You shouldn't feel bad, BB. A huge portion of the community was already calling the combat "floaty," it's not on you. And I agree, "floaty" is the wrong word. Every time I've had a discussion involving this topic I've had to add that "it's not so much about gravity itself as it is about these other more nuanced details working in tandem with each other." So it's weird to talk about at this point having dug ourselves into this corner, as a community. Symantecs are shitty.
The physics give you high jumps, slow falling, long animations, and you have very few moves that you can cancel, or that can get you back to the ground quickly. That's not a semantic corner, or just people throwing out buzzwords, that's floaty combat by definition-- which is what we've been getting from the Osaka team, KH3 very much included.
@@MrNickPresley long animations that are rarely cancelable aren't floaty, they're _stiff._ floatiness doesn't really have any way to relate to how a character acts, it really just comes down to the physics. it's like the 3d version of ice physics - you're perfectly free to try and pull your character in whatever direction you please, but the change in acceleration is low enough they're gonna spend a lot of time lazily drifting before their velocity finally matches what you want it's really not a good way to criticize kh games, because the only really floaty things are that the gravity's low and a lot of things will constantly pull you upwards. even then, though ... why is being stuck in the air a bad thing? because a lot of your options are ground-only? that doesn't exactly make the floaty gravity _the_ issue, because you can keep the gravity and just improve aerial combat and suddenly it's a _good_ thing that sora's balloon pants keep him in the air and allow him to chain his excellent new aerial options it really is a just buzzword, because it barely applies and is such a surface level analysis for where it _does_ apply. sure, when your aerial moveset sucks, jacking up the gravity _would_ mean you find yourself locked into it far less often ... but it's such a bandaid fix and would likely just cause more problems, especially when you _do_ want to use your aerial options like against enemies you have to jump to hit which kh has _a lot of_
@@MrNickPresley kbash kind of dismantled the floaty term in his retrospective but essentially in terms of jump and fall most kh games actually have really similar jump durations (yes even 2) in the Osaka games it’s just stiff as the person above me said
I love where you mention how "If you don't notice it, they're doing something right." So true. It's like that with really any artistic endeavor; there's so many nuts and bolts behind the scenes to create an enjoyable end product, and most of the time the average lay person doesn't even acknowledge they exist. They just know when they like the result, even if they can't explain why.
Also going off of tight fundamentals and Mario 64: I remember hearing that the developers didn't even try making levels until they got Mario's movement feeling good. After they dialed that in, then they started creating levels around that. Really makes a difference in the end product.
I argue that KH3 has decent enough fundamentals. But stuff like guard hitboxes and environmental movement go a bit beyond what you'd prototype with a single character and some basic terrrain/enemies.
I am a game developer and I try to make sure I get basic controls very good first before making a lot of stuff. There's gonna be a lot of problems you're going to have to deal with if your character has a lot of issues or glitches. But I also make other stuff at the same time to not slow down the production of the game.
It is definitely a feeling I get in BBS and DDD, but I think KH3 + Remind is such a great stride away from that general jank feeling, even if there are a few remaining issues. They're certainly on the right track. You'd hope, anyway.
@@jacksonwww5 Its unfortunate that it took all this time to get around as good as the previous team, but at least we're finally there. Hopefully they can maintain this progress.
Today's word of the day is "suspension": the temporary prevention of something from continuing or being in force or effect. You get suspended in the air after an airslide, suspended into long drawn out animations from finishers, or even the enemies stagger being suspended or outright canceled from hitting the wall.
Its a good word, but but it is still complex, because Master form for example also keeps you suspended in the air, but for not a long time and without taking your momentum or holding you in long animations. in recoded sora's last aerial hit keeps him in the air while it happens (which is really fast and snappy) to make sure he will hit the enemy and you won't fall before as in KH1. so to improve, would be good something like "Excess of suspension". it is very difficult to assign adjectives to virtual sensations, because everything depends on how it is done, so for osaka i always think of words like "slowness, stuck in, stiffness" (and also excess of floatiness) but still no reflects perfect the feeling, thats hard.
Floaty isn't the right *technical* term, but it does adequately describe the feeling of being left hanging mid-stream and the game sliding around without your input, like it has inertia. It's like using the pompson 6000 in TF2.
"Lack of momentum" is a good way to put it too. KH2 isn't perfect in that regard or anything, but it just feels so much better for the momentum that IS there.
Aerial Dodge is such a powerful and snappy ability compared to like, 2.9/3 Airslide, which feels like just Quick Run but shitty and in the air(meanwhile BBS and h.a.n.d. Airslides feel great cause its just this thrust of movement) Glide feels terrible in KH2 without Aerial Dodge to kickstart it, especially at like, Lv1
The basic air combo finisher in Kingdom Hearts II is the best air attack animation ever in the Kingdom Hearts games for me. It’s _feels_ like Sora’s thrusting himself forward with all his strength. I didn’t get that same feeling across the other games after, and I think it’s because I don’t _feel_ the strength behind some swings. The closest I got to that feeling is KH3 post-Remind, so I’ll give praise there.
Feels sluggish, like they're dragging their feet for no clear reason, sluggishness is related to slowness, but isn't it, a slow attack with a sense of weight isn't sluggish, its weighty, stuff like Terra's... everything, feel generally sluggish because he's slow, but has the impact of a foam bat instead of a man wielding a slab of metal or even just a normal sword, lack of stagger/launch or good hitstop has a lot to do with it as well, KH1 and 2 have Sora really shove things away when he hits his finishers, aerial or grounded, which backs up the sense of weight the motions carry to sell it
Personally for me, the best basic air combo finisher is in KH1 for those same reasons you mentioned, especially with how enemies sometimes get sent flying a lot farther compared to the other games by said finishers.
Even in remind sure the attacks are faster but I still felt no power behind the attacks. There’s a lack of weight to Sora when he’s being controlled, basically feels like he has a balloon inflated inside him at all times. As soon as I controlled Sora in the opening I knew it wasn’t touching the first 2 games.
I think a better replacement would be "feathery." Sora moves light as a feather during combat, but he drops back down incredibly slow due to gravity(?)
(This actually ended up being way longer than expected) I consider this KHTalk to be the continuation of "The Consequences of Floaty Combat in Kingdom Hearts" (the video mentioned in the title slide, in case anyone doesn't recognize it), released a couple of weeks before base KHIII's original worldwide release. I've always hated the "Floaty" argument as, while some people really understood its meaning and what you really wanted to mean with it (lack of player's control over his/her own character...etc -both this video and the mentioned above explained it quite well so it isn't necessary to make some kind of summary here-) most of the people who used that word had no actual idea of its meaning and simply used it to criticize KHIII because they didn't like it and needed a way to justify themselves (the ones I really call "KHIII Haters", they hate the game because someone has said it's floaty/bad/(insert synonims here), and just to clarify an important fact, that "someone" isn't the responsible for the hate towards the game, the people who don't even have enough criteria to make their own opinion/judgement are the one to blame, acting as the traditional "herd mentality" example). I really like how this talk clarifies the concept and gives it a more appropiate designation as before in order to avoid this go-to criticism, acting as a correction of the previous video. In regards to the points exposed (please consider this is my honest opinion so don't be the "you're wrong because I say so as I have no arguments against you" guy): I really like environmental movement in KHIII (as long it doesn't destroy the flow/feeling of any other action/activity as explained in the following lines), it gives a feeling of real interaction between the player and the world you are currently into instead of just headbutting into every single wall in most of the previous games, KHII as a example where the only interaction with the map itself os the ability to ledge grab. This interactions become horrible when they are really unnecessarily slow or intrusive so that they break the exploration flow of a world (for example, using Goofy's shield in Olympus to cross the fire. It is so slow and movement-impeding that in my most recent playtrough I just used air slide to cross it) or in the worst case, if they don't let the player to react to enemies around him (mostly seen in San Fransokyo due to its streetlights and benches -the later being showed in the video). I don't think it's necessary to expose again in this comment how the update that came along ReMind fixed the Combo modifiers as you clarified it in the video. Being sincere at first I was one of the people who did defend base KHIII combo modifiers, however after playing A LOT after ReMind came out I reviewed some of my old gameplay and just couldn't believe how slow and risky the combo's were. I really think that ReMind elevated KHIII's base Sora combos to a "KHIIFM Level". Another thing I really like about III is how smooth the transition between air and ground combat is now, I just love it. Being mid-air in II was just a death sentence. And as a conclusion, I can't understand why guardfails even exist. That is my main problem with KHIII tbh, I really think that it they did not exist KHIII (With ReMind) would be the best KH game or at least extremely close to IIFM. Right as you indicated, the infuriating part is that guard actually works sometimes, which indicates that those attacks were actually meant to be guarded (anuling the "just dodge roll" justification). As an example, I'm somewhat stuck No Damaging the X, YX, A fight in the KG in Critical Mode and Xemnas and Young Xehanort melee attacks constantly guard fail making it impossible. Before someone comes saying "you are defending BB because you hate KHIII and think KHIIFM is perfect" or "you say those things are good in III because you never played IIFM" : I don't think IIFM is perfect nor I think KHIIIRM is. I'm just a person whose opinion is sometimes similar of BB's and other times isn't. I've played IIFM in critical level 1 as well as IIIRM Critical Level 1 All pro codes, so I've talked about things I'VE seen and experienced. I actually like (and have spent much more time playing) IIIRM more than IIFM, for me they are both almost equal in quality, considering them both the best Games in the series
@@Mazee.s7 Simple. They changed teams. Many people who worked on KH2(dubbed the "Tokyo Team") left to work on other projects and such and so another team was formed(known as the "Osaka Team") to work on games like BBS, DDD, and eventually mainline titles like KH3.
It might just be me spamming the shit out of my buttons, but I feel like I'm consistently dropping inputs more often in KH3 when compared to previous entries. It boggles my mind.
The blocking issue for KH3 was incredibly annoying for me. Blocking feels less forgiving in KH3. But In KH2, it seemed forgiving and never felt 50/50. It was such a powerful tool in Sora's arsenal to block and counterguard. In KH3 though, I'm scared to block. Instead, I just dodge roll out of the way. Rather than deal with a 50/50 and meet my demise. If I messed up a block in KH2 it was my fault.
I lost my mind when I saw the enemy wall-cancel, it's something I always noticed but never truly grasped. "Lack of control" is the perfect way to describe this
@@akbarnanda4874 After kh2 was made the Tokyo team was moved to work on versus 13. Then square started to move people from the versus team to work on ff13 and the crystal tools engine. The team was just spread apart over too many projects. Plus this all happened over 10 years ago so most of those employees probably don't work at square anymore.
@@ultimategohanwave24 kh3 at first when played at Hercules world is actually amazing, love how they showing the camera, enemy, effect with the new engine but after Hercules world it's just doesn't felt right btw thanks for your info, I hope Osaka team can make kh4 or new KH better
especially fun when the uncancelable finishers and walls resetting bossses would combine so the boss would jump out of your finisher and give Sora the ol' "Buenos Dias, Mandy!"
Basically osakas issue is that they’re combat doesn’t feel smooth and or fluid compared to tokyos but it doesn’t mean that their combat system is necessarily bad. Also keep in mind peoples combat expectations for 3 were high due to how grounded and well done 2fms was
it does mean it's bad, you just don't notice while the fights are jokes. then you do critical mode with pre patch sora and realize objectively good/bad game design is indeed a thing that exists.
@@brandonontama2415 Depends on what you define as "better". Both games have their relative jank and things you can exploit and KH3 has to factor in everything being way bigger than before. Because of how vertical the worlds can be the combat needs to factor in that an enemy can spawn way higher than your FOV and snipe you to death, so having you be able to stay in the air longer and cover more distance when swinging your keyblade is kinda needed. If the game was as grounded as KH2 it could be very frustrating fighting enemies that can move around such a large area both horizontally and vertically. If the combat is built around the general arena's then I'd say that is "good". KH2 did well with it's more limited map sizes to have contextual verticality for scale in certain boss fights without needing an arena as large as some of the regular combat areas 3 has (Land of Dragons Heartless boss)
im glad u do these talks because many people still dont try to understand what ur actually saying and just label you as a “hater” been watching your content for a long time, hard for me to believe youre a hater and it’s surprising no one bothers actually understanding your valid points about the games.
I actually just finished a full run of days. All challenges and missions. The game is super fun, but obviously flawed. Yeah air slide is great. You can also dodge roll really fast after combos, at least with the Kingdom Key+. You can just bounce out of the way when you're done.
I love how there were abilities that let you jump and block mid-combo, both of which would just become things you can automatically do without obtaining anything in Re:Coded.
There's also an ability to let you jump after successfully blocking, and if you use a direction you get this Aerial Recovery style flip in the direction that keeps you close to the ground instead of getting a full jump like you'd get for a neutral input, meaning you can continue offense or take a better defensive position Many Keyblades also made up for combos that pretty much froze your vertical height in the air by having finishers that really sent you to the ground, rewarding you with a recovery of control for fully committing(or committing enough, some of them are early finishers on alt-combo inputs)
I used to dislike the 'floatyness' of KH3, but now that I'm on my third playthrough, I... A: Started justifying floatyness as a consequence of the dev team giving the magic and physical attacks limited tracking and context-specific animations in addition to environmental interaction. There's a lot more going on and the atmosphere in the games feel thick and syrupy because of it all. B: Started reserving combo finishers for strong enemies or desperate situations or enemies that will die with the final strike of the finisher. This mimics Sora's old moveset and physics well enough for me to really enjoy the game.
I don't understand why they didn't give Sora a 360 guard. They already had it for Riku and Aqua. Even if it was an ability you get by leveling or beating a certain boss. I just can't imagine them putting KH3 through QA and no one complained about the guard.
I'm really glad you're doing these again! Another thing I think falls into the "lack of control" category that I haven't seen anyone else bring up is the arc that the fire spell travels in. It bothers me to no end when I cast fire but because it can only travel on this stupid set arc the spell has to aimlessly spin around for a while until it eventually gets around to the enemy or if it takes too long it could whiff entirely. I use the mp to cast a spell but because of no fault of my own I don't get any benefits from it or at least not immediately. It also can make a difference in battle because then the enemy didn't stagger when I meant them too. I don't see why fire couldn't just snap straight to the target.
I love these KH talks they’re the best. Currently doing a level 1 proud mode run on kh3 before I try my lvl 1 crit run and I’m still finding new tech in kh3
I agree that floatiness is something that is part of a bigger problem, and some times when people talk about it, they did not understand what the problem really is. but I also think that maybe if we were heard (seriously) by Squex about this specific problem (gamefeel, quality of combos, fludity and etc) it would be a good start to solve the biggest problem which is the lack of control, always present in the way of osaka doing things.
One really simple but effective difference is trying to run sora in a circle, just by tilting the analog cirucularly. In Tokyo games, he is responsive and you have complete 360 control, but in kh3, he stutters and jitters when changing direction, as if he can only move horizontally, vertically and diagonally
This! This, among all other things, is what bugs me the most about KH3; and I never see it get talked about enough. Sora being forced to do a stiff, uncancelable turning animation every time you change directions makes general movement feel SO much worse and has actively gotten me killed on many occasions.
This is literally the first thing I tried when I started KH3 and I immediately noticed it doesn't work. It feels so weird and I don't understand why Osaka team loves janky movement so much.
Hmm... that could probably be because in the case of KH3, when you hold the analog stick in one direction, Sora slowly starts to speed up into straight running. I believe that has something to do with it.
I may be mistaken but bloody had made a point that when Sora is sliding that "There is no combat interactions out of it. You have to jump out of it" But I remember there being a sliding physical attack that you can use while sliding. I believe it's an animation of Sora riding the keyblade.
@UCCuHSA6w3z8ZB1igf__FX0Q I'm not so sure about that, flowmotion attacks are toggle-able and he doesnt have the blue glow. I guess technically it is a combat interaction, and you can do a short hop air slide out of the regular ground sliding
Floaty seems like a good term to refer to how laggy it is in kh. J stars victory vs is also floaty: a fighting game where launching someone into the air leaves them falling for like a whole 7 seconds. Jumping is insanely laggy: startup lag and landing lag. Characters move forward just from attacking and you have to predict your opponent walking into your attacks from how laggy they are. Some games are unresponsive/laggy in a different way but these are unresponsive in this way.
It bugged me when playing BbS but that game had bigger issues like enemies that don’t stagger, untelegraphed attacks, and a motion sickness inducing camera. The command deck was also poorly balanced. I’d say KH3, while not as tight as KH2 was still leagues above the spin-offs, especially after updates. Osaka is definitely getting better.
Great video! It's hard to find the right words to describe the inconsistencies with Osaka team but this video did a pretty good job at explaining it further
i think one of the biggest things to mention is that player skill should equal player success. when you remove control from the player like this, you are denying the player's ability to reach that success through their skill. if, say, block failing is due to rng (not saying it is, but as it sits right now, it might as well be), you are taking away the ability to skillfully block at the correct moment in time to reap the rewards of not being hit. hopping over world objects take away player skill because the player does not choose when to jump over it and when not to. there is no button press, it just happens. you could argue that there is skill in having to avoid these world objects, but now you are turning something that was intended to be something positive for the player to interact with into something negative for the player to actively avoid. there is also no visual indication that a world object will do that. it just happens
"If the player feels like no matter how hard they try, they can`t control the situation enough to avoid these frustrating scenarios..." this is so many games! For example Yakuza series comes to mind... where you`re kinda like wtf am i supposed to do to avoid a bad outcome other than spamming different attacks spamming health items when the game is like "fuck you... this is supposed to be a hard part of the game" 😯 ... also you mentioned Titanfall 2 which is DOPE af.
To add to your point about the Environmental Interaction, there is a mod for the PC Port of Mario 64 called "Extended Moveset", and one of the things it adds is a "ledge parkour" mechanic where you can quickly vault over ledges by pressing B just after grabbing a ledge when you were moving at a sufficient speed. It's quick, it's snappy, and it makes movement generally more fluid. KH 3 could have benefitted if the "Environment Interactions" required an input asides from just running into things or it just wasn't so slow (as well as obviously letting you act out of it).
15:16 Another way you can fix contextual movement in combat could be to give Sora attacks that he could trigger halfway through said movement to make the scenery play a more active role in combat. Like say if you were to vault over a fence in San Fransokyo, Sora could just do a downward slash using the momentum of the vault to knock enemies down, or while sliding, he could do a sort of diving Chain Rave like attack that keeps his momentum throughout while launching enemies for a full combo. You don't have to get rid of contextual movement in combat, just make it more involved and reactive.
osaka team just has something against continuous flow in combat, they HAVE to break the flow for some reason. like the osaka flips, sora has to spin after air slides, do backflips after shotlocks and airsteps, stop time for shotlocks and keyblade transformations and backflip after finishers (except second and double form, AKA the good ones). and in BBS and especially DDD it was even worse. sora's second dodge in DDD does a double spin at the end to stop you ffs. I don't know why but they have to stop the fight and make you stop to do backflips constantly. it's very frustrating. well that and they're still a little janky but I blame that on them learning unreal 4.
I can agree with most of these though I actually do like KH3 air slide a lot. I wouldn’t want air slide to be like Days just because I feel that would make aerial options almost completely risk free. You would essentially be getting dodge roll in the air but with greater movement speed.
Thats fair, I think a good balance would be in-between, KH3 Airslide feels a bit TOO committed, even as I can admit that despite loving Days/RE:Coded Airslide, its really zero-commitment, KH3 Air Slide to me feels like someone took Quick Run Lv1 and made it Air OK and somehow gave it even more endlag, and I think we can agree that Quick Run Lv1 kinda feels terrible
On the topic of walls, I've noticed a similar issue with Goat Nort with the player character itself. I've had this issue with Limit Cut Xemnas in particular where if I get hit close to a wall and he follows up with the unblockable cross attack, I bonk the wall and die, circumventing Second Chance/Once More. And no aerial recovery I frames either since the game no longer counts you as being in hit free fall when that happens. This happens nowhere else in the arena except close to a wall. Makes for an unfun experience and really disincentives me from being in the air unless I know I'm 100% safe from being in that scenario.
I'm surprised BB didn't talk about this. This happened countless times to myself, not just with LC Xemnas but also several times in base KH3 and other LC bosses
I noticed you mentioned how KH-Days had a good air slide. Could you make a video on Days' combat? I've heard alot of people call it garbage, but playing it myself the only problems I've noticed are some enemies (and almost all bosses) having too much health, and some bosses having BS attacks.
Yeah H.A.N.D.'s kh games are underrated as hell. The combat in Re:Coded is SO much better because they fixed most of the awkwardness that Days' combat had. The biggest sins Days' combat commits are the slow pace, floaty jump, braindead AI, and wierd damage output (the finisher of your combo does most of the damage while the ACTUAL combo does chip damage.)
@@reddodeado301 exactly, and DW Roxas/Larxene sucked because they took forever to get to their finishers. While characters like Saix, Marluxia, and Sora dominate because of their short combos. Saix with the Zero Gear in particular does disgusting amounts of damage.
@@therentpursuer9869 B, A, Y; 3-buttons to DW Roxas's BIG finisher, iirc. I definitely remember DW Roxas' aerial finisher being really quick to reach via Y-combo'ing, at any rate.
@@RadiantDarkBlaze well of course you can do that. But I was talking about his regular ground combo without the Y prompt. Because yes, his air combo is great, but his ground combo sucks. That's half of his kit we're talking about. If anything, the Y button leading into his air combo was put there *because* his ground combo was so bad.
The worst guard fail for me was easily xion's overhead strike in her second- phase. It's to the point where i just dodge roll through it but miss out on the reprisal damage i could have done.
@@WeaponExX I don't think any of KH1 platforming is clunky, the only thing wrong with it, is the camera. Otherwise it works very well, animations aren't slow, all abilities activate the moment you input and your character has proper falling momentum. KH2 is just quicker and has more options.
@@WeaponExX quite a few big issues, such as: 1. deep jungle sucks 2. deep jungle sucks 3. deep jungle sucks 4. deep jungle sucks 5. deep jungle sucks 6. deep jungle sucks 7. deep jungle sucks 8. deep jungle sucks 9. deep jungle sucks 10. deep jungle sucks there's more for sure, but my list's out of room
It's strange how Yozora is probably the only enemy that doesn't get caught on invisible wall which definitely shows that they have the power to make that not a thing they just chose not to.
i believe this is true for kh mom you completely lose control of your character. You cant dodge, you cant choose where you walk, you are just forced to walk along the stupid road thats there on the spawning area of every room
I feel a big point is: you say "The kh3 has this problem" and the response is "avoid doing that." While in games like KH2 it's "The game has no substance", and you can go "are you doing these things?" It's the simplicity that can be built on, not a problem to avoid.
I like to call it "flow-less" tool kit. That is why the new item cancel Tech made the combos much more Flashy, since it acted as a "link". As for the air time, DMC5 seems to have similar float like moves actually, Like Dante's "Air Slide", no one complains though because of the hundred ways to drop down, KH3 could use a drop down move as well, maybe hold attack to rise with enemy if on ground, and descend if in the air, and I would not call adding some parry frames to those OP. About hitting the environment, Dissidia do it the best I think. Also, I really missed these talks, more please :).
13:24 This shit got me killed by mother gothel to many times Another thing that wasn't mentioned is the endlag on situation commands, attraction flows and links is so goddamn long that you can get one shot the second you leave it. (If you are on critical or if you are one shot)
> Bosses get ‘stuck’ when you combo against the wall I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing. It makes sense that you would pin (humanoid) bosses against a wall and that they would get stuck there, and can actually be an advantage when you want to keep a boss in a specific area. But I do think some of the clips you show demonstrate the bigger issue inside of this. Bosses getting ‘stuck’ to a wall cancels out their hitstun - what if it didn’t? Ie; Bosses still get ‘stuck’ to the wall, but they cannot act for the same amount of time as if they were not stuck to said wall. I feel like that tiny little change would solve this issue. (Unless it’s already in KH3 somewhere and I’m just not noticing it).
I have seen peoples guards fail, but has anyone else never had their guard or risk dodge fail? I have beaten the game 3 times, and data org even more times that that, and I’ve never had my risk dodge or regular guard fail. I know it can happen, but it has just never happened to me.
The risk dodge failing has happened to me a few times but I think I only died like 1 or 2 times to it (bc I was fighting those big mech things and they have big hitboxes lol).
For some reason i can never counter rock Titans feet at the beginning of the game. He always pushes me too far and the prompt disappears. Also why is it that you have to be within certain rules for it to work? Shouldn't i be able to use counter even if my target isnt near?@@kevin13cabello
I gotta say, these videos are pretty freaking fantastic. Love like all of the main numbered titles, but at the same time, yeah these are things that should be addressed. I do have a question to ask though. This isn't to any disrespect or anything, but I have always wondered, what made you stick around with the series and why do you stick with the series for as long as you have? Or to put it in another way, what keeps you going as a fan? I only ask this because while you clearly love a lot about the series (or at least the best of the games), I would've thought that at some point the frustrations you've shared with the current state of things from story to gameplay would have made you stop at some point. I'm not even saying you can't be a fan just because of what it did for you. We are all fans for our own reasons. I'd just like some insight on what made you stick around even with all the issues you have with Osaka KH Games, or even a lot of Modern KH in general. Other than that, have a great day my dude, keep up the great content, and let's hope for even more improvements and fun KH Games going forward!
Also the item menu thing makes keyblade switching instantaneous basically now so the door to combos have opened drastically. I have also never encountered the wall thing personally but maybe its cause Sora always turns when reaching a wall most of the time. I hope next KH game keyblade switching is instantaneous without an exploit.
Could you upload the last few segments of your MoM playthrough? The ones with you doing FC's on random tracks - they were on your twitch but aren't now
fwiw, Air Slide isn't technically intended to be used in battle as an extension of combat. It's a piece of movement. That's why aerial dodge is enabled by default and why it overrides air slide. I feel this is the same for environmental movement. Generally, nothing outside of wall runs really exist in combat scenarios. They are "flavor movement" between combat (I'll admit Scala isn't too good for "battle" tho). now why we can't just get glide early on for movement is an interesting question. But I guess it's the same reason why dodge rolling is generally faster movement than just running (except maybe in KH3, because you have a proper "run" ).
Although KH3 ReMind has several of these problems, I still think it is more satisfying than KH2 because it has a lot more possibilities in the middle of combat, KH2 sometimes forces you to always do the same things thanks to the limitations that the game imposes. In games like Devil May Cry the game presents you with several different styles that you can use in the middle of the fight without having a limiter to make the gameplay less repetitive, in KH2 you always need to carry a potion for Donald and Goofy because they always die and you can't be one of the main systems in the game which are Drive Forma, and KH3 has made you independent, in addition to having many other possibilities such as carrying several Forms with you and being able to walk from one place to another quickly with Air Step. In my gameplay with KH2 I often died of boredom.
KH2FM gives you limit form regardless of if party members are alive and summons are IMO better for general combat outside of some niche boss fights where you can use Final Form instead.
Old news that I'm sure many ppl including Bizkitz are aware of, but fast Keyblade Switching is possible with item animation cancels (showcased by Trueblade Seeker 4 months ago: ua-cam.com/video/8LAzqI8EuF0/v-deo.html). I even remember seeing a game tip from some Japanese magazine (possibly by Square) that item usage can be interrupted by Keyblade Switching, enabling fast switches - implying that this was an intentional feature and not a bug/exploit. HOWEVER I still think this is a case of making an unnecessary workaround instead of addressing the initial problem. Why not just allow fast Keyblade Switching in the first place? I don't see how that could be anything but beneficial to veterans and beginners alike. For those unaware, by default, Keyblade Switching after an attack makes Sora go back to an idle stance after finishing the attack animation before he actually switches Keyblades. It's so slow that in several cases, you can legit drop combos against bosses because the hitstun runs out before you can continue the combo with the next Keyblade. But if you use an item, which CAN cancel the attack animation early, then Keyblade Switch, it is almost instantaneous. If you cancel the item usage animation with Keyblade Switch quickly enough, you won't consume the item and this whole technique even works as a combo reset since item usage does that by default.
13:05 I don’t see why they would take away the vaulting. Why would you want to physically jump over that bench? It’s so small it wouldn’t feel good to high jump 6 feet in the air for a tiny bench. Sure you can’t cancel it but it’s two seconds. And it’s not really in any boss arenas anyway.
The King of Toys has a ton of obstacles in it where you can be forced into an auto-animation and Grim Guardianess has it with the hills putting you into an auto-slide animation in terms of bosses I remember having obstacles like that. It's really mostly noticeable on Critical Mode, Pro Code or Level 1 runs because that's when those mistakes are lethal.
@@ironstark917 That's fair, and I agree those are annoyances. But at least in my many playthroughs of KH3, it doesn't show up often enough for it to be a fatal flaw of the game. Think of all the things that are stupid or don't make sense that are in the old games. KH2's core combat is centered around drive forms, and you get punished for using them with Anti form. You're basically discouraged into using drives because if you get anti form you're screwed. My point is that all KH games have flaws but KH3's gets exaggerated so bad because its new and made by osaka. Remind's new abilities and bosses made KH3 closer to KH2 than I thought we would ever get. It deserves some credit.
I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing KH3. I think its flaws should be pointed out so that they can be fixed. I also commend BB for his video of how KH2 also has flaws, showing that no game is perfect, even though KH2 is close to it. I just think a lot of people spend more time on KH3's flaws than what it excels at. Maybe we have to wait a while before we get there, because our voices might make the difference for future KH games.
Ignoring any issues I have with the combat, I think the contextual movement thing was the only mechanic in this game that actively annoyed me and want to stop playing at times lol. Like, in a game like this it just feels so unnecessary when most of the stuff you mantle over can be gotten over with either a simple jump or just walking around it and I wanna say the only reason I get so angry at it whenever it happens is because I know it didn't need to be there. Second on that list is exploring San Fransokyo and Frozen. Why? Because I can't delete the snowman and Baymax from my party and it makes searching for anything a humongous chore since they are always body blocking you unless you jump over them because the party members stick to you like glue.
"lack of control" is more accurate, but cumbersome to articulate properly. "floaty" is immediate, everyone knows what you're talking about, and it's obvservable from just watching gameplay. The lack of control is something you need to feel, which is why its going to be very difficult to change the narrative.
i honestly feel like you can put this in even more simple and understandable terms - the osaka team games have poor game feel. that's all it is. the characters are, on the whole, unresponsive and unsatisfying to control. That phrase has a lot more legitimacy and weight behind it than "floaty" or anything else ever will - one of the first books ever written on game design was literally called "Game Feel"
What *really* bugs me is how a lot of these small problems, things that take away control for a short time and add up quickly to make the whole game feel clunkier, less responsive and less fluid, isn't KH-exclusive. It just directly interferes with the gameplay more often in KH. This seems to be an industry-wide thing, most AAA games seem to be filled with stuff like this. It feels awful to wait through short unskippable dialogue/cutscenes every time you interact with certain NPC's or objects, or have my control taken away for a few seconds as you're forced into some slow, scripted sequence. Just a few examples: *Monster Hunter World:* Talking to your cat to change their gear, sitting at the canteen to buy a meal, speaking to a guildmarm to see the quests book, opening various menues, moving through vines and small holes your character has to squeeze through, that long sequence of animations every time you call a tailraider mount for the first time in a hunt, opening your map... *BotW:* Speaking to Beedle (God forbid you have a beetle in your inventory), opening a chest and watching the game tell you what you found a bow- only to realize your bow stash is full, _koroks,_ screen fadeouts/fadeins that take a few seconds after skipping various cutscenes. *Skyrim:* _Doing literally anything._ ( _Fun fact- if you watched every "Yahaha" sequence from finding all 900 Koroks, back to back, you'd be watching for roughly two and a half hours._ ) People sometimes act like small things like this are just nitpicks, and they're only a problem if you're impatient. But it's not about patience. They add artificial tedium to what are oftentimes already tasks you don't want to spend time sitting through, they frequently break up the flow gameplay and cancel out your inputs when you might be doing something important, they add up _super_ quickly, and there's never any reason for it. _Basically, What i'm saying is:_ I don't want to sit there and pet my dinosaur mount for ten seconds when the reason i called for it in the first place was to quickly chase down a much larger dinosaur, only to realize that my mount is now traveling to a monster i just killed and it refused to let me open my map to change targets because an animator somewhere at Capcom REALLY wanted me to sit there and watch this play out every single time And my paLICO HAS NOT IMPROVED A LOT TODAY YOU'RE LITERALLY MAXXED OUT IN EVERYTHING _PLEASE JUST LET ME SWITCH TO THE FLASHFLY CAGE EVERYONE IS WAITING FOR ME AND I JUST WANNA HUNT A JAGRAS _*_WHY ARE THESE ANIMATIONS HERE SOMEBODY PLEASE I AM GOING TO CRY_*
It's my theory that a lot of these automatic actions are in place because they look good in trailers. They're part of the sales pitch for the game where it looks like the player is able to do all these amazing things when in reality those things are just done for the player without any input. This practice is really common, especially in AAA games. These decisions aren't mistakes. They're there by design to reap a profit. What's ruining the games industry at large isn't a bunch of boneheaded individual decisions. It's capitalism itself.
Did they fix the block at some point between this video and now? Im through most of the superbosses on crit and havent had a block fail that wasnt a telegraphed unblockable.move
The real first sign of the lack of control feeling is shockingly was from KH2. You get it from leveling up high jump. The animation takes longer and less control you get overall from jumping.
I mean you didn't have much control when jumping regularly and KH high jumps always have build up animations. You can push your momentum by Lvl 3 added with areal dodge that can immediately carry or redirect your movement
Considering Osaka's previous games and how they favor solving combat via builds over tight combat, I think they prioritize making Kingdom Hearts as a light RPG with action elements rather than an action game with RPG elements. Or maybe they just don't know how to design satisfying gameplay fundamentals. Or both.
Tbh I don't agree what all people say about kh2 being this perfect combat, while kh2 has problems too like the all games in different or similar ways, kh3 to me feels better than kh2, to me every game has guard fails(my opinion i think it's rng), cause I'm good on reacting to attacks, even kh2 it happens alot more time than kh3,kh3 does have problems too, can't keep a blink eye, but the sora in kh3 feels more consistent in guarding, kh3 does feel floaty a times but more with more options, playing at lv 1 kh2 and kh3, both games I feel are equal
I think kh3 has too much gravity now. In kh2 u can jump b4 u start comboing and it becomes an air combo. In kh3 now it pulls u back down unless u double jump or are falling.
If Jiminy only used NordVPN to protect his journal.
Truuuue, need a KHtuber to use this
Indeed. KH may have some advanced technology, but that doesn't include anti-virus software.
You shouldn't feel bad, BB. A huge portion of the community was already calling the combat "floaty," it's not on you. And I agree, "floaty" is the wrong word. Every time I've had a discussion involving this topic I've had to add that "it's not so much about gravity itself as it is about these other more nuanced details working in tandem with each other." So it's weird to talk about at this point having dug ourselves into this corner, as a community. Symantecs are shitty.
It's not that complicated it's floaty, don't be afraid of criticism given and taken geez.
The physics give you high jumps, slow falling, long animations, and you have very few moves that you can cancel, or that can get you back to the ground quickly. That's not a semantic corner, or just people throwing out buzzwords, that's floaty combat by definition-- which is what we've been getting from the Osaka team, KH3 very much included.
@@MrNickPresley long animations that are rarely cancelable aren't floaty, they're _stiff._ floatiness doesn't really have any way to relate to how a character acts, it really just comes down to the physics. it's like the 3d version of ice physics - you're perfectly free to try and pull your character in whatever direction you please, but the change in acceleration is low enough they're gonna spend a lot of time lazily drifting before their velocity finally matches what you want
it's really not a good way to criticize kh games, because the only really floaty things are that the gravity's low and a lot of things will constantly pull you upwards. even then, though ... why is being stuck in the air a bad thing? because a lot of your options are ground-only? that doesn't exactly make the floaty gravity _the_ issue, because you can keep the gravity and just improve aerial combat and suddenly it's a _good_ thing that sora's balloon pants keep him in the air and allow him to chain his excellent new aerial options
it really is a just buzzword, because it barely applies and is such a surface level analysis for where it _does_ apply. sure, when your aerial moveset sucks, jacking up the gravity _would_ mean you find yourself locked into it far less often ... but it's such a bandaid fix and would likely just cause more problems, especially when you _do_ want to use your aerial options
like against enemies you have to jump to hit
which kh has _a lot of_
@@MrNickPresley kbash kind of dismantled the floaty term in his retrospective but essentially in terms of jump and fall most kh games actually have really similar jump durations (yes even 2) in the Osaka games it’s just stiff as the person above me said
Nah most people who use the term floaty source it back to here, he deserves to take responsibility for the child he's created.
I love where you mention how "If you don't notice it, they're doing something right." So true. It's like that with really any artistic endeavor; there's so many nuts and bolts behind the scenes to create an enjoyable end product, and most of the time the average lay person doesn't even acknowledge they exist. They just know when they like the result, even if they can't explain why.
Also going off of tight fundamentals and Mario 64: I remember hearing that the developers didn't even try making levels until they got Mario's movement feeling good. After they dialed that in, then they started creating levels around that. Really makes a difference in the end product.
I argue that KH3 has decent enough fundamentals. But stuff like guard hitboxes and environmental movement go a bit beyond what you'd prototype with a single character and some basic terrrain/enemies.
I am a game developer and I try to make sure I get basic controls very good first before making a lot of stuff. There's gonna be a lot of problems you're going to have to deal with if your character has a lot of issues or glitches. But I also make other stuff at the same time to not slow down the production of the game.
It is definitely a feeling I get in BBS and DDD, but I think KH3 + Remind is such a great stride away from that general jank feeling, even if there are a few remaining issues. They're certainly on the right track. You'd hope, anyway.
wassup KingK! are you making a KH3 retrospective?
They're far from the right track.
Why don't you have a checkmark, KingK??
KH3 post ReMind became a great game and showed that Osaka is improving as she designates the games
@@jacksonwww5 Its unfortunate that it took all this time to get around as good as the previous team, but at least we're finally there.
Hopefully they can maintain this progress.
Yo, I missed these KH Talks so much. Good to have these backs.
Kingdom Hearts fans trying to explain why they still love the series:
"I do know hurt..."
Today's word of the day is "suspension": the temporary prevention of something from continuing or being in force or effect.
You get suspended in the air after an airslide, suspended into long drawn out animations from finishers, or even the enemies stagger being suspended or outright canceled from hitting the wall.
Its a good word, but but it is still complex, because Master form for example also keeps you suspended in the air, but for not a long time and without taking your momentum or holding you in long animations. in recoded sora's last aerial hit keeps him in the air while it happens (which is really fast and snappy) to make sure he will hit the enemy and you won't fall before as in KH1.
so to improve, would be good something like
"Excess of suspension".
it is very difficult to assign adjectives to virtual sensations, because everything depends on how it is done, so for osaka i always think of words like "slowness, stuck in, stiffness" (and also excess of floatiness) but still no reflects perfect the feeling, thats hard.
I’ve missed the KH talks. I know it’s not like a series you can do forever and can’t base a channel around, but when they pop up I love watching them.
Same
Don't worry a few may come around kh4's release
Floaty isn't the right *technical* term, but it does adequately describe the feeling of being left hanging mid-stream and the game sliding around without your input, like it has inertia.
It's like using the pompson 6000 in TF2.
24:15
BB: "I've got one word for you.
Lack. Of. Control!"
Goofy, counting on his four fingered hands: "Wait, isn't that...?"
God dang it, Phil
"Lack of momentum" is a good way to put it too. KH2 isn't perfect in that regard or anything, but it just feels so much better for the momentum that IS there.
Aerial Dodge is such a powerful and snappy ability compared to like, 2.9/3 Airslide, which feels like just Quick Run but shitty and in the air(meanwhile BBS and h.a.n.d. Airslides feel great cause its just this thrust of movement)
Glide feels terrible in KH2 without Aerial Dodge to kickstart it, especially at like, Lv1
First raid and now BB getting that nord sponsorship. Lets goooo
The basic air combo finisher in Kingdom Hearts II is the best air attack animation ever in the Kingdom Hearts games for me. It’s _feels_ like Sora’s thrusting himself forward with all his strength. I didn’t get that same feeling across the other games after, and I think it’s because I don’t _feel_ the strength behind some swings. The closest I got to that feeling is KH3 post-Remind, so I’ll give praise there.
Feels sluggish, like they're dragging their feet for no clear reason, sluggishness is related to slowness, but isn't it, a slow attack with a sense of weight isn't sluggish, its weighty, stuff like Terra's... everything, feel generally sluggish because he's slow, but has the impact of a foam bat instead of a man wielding a slab of metal or even just a normal sword, lack of stagger/launch or good hitstop has a lot to do with it as well, KH1 and 2 have Sora really shove things away when he hits his finishers, aerial or grounded, which backs up the sense of weight the motions carry to sell it
Personally for me, the best basic air combo finisher is in KH1 for those same reasons you mentioned, especially with how enemies sometimes get sent flying a lot farther compared to the other games by said finishers.
Even in remind sure the attacks are faster but I still felt no power behind the attacks. There’s a lack of weight to Sora when he’s being controlled, basically feels like he has a balloon inflated inside him at all times. As soon as I controlled Sora in the opening I knew it wasn’t touching the first 2 games.
@@superlombax1561nah its hurricane blast kh1, that move slaps
@@Italian_RicanI slightly disagree. Last charge feels great to use, but quick Slash and flash step less so. The ground slam isnt too bad tho
I think a better replacement would be "feathery." Sora moves light as a feather during combat, but he drops back down incredibly slow due to gravity(?)
(This actually ended up being way longer than expected) I consider this KHTalk to be the continuation of "The Consequences of Floaty Combat in Kingdom Hearts" (the video mentioned in the title slide, in case anyone doesn't recognize it), released a couple of weeks before base KHIII's original worldwide release.
I've always hated the "Floaty" argument as, while some people really understood its meaning and what you really wanted to mean with it (lack of player's control over his/her own character...etc -both this video and the mentioned above explained it quite well so it isn't necessary to make some kind of summary here-) most of the people who used that word had no actual idea of its meaning and simply used it to criticize KHIII because they didn't like it and needed a way to justify themselves (the ones I really call "KHIII Haters", they hate the game because someone has said it's floaty/bad/(insert synonims here), and just to clarify an important fact, that "someone" isn't the responsible for the hate towards the game, the people who don't even have enough criteria to make their own opinion/judgement are the one to blame, acting as the traditional "herd mentality" example). I really like how this talk clarifies the concept and gives it a more appropiate designation as before in order to avoid this go-to criticism, acting as a correction of the previous video.
In regards to the points exposed (please consider this is my honest opinion so don't be the "you're wrong because I say so as I have no arguments against you" guy): I really like environmental movement in KHIII (as long it doesn't destroy the flow/feeling of any other action/activity as explained in the following lines), it gives a feeling of real interaction between the player and the world you are currently into instead of just headbutting into every single wall in most of the previous games, KHII as a example where the only interaction with the map itself os the ability to ledge grab. This interactions become horrible when they are really unnecessarily slow or intrusive so that they break the exploration flow of a world (for example, using Goofy's shield in Olympus to cross the fire. It is so slow and movement-impeding that in my most recent playtrough I just used air slide to cross it) or in the worst case, if they don't let the player to react to enemies around him (mostly seen in San Fransokyo due to its streetlights and benches -the later being showed in the video).
I don't think it's necessary to expose again in this comment how the update that came along ReMind fixed the Combo modifiers as you clarified it in the video. Being sincere at first I was one of the people who did defend base KHIII combo modifiers, however after playing A LOT after ReMind came out I reviewed some of my old gameplay and just couldn't believe how slow and risky the combo's were. I really think that ReMind elevated KHIII's base Sora combos to a "KHIIFM Level". Another thing I really like about III is how smooth the transition between air and ground combat is now, I just love it. Being mid-air in II was just a death sentence.
And as a conclusion, I can't understand why guardfails even exist. That is my main problem with KHIII tbh, I really think that it they did not exist KHIII (With ReMind) would be the best KH game or at least extremely close to IIFM. Right as you indicated, the infuriating part is that guard actually works sometimes, which indicates that those attacks were actually meant to be guarded (anuling the "just dodge roll" justification). As an example, I'm somewhat stuck No Damaging the X, YX, A fight in the KG in Critical Mode and Xemnas and Young Xehanort melee attacks constantly guard fail making it impossible.
Before someone comes saying "you are defending BB because you hate KHIII and think KHIIFM is perfect" or "you say those things are good in III because you never played IIFM" :
I don't think IIFM is perfect nor I think KHIIIRM is. I'm just a person whose opinion is sometimes similar of BB's and other times isn't. I've played IIFM in critical level 1 as well as IIIRM Critical Level 1 All pro codes, so I've talked about things I'VE seen and experienced. I actually like (and have spent much more time playing) IIIRM more than IIFM, for me they are both almost equal in quality, considering them both the best Games in the series
“If you don’t like ‘X,’ just don’t do it.” is one of the most frustrating arguments that mouth-breathers use.
"You control the buttons you press" well maybe those buttons shouldn't fucking suck or make all the other buttons feel pointless, y'know?
After playing KH3 for the first time, I'd definitely say "sluggish" or "stiff" is the operative word
Idk how they went a step down every game since Kh2
@@Mazee.s7 Simple. They changed teams. Many people who worked on KH2(dubbed the "Tokyo Team") left to work on other projects and such and so another team was formed(known as the "Osaka Team") to work on games like BBS, DDD, and eventually mainline titles like KH3.
I'm mid way through KH3 on crit and while it's a lot better than I expected it's just miles below KH2 it's just not even close in terms of combat.
It might just be me spamming the shit out of my buttons, but I feel like I'm consistently dropping inputs more often in KH3 when compared to previous entries. It boggles my mind.
The blocking issue for KH3 was incredibly annoying for me. Blocking feels less forgiving in KH3. But In KH2, it seemed forgiving and never felt 50/50. It was such a powerful tool in Sora's arsenal to block and counterguard. In KH3 though, I'm scared to block. Instead, I just dodge roll out of the way. Rather than deal with a 50/50 and meet my demise.
If I messed up a block in KH2 it was my fault.
I lost my mind when I saw the enemy wall-cancel, it's something I always noticed but never truly grasped. "Lack of control" is the perfect way to describe this
Funny how we still talk about osaka team when tokyo team doesn't even exist anymore and there is only one team still working on kingdom hearts.
Why? Can you tell me what happen?
@@akbarnanda4874 After kh2 was made the Tokyo team was moved to work on versus 13. Then square started to move people from the versus team to work on ff13 and the crystal tools engine. The team was just spread apart over too many projects. Plus this all happened over 10 years ago so most of those employees probably don't work at square anymore.
@@ultimategohanwave24 kh3 at first when played at Hercules world is actually amazing, love how they showing the camera, enemy, effect with the new engine but after Hercules world it's just doesn't felt right
btw thanks for your info, I hope Osaka team can make kh4 or new KH better
especially fun when the uncancelable finishers and walls resetting bossses would combine so the boss would jump out of your finisher and give Sora the ol' "Buenos Dias, Mandy!"
Yeah that bs killed me a lot against first phase of armored xehanort on crit level 1
What would you call it, “willfully lingering”? Lol
Basically osakas issue is that they’re combat doesn’t feel smooth and or fluid compared to tokyos but it doesn’t mean that their combat system is necessarily bad. Also keep in mind peoples combat expectations for 3 were high due to how grounded and well done 2fms was
Pretty much
it does mean it's bad, you just don't notice while the fights are jokes.
then you do critical mode with pre patch sora and realize objectively good/bad game design is indeed a thing that exists.
I mean I don't think it's unreasonable to expect an modern game to be better than an that came out years ago.
@@brandonontama2415 Depends on what you define as "better". Both games have their relative jank and things you can exploit and KH3 has to factor in everything being way bigger than before. Because of how vertical the worlds can be the combat needs to factor in that an enemy can spawn way higher than your FOV and snipe you to death, so having you be able to stay in the air longer and cover more distance when swinging your keyblade is kinda needed. If the game was as grounded as KH2 it could be very frustrating fighting enemies that can move around such a large area both horizontally and vertically.
If the combat is built around the general arena's then I'd say that is "good". KH2 did well with it's more limited map sizes to have contextual verticality for scale in certain boss fights without needing an arena as large as some of the regular combat areas 3 has (Land of Dragons Heartless boss)
@@caldw615 That's the problem, I don't think KH3 worlds being bigger added to the gameplay since most of the worlds tend to be empty.
I love how you laid everything out. It's perfect. You nailed literally everything that makes KH2:FM's combat the incredible experience that it is.
Shoutouts to TeaRacer for this ace editing once again!
im glad u do these talks because many people still dont try to understand what ur actually saying and just label you as a “hater”
been watching your content for a long time, hard for me to believe youre a hater and it’s surprising no one bothers actually understanding your valid points about the games.
7:27 I'm glad we discovered item keyblade swapping
Omg, it's been a hot minute since a video in general let alone a kh talk heck yeah
I wish there were more of these I absolutely love KH talks
I actually just finished a full run of days. All challenges and missions. The game is super fun, but obviously flawed. Yeah air slide is great. You can also dodge roll really fast after combos, at least with the Kingdom Key+. You can just bounce out of the way when you're done.
I love how there were abilities that let you jump and block mid-combo, both of which would just become things you can automatically do without obtaining anything in Re:Coded.
There's also an ability to let you jump after successfully blocking, and if you use a direction you get this Aerial Recovery style flip in the direction that keeps you close to the ground instead of getting a full jump like you'd get for a neutral input, meaning you can continue offense or take a better defensive position
Many Keyblades also made up for combos that pretty much froze your vertical height in the air by having finishers that really sent you to the ground, rewarding you with a recovery of control for fully committing(or committing enough, some of them are early finishers on alt-combo inputs)
I used to dislike the 'floatyness' of KH3, but now that I'm on my third playthrough, I...
A: Started justifying floatyness as a consequence of the dev team giving the magic and physical attacks limited tracking and context-specific animations in addition to environmental interaction. There's a lot more going on and the atmosphere in the games feel thick and syrupy because of it all.
B: Started reserving combo finishers for strong enemies or desperate situations or enemies that will die with the final strike of the finisher.
This mimics Sora's old moveset and physics well enough for me to really enjoy the game.
I don't understand why they didn't give Sora a 360 guard. They already had it for Riku and Aqua. Even if it was an ability you get by leveling or beating a certain boss. I just can't imagine them putting KH3 through QA and no one complained about the guard.
I'm really glad you're doing these again!
Another thing I think falls into the "lack of control" category that I haven't seen anyone else bring up is the arc that the fire spell travels in. It bothers me to no end when I cast fire but because it can only travel on this stupid set arc the spell has to aimlessly spin around for a while until it eventually gets around to the enemy or if it takes too long it could whiff entirely. I use the mp to cast a spell but because of no fault of my own I don't get any benefits from it or at least not immediately. It also can make a difference in battle because then the enemy didn't stagger when I meant them too. I don't see why fire couldn't just snap straight to the target.
I love these KH talks they’re the best. Currently doing a level 1 proud mode run on kh3 before I try my lvl 1 crit run and I’m still finding new tech in kh3
I agree that floatiness is something that is part of a bigger problem, and some times when people talk about it, they did not understand what the problem really is. but I also think that maybe if we were heard (seriously) by Squex about this specific problem (gamefeel, quality of combos, fludity and etc) it would be a good start to solve the biggest problem which is the lack of control, always present in the way of osaka doing things.
One really simple but effective difference is trying to run sora in a circle, just by tilting the analog cirucularly. In Tokyo games, he is responsive and you have complete 360 control, but in kh3, he stutters and jitters when changing direction, as if he can only move horizontally, vertically and diagonally
This! This, among all other things, is what bugs me the most about KH3; and I never see it get talked about enough. Sora being forced to do a stiff, uncancelable turning animation every time you change directions makes general movement feel SO much worse and has actively gotten me killed on many occasions.
This is literally the first thing I tried when I started KH3 and I immediately noticed it doesn't work. It feels so weird and I don't understand why Osaka team loves janky movement so much.
Hmm... that could probably be because in the case of KH3, when you hold the analog stick in one direction, Sora slowly starts to speed up into straight running. I believe that has something to do with it.
@@superlombax1561yea he has a really awful walk start up animation. I would always make a circle with sora while i waited for bosses, now i cant 😢
I may be mistaken but bloody had made a point that when Sora is sliding that "There is no combat interactions out of it. You have to jump out of it" But I remember there being a sliding physical attack that you can use while sliding. I believe it's an animation of Sora riding the keyblade.
@UCCuHSA6w3z8ZB1igf__FX0Q I'm not so sure about that, flowmotion attacks are toggle-able and he doesnt have the blue glow. I guess technically it is a combat interaction, and you can do a short hop air slide out of the regular ground sliding
Floaty seems like a good term to refer to how laggy it is in kh. J stars victory vs is also floaty: a fighting game where launching someone into the air leaves them falling for like a whole 7 seconds.
Jumping is insanely laggy: startup lag and landing lag. Characters move forward just from attacking and you have to predict your opponent walking into your attacks from how laggy they are.
Some games are unresponsive/laggy in a different way but these are unresponsive in this way.
It bugged me when playing BbS but that game had bigger issues like enemies that don’t stagger, untelegraphed attacks, and a motion sickness inducing camera. The command deck was also poorly balanced. I’d say KH3, while not as tight as KH2 was still leagues above the spin-offs, especially after updates. Osaka is definitely getting better.
Great video! It's hard to find the right words to describe the inconsistencies with Osaka team but this video did a pretty good job at explaining it further
i think one of the biggest things to mention is that player skill should equal player success. when you remove control from the player like this, you are denying the player's ability to reach that success through their skill. if, say, block failing is due to rng (not saying it is, but as it sits right now, it might as well be), you are taking away the ability to skillfully block at the correct moment in time to reap the rewards of not being hit. hopping over world objects take away player skill because the player does not choose when to jump over it and when not to. there is no button press, it just happens. you could argue that there is skill in having to avoid these world objects, but now you are turning something that was intended to be something positive for the player to interact with into something negative for the player to actively avoid. there is also no visual indication that a world object will do that. it just happens
This is one of the best vids you have ever done!
"If the player feels like no matter how hard they try, they can`t control the situation enough to avoid these frustrating scenarios..." this is so many games!
For example Yakuza series comes to mind... where you`re kinda like wtf am i supposed to do to avoid a bad outcome other than spamming different attacks spamming health items when the game is like "fuck you... this is supposed to be a hard part of the game" 😯 ... also you mentioned Titanfall 2 which is DOPE af.
To add to your point about the Environmental Interaction, there is a mod for the PC Port of Mario 64 called "Extended Moveset", and one of the things it adds is a "ledge parkour" mechanic where you can quickly vault over ledges by pressing B just after grabbing a ledge when you were moving at a sufficient speed. It's quick, it's snappy, and it makes movement generally more fluid.
KH 3 could have benefitted if the "Environment Interactions" required an input asides from just running into things or it just wasn't so slow (as well as obviously letting you act out of it).
I always never liked the use of “floaty.” The issues always felt more complex than that word encompassed
15:16
Another way you can fix contextual movement in combat could be to give Sora attacks that he could trigger halfway through said movement to make the scenery play a more active role in combat. Like say if you were to vault over a fence in San Fransokyo, Sora could just do a downward slash using the momentum of the vault to knock enemies down, or while sliding, he could do a sort of diving Chain Rave like attack that keeps his momentum throughout while launching enemies for a full combo. You don't have to get rid of contextual movement in combat, just make it more involved and reactive.
I like the "floaty" Combat and stuff. I even want more games with that combat/movement.
osaka team just has something against continuous flow in combat, they HAVE to break the flow for some reason.
like the osaka flips, sora has to spin after air slides, do backflips after shotlocks and airsteps, stop time for shotlocks and keyblade transformations and backflip after finishers (except second and double form, AKA the good ones).
and in BBS and especially DDD it was even worse. sora's second dodge in DDD does a double spin at the end to stop you ffs.
I don't know why but they have to stop the fight and make you stop to do backflips constantly. it's very frustrating.
well that and they're still a little janky but I blame that on them learning unreal 4.
I can agree with most of these though I actually do like KH3 air slide a lot. I wouldn’t want air slide to be like Days just because I feel that would make aerial options almost completely risk free. You would essentially be getting dodge roll in the air but with greater movement speed.
Thats fair, I think a good balance would be in-between, KH3 Airslide feels a bit TOO committed, even as I can admit that despite loving Days/RE:Coded Airslide, its really zero-commitment, KH3 Air Slide to me feels like someone took Quick Run Lv1 and made it Air OK and somehow gave it even more endlag, and I think we can agree that Quick Run Lv1 kinda feels terrible
With the new moves that came out for ReMind, I really hope this shows progress to make gameplay more tight and responsive
i love discussions. Following your twitch now xD
On the topic of walls, I've noticed a similar issue with Goat Nort with the player character itself. I've had this issue with Limit Cut Xemnas in particular where if I get hit close to a wall and he follows up with the unblockable cross attack, I bonk the wall and die, circumventing Second Chance/Once More. And no aerial recovery I frames either since the game no longer counts you as being in hit free fall when that happens.
This happens nowhere else in the arena except close to a wall. Makes for an unfun experience and really disincentives me from being in the air unless I know I'm 100% safe from being in that scenario.
I'm surprised BB didn't talk about this. This happened countless times to myself, not just with LC Xemnas but also several times in base KH3 and other LC bosses
I noticed you mentioned how KH-Days had a good air slide. Could you make a video on Days' combat? I've heard alot of people call it garbage, but playing it myself the only problems I've noticed are some enemies (and almost all bosses) having too much health, and some bosses having BS attacks.
Yeah H.A.N.D.'s kh games are underrated as hell. The combat in Re:Coded is SO much better because they fixed most of the awkwardness that Days' combat had. The biggest sins Days' combat commits are the slow pace, floaty jump, braindead AI, and wierd damage output (the finisher of your combo does most of the damage while the ACTUAL combo does chip damage.)
@@therentpursuer9869
The best Keyblade was KK+ due to the quick finisher and high Crit rate/Bonus.
@@reddodeado301 exactly, and DW Roxas/Larxene sucked because they took forever to get to their finishers. While characters like Saix, Marluxia, and Sora dominate because of their short combos. Saix with the Zero Gear in particular does disgusting amounts of damage.
@@therentpursuer9869 B, A, Y; 3-buttons to DW Roxas's BIG finisher, iirc. I definitely remember DW Roxas' aerial finisher being really quick to reach via Y-combo'ing, at any rate.
@@RadiantDarkBlaze well of course you can do that. But I was talking about his regular ground combo without the Y prompt. Because yes, his air combo is great, but his ground combo sucks. That's half of his kit we're talking about. If anything, the Y button leading into his air combo was put there *because* his ground combo was so bad.
The worst guard fail for me was easily xion's overhead strike in her second- phase. It's to the point where i just dodge roll through it but miss out on the reprisal damage i could have done.
I didn't know the Remind fights had guard fails. Interesting
@@aeroga2383 Some of them have it if you are too close to the wall. But that's pretty much the only time.
I really, really hate the contextual movement, ngl.
Same, I'd rather have classic gameplay where you have to do stuff yourself like jump over a fence/rock/obstacle, do accurate platforming or slide.
@@CloneLoli i think kh1 had some clunky platforming. I’d say 2 handled it best even though I can’t recall alot of it.
@@WeaponExX I don't think any of KH1 platforming is clunky, the only thing wrong with it, is the camera. Otherwise it works very well, animations aren't slow, all abilities activate the moment you input and your character has proper falling momentum.
KH2 is just quicker and has more options.
@@CloneLoli no. it's clunky. the camera is another story. i like kh1 but it has big issues.
@@WeaponExX quite a few big issues, such as:
1. deep jungle sucks
2. deep jungle sucks
3. deep jungle sucks
4. deep jungle sucks
5. deep jungle sucks
6. deep jungle sucks
7. deep jungle sucks
8. deep jungle sucks
9. deep jungle sucks
10. deep jungle sucks
there's more for sure, but my list's out of room
It's strange how Yozora is probably the only enemy that doesn't get caught on invisible wall which definitely shows that they have the power to make that not a thing they just chose not to.
Who else got guard fail in the data fight versus Xion? That's where it was noticable to me.
i believe this is true for kh mom
you completely lose control of your character. You cant dodge, you cant choose where you walk, you are just forced to walk along the stupid road thats there on the spawning area of every room
Well, it is a rhythm game. Having rhythm is your control.
If you slow the speed down at 20:19 you can see him guard, the flash of the guard being successful, and him still dying lmak
Damn dude how you gonna call out Bizkit like that, I thought twins were inseparable
I feel a big point is: you say "The kh3 has this problem" and the response is "avoid doing that." While in games like KH2 it's "The game has no substance", and you can go "are you doing these things?"
It's the simplicity that can be built on, not a problem to avoid.
The conclusion: BB likes 'em tight.
I like to call it "flow-less" tool kit. That is why the new item cancel Tech made the combos much more Flashy, since it acted as a "link".
As for the air time, DMC5 seems to have similar float like moves actually, Like Dante's "Air Slide", no one complains though because of the hundred ways to drop down, KH3 could use a drop down move as well, maybe hold attack to rise with enemy if on ground, and descend if in the air, and I would not call adding some parry frames to those OP.
About hitting the environment, Dissidia do it the best I think.
Also, I really missed these talks, more please :).
Remember how basically all your attacks had parry frames in KH 1?
13:24 This shit got me killed by mother gothel to many times
Another thing that wasn't mentioned is the endlag on situation commands, attraction flows and links is so goddamn long that you can get one shot the second you leave it. (If you are on critical or if you are one shot)
Osaka's games have very magnetic attack tracking that allow you to close to much distance regardless of how high they are.
the air slide is my trademark it always helped me tbh
> Bosses get ‘stuck’ when you combo against the wall
I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing. It makes sense that you would pin (humanoid) bosses against a wall and that they would get stuck there, and can actually be an advantage when you want to keep a boss in a specific area. But I do think some of the clips you show demonstrate the bigger issue inside of this. Bosses getting ‘stuck’ to a wall cancels out their hitstun - what if it didn’t? Ie; Bosses still get ‘stuck’ to the wall, but they cannot act for the same amount of time as if they were not stuck to said wall. I feel like that tiny little change would solve this issue. (Unless it’s already in KH3 somewhere and I’m just not noticing it).
I have seen peoples guards fail, but has anyone else never had their guard or risk dodge fail? I have beaten the game 3 times, and data org even more times that that, and I’ve never had my risk dodge or regular guard fail. I know it can happen, but it has just never happened to me.
The risk dodge failing has happened to me a few times but I think I only died like 1 or 2 times to it (bc I was fighting those big mech things and they have big hitboxes lol).
Risk dodge fails alot for me with Xion and Xemnas
For some reason i can never counter rock Titans feet at the beginning of the game. He always pushes me too far and the prompt disappears. Also why is it that you have to be within certain rules for it to work? Shouldn't i be able to use counter even if my target isnt near?@@kevin13cabello
There's a guard fail against Roxas in KH2FM? Interesting, never had it occur
Yea man, i usually relied on reflect just to ensure it didn’t hit me
I gotta say, these videos are pretty freaking fantastic.
Love like all of the main numbered titles, but at the same time, yeah these are things that should be addressed.
I do have a question to ask though. This isn't to any disrespect or anything, but I have always wondered, what made you stick around with the series and why do you stick with the series for as long as you have? Or to put it in another way, what keeps you going as a fan?
I only ask this because while you clearly love a lot about the series (or at least the best of the games), I would've thought that at some point the frustrations you've shared with the current state of things from story to gameplay would have made you stop at some point. I'm not even saying you can't be a fan just because of what it did for you. We are all fans for our own reasons. I'd just like some insight on what made you stick around even with all the issues you have with Osaka KH Games, or even a lot of Modern KH in general.
Other than that, have a great day my dude, keep up the great content, and let's hope for even more improvements and fun KH Games going forward!
Also the item menu thing makes keyblade switching instantaneous basically now so the door to combos have opened drastically. I have also never encountered the wall thing personally but maybe its cause Sora always turns when reaching a wall most of the time. I hope next KH game keyblade switching is instantaneous without an exploit.
Could you upload the last few segments of your MoM playthrough? The ones with you doing FC's on random tracks - they were on your twitch but aren't now
Nice promo BB
its nice to see youre making sweet cash cash money while making content for fans
fwiw, Air Slide isn't technically intended to be used in battle as an extension of combat. It's a piece of movement. That's why aerial dodge is enabled by default and why it overrides air slide. I feel this is the same for environmental movement. Generally, nothing outside of wall runs really exist in combat scenarios. They are "flavor movement" between combat (I'll admit Scala isn't too good for "battle" tho).
now why we can't just get glide early on for movement is an interesting question. But I guess it's the same reason why dodge rolling is generally faster movement than just running (except maybe in KH3, because you have a proper "run" ).
Although KH3 ReMind has several of these problems, I still think it is more satisfying than KH2 because it has a lot more possibilities in the middle of combat, KH2 sometimes forces you to always do the same things thanks to the limitations that the game imposes. In games like Devil May Cry the game presents you with several different styles that you can use in the middle of the fight without having a limiter to make the gameplay less repetitive, in KH2 you always need to carry a potion for Donald and Goofy because they always die and you can't be one of the main systems in the game which are Drive Forma, and KH3 has made you independent, in addition to having many other possibilities such as carrying several Forms with you and being able to walk from one place to another quickly with Air Step. In my gameplay with KH2 I often died of boredom.
KH2FM gives you limit form regardless of if party members are alive and summons are IMO better for general combat outside of some niche boss fights where you can use Final Form instead.
Why can't we just get KH2 combat and physics back? Why?
That guy moved on to Final Fantasy VII Remake
Old news that I'm sure many ppl including Bizkitz are aware of, but fast Keyblade Switching is possible with item animation cancels (showcased by Trueblade Seeker 4 months ago: ua-cam.com/video/8LAzqI8EuF0/v-deo.html). I even remember seeing a game tip from some Japanese magazine (possibly by Square) that item usage can be interrupted by Keyblade Switching, enabling fast switches - implying that this was an intentional feature and not a bug/exploit.
HOWEVER
I still think this is a case of making an unnecessary workaround instead of addressing the initial problem. Why not just allow fast Keyblade Switching in the first place? I don't see how that could be anything but beneficial to veterans and beginners alike.
For those unaware, by default, Keyblade Switching after an attack makes Sora go back to an idle stance after finishing the attack animation before he actually switches Keyblades. It's so slow that in several cases, you can legit drop combos against bosses because the hitstun runs out before you can continue the combo with the next Keyblade. But if you use an item, which CAN cancel the attack animation early, then Keyblade Switch, it is almost instantaneous. If you cancel the item usage animation with Keyblade Switch quickly enough, you won't consume the item and this whole technique even works as a combo reset since item usage does that by default.
13:05 I don’t see why they would take away the vaulting. Why would you want to physically jump over that bench? It’s so small it wouldn’t feel good to high jump 6 feet in the air for a tiny bench. Sure you can’t cancel it but it’s two seconds. And it’s not really in any boss arenas anyway.
The King of Toys has a ton of obstacles in it where you can be forced into an auto-animation and Grim Guardianess has it with the hills putting you into an auto-slide animation in terms of bosses I remember having obstacles like that. It's really mostly noticeable on Critical Mode, Pro Code or Level 1 runs because that's when those mistakes are lethal.
@@ironstark917 That's fair, and I agree those are annoyances. But at least in my many playthroughs of KH3, it doesn't show up often enough for it to be a fatal flaw of the game.
Think of all the things that are stupid or don't make sense that are in the old games. KH2's core combat is centered around drive forms, and you get punished for using them with Anti form. You're basically discouraged into using drives because if you get anti form you're screwed. My point is that all KH games have flaws but KH3's gets exaggerated so bad because its new and made by osaka. Remind's new abilities and bosses made KH3 closer to KH2 than I thought we would ever get. It deserves some credit.
I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing KH3. I think its flaws should be pointed out so that they can be fixed. I also commend BB for his video of how KH2 also has flaws, showing that no game is perfect, even though KH2 is close to it. I just think a lot of people spend more time on KH3's flaws than what it excels at. Maybe we have to wait a while before we get there, because our voices might make the difference for future KH games.
@@nick6019i think maybe just have steps?
it would be sick if they made the context movement add to fights instead of take away from them
Ignoring any issues I have with the combat, I think the contextual movement thing was the only mechanic in this game that actively annoyed me and want to stop playing at times lol. Like, in a game like this it just feels so unnecessary when most of the stuff you mantle over can be gotten over with either a simple jump or just walking around it and I wanna say the only reason I get so angry at it whenever it happens is because I know it didn't need to be there.
Second on that list is exploring San Fransokyo and Frozen. Why? Because I can't delete the snowman and Baymax from my party and it makes searching for anything a humongous chore since they are always body blocking you unless you jump over them because the party members stick to you like glue.
"lack of control" is more accurate, but cumbersome to articulate properly.
"floaty" is immediate, everyone knows what you're talking about, and it's obvservable from just watching gameplay.
The lack of control is something you need to feel, which is why its going to be very difficult to change the narrative.
Man, it's nuts how Kamen Rider: Memory of Heroez has better consistency than KH3, and it was made on a smaller budget using Unity.
Man really? That's amazing
i honestly feel like you can put this in even more simple and understandable terms - the osaka team games have poor game feel. that's all it is. the characters are, on the whole, unresponsive and unsatisfying to control. That phrase has a lot more legitimacy and weight behind it than "floaty" or anything else ever will - one of the first books ever written on game design was literally called "Game Feel"
What *really* bugs me is how a lot of these small problems, things that take away control for a short time and add up quickly to make the whole game feel clunkier, less responsive and less fluid, isn't KH-exclusive. It just directly interferes with the gameplay more often in KH.
This seems to be an industry-wide thing, most AAA games seem to be filled with stuff like this. It feels awful to wait through short unskippable dialogue/cutscenes every time you interact with certain NPC's or objects, or have my control taken away for a few seconds as you're forced into some slow, scripted sequence.
Just a few examples:
*Monster Hunter World:* Talking to your cat to change their gear, sitting at the canteen to buy a meal, speaking to a guildmarm to see the quests book, opening various menues, moving through vines and small holes your character has to squeeze through, that long sequence of animations every time you call a tailraider mount for the first time in a hunt, opening your map...
*BotW:* Speaking to Beedle (God forbid you have a beetle in your inventory), opening a chest and watching the game tell you what you found a bow- only to realize your bow stash is full, _koroks,_ screen fadeouts/fadeins that take a few seconds after skipping various cutscenes.
*Skyrim:* _Doing literally anything._
( _Fun fact- if you watched every "Yahaha" sequence from finding all 900 Koroks, back to back, you'd be watching for roughly two and a half hours._ )
People sometimes act like small things like this are just nitpicks, and they're only a problem if you're impatient. But it's not about patience. They add artificial tedium to what are oftentimes already tasks you don't want to spend time sitting through, they frequently break up the flow gameplay and cancel out your inputs when you might be doing something important, they add up _super_ quickly, and there's never any reason for it.
_Basically, What i'm saying is:_ I don't want to sit there and pet my dinosaur mount for ten seconds when the reason i called for it in the first place was to quickly chase down a much larger dinosaur, only to realize that my mount is now traveling to a monster i just killed and it refused to let me open my map to change targets because an animator somewhere at Capcom REALLY wanted me to sit there and watch this play out every single time And my paLICO HAS NOT IMPROVED A LOT TODAY YOU'RE LITERALLY MAXXED OUT IN EVERYTHING _PLEASE JUST LET ME SWITCH TO THE FLASHFLY CAGE EVERYONE IS WAITING FOR ME AND I JUST WANNA HUNT A JAGRAS _*_WHY ARE THESE ANIMATIONS HERE SOMEBODY PLEASE I AM GOING TO CRY_*
I bitched about guard fails since KH3 came out. Thanks for the validation. Thought I was going bonkers.
Congrats on the new sponsorship 🙏🏻
Why is this channel so underrated :(
In KH2 you can't block/dodge during combo finishers right?
It's my theory that a lot of these automatic actions are in place because they look good in trailers. They're part of the sales pitch for the game where it looks like the player is able to do all these amazing things when in reality those things are just done for the player without any input. This practice is really common, especially in AAA games.
These decisions aren't mistakes. They're there by design to reap a profit. What's ruining the games industry at large isn't a bunch of boneheaded individual decisions. It's capitalism itself.
Unreponsive and limp are the words i would use to decribe bbs
Ayyy we back
Cant wait to watch this
Did they fix the block at some point between this video and now? Im through most of the superbosses on crit and havent had a block fail that wasnt a telegraphed unblockable.move
The real first sign of the lack of control feeling is shockingly was from KH2. You get it from leveling up high jump. The animation takes longer and less control you get overall from jumping.
I mean you didn't have much control when jumping regularly and KH high jumps always have build up animations. You can push your momentum by Lvl 3 added with areal dodge that can immediately carry or redirect your movement
How does the guard in the first KH game work better than KH3 even after all the patches?
BB'S GETTING SPONSORED GET THOSE BIG BUCKS GAMER
Considering Osaka's previous games and how they favor solving combat via builds over tight combat, I think they prioritize making Kingdom Hearts as a light RPG with action elements rather than an action game with RPG elements. Or maybe they just don't know how to design satisfying gameplay fundamentals. Or both.
It’s funny, in smash they blatantly say sora is floaty, I can’t help but think the “floaty” debate is partially the reason lol.
Tbh I don't agree what all people say about kh2 being this perfect combat, while kh2 has problems too like the all games in different or similar ways, kh3 to me feels better than kh2, to me every game has guard fails(my opinion i think it's rng), cause I'm good on reacting to attacks, even kh2 it happens alot more time than kh3,kh3 does have problems too, can't keep a blink eye, but the sora in kh3 feels more consistent in guarding, kh3 does feel floaty a times but more with more options, playing at lv 1 kh2 and kh3, both games I feel are equal
I think kh3 has too much gravity now. In kh2 u can jump b4 u start comboing and it becomes an air combo. In kh3 now it pulls u back down unless u double jump or are falling.