just feel stupid even responding to this.
Actually good comment. BBS is not a good game but this guy needs to stop spreading so much misinformation
Thanks for this.
OK, but why do they look like Kamen Riders?
@@Nomorehats because it's really cool
Ventus didn't qualify because he was too young, Xehanort's reports show that the keyblade war was ancient more so than any of them, at no point is it hinted that the key blade given to Kairi is a loaner, and all the dialog that hinted that there was only 1 was spoken by people who knew nothing about the keyblade.
You have to consider that Prince Philipp was in that cell and Aqua meets him when Maleficent sends her there, it would have had them to make Ventus meet Philipp just because of a small room, maybe it was locked by Maleficent's magic.
Then that should have been explained, instead of just "What, there might something be in there? Well, not for me tho!" It's literally as easy as implementing a textbox saying something akin to "The door won't open. Must be locked."
@@lpfan4491 That's true tho, it wasn't hard to maybe say "It's locked with magic"
tl;dr, this is your a typical Nomura retconning his own writing like usual
pretty much
Oooh sounds like someone was pissy about the remake... But yea XD
Ok, we belive you.
I actually like this game but, you make a lot of good points, still it has a place in my weird heart
Hey, that's alright. Any joy in this world is a net positive. Keep loving BBS!
I love this attitude. "I just made a three hour video on how much I hate this game, but if you love it that's great!"
I know it’s your opinion, but 1/10 is kind of harsh, I would give it like maybe a 6/10 it’s not the worst, I’d say 358/2 Days is the worst game in the series, I literally only beat that game one time, and never touched it again. Each Kingdom Hearts game, I have came back for a replay, I tried to do 358/2 Days again, and I just couldn’t do it, it’s just so soulless and boring and mundane and clunky.
waiting for this to reach 1 million views like the infamous kh3 video essay
I see we have a CoM enjoyer here. Jokes aside I do agree with most points but the game is so non-challenging that just casually going through the game as flawed as it is was still fun to me. Flashy cool stuff happening(as impractical as it becomes at the end game) is still cool to look at. There are some very good moments and though the story is weak its not convoluted as later entries. I actually like the mini-games for what they are. I rarely ever take a KH title seriously enough to fully complete every single task anymore. Also I like the re-write of making Aqua related to Eraqus especially considering KHX has recently started to make bloodlines a theme now.
i'm 5 minutes in and every complaint has been from a misunderstanding of Kingdom Hearts lore (even prior to BBS, lots of BBS lore was established in 2 if you actually beat it) or from a misunderstanding of things, I just got to the part where you say "It's not a competition between them so why are they fighting" It wasn't to see who was better it was to make sure neither of them would exploit darkness which is why Terra failed.
hey, thanks for being approximately the 400th person to claim I don't know the Kingdom Hearts lore! if you'll direct your attention to my other multi-hour long KH videos, you'll see that I did indeed play the other games, and I'm sorry I came away from them with a different interpretation of some of the worst, most vague and unhelpful lore ever seen in a video game.
Enjoy the rest of the video!!!!!!
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFallbut you dont understand kh lore tho? Lol you can 100% every game and still misunderstand things( this goes for every game or show or book ever etc)
I would rather play BBS 100 times, than playing 10 minutes of Chain of Memories
I don't understand why these writers can't treat Aqua as an actual master with the stamina, strength and maturity required for that title. It's like there's some unwritten rule in KH that female characters have to play the damsel in distress when "push comes to shove."
It's like a weird shonen anime series, where the girls usually take a backseat for the guys to be strong and cool. Just a weird quirk
Alternatively, it can be seen as supremely insulting/potentially misogynistic
She beat Vanitas the second fight and beat Terranort and survived as long as she did In the realm of Darkness. KH always makes it's woman look strong.
What....? 😅
Besides given the title of being a Master, she kinda proved it as well mate. Besides trashing the Unversed in the many worlds, helping and saving people in those worlds. She kicks Vanitas butt like 3 times, granted Mickey was there the last time but Vanitas (Ventus fused) had the literal X-Blade. She pretty much beats Braig without resorting to darkness like Terra did. Changed her dying world into another, pretty much saving it from falling completely into the Realm of Darkness, while keeping Ventus safe and out of harms way. Beats up TerraNort, then saves him from falling into darkness. Then, while in the Realm of Darkness (aka KH Hell), she spends like 10 years fighting powerful heartless, saved Riku, got saved from the ROD and still fought evenly with an amped up Vanitas, without even resting.
Not to mention the stuff she pulled off in the Keyblade Graveyard. She's far from a damsel in distress and definitely earn her title of being a master 😅
Damsel in distress!?!? She literally yeeted terranort out of the realm of darkness and survived there for years...
My biggest problems with this game's combat is it has too many systems and NONE of them are in service to one another. Like in kh2, the mp bar and the drive gauge are in service to each other, if you use magic or a limit youre in mp charge and your drive gauge fills up faster. If you use a drive form or a summon, your mp bar fills up completely. In bbs: commands, shotlocks, d-links, command styles, and finishers all have almost nothing to do with one another, the game has too many systems for no good reason. Shotlocks are op, but they have no reason to be in the game, they dont improve or add anything meaningful.
4:27 the Xehanort Reports in BBS literally talk about there not only being Keyblades of Light and Darkness, but also the Keyblade of Heart as well (Xehanort Report #6), which also shouldn't need much explanation as it's pretty much laid out in KH1 that it's made up of six of the seven hearts of the Princesses of Heart, only missing one piece, that being Kairi's (the negative space in the teeth is a heart, and it's missing a piece of metal to complete that shape. When Sora stabs himself to free Kairi, the keyblade separates into the seven hearts and they return to their respective persons)
Riku did not let Kairi borrow a keyblade... if he did, which keyblade did he let her borrow? His own? He is literally holding Way to Dawn in that cutscene. Mickey's? He still had his. We don't know where Kairi's keyblade comes from yet. The likely explanation is that it's her own, but then the question comes up over why she doesn't have it before Riku gives it to her, which I have a theory about regarding the novel, but currently there is no canon explanation, though Nomura has said he may do something about it.
The reports still don't answer the question of why there are so many Keyblades of light and darkness now, when there were only pke each before now.
Riku gifts Kairi a Keyblade in KH2, she doesn't have one of her own yet.
We know there are other realms between light and darkness because of the existence of the Nobodies who exist between them, and they must exist in some space. So, I positited the possible of a Keyblade existing for a realm in-between light and darkness so Riku could use the Keyblade. KH2 never directly refers to Way to the Dawn as a Keyblade either, so my justification is a bit unnecessary anyway.
Those reports you mentioned also don't explain the functional difference between Keyblades of light and darkness that would necessitate splitting them between light and dark, which is a whole other issue.
Since when were Keyblades made of 'hearts'? That thing definitely made no sense, because they had to invent a whole new category of Keyblade to do so, according to another commenter.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall did you read my comment?
I said that the keyblade of heart is literally made of the Princesses of Hearts' hearts. Watch the cutscene again, you'll see balls of light (their hearts) flying back to their respective bodies
If Riku gifted Kairi a keyblade, under the explanation of there only being one keyblade per realm (which there are not; there is merely just a RoD counterpart to each RoL keyblade, not one per realm) where did that keyblade come from? If there is only one keyblade per realm, Sora has the RoL, Mickey has the RoD, and Riku (I guess, in your explanation, even though it's untrue) has the Realm Between. Where did hers come from, if Riku is wielding his own keyblade in the scene he gives her Destiny's Embrace?
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall also, the reports literally say "the first and second families differ only in origin," already explaining the difference between the Keyblades of Light and Darkness, in that there really isn't one, only that one of each is needed to seal the door to darkness from their respective sides (which we see in KH1, and is explained in 0.2 Fragmentary Passage if you want them to outright say it. Probably mentioned in some Nomura interviews at the time of KH1 as well, like with the confirmation that Sora was never the original recipient of the keyblade and Riku was, and how Sora only got the keyblade by reaching for the light in Riku's heart and *not* because Ventus was in his heart; that was never the reason. The reason has always been that Sora reached for the light of Riku's heart, and the keyblade went to Sora because Riku entered the corridor of darkness.
Ventus never impacts Sora's ability to wield the keyblade. The only thing it *may* have allowed was his ability to dual wield, but that may as well have also been Roxas recombining with Sora. However, the presence of his heart was never the reason he was able to wield a keyblade, because even now, in the end of KH3, Sora can use Double Form and dual wield without the presence of Ventus, Roxas, or Xion's hearts) (this was meant to go into an edit of the original comment but for some reason it wouldn't allow it)
@@DaybreakTownGSA While I disagree with the rationale of the videocreator on Kairi's Keyblade being some sort of rent-blade making sense, I feel as though that's less contributing to BBS being justified and moreso KH2 also very much sucking interms of lore and story, because it just does whatever.
Oh noes, the walls between worlds have been restored, so we can't just fly to them anymore! Do we use some sort of clever way to get there, like opening up the walls again with the Keyblade or sth at the risk of dankness coming in or use Disney Backward's magic to port around or possibly even some sort of advanced technology? Nah, we just write in Deus Ex World-pathways. Pathways that don't even make sense, because they are connected to absolutely random objects in the worlds that sometime didn't even exist 5 minutes ago.(Also, we ignore the fact that by lore, the worlds that Sora didn't visit in KH1 still have the doors to their hearts unsealed.)
@@lpfan4491 I mean, I disagree?
The worlds Sora didnt visit likely fell to darkness before the events of KH1 (as is the likely case for most of the princess of hearts' worlds, confirmed to be the case for Beast's Castle as he arrived in Hollow Bastion using a Dark Corridor that destroyed his home world, also same goes for Mushu, Simba, any of the summons in kh1 as Fairy Godmother says they survived their worlds falling to darkness), or during the final stretch of the End of the World, after which Sora defeated Ansem, closed the door to darkness, and all worlds were returned to the realm of light (or in-between in the case of Twilight Town and Yen Sid's Tower), the only ones that weren't fully restored became the sleeping worlds we unlock in DDD
After the worlds were restored after KH1, they restored their world barriers, and as defense mechanisms while they were reforming, created gates to ward off darkness and intruders, only being opened by Sora, or someone wielding the keyblade, unlocking them by finding an object central to the specific world or its inhabitants, or that represent the bond Sora has forged with the hearts of said world/inhabitants
None of them are just "random objects," they all mean something to either the world's inhabitants or the connection Sora has with them. The only one that is actually random is Atlantica I guess, but KH2 Atlantica also threw out the lore of King Triton knowing of other keyblade wielders so [shrug]
eh, I really loved this game, but I understand that BBS is one of those games everyone either really loves or hates. for me the worst game was probably Re:Coded
Watch my video on Re:Coded and Days for why I think it's pretty good.
Re;Coded's story is the worst and most skippable. Idk about the gameplay
@@tigerfestivals5137gameplay of coded is actually very fun, it’s a complete 180 to 358/2 days which the story while good it’s gameplay pacing is absolutely horrendous
When aqua gives kairi the charm its assumed that it activates in kh1 when she becomes apart of sora hence the light within you will lead you to another light
Kingdom hearts 3 explained that
@@MedVZ he questioned it
Doesn’t Nomura specifically state in an interview that Sora inherited nothing from Ventus’. Sora only got the keyblade because Riku succumbed to darkness in order to leave the islands. I also believe Roxas never had Ventus’ heart. If he did, I don’t think Roxas would have grown his own heart.
Don't know, don't care. The lore since BBS is dogwater and doesn't make sense lol
Yeah this guy doesn't understand lore and just ranting...
@@quad9238the lore is intentionally obtuse and badly written. This is as a huge KH fan.
The only thing Sora got from Ventus was an accidental inheritance of the keyblade when Ventus heart was looking where to find refuge. The reason why Roxas looks like Ventus is because Ventus heart was inside of Sora so he took that look. And Vanitas looks like Sora cause he copied that form at his creation. Also this guy just doesn't give a shit about anything in the story he himself doesn't pick so ignore him.
@@jhallo1851 don't mind me rolling on floor from laughter
This comment section made me realize the community is split between people who take Nomura at his every word despite him being known for basically making shit up as he goes and people like you who realize certain things will fall apart the moment you start to question them
It's funny when people deny Retconning in the series as well. Nomura himself has admitted that he hadn't planned everything out and left a lot of plot points open ended, yet some people in the fanbase truly believe that the first game was always meant to lead up into time travel, puppet bodies and dream eaters.
Really great breakdown of the game and pointing out all its strengths and its many flaws.
In a time when there was no 3D KH game on handhelds, it was great to have this game, but it indeed set a standard for many ideas that help the series to this day.
I love the story ideas you suggested at the end and it really made the story sound so much more rich and interesting.
Best Gameplay: Kingdom Hearts 2.
Best Story: 358/2 Days.
Worst Gameplay: Birth By Sleep.
Worst Story: Re:Coded.
Agreed
BBS is not a bad game but it gets old real fast, I don't know why some people put it at the same level of KH2 when there is a massive divide in quality, I even find DDD better than BBS because at least DDD is respectful of my time and it doesn't force me to play a game 3 times.
You mentioned that the Wayfinder trio should have a past, but Ventus does have a past, Spoiler below.
Ven past was explored in Union X.
I can't use that backstory because it wasn't presented in BBS proper, nor in a game that came out before it. Just like I can't take Poe Dameron's backstory from Star Wars Episode IX when considering how his character is presented in Episode VII. Knowledge gained from future entries can't count toward the analysis of a product, because the analysis is based on the game as it stood when it released.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall
You don’t need to explain a character story in their debut game, especially since it’s an ongoing story. Ventus was a complete mystery in BBS, we had no idea where Xehanort found him, and now thanks to Union X, we know his past and now we know why Xehanort was invested in him.
yoooo this dude's kh bbs fanfic rewrite au goes hard
The idea of the Keyblades being fragments of the X-blade is brilliant! I wish I thought of that.
I'm playing it right now after having beaten KH1 & 2 years ago and I'm not enjoying it as much as I expected it to be
my biggest grip right now is gameplay but after seeing your video it becomes more apparent how lame the story really is
I love KH but it's plot has become unnecessary convoluted. I didn't understand half of things that happened in KH3
Genuinely love the story tweaks you gave out as it really naturally fuels the tension and emotion between the trio and everyone else. The way Terra actually SHOWS HIM FALLING TO DARKNESS (understandably so here, too) with his backstory leading to his love for those he cares about fueling his fear of not being strong enough -> making him more susceptible to the corrupting forces of the darkness all while being jealous / fearful / etc of vanitas and hostile to aqua later sounds SICK. As a LORE game, i expected this to finally reveal more about the nature of dark and light as star wars animated shows have thanks to Filoni & crew, but we BARELY GET SHIT! Xenahort needed to be shown more time corroding to darkness in the way you described as "it now controlling him instead of the other way around", with his belief of a "balanced" light/dark scale being what drives him, though for him he should also have something similar to terra but the opppsite: overabundance of the light implies the narrative that its comfort weakens people to the point of being susceptible to greed, jealousy, laziness, etc. and xenahort should have revealed (or someone/thing should have revealed) a secret about his past being that his family or planet or whatever lost themselves in this gluttonous way when the light came, and sees darkness as almost a spiritually eugenic force to keep people strong- hinting at the bad fascist motto "good times create weak men, which create bad times, which bad times create strong men, which create good times, etc". The staunchness from aqua really would be great to see against xehanort here cause she would contrast heabily against him from both of their naivetes. Some other things too is that the keyblade war could very well have been humanity's first war of sorts, and the "god" or divine force that guides the wisdom of keyblades whether fragments of Chi blades or not began to "believe" more in the validity of the mark of mastery exams (which shouls have been played up more and shown as monumental, as its implied in the land of departure it used to be an acadamy of many wielders that fell dramatically short due to the ramifications of said war, as even characters mention that there may be few surviving wielders out there, etc) but basically therefore we see the divine keyblade only choose those with both the proper wisdom AND heart to wield, in which case sora was chosen in a rare instance of desperation via ONLY judging him based on his heart as said divine force felt "a disturbance in the force" per se when the first princess of heart was abducted and the barriers between worlds were traversed by the disney villains. Sure the charms of protection and whatnot by terra and aqua may have helped accelerate the process or allow the keyblade god (lol) an easier time making such a desperate decision, but to me its still much more coherent while also implying the keyblades are granted to those with strong conviction and heart but also have an agenda to keep some sort of cosmic balance. Atp its impossible to not make star wars repeats but thats what you get when a series follows so similarly in its footsteps. Still, i agree and understand alot of where youre coming from for most of this video, and good lord please this dialogue and voice direction needs an immediate overhaul. Crazy to finish kh2 only to jump into this.
You lost all credibility when you claimed the prequels were terrible. You're more than welcome to an opinion, but when you start complaining about how the lore about keyblades changed you just sound bitter. Nowhere did it say before that there are only two keyblades. And on top of that this is nowhwere near the worst KH game. Re:coded and CoM still exist.
I have videos on both if you want my thoughts
Thank goodness for Leonard Nimoy, Mark Hamill and Yoko Shimomura lol…
I think BBS’s story was always semi-dependent on KH3 since BBS was the setup for KH3. KH3 having such a half-hearted main scenario seems to have retroactively soured people’s impressions of the entire Xehanort “saga,” which is sad because it did have great potential. Now that we know the “payoffs,” it has taken out the mystique of BBS’s story and it’s hard to look at it without thinking about where most of its intriguing mysteries all led.
As a self-contained story for a PSP title, I do think BBS works well enough as a “fall of the hero” story and is surprisingly ambitious with its 3 storylines. If it had been made for PS2 it surely would have been able to put more story in the game and make the heroes more interesting. It was worth it for Master Xehanort, though. Nimoy put way more effort into the role than he needed to, and his performance (combined with Nomura’s character design) made the old man memorable.
And obviously we’ve got to be grateful for that excellent OST. “Silent Forest,” “Rustling Forest,” “Night of the Dark Dream,” “Destiny’s Union,” “Dismiss,” “Dark Impetus,” “Disney Town!” (Okay now I’ve gone too far in a few places…)
Oh well. All the roads not taken, I guess. Sad that SQ never gave KH the treatment it deserved over the years. Some of the experimentations were fun, but it’s painful wondering what could have been.
had a way more enjoyable time with this game than kh3
KH3 may be bad, but it's not AS bad imo
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall you're right. It's worse.
@@JabamiLain KH2 better
@@RyukiAzurite indeed.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall the problem is that KH3 has awesome combat compared to KH2 level of awesome, but the story was hugely spoiled and when we got to play we had already seen everything in the trailers basically. I don't care what they say about KH3 combat being bad, vanilla KH2 also had it's fair share of bad stuff that were addressed in FM and the same happened to KH3 with RM, so fuck it if anyone says the combat in 3 is bad, it's not. I think we could have some things from other games, like more variety of spells and more defined classes so we can properly play the game as an action RPG, and less flashy stuff like some finishers that we have in both 2 and 3 that are faster in 2 and makes the combat flow really well compared to when I have those moves in 3 (I'm looking at you magnet burst and explosion).
The whole rest of the KH3 is equally fun to play, fast paced combat, very cool moves, animation cancelling, the shot lock dash and so on.
The algorithm says hi. Big fan of your writing and delivery which made it a very engaging watch, especially going more in-depth with BBS's mechanical shortcomings than most other critiques of this game do. You earned the sub, and now I'm gonna have to go watch your other KH breakdowns.
It’s TIME BABY
An extra note is that the damage formula is extremely bad in this game in a way that definitely needed to be fixed. It's (Strength or Magic - Defense) * Ability Strength and/or passive boosts. Then and only then the game takes the number and if its less than 1 set it to one, which leads to you literally doing 1 damage with all attacks if you fall behind on stats. For example the time you were doing chip damage with Ventus might've been entirely fixed if you put on the keyblade with 1 more strength assuming that you were tied with enemy defense.
This leads to an all or nothing where you have say Blizzaga which has a power of 5.7. if you had 11 magic vs an enemies 12 defense, that Blizzaga would do 1 damage, so you grind for 2-3 levels to get your next magic up but since 12-12 is not greater than 1, your Blizzaga still does 1 damage. So then you go grind for another 2-3 levels to get your next magic up, Since you finally have a magic value higher than your opponents defense value, your damage immediately shoots up to 5.7 before passives, and if you kept grinding? your next magic upgrade would double your damage against the same enemy which is just wild. It also means you should only use multihit commands if your under leveled because they suddenly become miles better then any single hit.
An interesting side effect of this is making Crit much more painful as Crit give you .75 times EXP making it much easier to fall into chip damage than other difficulties.
Except the KH2 Ansem Reports and the secret ending set up that fact that many Keyblade wielders existed and a massive Keyblade War between many wielders had already happened. KH2 was always setting this up. Also, everytime it is claimed that there is only supposed to be one (or two) Keyblades are from unreliable narrators who in truth never knew jack shit about Keyblades. Leon and the gang just went off of some legend that is never explained how they know even that and Triton only knew that Keyblades can be trouble. There are many inconsistencies in Kingdom Hearts' narrative, many people wielding Keyblades isn't one of them.
SHHHHH that ruins his arguments!
Honestly, I don't mind there being many Keyblade wielders, but they need to keep the process of getting a Keyblade special.
You can't just "give" someone the ability to use the Keyblade. I think this is the biggest problem people have when it comes to the Keyblade. "The Keyblade chooses its master" established in KH1 needs to stay.
Important detail to remember was that BBS was re-written from what was planned originally during KH2.
In 2005, BBS was being developed on PS2 with Sora as main protagonist, and it would’ve been a sequel to KH2. The same Tokyo devs/artists/masterminds from KH1 and KH2 were on development.
EVERYTHING CHANGED when Square got PS3 devkits in 2006, they sent Final Fantasy 13 from PS2 to PS3 along with FFvs13 and Type-0, and they sent BBS to PSP to be restarted with Osaka.
FF went back to AAA status, KH became AA handheld series for 10 years.
KHBBS had a separate writer, with Nomura directing with a co-director Square hired on for the first time ever, to “assist” Nomura; which really meant censoring his more dark and mature themes he wanted to introduce to the series via the Keyblade War. He instead was assigned to direct FFvs13, which would give him his creative freedom (somewhat).
Now as for WHAT Nomura was cooking with the original Sora BBS? Nobody knows, but it was presumably intended be tied directly to lore established in KH1 and KH2 (which suggested Keyblade wielder’s are chosen ones, although never fully explained).
Not only did the BBS restart effect the lore of BBS, it has effected the LORE UNIVERSE in every title moving forward, except for arguably 358/2 Days since that was Nomura’s final time fulfilling the role as sole “writer”, written before BBS as a way to explain Roxas’s Organization XIII drama from KH2.
More people with Keyblades WAS always intended via Keyblade War (post KH2)… but it’s worth noting that there was an entirely different continuation of events written to follow KH2, and we are for all intents and purposes in an alternate lore timeline which exists out of sync with KH1’s and KH2’s narratives (as you pointed out).
Nomura wrote what he wrote, then they took the wheel from Nomura and changed it and just kept truckin’.
I’m sure Nomura’s original plan for explaining multiple wielders (including explaining Kairi’s Keyblade) was at least going to make sense, rather than taking such a sharp and uncomfortable turn into random new wielders spawning out of literally nowhere and not needing to be chosen by the key at all.
It went from “the key chooses” to “the master chooses”… only problem with that narrative is that our current MAIN PROTAGONIST (Sora) never had a master choose him (his later adopted “master” for purpose of MoM Exam alone, is Yen Sid - who we’ve never seen with a Keyblade once even as the world is ending) and it also defeats the whole purpose of KH1 Sora and Riku fighting over the Kingdom Key and Sora being left with his wooden sword.
I agree with the uploader, and I believe that corporate SE did a worse job of telling Nomura’s story, that Nomura should have told by himself.
@@mistayoutubah You see, the problem with everything you just, is dependent on Nomura having been locked out of BBS and Kingdom Hearts as a franchise and unable to have any control over it. Which was absolutely not the case. Nomura was still in charge of the franchis as a whole and Osaka worked under him and wasn't just some corporate team that took over the franchise away from Nomura. BBS going from a sequal to a prequal was not something forced by SE, that was still Nomura's decision. He decided that BBS would tell the story of the three armored Keyblade wielders from their point of view rather then have Sora learn of it second hand. Also, all the stuff of BBS being a sequal was very early planning and development. It was all early concept with vague ideas and never left that stage before it was switched to a prequal. Also also, my point still stands that there being multiple Keyblade wielders was not something BBS just invented with no set up to it. KH2 set up a past where many people weilded keyblades and set up the armored Keblade weilders having a connection to Xehanort. Nothing in BBS was just out of the blue.
@@kevinbell5674 You see, the problem with all of what you just said is that it is spoken strictly through the lens of an unconcerned product consumer.
You clearly have no knowledge of NDA’s or what they are or how powerful they can be to sometimes even control someone’s entire life… but I will save this educational paragraph on NDA’s for after my main correction of your comment.
BBS was a year and a half into development on PS2, it was no “very early concept” at all. It began DEVELOPMENT on PS2 in June of 2005, and was cancelled when PS3 devkits came in November of 2006. You saying it was only “vague ideas and never left that stage before it was switched to a prequal” is entirely false.
BBS, Coded, and 358/2 Days were all announced together at Tokyo Game Show in September of 2007, less than a year after the hardware/budget change.
Also, KH2 did set up Xemnas’s armor to be expanded upon later in BBS; it also featured the three armored heroes we see in the secret movie with the Kingdom Key D, Way To Dawn, and RainFell (Aqua’s Key). This was RETCONNED and CHANGED from what was being WRITTEN and DEVELOPED originally for BBS. No BBS didn’t “invent” new Keyblade wielders, but the WAY they introduced them is thematically incorrect and not in sync with the lore that was pre-established. The WAY is equally as important as the WHAT.
An NDA is abbreviation for Non-Disclosure Agreement, which is a contract which you sign promising not to speak or reveal information about certain topics, an NDA can even REQUIRE YOU TO LIE (such as Andrew Garfield lying about not being in Spider-Man No Way Home). If you violate this type of contract, you can be sued for pretty much whatever is in your particular contract and obviously if it’s on purpose you’ll lose your job and career since nobody in any corporate industry will ever work with you again for fear of bad PR (public relations).
A recent example was the DOOM Eternal drama with Mick Gordon, the music producer for the DOOM games for years. He was offered hush-money and an NDA promising to take blame for Bethesda even though it was their fault, and he wouldn’t be allowed to speak about it ever or even so much as publicly criticize Bethesda if he’d agreed. He declined their settlement and he’s suing them now, making it all public and Bethesda hates their life.
Did you know that EVERY SINGLE employee of Square Enix is required to be contracted under NDA to do ANY job within the company? That’s right, no sign, no job. They’re all working there now because they already signed their NDA’s. Literally almost every game company does this with their devs, designers, artists, directors, voice actors, HR departments EVERYTHING.
Furthermore, Square Enix has even gone as far as to hire UA-camRS under NDA in the past, giving them exclusive access to demos/information as long as they promise not to reveal certain details of the game to the fanbase…
You can be contracted under NDA to only speak positively about a product and never criticize it, and most NDA’s don’t allow you to even tell people you’re under NDA.
There are very few companies who will allow their devs to go on Twitter and post status updates for their community (these are usually fighting games, since the fanbase is heavily concerned regarding patches/updates).
FOR CLARIFICATION, NOMURA HAS BEEN AT SQUARE SINCE FF6 IN 1994. He signed a looooooooong time ago, and continues to sign NDA’s as they pop up so that he may continue his work.
So back to your comment about him being locked out of BBS and having basically no control; that is very correct. He could pitch an idea, but he wasn’t even writer and had a co-director credited for doing at least as much as he was… Nomura is the original creator of the series, and now he stands by as the face of the brand to wave in whatever new changes SE feels like. He could leave, but then he wouldn’t be able to continue to do what he loves, and they’d just keep making KH without him anyway.
Did you know the “officially stated reason” by Nomura himself for moving BBS to PSP from PS2?
He says officially, and I cannot make this up, that HE HIMSELF made the choice to restart the whole game for cheaper on PSP for sake of… Multiplayer in the mirage arena.
THAT IS A LIE.
PS2 could’ve handled mirage arena fine, and not only that but WHY NOT MOVE TO PS3 FOR MULTIPLAYER LIKE ALL THE OTHER MULTIPLAYER GAMES OF THE GENERATION??? Because BBS isn’t freaking multiplayer outside of 1 single feature that they didn’t even care enough about to bring back for the remaster because “waaah server cost”.
It was a budget move. We got screwed. Nomura covered for stinky corporate SE and they payed him for it, because rightfully it was his only option.
He is a captive scapegoat for SE cash grabs.
SE and Disney HATE the secret movie of KH2 and they HATE the fact that they revealed they were making it on PS2, because of accountability. They made a greedy decision, SE did not “accidentally” save millions of dollars by making handheld games and charging full price.
Look at every project they’ve released, every ReMix on every console and PC which failed to feature a 358/2 Days and Coded Re:Make (which they’re capable of), every unplayable $100 Switch Cloud Port KH collection, every Melody of Memory with PS2 graphic model quality, every handheld and every mobile game that should’ve all been console games (Union X especially because it’s the literal lore-seed).
Square Enix ain’t ya friends, they want your MUNNY, which you will soon realize as they break out their ridiculous NFT scam later this year (SE wrote a letter to the community on Jan 1st, 2023 claiming they’re delving fully into NFT’s unapologetically). It’s a pattern to be honest.
Keep in mind. This was released after kingdom hearts three.
While you did pick up on it in the video, I would like to add to specifically the port of BBS to PS3/PS4.
I've said it before, i'll say it again, Birth By Sleep was the most poorly ported KH game from the remixes. VERY little optimization, very lazy work on the upscaling.
Look at the textures, they are half BLURRED in even game-important areas. Almost as if they are still the PSP originally downscaled textures.. c'mon, when 2.5 for PS3 came out in 2014, the Photoshop files MUST have still been around after 3 years (BBSFM released in 2011). Same for some character sprites btw, mainly noticable when playing command board. The development time for 2.5 definitely was 70% KH2, 20% BBS (at BEST) and 10% putting days together as a movie, animating some cutscenes.
Then there's the missing TV optimization. KH1, ReCoM and KH2 all had an appropriate text size for subtitles, optimized the FOV (which you also mentioned), generally made it all fit on a bigger TV. BBS of course, a psp game, had to have some of these aspects because the screen was just that small and had lower resolution.. but they did NONE of that for the remix. Thankfully for 2.8 they did; but for a game as important as KH1 and KH2? ouch..
The intro with the credits. certain blue colors turning grey (rip Aqua's hair). It has been on the PSP version, it.. was ported over, atleast for the PAL version (and maybe NTSC version). The creditless version when you start a new game is fine, why did they not bother to fix this?
Can we talk about how stupid X-Blade's design is? It's literally 2 Kingdom Keys glued together in the middle. The coloring is also stupid.
Sounds like you just don't like anime fantasy
What’s even more stupid imo is that shouldn’t it be made from the kingdom key and kingdom key D? Why is it two light keyblades instead of one keyblade representing pure light and one keyblade representing pure darkness like this game suggests as the recipe to forge it?
@@taputrainer8463and it looks more like a standard sword than a keyblade. They could have atleast put teeths on it. The only keyblades without teeth i can think of are the modern looking ones (fenrir, Braveheart)
@@brotbrotsen1100 Yeah, and in complete fairness, *even those are still explicitly "keys",* they're just shaped like modern keys. The X-Blade is shaped like a sword.
@@taputrainer8463 I believe that eventually it's going to have some form of lore connection to Kingdom Key and Kingdom Key D. It would explain why the two are so different than other keyblades and also why they reside on destiny islands (the place where Ventus was split and Vanitas was born. It only makes sense that when Ventus heart returned to Sora, the pieces of the X-blade did as well.
I haven't watched the video yet, but looking through the comments I'm seeing that no one can agree on what the worst kh game is at all lol
Everyone is just really mad that I say BBS is the worst lol
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall cuz BBS is not the worst legit the worst game is Re:coded but it's your opinion.
@@KonEl17 recoded nah i think rechained is the worst game in the series
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall Nah, I think everyone is mad because you made poor points, and when people point it out to you, you say "NUH UH".
Someone who critiques something should at least have some grace when it comes to counter points. You, obviously, do not posses such grace.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall because Re:coded and the Roxas game exist. You’re literally trolling.
The arguments you have presented seem believable.
You sound annoyed with something you didn't like and still make a 3 hour video about it.Half the stuff you "criticize" are bs and nitpicks
Would you prefer it be 3 min? No explanation or analysis?
02:18:38 Also the reason why Ars Solum worked there is because, for some unknown reason, Terranort cannot retaliate if you hit him while in Dark Volley, Stickman Sham made a video on this called "if birth by sleep had proper stagger".
“”you got darkness , Piss-Off” lmfao ………::.;:; ……….
From a story perspective, I agree. This game completely muddied the waters and made the series exceptionally more convoluted than it was already beginning to be. But the biggest thing that bothers me about this game is that despite all it does, it’s the first game that actually feels kind of lazy.
Particularly in the character design. Ventus looks like Roxas because Ventus’ heart made contact with Sora. So why then, does Roxas not have qualities from both of these characters? Roxas looks like a carbon copy of Ventus and shares zero likeness with Sora’s looks, or personality wise. Honestly, I feel like the only reason Nomura made Ventus and Roxas look the same was because he didn’t want to have to draw a corresponding Somebody for each Nobody. Ergo, Axel looks exactly like Lea minus the markings under his eyes. And I do not think this was always meant to be the case because of Namine. She looks nothing like Kairi supposedly because of Kairi’s heart contacting with Sora. So why does Naminé not look like Sora? She supposedly has blue eyes like Sora, but she’s a pure platinum blonde so where is the continuity in all that?? Why does she not have brown or red hair?? This laziness is even demonstrated in KH3 where literally the entire Wayfinder trio looks the EXACT SAME from BBS despite it having been over 10 years since they were in the realm of light. I genuinely think that Nomura either couldn’t or didn’t want to come up with 13 different designs for the Organization’s somebodies and as a result, Ventus gave him the perfect excuse to avoid that.
All the Wayfinder trio got stuck on a place or situation where they basically won't really age.
Soon, that was a wierd expectation at least for me.
@@Snzn_7 I mean I get it for Terra, but there's just so many contrivances otherwise. Like why does time in the realm of darkness not work the way it does in the realm of light? Time stands still but if these two realms are two sides of the same coin, then why do they not function on similar rules and laws? And for Ventus, his heart was gone. He was in a state of rest. But you mean to tell me he didn't even kind of age? Not even a little? Why? Ven is over a thousand years old at this point. Give this man a mustache or something??
@@sadboijokes Look at Dizz. A character introduced in KH 2 and if you know his lore. He stayed in the Realm of Darkness way longer than aqua and the dude never aged a day inside there.
The realm of Darkness time shenanigans is not a thing BBS made up.
It was always like that since KH Chain of memories and KH 2.
Same with Castle Oblivion thinks don't just work normal there. Like Each freaking room in their ihas their own kind of logic. And heck even combat system works different in there.
And also Ven alone has a lot of ??? To begin with. Like Ven is actually older older. And the dudes been thrown and future timelines got possessed by ancient pure darkness and has been fractured thus producing Vanitas.
In some way Ven alone is in a something similar fashion with a Nobody. And since they have a missing piece of them they really don't age after that.
So in short the things that allowed these characters to not really age is not a thing made for BBS, they are stuff that already was introduced in earlier games.
Ventus was planned to have some sort of mystery to begin with by the time KH 2 decided that Roxas don't look like Sora.
Anyways I don't get your gripes with "aging" logic since you have Disney Characters, like Mickey, Donald and Goofy who basically don't age anyway and just "shift in artstlye" depending on the timeline they are shown.
@@Snzn_7 I'm sorry but what do you mean? In KH:CoM, we never see DiZ or rather, Ansem the Wise. Like we see him in his red mummy garb, but we never see him without the bandages until KH2. But we had no point of comparison for Ansem the Wise until BBS, which going back to my point, is when I feel like character design took something of a back step. Like I get the arbitrary story reasons for why Ven and Aqua don't age. And I don't expect to see elderly Mickey, in my mind, the Disney characters are aging outside the main human cast. I think I'm just disappointed because I feel like in previous games, characters changed and those changes in appearance were something I kind of looked forward to. My issue with BBS really has to do with its many implications and the retconning I feel it did to the story I originally knew and loved growing up.
Cause I've been playing these games literally since they came out. I remember Sora's transformation from KH1 to KH2. I remember BHK and RHG. It felt like every game we were getting a new character or at least a new design and that was so fascinating. And the first time I saw Ventus, I, like literally everyone else thought, "Oh is this an image of the future? Because that clearly looks like Roxas" only to find out that no, it's not Roxas, it's Ventus. And Ventus looks like Roxas because he's been in Sora's heart. But why does Roxas look like Ventus and not act like Ventus or Sora? Who knows? But my issue with this design philosophy is that Roxas's entire arc in KH2 was about having an identity and expressing his desire to be seen as a real person in his own right. So the fact that Ventus is here as an outward carbon copy of Roxas, should raise some kind of red flag for him. This should be an existential crisis all over again because not only is Roxas not his own person, he isn't even his own likeness. But it's not. Roxas and Ventus just look at each other a little confused and the only other person that brings it up is Lea who has basically become like the voice of the KH Fandom in that particular scene I'm describing. Like I could go on and on about that particular story element, but there are soooo many issues with character design that literally make certain elements of this franchise's story collapse. There's no cohesion and that's what bothers me so. It feels almost stagnant in a way.
@@sadboijokesThis is Nomura, they don't put Diz on CoM without really having a decent of amount of bacstory already detailed. And they made him quite mysterious because they have been building his mystery ever since he appeared.
Just because they don't shove it in people's faces means it wasn't there.
That is basic storytelling.
Characters in KH since they one, although the significantly do "relatable" stuff and react in a normal conventional way. The KH world is basically balls to the walls fantastical in nature and even characters don't really get surprised by seeing a talking humanoid mouse, duck amd dog. Talking mirrors, etc. Etc.
The writing also don't put emotional crisis usually in the forefront and just give "subtle" context to it. They usually make that more relevant when it's on the breaking point or us relevant to the situation at hand.
Different series do stuff differently than other series in general. So don't expect things that some series highlights on to be highlighted as much in other series.
KH in general needs to juggle the Disney spirit and Final Fantasy existential crisis stuff in a blender. That is part of what makes the series stands apart form other series.
Like I can give explanations about you are queries but I am pretty sure your mind is pretty made up in not reconsidering other perspective on this so I gave up.
I am so-so with a some stiff in KH also but usually there is enough context to explain stuff in it whether we will like the explanation or not.
Ain't got no time to discuss this further so I am gonna dip
It happens to be an awesome game.
"awesome" is a funny way of spelling shit
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall It is like one of the best KH games by many fans...But ok, your intitled to your own opinion of course...Just so happens your opinion on the game is vastly disagreed on by a large mile..
@@NightLordJagon he’s right tho, this game is all style no substance, only people who like to look at pretty things and not think enjoy this game
@@brujbruh1489 He never even said the phrase "style over substance" in his video. You're putting words in his mouth in order to push your own personal agenda, and that's frankly disgusting.
I think he's objectively wrong to call Birth by Sleep "bad", and he didn't make any convincing arguments to prove his own claims at a bare minimum, but the idea that the game has no substance at all to anything is just ridiculous and has an extraordinary burden of proof in its own write.
To be very clear, because this community often makes this crucial mistake, the terms "shallow" and "style over substance" aren't synonymous, and the word "shallow" doesn't mean "no depth", it means "lacks depth", or in other words "it has low/less depth". You can think of difference between a deep game and a shallow game as being the difference between the deep end of a swimming pool and the shallow end of a swimming pool. That being said, I would describe KH2 as a shallow game as well. You need more than a semi-decent combat system to make a good Action RPG, and the RPG elements of KH2 are incredibly streamlined and lackluster, more so than any other game in the series, Dream Drop Distance, both versions of CoM and ReCoded included.
@@boyishdude1234 idk how you even think my own statement is me trying to make it seem like what I said is what Sight Avery said. And while you try to say I put words in people’s mouth your next paragraph has to do with something I never said. Why are you arguing with me about what the community says if I haven’t said that, either argue with me or don’t directly reply to me 💀🤡
I adore your rewriting but, personally, I would change the positions of Aqua and Terra regarding Eraqus, mostly so Aqua can have a direct opposition towards Xehanort like Terra and Ventus have as Aqua... she kinds just has a connection to Xehanort from secondary alignments. Also, it would have a tighter role on Aqua, since of her world was destroyed then she would be scared of the darkness and she would have that black and white view which also adds to her following Eraqus since it is some type of idol for her as he was her savior. It would also tighten the reasons on Aqua wanting to reunite them as she does not want to lose the family she got, she would be the one that forces that overtly familial relationship with them because she wants a family after she lost one. Even more after the issues with them and the structure with Eraqus and Xehanort broken she would come into despair and seeing herself as the mother, Terra the father and Ventus their son in some way to not lose the familial connection.
It also helps to add drama to Terra, why would he as the biological son not be chosen over an interloper? It also helps that Terra would have an inferiority complex not only against Aqua but also against Eraqus, he is his son but he is not as strong so he relies on darkness to finally be on the same level as Eraqus which Eraqus would be a disapproving father to Terra since the beginning for never being as strong as he was. Specially with the light like Eraqus was so he finds his own route to be as strong as Aqua and Eraqus using the dark, it also adds even more tension since he killed his own father who he came into losing faith after learning that Xehanort trashed Eraqus meaning that darkness was stronger. Which now Terra would reject, falsely, his connections with his friends only to try once again in despair to keep it safe... to fail in his eleventh hour.
Anyway, I adore the ideas with Vanitas since it finally gives him personal reasons, in general the rewrite goes to give the characters personal motivations and make them more proactive into chasing Xehanort and Vanitas and it also gets their downfall better since they chased their wantings... and failed.
I adored your video and I am glad the algorithm helped it to explode.
Kurt I try h m btfbhutGigi it gif on l
How I always viewed Riku-Ansem's keyblade in kh1 is that it's a THING made from the other 6 princesses' hearts because the heart missing (Kairi) was needed but was out of reach within Sora's being. It's not a true keyblade. It's an aberration, a thing malformed that was never meant to exist in this reality.
I think it's a light Keyblade. The Princesses of Light are pure of light, shown by the fact that they cannot turn into a Heartless.
Riku-Ansem's "Keyblade of Heart" itself is, canonically, of the type of the same name. Keyblades of Heart, that is. It's the only one we see in the series, and we never even see it complete. Just like the Kingdom Key D, being a Keyblade of Darkness, it's one of those things important for... basically just that specific game slash sequence that never matters otherwise and gets forgotten immediately, at least as near as I know.
@@captaincraftit696 That whole concept is a retcon.
The amount of effort and time you put into your videos is insane. God-given talent at its finest
Not talent, just a lot of patience. Anyone can do it if they try!
I fail to see how bbs is the worst kh game when Chain Of Memories exists
When it comes to how others get keyblades I believe there are a few ideas floating around but again this is my idea.
The scene showing Terra holding his keyblade to Young Riku and saying a sort of oath, I’ve heard that it’s only if a keyblade master who is skilled and strong enough can in a sense ‘Knight’ someone. This is also shown in KH2 remixed when you fight lingering will, and thinks Sora is Riku at first.
It makes sense with Ven heart inside Sora that he can then wield a keyblade as Ven heart is shared inside him, however after all the training even after Ven wakes up Sora is still able to use the keyblade he gained the training to be able to. (The same reason why Roxas also can use keyblades as well as Xion same I just explained.
Another idea is that someone heart must be strong, in Dream Drop we see Lea formally Axel want to warn to wield a keyblade to help by the end he can call it out, but again we don’t know what kind of small training or understanding he went though. Because even then he and Kari spend all the 3rd game training.
Amazing video ether way but when o heard that question I wanted to throw at least my two cent it may not be 100 true or maybe the proof is somewhere on the net but that’s my thoughts
So, basically, it's whatever makes the plot happen. Got it.
I'm certain that Nomura stated that Ven is not the reason Sora can wield a Keyblade. Up to this point, Sora is the only person we've seen who was seemingly chosen by his Keyblade outright. What Ven's heart actually offered Sora was the ability to wield more than one simultaneously, as a single Keyblade is tied to a single heart.
@@sword_of_dusk Your actually partially right, Roxas actually is the one who gains the ability to dual wield thanks to is connection to both Sora and ventus and once he get recompleted with sora that is how Sora gain access to is dual wield (trough Roxas) its basically the same but with a extra step XD
The more I critically think about kingdom hearts as a whole everything post 2 (excluding days) is a writing crap shoot you can see fragments of a story that could make sense but shoots into the opposite direction because something new has to be added and the characters don't think critically about their actions the way finder trio, Sora in DDD and 3 not to mention the plots just give that go aimlessly till the plot demands "growth".
BBS has the second-best standalone plot in the game.
@@Darskul It... doesn't... stand... alone... though.
Kh2 story is terrible though. It ruined all the character growth Sora had in 1 and chain of memories.
Me: Has no interest in watching this video.
UA-cam algorithm: I’m gonna recommend this to you anyway
I still don’t intend to watch it, I just think that it’s funny that the algorithm tries to keep recommending it to me.
Not me watching a 3 hour scathing critique of one of my fave entries and actually kind of agreeing…
When it comes to the gameplay I actually really enjoy this one. I don’t know, maybe I like how easy and flashy it is. I also really enjoy melding commands to try and get all the little abilities, as well as playing the Command Board game over and over again to gain more stuff to meld! Even if I predictably win every single game, I do still enjoy seeing the little nuances in the way each Disney character on the Disney boards play the game. Some characters play “dirtier” than others, i.e. Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Pete, Stitch, and Gantu frequently make moves that work directly against you when given the opportunity (of course I think that has at least some part to do with the slight differences of each of the board maps, but still), while other characters play with more mild manners and have their own little nuances in their decision making, and I think that’s fun.
I can not argue against the story and voice acting delivery though, it is a given that it’s just plain terrible. This trio really is pretty hollow with no pre-established connection that is fleshed out and instead just told to us unconvincingly over and over again, all paired with horrible lines with no life to them whatsoever. I remember frequently cringing at both Terra and Aqua’s line deliveries being so flat, and only feeling that Ventus sounded consistently decent the whole way through. I think Ventus being a pre-Roxas clone essentially is what makes me have a HUGE bias towards this game because Roxas has always been my fave, and by extension Ventus too. I really love his reverse grip too, in spite of how functionally flawed it would actually be.
I really, REALLY like your rewrite ideas at the end of this. Making them an actual adopted family unit and establishing that bond, as well is utilizing Vanitas in a much more interesting and redeemable way would have been so great!
I also enjoy getting and mastering all commands due to my obsession as a player to grab everything and 100% percent everything. Even though I tolerate and kind of enjoy playing this game (and i used to love it when i was younger), after playing KH2 and finishing Critical Level 1 on KH2 and KH3, the combat system in BBS is dog shit because of all the reasons previously mentioned.
* Normal attacks have no variation, no damage, no stun, leave you kind of open. Air attacks are floaty.
* Command style are bad because of normal attacks being bad, because they cannot be controlled (you can not simply choose when to choose it) and are a free resource.
* Commands leave you wide open and are mostly useless, except those that offer some utility, nice damage and are fast. Status effects are nice for groups but magnet and gravity are broken. Surges are broken. Megaflare is only usefull for mobs and farming. Arcanums and other command that last for a while are baaaaaad, baaaaaaaaaaad.
* Dodges are too good or too bad. Aerial recovery sucks. Teleport sucks. Fire and thunder dodge sucks. Terra sucks.
* Shotlocks are broken.
Seriously, try to play KH3 Critical Level 1 (because it is easier than KH2) and you will see the utility of magic and summons. You will really have to learn enemy attacks to block properly and dodge those attacks that cannot be blocked. Rarely the game just one shots you but it happens with some attacks (or combos) from time to time.
If you really like the game, retroachievements, a web page for achievements in older games, has a set for PSP birth by sleep Final MIX that works with the FAN translated version. It has achievements for doing the story, minigames, beating records, command boards, arena missions, finishing the game in Critical Level 1 and killing bosses without too much leavel with restrictions, like "Kill Xehanort (Level 25 Max, no shotlocks)".
This kind of challenges will FORCE you to see that cracks in the system and throw 90% of the commands to the trash bin.
I have to disagree, I prefer a good flow, but this game has no flow. It is slow and clunky and it seems like even the command system is an enemy, which makes it hard for me to enjoy playing.
Shotlocks and command styles are actually probably my favorite part of the game. They're fun to use and my your attacks stronger. Which for Terra is a problem. Why hes still slow he does more damage because command styles and shotlocks are strongef than most commands and combos
Command Styles are most certainly not more powerful than commands. they're slow, don't deal more damage than normal attacks, or at least don't increase damage by much, get rid of some of your attacks, and are activated against the player's will. Commands are 'press a button and win' if used intelligently. Now, if you're talking Shotlocks, while I hate them, we can at least agree that they're very powerful.
Depends what style commands you use. They actually are a boost up to deal more damage. Getting the command Styles for me Is a must when fighting mysterious figure (can beat him in less than 8 minutes). Shotlocks can take out a couple of bars of a boss so they are extremely good assests for the characters.
You can kill MF in about half that time with surges tho
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall i know that Is the way but they deal less damage when you don't have a style command triggered( the 8 minutes was to give more of an honetly and reasonable time frame; i Remember people spending days on him lol). Even the damage by shotlocks Is greater with the use of command Styles.
That's simply false.
The biggest crime was taking the neat finish that KH2 had and turned the story into the dumpster fire that was the following games.
I will never forgive them for what they did (or should I say didn't do?) to Terranort in KH3. He should have been the final enemy, not old Nort.
Yeah, I don't get why Terranort was a minor antagonist in KH3. I'm not necessarily opposed to Old Man Xehanort coming back to be the final boss of KH3, but it would make more sense if it was the result of Terranort being defeated and Terra regaining his body, forcing Xehanort to fight as his original self.
@@TheAzulmagia Yeah, I think the final boss fight being against his old man form could easily have been justified by the fact that you're fighting him inside his own memories.
Yeah that's what I'm saying, and it's even worse when the whole plot of bbs was explaining who xemnas and Ansem came from. The whole games story is basically xehanort trying to steal this young guys body and possessing him for evil, and terra body is a younger stronger body, that's why he chose terra, but in kh3 they throw it all away and just make old xehanort the main villain again 😂. And terranort is originally where Ansem and xemnas came from, but nope they had to introduce time travel 😂.
So True Just KH 1,KH COM and KH 2 should have been The "Xehanort Saga" and Then with The Following Titels they should have Started a New Saga and Not this Stupid Mess we have today.
That would make no sense 😂
Speaking in terms of gameplay I thought this game was superior to 358/2 Days
Depends on perspective, but imo, not really. Days has combat that actually works and characte-building that's more engaging than collecting commands for 30 minutes to win the game.
it still isn't
@@lpfan4491 "358 Has good combat" I can't imagine being this wrong
@@benpage11 It has combat that is good enough. BBS meanwhile is a lol-fest from start to finish.
@@lpfan4491 if you played on beginner and had no idea what you're doing yes. 358 had combat that barely functioned with some of the worse bosses in the entire series
Finally, someone says this. Seeing so many people have this game as their favorite in the entire series never becomes less shocking. I've liked this series since I was 11 and I'm 23 now. Over a decade of hearing it and I feel like I'm going crazy many times every time I hear it. I think this game was doomed the moment they decided to make it a PSP game instead of a full-fledged PS2 game. Just another victim in the KH series of FFXV's development. The story is too ambitious, wants to add too much new lore, and 3 new main characters, introduces the actual villain of the series, has big set pieces, and tries out too many things to explain in one c-tier PSP game. The voice acting is some of the worst in the series and the voice director didn't do the actors any favors. The pure amount of wasted potential and how much damage from this game ripples out into the rest of the series (gameplay-wise especially) and lore-wise is such a huge factor to me of what makes it so terrible.
1. I mean it is a fantastic game afterall
2. Why? Worked well and the video is being torn to shreds over a pretty god awful analysis
3. Not really. As the game was planned and written before FFXV
4. Ambitiousness js bad now? Wow. Let’s never do anything ambitious ever again
5. Calls it C tier. Is still regarded as one of the best PSP games ever made. Comedy is what we call it
6. Calls it the worse. Forgets re:coded exists and that BBS has some do the best performances in the series 👀
7. Damage? Weird the series got better after its release. Makes sense. It introduced main stables in the series, introduced some of the best elements and characters in the IP, and set the standard for what a portable KH game should play like
Honestly it’s easy to see why the video has far more dislikes then likes nowadays lmao
@@benpage11 BBS has some of the shittest performances in the franchise what are you literally talking about??? The only good performances are Hamill and Mccartney*. Even Nimoy's amazing voice couldn't say some of the worst dialogue and directing in the series.
I think its ambition is bad because once they realized they couldn't do even half of the shit that they set out to do, and do it WELL, they should've pulled back and reset their expectations. Instead we got an undercooked story with half baked characters that only work on paper, not on screen, and tries to add too much into the lore while having some of the biggest limitations the franchise has had. Had this game been a full PS2/PS3 title like it was intended to be before Disney/Square butted in saying they wanted a game on the PSP then maybe it would deserve all the praise it gets from fans. And at least 358/2 Days and Re:coded knew it couldn't achieve much on the base DS and so told a smaller and more limited story. (358/2 Days beats BBS into the ground in terms of writing anyway, even with less cutscenes. Hell, even Re:coded improved on something BBS did. Re:coded perfected BBS' command deck system by having better melding system and better fluidity.) I have similar complaints for DDD for trying to tell such a big story on a underpowered handheld console but it doesn't get my anger as much bc it's gameplay was much better and the performances were good (not the disney character's performances tho, they were pretty bad).
I do think he has some dumb crituqes but for the most part he's spot on. Its just that BBS is the KH fandom's golden child just because the ending is "sad" for all three MC's and you can't critize its story or characters without being attacked. Especially when the characters are some of the worst written and underbaked in the series :/.
Also, I would call it C-Tier. It being considered one of the best games on a console that didn't have much on it to begin isn't a big achievement to be writing home about.
And yeah I would say it caused damage to the series. So many major complaints about the gameplay post KH2 stem from BBS and the Osaka team has only just perfected their gameplay in KH3, almost a decade after BBS's release. If this game set the standard for how all KH handheld games should play, like you said, then it makes sense why they're all pretty underwhelming.
@@wholockedholmes5600 1. And yet. RE:Coded exists.
2. Only good ones? Pffft no
3. “BUT NIMOY WAS BAD” that’s one way to discredit yourself lmao
4. Weird that they did it well and knew they could
5. Undercooked where? All seamlessly together without issue with some incredible moments to boot. Great performances too
6. “Half baked” someone never played the game or just skipped all cutscenes lmao
7. Too much lore = lore that was established or teased in previous entries.
8. Biggest limitations where?
9. Wrong. It was Nomura decision to make it a PSP game. It was originally for the PS2 but he switched it to the psp to take advantage of the online capabilities. Also no. By the time this game started development, the PS3 didn’t even exist. So you didn’t even get that right either
10. “BUT DAYS BETTER” and throwing any and all credibility into the nonexistent void lmao. As someone who loves days, you are absolutely wrong)
11. Where? It was actively worse on the DS and over complicated the system needlessly
12. The performances were funnily enough, worse in DDD. Still good. But not better
13. Where? So far he got everything wrong and then some. Got shredded by anyone with a brain cell and is being endlessly ratio’d in both the comments and dislikes. Makes sense. Didn’t make a single good point
14. No it’s because the story is fantastic, the gameplay is great, the addictions are great, and etc etc.
15. Criticized*. Learn to spell
16. Where? So far you never seemed to have played the game and understand it’s story
17. “Didn’t have much” = over 50+ classic titles exclusive to the PSP and still fondly remembered to this day with countless top ? Lists
18. Where?
19. Well no shit they only made DDD and RE:Coded afterwards. KH3 was the next actual title in the series. Not that long :)
20. Underwhelming where? All great so far. Even you admitted that titles after BBS “improved” with the system :)
@@benpage11 You sound really hurt. Is it because your illusion is shattered? That your nostalgia is ruined by the fact that BBS is objectively a bad game?
@@ShadowbannedAccount Oh hey it's Yoloking again. still endlessly mad that he keeps getting proven wrong lmao.
Jan 14, 2022. subbed to no one. so damn fake lmao
Great video
Doesn't Xigbar allude to the Wayfinder Trio in KH2? "You're not half the hero the others were?"
Yeah, I even mention that in the video lol
Originally yes but with the Luxu stuff it’s been reconned to refer to the Union X characters.
I'm always surprised how many people get mad over BBS criticism.
When I played it again years after it's release it was super obvious to me how many issues the game has.
Don’t see any 👀
@FelixPutz right? It feels like a game made by amateurs at points. It's cool seeing how much better that same team has become.
The downfall of this game came from it being on handheld. The idea it presents and story it tries to tell is absolutely fantastic. A prequel to an amazing game series? After the height of 2? I think everyone was gassed up for this. But the console limitation prevented it from reaching its full potential in many, many ways. Choppy/janky combat for one. Terrible command deck. Sure, do I enjoy grinding and melding commands? Yeah it’s not bad. But… there’s not much reward to it. I BLEW through Terra’s story in 8 hours, on critical mode, WITH breaks to grind and meld to get cool ass commands… just to beat the game primarily using a basic combo, shotlock, and guard/parry? Not to mention immediately playing BBS after kh2fm makes the shitty combat even more apparent. Also, the story. How long have they been students? Were they born at the land of departure or did they come there to train? Shouldn’t eraquas have known xehanort was bad?? How does one become a key blade wielder? And so many more questions I want answered that won’t be. The story feels incredibly rushed and if it’s supposed to tell a story as big and crucial to the overall plot as a numbered title, it should’ve painted a better picture and gave us so much more detail and nuance, ESPECIALLY following the masterpiece that 2 was/is. Do I like what they were going for? Yeah. Was the execution as good as I thought it was as a 14 year old? Not at all. Playing it on the ps3/4 doesn’t help either cause it makes it’s inadequacies more apparent and profound. It doesn’t translate well onto a bigger console and larger screen. I still love the characters and seeing how everything got set into motion and how things connect to the later games, but I wish it would’ve been treated as a numbered title.
While I do not think BBS was the worst in the series, this was officially the game where the series fell apart into the joke it is today, and where die hard KH fans will suck the devs dry for whatever further entry is made. Because after KH2, there was no plans to make a continuation but rather just small teasers. Even if BBS wanted to exist, making it a prequel and ruining the canon’s lore was the dumbest decision they could possibly make. Having the whole franchise now be nothing but just “the Lore” is the same issue why the latest FNAF games have failed too cause the devs refuse to make a proper video game and just want to see how they can bridge together a broken plot, even if the series never NEEDED one to begin with
Great review! I especially liked the story rewrite you did towards the last quarter of the video. I agree that Birth by Sleep was pretty bad, but you did make me think about some aspects that I hadn't considered before. It is interesting how Osaka Team basically just introduced the Wayfinder trio without explaining their origins. It was such a little thing that I glossed over it while first playing the game; however, the more I think about it, the fact Osaka chose to overlook this demonstrates the lack of care that went into this prequel--at least in terms of the story.
Not having an origin story is basically just a Kingdom Hearts thing.
Basically it's up to the current events that we get to learn whobthevcharactwrs are.
Like we don't know shit about Sora, Riku and Kairi on KH 1 before the events on the beginning and same goes for the Wayfinder trio and Seasalt trio.
It's wierd to complain about that with the Wayfinder trio only.
Wow, just found this channel recently and glad I did! Your in depth reviews are fantastic and very well put together, subbed, looking forward to your DDD and KH3 review. And I hope you dont take all the hate comments to heart, I really dont understand why some people cant just accept someone's opinion on something might differ, from politics to video games, and hating on someone for expressing there opinions is incredibly childish and disrespectful. Anyway, keep up the great work man!
Hey thanks! Despite the sometimes vitriolic discourse we partake in, I don't hold anything against these folks. I'm sure they've got their own garbage going on. Might be they were just having a bad day, might be they're a bit too prideful as all of us are nowadays, or whatever. No harm no foul lol
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall there’s a difference between hate comments and people who disagree. And most people disagree.
okay? I didn't call them hate comments, so...point?
I can't wait to see your KH3 critique.
Bad take. 0 out of 10
>BBS The worst game
>KH3
Sorry, can't take you seriously.
you can't take me seriously because of a difference of opinion? says more about you than me, but go off
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall what do you think i'm talking about other than your opinion?
I don't know you, silly.😂
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall and for sure, i have better places to spend my time online...😂😂😂
Birth By Bleep?
@@ZAXTAX4063 KH3?
Honestly I really liked the game
im glad you did
5:40 the keyblade graveyard showed up in KH2's secret ending first
47:29 nitpick; only once more doesn't activate because you're not in a hitstun animation
1:38:32 i mean, KH mickey mouse slaps pretty hard
i did like the idea of elements on a basis of world to world, back in KH1, you learned spells or upgraded them after
Yes, it did. And? Roxas appeared in KH1's secret ending, didn't make sense, and then they provided a reasonable explanation with the Nobodies. There was no reasonable explanation for the Keyblade Graveyard in BBS that didn't retcon all of the lore.
Yes, because the hitstun is stupid in this game.
Yep, KH Mickey slaps way harder than he needs to. Leaves a fucking mark, man.
The guy has been downplaying all counter arguments and evidence so desperately in the comments it’s amazing lmao
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall It seems to me like "reasonable explanation" is really just code for "spend several minutes going into [unnecessarily exhaustive] detail about tertiary background information that has nothing to do with the story at hand".
Most people play video games to PLAY a video game, not read a book. If you can't prove why the information we didn't get is both necessary as well as explain how and why its inclusion would improve the story, then cram it.
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFallthe kh one post credit scene was originally a proof of concept and technically not canon at all because Roxas is seen wielding the kingdom key D which he doesn’t in the game and Mickey is seen using the normal keyblade
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall Honestly, if your argument begins with a "And?" Or "So?", it proves you don't care for a discussion. I can't take you seriously in the video or in the comment section 🤣
Can't help but notice a lot of folks in the comments getting up in arms with pedantry over plot critiques but not many of them touching on gameplay 🤔
Yeah, I noticed that too lol
Let me revoke my year old comment. This game is very good. I love the storyline and the characters. And also you know Coded’s story exists right? That’s objectively worse than this story. And it wasn’t never said that there was only one keyblade. And also also, ITS KINGDOM HEARTS! Nothing makes sense here 😂 But yeah, your opinion made me mad but hey, that’s your (obviously wrong) opinion.
The more you watch this guy's videos, the more it's clear he's hate-playing and is expecting something from a franchise that was never promised.
@@_B_E yeah I can tell. It’s not hard to just play another game but I guess he just wants to hate.
To be clear, you honestly think I don't want one of my favorite games ever (KH2) to have a good sequel because I want to "hate"?
@@WhereIStandIsWhereIFall All sources indicated that to be the case, yes. Sorry you're not the target audience you seemed to convince yourself you were. You're chasing the echo of a rabbit that was never even there.
@_B_E sure buddy, whatever works for you