That beginning part talking about Riku's fight basically teaching you not to be greedy with button mashing attacks... I can't believe Kingdom Hearts trained me for Dark Souls.
No idea if you'll see this, but thank you for making these videos. Just came from the MGSV video. I have some form of autism, used to be called Aspergers. I have a tendency to take things at face value more than I'd like. Enough so that I can't see the depth of things that others can. I know there's more to these stories than I can see, so this is helpful for me. Helps me sound smarter when I talk about it. Thanks for your work, I deeply appreciate it!
I was just complaining on another video that kingdom hearts fans are terrible at retelling the story of kingdom hearts. This is the first time I've seen someone actually tell the story instead of just giving a list of disconnected events that only really matter in context. With this video, you provided all the necessary context and didn't bog anything down with explanations of future games that are unrelated every couple seconds. I also really love all the tech talk since I'm making a kingdom hearts dark seeker saga demake for GBA.
I never thought about how the fights against the kids on destiny island are for teaching you the combat and game mechanics. It's so interesting how game designers teach you sneakily, without you realizing it's happening. Game design really came a long way in the ps2 era.
I've wondered for about 10 years why Sora felt that he knew Hollow Bastion and why he felt like he knew the picture in Deep Jungle. I put 2 and 2 together and knew that that cadtle in the picture was Hollow Bastion but I never understood why Sora felt like that. Now it makes sense that it is because of Kairi. Thank you for answering this question for me after 10 years.
This series was really special to me growing up. It's been amazing reliving it through someone who's passionate about the games. You get Dearly Beloved, and that's the main thing to me. Thank you, I"m really looking forward to the rest of the series!
One thing I always think about with the intro of the Raft building is that it's not an ACTUAL desire to leave, but moreso an activity done by kids who are starting to gain a desire of exploration. They always come to the island in a bay [as we see it later from the mainland in this and KH2] with rowboats, but they still are close to home. It's an activity that represents their desire for independence, and foreshadows them eventually going on their own. Its something for them to do together, an activity that makes them happy. Or maybe these three were planning to go out to sea with about 2 days of food and half a days worth of water, considering how they act I can see that happening they all share about 13 braincells that mostly belong to Riku on the best of days.
Debatable. Riku fell for the clearly evil witch's manipulation just as quick as Terra gets duped by discount Emperor Palpatine. Sora would have at least questioned things first.
I've been addicted to "retrospective/analysis/video essay" types of media recently; something about seeing a lengthy 2+ hours of content, filled with nostalgia, hits the spot. Kingdom Hearts being one of, if not my top, favorite games/series of all time, I was so excited to see someone had tackled this beast of a topic. Every minute of the entirety of 3+ hours flew by and I am only that much more excited to fire up video 2 about CoM, right now. Thank you for spending so much time making not only this video, but the others in this playlist I now have saved forever. You've earned the subscription and like, everyone else should follow suit. Cheers !
It's a bit out of context but I just wanted to say it. It still baffles me to see that despite how good your retrospective video are, you still only have such a small amount of subscribers and view count. Yet you keep on pushing some of the best content available on youtube. I might not always agree with what you say, but you are a wholesome source of inspiration for me to not give up on my goals even though I have almost zero chances of my content ever being noticed. I genuinely hope that you will soon blow up and have the opportunity of making a living out of this.
Well he is currently at 1.4k subs so it's expected. If he continues making these videos that's gonna shoot up. As soon as the youtube algorithm shows some love he is gonna explode in subscribers. I'm just glad I found the channel early.
The biggest issue is the community shift most people would now rather watch a 30 second clip such as UA-cam shorts and tiktok. I feel you lose so much room for detail in those types of videos
Over saturated market with most people doing several games in less than this video's length. They also mess up basic details and have no idea how to play properly.
The part where sora goes from being a shadow to a human again I always felt is like how Ansom is basiclly a bodyless shadow himself before enhabiting riku. Sora having a strong enough will and emotion to basically awaken and take his own shape again. Talk about achievements in ignorance.
That battle almost did me in. I died so many times and was forced to watch that long unskippable cutscene all over again each time. Tinkerbell was a must.
1:35:50 There's actually missable NPCs in Agrobah that are reskins of the man we see get his heart taken in Traverse Town and a reskin of Wakka both explaining how their towns were full of people but everyone is off hiding now. They're only available after clearing Agrobah and not leaving the world. They'll be occupying the stores. It's weird that they would do that at all and I wish they'd make that more of a regular thing for worlds.
It makes perfect sense that Triton would be extremely suspicious of anyone wielding a Keyblade, especially at this point in the story. No matter how positive the actions are this time. It suits his character very well.
Yes, he had always been conservative and closed minded and he represents orderlyness of the royalty. Royalty has always been put into question by pluralism of politics historically.
@GooseJuggler2112 same, i always thought it would affect the universe or the trio(Sora, Donald, and Goofy) to some degree - like cursed or something, or changing a world's environments or npc interactions.
Oh this clunky fucker will always have a huge place in my heart!!!! Lol many of nights spent on school days with my brother and sister trying to take out Sephiroth and Ansem and Ice Titan and just messing around looking for dalmatians ❤️❤️❤️. Still one of my favorite games of all time despite my nostalgia, i can critique it but i can never hate it. Great video!!!
I work 12 hour shifts so I'm always looking for long form videos that I can listen to without having to watch the video the entire time so I'm. Glad I came across your channel, these videos are really well made and well narrated I hope to see you gain more subs ill definitely be watching every video so keep up the great work!
I have so much love for KH1. It is by far my favorite game of all time. I am 29 and I have been playing it for 22 years!! It never gets old and I've been replaying it for years. Your video here really shows your love for this masterpiece of a game and I really enjoyed it, thank you :)
Oh man that summer of 6th grade truly was a life altering experience. I decided to watch Naruto therefore branching me into anime and Japanese culture and I noticed just beneath my dad's Tv stand a strange checked ps3 videogame case. A young boy sitting on the throne in a anime-esque sense with a gold crown, DopNald n Gooby, (two other "games" spliced on the cover)I couldn't pinpoint exactly the emotions that looking at gave me but I just knew this game was gonna be something else. Something I needed to experience. I load it in and.......I can't even describe how dearly beloved made me feel. This ethereal experience, I for but a moment transcended the bounds of my humanity and gained consciousness into another realm. I sat there staring at the screen not entirely ready to start the game and miss out on this beautiful masterpiece. Kh1 will always be with me, in my heart blah, blah, blah. But My favorite rendering? Of Dearly Beloved is without a doubt 358/2 Days. This was the second time Dearly beloved made me reach out from within myself into another dimension and yet again I was appalled at the beauty. Too bad the gameplay is pretty poopy but Roxas is my favorite character and thank you Kingdom hearts. You are one of my Dearly Beloved pasttimes. -My Friends Are My Power. 👑🗝️⚔️
31:57 As someone who's never seen it before, I'm really glad you showed the scene with sora's initial talk with Tarzan. Hearing Sora be sound so full of energy, only to stop himself short and have to remember that he's not actually friends with Donald and goofy, and it becomes even sadder hearing his tone change as he realizes he almost lost focus on the people he knows he cares most about. It absolutely makes the joyful moment Donald and Sora briefly share when the trio gets reunited both sweeter and depressing. Sora, at that point in the story, is still harkening the journey to the the one he hoped to share with Kairi snd Riku, but then keeps being faced with the reality of his circumstances. I probably don't have a point here, but tldr, It's really cool that you went this far into giving us these details that best build the up the story rather than the basic recap most people have done.
Only an hour in but this is INCREDIBLE! I cannot fathom how many dozens and dozens of hours this took to make. Amazing work and I hope more people discover you because this is such quality conteng
Love the video so far! I just wanted to mention my experience as a child of what you discuss at 34:43. The devs most definitely leave out plot details in their KH iterations (which I’m sure you discuss ad nauseum in your other vids, as you should!). When I was little, I didn’t mind or even really notice it that much. The first several times my brother or I played through KH1, I hadn’t yet seen Tarzan, Hercules, or The Nightmare Before Christmas. But the game did well at giving me the basic gist of “this dude be bad, and he’s currently doing bad things.” They take this a bit too far in later games, in my opinion, but maybe that’s because I have now seen all the featured movies and know just how much they’re not telling Sora/us. Storytelling isn’t great, but this issue kind of helps the pit-stop nature of the worlds (which you also discuss). This is also why I actually love how much Olympus Coliseum shows up. It gives them an opportunity to explore a different facet of the (first) film in each game instead of fighting to cram a whole plotline into a tiny filler arc.
Absolutely incredible video. I'm really fascinated by KH1. This one and OoT have had a lasting impact on me as quintessential coming-of-age stories. Kairi crying in the credits and drawing the papu really hit the spot for me. It's a story about learning of the world, of corruption through people in power, of ambitions, friends, love, and finding your role in life. Sora, Riku, and Kairi started together and ended up seperated, changed, but ready to find each other again. I always found it wonderful and I really connected with Sora (actually all three) when I was 13. What's especially interesting to me is how every following game found new ways to completely destroy the strong emotional core of this one.
The music is what brought me to this series. I never really cared much for the childish story with the Disney characters. But I dove in to the darkness. The whole over arching story is quite intriguing 😂❤
I don't think I've seen anyone as critical of KH1's story as you are, and I'm thankful of that. Personally I think KH1 has the best wtitten story, but even then it's only adequate at best for a video game. Not good, but does enough of a job to keep most interested in the narrative of the game.
There's one extremely important aspect of KH that is often neglected, and it's that the audience is only supposed to know as much about the world as Sora does at any given time. The real deep cut is that Kingdom Hearts takes place in the same universe as Final Fantasy 13, and is a consequence of the events of Lightning Returns. In fact, Lightning was supposed to get her own Keyblade Armor in LR before the idea was scrapped, but the concept art and model still survived and made it into an ultimania book. (It's also further confirmed with Fabula Nova Crystallis showing up in KH4's trailer and Sora being put into Crystal Stasis by Yozora in Re:Mind if you fail the fight)
One of my favourite underwatched long form channels to listen to alongside Private Sessions and PatricianTV. It's funny how you even mention The Elder Scrolls series in this analysis making me wonder how long it will be til you give your take on them. Keep it up!
I have this game concept inspired by KH that I've worked on for years, and there I've made it so that the Magic option on the command menu doesn't even exist, it's just the shortcut menu. You decide what 4 spells you want to use beforehand based on your playstyle. Triangle acts as the shortcut shortcut essentially, whatever spell you place on Triangle will always be a button press away without having to hold L2 (I've assigned L1 to Target Switching here). The spell variety veers in the direction of BBS and DDD, but you're still limited to 4 spells, wide options plus restricted slots promotes developing your own preferences. Items take on a whole new level of importance, as relying on Cure robs you of an offensive spell, if you can make good use of the riskier option that is potions instead, then your attack options increase as a reward. If you're good enough to just not get hit, then I've also provided a whole category of consumable items that do more than just refill your bars, 20 second long boosts to your movement or attack speed, either as separate items or combined together within a higher tier one. There's even whole ass attacks, that you can just repeatedly use, that are treated as items to put in your item slots, repeating the interplay of "cure or potions?" with a whole new tier of risk, potions or attacks? The influence items have on your gameplay changes based on your skill level, relying on cure is the most restrictive, and the further you're able to move away from that playstyle, the more fun the game becomes.
seeing the announcement vid yesterday: oh cool, so like a new 40 ish minute kingdom hearts video every couple months interspersed with the occasional 10 minute video devoted to recoded or something. got it seeing this video in my sub box: ah.
Regarding difficulty, I think its because its a kids game and being able to avoid challenge by grinding a couple levels and swapping gear around is a good way to have some challenge but also allow a parent to help the kid out without needing to play the game for them.
In the beginning in Traverse Town you don't actually need to kill any shadows to progress the story. If you see all 4 cutscenes of Sora and Donald & Goofy missing each other and visit the Third District you can then go back in to the Accessory Shop and leave to continue the story. Killing 5 shadows is just the easier and quicker options which is the reason why most people think is the way to progress.
I believe the control scheme of the original PS2 release is superior to the remix versions because the right stick scrolls through the command menu and L2 and R2 pan the camera. This allows you to comfortably maneuver Sora around the battlefield while searching spells and items.
After working my way through your MGS vids I cant wait to continue with Kingdom Hearts. Really appreciate the work you put into your content - love it! Please keep it up even in tough times.
Fantastic video! I've only played KH for about 15 minutes as a kid but I loved the video start to finish! A great mix of analysis and story explanation.
What you say about stats versus skills is interesting. I must have been really terrible at the game, because anytime I tried to get involved in boss fights I would get killed all the time. I just let Donald and Goofy take care of everything while I stayed as far away as possible.
I honestly don't find anything wrong with the Platinum Match. It's hard to be hard and that's why I love it. Run from his pillars before he uses them and you'll be fine. He hits you without warning? Better have aeroga on and curaga on the ready for use. The abilities in the game are meant to help you with it. I don't think it is bad design if it's meant to be that unforgiving. Plus, his match is child's play compared to the data battles. Ugh, those are nuts.
Man, it's definitely nostalgic to watch this. I never ended up playing KH 2 or any of the many games that came after Kingdom Hearts. I forgot all about the scene where Goofy backs Sora up like that... That's why he's the MVP! 😅
As always, your analysis is dangerously based and very well thought out. I'm looking forward to the next installment! I'm curious to hear you thoughts about 3. Keep up the amazing work my guy!
I have to say I've been playing this series since it first came out in 2002 when I was 11 years old. Only during this retrospective did it dawn on me that you fight a shadow version of yourself in Neverland because it's an homage to Peter Pan's Shadow coming to life...
You're not at all imaging things about Dearly Beloved. I have no history with this series at all, but I feel exactly what you describe. I think Halo is the only other game series to have as an iconic theme that's used so meaningfully throughout the whole series. Something to be proud of and cherish to be sure.
simba, mushu, and bambi are all really good summons i dont know why you think otherwise. I also find the way the jump works quite intuitive cause how long you press the button determines how high and long you're in the air much like hollow knight and some other games
Man I was watching patricians metal gear survive vid you were on, thinking to myself yeah this is cool but I wanna watch a kingdom hearts retrospective, but I like this dude patrician has on his vid so I'll go sub to him. Search your name, and kh1 retrospective uploaded 1 day ago. Wtf, what a treat.
Probably the best video on kingdom hearts 1 on UA-cam atm. After listening to private talk about rewatching this video I decided to do it too, and it’s so disappointing seeing the view count be so low. You’ll blow up soon enough I’m sure but it’s still frustrating seeing such good content being seemingly thrown by the wayside.
Wow, UA-cam legit never showed me that these videos were even out until I saw the most recent one pop up in my feed just now. Glad to have several hours of good shit to dive into 👍
This is a truly fantastic analysis. I think you capture some points here that I have never seen another reviewer even consider. I cannot wait to watch the rest of your videos!
This is probably the most in-depth video of the game that I've seen. Thanks for focusing on so much of the gameplay, as there were things I had no idea of. Good work! [Personal edit: Gameplay discussion at 38:44]
It just occured to me that it's kinda odd that Riku-Ansem fights like Riku, and that Riku uses many of the unique moves used there later in the series. You're not fighting Riku in that fight, you're fighting Ansem, you're fighting Xehanort, he should have his own unique way of swinging the keyblade around. Though Riku later using the unique moves from that boss fight, Dark Firaga (edit: forgot he used that one in Riku 2), Dark Break, and Dark Aura, does play into the theme of him claiming control over the darkness and using it for good.
Dearly beloved is such a good song. I got KH2 as a gift from my mom's friend thinking it was going to be some lame Disney trash but was admittedly drawn to it's silver color and the cool character designs. As soon as I heard dearly beloved and saw that immaculate title screen I changed my mind instantly.
What I find fascinating about ultima weapon is that it's always specifically the strongest *BALANCED* keychain in a given entry, but can still be outclassed in *specific* areas by other keychains, at the cost of being *less* effective in everything else.
@Tetramorre oh that's why I mixed it up lol. And wow quick reply! Esp for an older video! Moving on to the com vid rn, but I'm loving the series so far! Keep it up!
1:01:14 Magic is actually key to mix into your combat if you want to defeat enemies and bosses with lower stats. For example stop works on both giant Ursula Churnabog, to the point where with a few items you can keep them from attacking at all. Summons also work well on level one, simba can clear most of final rest and mushu can kill the first fight with ansem
Worth mentionning tough that before 1.5 HD Remix the Zero EXP didn't exist even in the Final Mix version, the game wasn't design with LV1 in mind so they had to make Zero EXP gives benefit to the player to make LV1 doable, hence why Zero EXP allow you to survive if you get hit at Full Health and the hit should have One-Hit Kill you, and the buff to damage on bosses and especially the effect of having all hits that isn't a physical hit after a finisher having the power of a finisher, this actually makes Summon that have multi-hit attack like Genie or Mushu much more powerfull than they originally were, and you can exploit it on bosses even outside of LV1 in Proud since well nothing prevent you to activate the ability before a boss fight and desactivating after it.
I’m not going to lie, the way heartless are described in this game sound exactly like darklings, which is funny as the heartless proceed to act completely differently in future compared to how we think they are now
One thing I love about Ice Titan is how he turns Aero against you. If you're like me and spam Aero in every encounter, you soon realize his attacks are bigger and harder to block
When you were talking about the menu system in combat it reminds me that ever since I switched to keyboard and mouse I can use the scroll wheel for the menus whilst still moving lol
Let’s see… we got time travel, pocket universes, pocket multiverses, parallel multiverses, divination, possession, and a dance with death. With the tinkering of heart, body, and soul. Off the top of my head.
Little correction on the Sephiroth fight actually, compare to the original version the actually modify him, specifically they make me more unpredictable compare OG and most important of all they made him much MUCH more trigger happy with the Fire Pillar attacks, in the OG he mostly use the Fire Pillar at the end of a sword attack, so you could predict it, in Final Mix he can use it whenever he want basically, specifically the big difference is in Final Mix he can teleport and when he appears immediatly use the Fire Pillar, he never does that in the OG or of he does it's very rarely in the OG, also when he retaliate after 4 hits in OG I'm pretty sure he couldn't retaliate with the fire pillar.
You said that you've never heard of telling your party members to attack being used. Well, I'm here to say that I've used it. And to great success. When I was young and far less skilled, I went into more than a couple boss fights that at the time were just too difficult for me to do without getting significantly stronger first. But I found a way around that. Using level geometry, I was able to avoid most attacks that Clayton and dragon form Maleficent could use on me. Allowing me to use Donald and Goofy to chip away at their health until I felt comfortable in running out to deal the final blows. Cheap way to win a fight, but I was Eleven, and loading a save meant going back and still being stuck on the world till I got to a high enough level that you could pretty much tank your way through.
Hi, LV1 speedrunner here. Impressed with the deep dive into the game, I'm mostly here to clarify some things about how EXP Zero works. I'm one of the few people who went into Cheat Engine to chart out the damage while re-routing the category once we had access to the PC ports of the game. For one, you mention that Sora deals "a basic amount of damage across the board," when the reality is a bit more nuanced than that. Sora's damage scales against all enemies with at least 300 HP, or one full bar of health if you could see it with Scan - not sure why the 300, but I guess this is how the designers decided to categorize boss vs. non-boss enemies. The higher a boss's HP bar, the more damage Sora will deal to that boss. Once an enemy has 300, each add-on of a section of 1-150 HP changes the math ever so slightly. The reason that this can seem indistinguishable from a fixed amount of damage is that over the addition of 1-2 HP bars, the individual non-finisher hits probably only change by 1-2 points, but the finishers will grow at a much rapid rate since they're dealing more or less double damage compared to the non-finishers (the reason I say "more or less" is that sometimes, due to damage being rounded because all damage is dealt in integers rather than floating-point numbers, there'll be off-by-one calculations). Unfortunately, this does mean that forced fights against bosses with less than 300 HP will not have any scaling engaged, which is why fights like Lock, Shock, and Barrel are such a pain - against bosses under the threshold, Sora is only dealing the minimum of 2 HP damage per Keyblade swing, no matter if it's a finisher or not. Lock, Shock, and Barrel (and Oogie Manor, while we're at it) are particularly notorious as run-enders among the community for this reason, you pretty much have to camp them out with Blizzaras to get any decent damage whatsoever. Oh, and this scaling only applies to Sora's default physical attacks - if you use some additional ability like Blitz, even though Blitz is a finisher, it will only deal chip damage to bosses while EXP Zero is equipped if you fall enough below the enemy DEF (which is pretty much all the time on LV1). What's more is that this can actually yield to incredibly weird results - you mentioned the damage caps inherent to bosses, but EXP Zero's scaling can sort of break these. Ansem I has a damage cap of 15, for example, but with EXP Zero's scaling, Sora deals 8 HP damage with a non-finisher hit and 16 HP with a finisher. This is actually funnier when you have enough Strength to regularly hit the damage cap, because you can whip out a full combo on Ansem with EXP Zero equipped and then you'll deal 15 + 15 + 16 HP damage total, which is just not how the game was intended to work haha. Against standard mob Heartless, you also get a bit of scaling, although we still have no idea how the game sidesteps the usual formula - it seems that you'll deal next to chip damage against certain enemies, but you'll be turbo-boosted against others, and we haven't been able to tie this to any variable such as HP or shared DEF or other such things. The game just sorta...assigns you damage against a particular Heartless. Magic damage is always pretty reliable, though, and EXP Zero doesn't really affect this outside of damage storage. Also, special bosses aren't the only instance in which Sora will take more than 2 hits to get KO'd; your hit count changes whenever you're in a Coliseum Cup (also some fights in End of the World). LV1 is super-weird and fascinating for a game like KHFM in terms of its math, imo. Let me know if you want more details like the raw formula for the adjusted EXP Zero damage!
I don't agree with all your points in this but I'm extremely happy that this game finally has a video that actually does it justice. Excited to hear your opinions on the later entries as the series just falls apart and loses the what it had. Though most fans like them, just from the title of your series I have a feeling on where you think the games ultimately headed. Personally I'm only a fan on 1, CoM, and 2 and just pretend it ended there.
Really great work here. I followed the series also for over a decade and i appreciate the hard work you did out into it. awesomo :3 edit: kairi is the girl in the secret ending back then, now its gonna get reckoned to someone else xD
That thing about Mickey not being in 3D before is wrong. 2 years before KH there was a 3D racing game by Rare called Mickey's Speedway USA, which did feature Mickey rendered in 3D. Both as an in game character and for promotional renders. Oh, and development on that game started a year before in 1999 while development for KH started in 2000.
You’re right, that terrifying Rare game was probably actually the first. While that’s true, there still wasn’t a style guide for the character, making it difficult to green light a design for Mickey given the barriers present between the America based Disney and Japan based Squaresoft. Not my words by the way, Shuji Utsumi said so in his interview in the Otocoto source.
I’m at the part around 47:30 where you are talking about a fix for the multiple inputs needed to reach certain spells from the command menu. The fix you mentioned uses the circle button and I think that the devs purposefully left out circle as a means of allowing the player to jump before casting. Your solution wouldn’t technically remove that option, but it would definitely make it more technically challenging as you would have to jump, than press and hold L2, than cast. Almost like a street fighter combo… honestly maybe it could even be fun. But I also believe if they were to set up the shortcuts to allow for all spells to be cast on a whim, that would take away from the strategy of the gameplay. I personally believe that, although frustrating to new players, the command menu introduces a unique way of introducing skill to the game beyond learning and understanding enemy attack patterns. And I think they made the right call of keeping the quick spell slots to a minimum so players wouldn’t be frustrated about not pulling off a heal on time. I personally think even removing quick spells all together wouldn’t be that detrimental. Maybe allowing the system to be unlocked via ability’s like dodge rolling and stuff. This could even give healing items a little more usefulness since it’s a simpler input to preform quickly than cure? Anyways rant over. Liking the video so far
Also making the lock on mechanics devoted to the bumpers would mean you can’t change your lock on while having your quick spell triggered. Not a big deal but taking small options like that away from real time combat can feel clunky. Okay now I swear that’s the last thing
Sora essentially megaman’d himself to monotony:.:🤔 2:27 Disney did this countless times, merging franchises. Kingdom hearts was just the first time they did it with video games. Outside of the occasional cameo. Before this, there was who framed roger rabbit, and wrath of the chaos god.
I remember when I first played it, I misunderstood the keychains and just thought they were key items, so I made it all the way to the second Riku fight in Hollow Bastion with the Kingdom Key equipped. I also love FromSoft games now, so y’know. Pretty on trend for me.
Also combo pluses do exist but there are plenty of options for you to limit the amount of combos you use and actually do more damage in a smaller amount of hits that's one of the things that you do for sephiroth to win
1:55:35 nah you’re not nostalgic I played my first kh game (kh1) at 16 or 17 and even then dearly beloved made me feel like the series has been in my life forever
Hm...I DO appreciate that you use a speedrunner's input to point out inconsistencies in the Sephiroth fight, but I also want to point out that speedrunners are not always the best gauge, especially on the 'I might get lucky' front. Speedrunners are used to dealing with things as fast as possible. They want to take the shortest route between the start and end of a fight. That means in a non-deterministic fight the decisions they're making aren't necessarily to avoid damage, they're to set themselves up for the best possible scenario to deal damage quickly. They go for speed, not consistency, and they would rather scrap a run than do suboptimally, at a certain point. That means there are probably a few of those situations where there IS a safer way to play, and the runner is just not taking it because doing so would be slow.
That beginning part talking about Riku's fight basically teaching you not to be greedy with button mashing attacks... I can't believe Kingdom Hearts trained me for Dark Souls.
There is a suspicious number of similar gameplay ideas between KH and the Souls games, Demon's Souls coming out a whole 7 years after KH1.
@@Cri_Jackalthat was the first thing i noticed about the gameplay when i play kh1
@rhett8819, that was my first KH game, and you succinctly described the hours I spent with him in a single sentence.
Yeah, those lessons were taught to gamers back in the NES era.
Souls like? Nah, NES Like.
No idea if you'll see this, but thank you for making these videos. Just came from the MGSV video.
I have some form of autism, used to be called Aspergers. I have a tendency to take things at face value more than I'd like. Enough so that I can't see the depth of things that others can.
I know there's more to these stories than I can see, so this is helpful for me. Helps me sound smarter when I talk about it.
Thanks for your work, I deeply appreciate it!
I was just complaining on another video that kingdom hearts fans are terrible at retelling the story of kingdom hearts. This is the first time I've seen someone actually tell the story instead of just giving a list of disconnected events that only really matter in context. With this video, you provided all the necessary context and didn't bog anything down with explanations of future games that are unrelated every couple seconds. I also really love all the tech talk since I'm making a kingdom hearts dark seeker saga demake for GBA.
hey just saying that's cool as hell and good luck with the project
I never thought about how the fights against the kids on destiny island are for teaching you the combat and game mechanics.
It's so interesting how game designers teach you sneakily, without you realizing it's happening.
Game design really came a long way in the ps2 era.
I've wondered for about 10 years why Sora felt that he knew Hollow Bastion and why he felt like he knew the picture in Deep Jungle. I put 2 and 2 together and knew that that cadtle in the picture was Hollow Bastion but I never understood why Sora felt like that. Now it makes sense that it is because of Kairi. Thank you for answering this question for me after 10 years.
You're pretty slow aren't you? It was pretty obvious on a second playthrough to me, and I was 9 years old.
Damn, that comment was unnecessary. 💀
This series was really special to me growing up. It's been amazing reliving it through someone who's passionate about the games. You get Dearly Beloved, and that's the main thing to me. Thank you, I"m really looking forward to the rest of the series!
One thing I always think about with the intro of the Raft building is that it's not an ACTUAL desire to leave, but moreso an activity done by kids who are starting to gain a desire of exploration. They always come to the island in a bay [as we see it later from the mainland in this and KH2] with rowboats, but they still are close to home. It's an activity that represents their desire for independence, and foreshadows them eventually going on their own. Its something for them to do together, an activity that makes them happy.
Or maybe these three were planning to go out to sea with about 2 days of food and half a days worth of water, considering how they act I can see that happening they all share about 13 braincells that mostly belong to Riku on the best of days.
Debatable. Riku fell for the clearly evil witch's manipulation just as quick as Terra gets duped by discount Emperor Palpatine. Sora would have at least questioned things first.
I've been addicted to "retrospective/analysis/video essay" types of media recently; something about seeing a lengthy 2+ hours of content, filled with nostalgia, hits the spot.
Kingdom Hearts being one of, if not my top, favorite games/series of all time, I was so excited to see someone had tackled this beast of a topic. Every minute of the entirety of 3+ hours flew by and I am only that much more excited to fire up video 2 about CoM, right now.
Thank you for spending so much time making not only this video, but the others in this playlist I now have saved forever.
You've earned the subscription and like, everyone else should follow suit. Cheers !
It's a bit out of context but I just wanted to say it. It still baffles me to see that despite how good your retrospective video are, you still only have such a small amount of subscribers and view count. Yet you keep on pushing some of the best content available on youtube. I might not always agree with what you say, but you are a wholesome source of inspiration for me to not give up on my goals even though I have almost zero chances of my content ever being noticed. I genuinely hope that you will soon blow up and have the opportunity of making a living out of this.
Well he is currently at 1.4k subs so it's expected. If he continues making these videos that's gonna shoot up. As soon as the youtube algorithm shows some love he is gonna explode in subscribers. I'm just glad I found the channel early.
Not everyone wants to see a 3 hour long retrospective. I do because I love this game but i imagine many viewers would not
i think he's about to blow up now, cause my recommended has a lot of his stuff in it. for good reason too, this video was most excellent.
The biggest issue is the community shift most people would now rather watch a 30 second clip such as UA-cam shorts and tiktok. I feel you lose so much room for detail in those types of videos
Over saturated market with most people doing several games in less than this video's length. They also mess up basic details and have no idea how to play properly.
Kairi bringing Sora back always cracks me up.
"Don't worry Sora, this time I'll protect you"
*immediately calls to Sora for help*
She’s defending him doh
Exactly. "Sora!" was said in concern for him, not a call for help.
Yk what’s crazy? Tarzan was right, Kairi was in Sora’s heart :0
The part where sora goes from being a shadow to a human again I always felt is like how Ansom is basiclly a bodyless shadow himself before enhabiting riku. Sora having a strong enough will and emotion to basically awaken and take his own shape again.
Talk about achievements in ignorance.
Tinker Bell actually helped me a LOT during my fight with Dragon Malfeficent on the ps2.
Same - She is a life saver.
You can also use genie, I took half her health with him, so much damage. But I did have magic build.
That battle almost did me in. I died so many times and was forced to watch that long unskippable cutscene all over again each time. Tinkerbell was a must.
@@radrose4864 Dark Riku did me in SOOOO many times that I have the cutscene before that fight memorized
1:35:50 There's actually missable NPCs in Agrobah that are reskins of the man we see get his heart taken in Traverse Town and a reskin of Wakka both explaining how their towns were full of people but everyone is off hiding now. They're only available after clearing Agrobah and not leaving the world. They'll be occupying the stores. It's weird that they would do that at all and I wish they'd make that more of a regular thing for worlds.
It makes perfect sense that Triton would be extremely suspicious of anyone wielding a Keyblade, especially at this point in the story. No matter how positive the actions are this time.
It suits his character very well.
Yes, he had always been conservative and closed minded and he represents orderlyness of the royalty. Royalty has always been put into question by pluralism of politics historically.
it's also possible, thanks to various retcons, that he confuses the keyblade with the X-Blade since the X-Blade is said to bring destruction.
Honestly was under the impression Riku came by and made a mess of things. Never really thought about other perspectives.
@@Kylesico912x I've recently held the belief that King Triton was talking about the X-blade.
@GooseJuggler2112 same, i always thought it would affect the universe or the trio(Sora, Donald, and Goofy) to some degree - like cursed or something, or changing a world's environments or npc interactions.
Oh this clunky fucker will always have a huge place in my heart!!!! Lol many of nights spent on school days with my brother and sister trying to take out Sephiroth and Ansem and Ice Titan and just messing around looking for dalmatians ❤️❤️❤️. Still one of my favorite games of all time despite my nostalgia, i can critique it but i can never hate it. Great video!!!
I work 12 hour shifts so I'm always looking for long form videos that I can listen to without having to watch the video the entire time so I'm. Glad I came across your channel, these videos are really well made and well narrated I hope to see you gain more subs ill definitely be watching every video so keep up the great work!
I have so much love for KH1. It is by far my favorite game of all time. I am 29 and I have been playing it for 22 years!! It never gets old and I've been replaying it for years. Your video here really shows your love for this masterpiece of a game and I really enjoyed it, thank you :)
Oh man that summer of 6th grade truly was a life altering experience. I decided to watch Naruto therefore branching me into anime and Japanese culture and I noticed just beneath my dad's Tv stand a strange checked ps3 videogame case. A young boy sitting on the throne in a anime-esque sense with a gold crown, DopNald n Gooby, (two other "games" spliced on the cover)I couldn't pinpoint exactly the emotions that looking at gave me but I just knew this game was gonna be something else. Something I needed to experience. I load it in and.......I can't even describe how dearly beloved made me feel. This ethereal experience, I for but a moment transcended the bounds of my humanity and gained consciousness into another realm. I sat there staring at the screen not entirely ready to start the game and miss out on this beautiful masterpiece. Kh1 will always be with me, in my heart blah, blah, blah. But My favorite rendering? Of Dearly Beloved is without a doubt 358/2 Days. This was the second time Dearly beloved made me reach out from within myself into another dimension and yet again I was appalled at the beauty. Too bad the gameplay is pretty poopy but Roxas is my favorite character and thank you Kingdom hearts. You are one of my Dearly Beloved pasttimes.
-My Friends Are My Power. 👑🗝️⚔️
No one respects you
31:57 As someone who's never seen it before, I'm really glad you showed the scene with sora's initial talk with Tarzan. Hearing Sora be sound so full of energy, only to stop himself short and have to remember that he's not actually friends with Donald and goofy, and it becomes even sadder hearing his tone change as he realizes he almost lost focus on the people he knows he cares most about. It absolutely makes the joyful moment Donald and Sora briefly share when the trio gets reunited both sweeter and depressing. Sora, at that point in the story, is still harkening the journey to the the one he hoped to share with Kairi snd Riku, but then keeps being faced with the reality of his circumstances.
I probably don't have a point here, but tldr, It's really cool that you went this far into giving us these details that best build the up the story rather than the basic recap most people have done.
Only an hour in but this is INCREDIBLE! I cannot fathom how many dozens and dozens of hours this took to make. Amazing work and I hope more people discover you because this is such quality conteng
Love the video so far! I just wanted to mention my experience as a child of what you discuss at 34:43. The devs most definitely leave out plot details in their KH iterations (which I’m sure you discuss ad nauseum in your other vids, as you should!). When I was little, I didn’t mind or even really notice it that much. The first several times my brother or I played through KH1, I hadn’t yet seen Tarzan, Hercules, or The Nightmare Before Christmas. But the game did well at giving me the basic gist of “this dude be bad, and he’s currently doing bad things.” They take this a bit too far in later games, in my opinion, but maybe that’s because I have now seen all the featured movies and know just how much they’re not telling Sora/us. Storytelling isn’t great, but this issue kind of helps the pit-stop nature of the worlds (which you also discuss).
This is also why I actually love how much Olympus Coliseum shows up. It gives them an opportunity to explore a different facet of the (first) film in each game instead of fighting to cram a whole plotline into a tiny filler arc.
Absolutely incredible video. I'm really fascinated by KH1. This one and OoT have had a lasting impact on me as quintessential coming-of-age stories. Kairi crying in the credits and drawing the papu really hit the spot for me. It's a story about learning of the world, of corruption through people in power, of ambitions, friends, love, and finding your role in life. Sora, Riku, and Kairi started together and ended up seperated, changed, but ready to find each other again. I always found it wonderful and I really connected with Sora (actually all three) when I was 13.
What's especially interesting to me is how every following game found new ways to completely destroy the strong emotional core of this one.
This is the level of depth I really wanted out of a KH video. Thank you!
Watching this simultaneously gave me rose tinted glasses and PTSD
The music is what brought me to this series. I never really cared much for the childish story with the Disney characters. But I dove in to the darkness. The whole over arching story is quite intriguing 😂❤
Ansem: "let your heart-"
Me, having played through 95% of the franchise already: "Be your guiding key."
Funny cause that’s only in one of the titles I guess two if you count .2
I don't think I've seen anyone as critical of KH1's story as you are, and I'm thankful of that. Personally I think KH1 has the best wtitten story, but even then it's only adequate at best for a video game. Not good, but does enough of a job to keep most interested in the narrative of the game.
There's one extremely important aspect of KH that is often neglected, and it's that the audience is only supposed to know as much about the world as Sora does at any given time.
The real deep cut is that Kingdom Hearts takes place in the same universe as Final Fantasy 13, and is a consequence of the events of Lightning Returns.
In fact, Lightning was supposed to get her own Keyblade Armor in LR before the idea was scrapped, but the concept art and model still survived and made it into an ultimania book.
(It's also further confirmed with Fabula Nova Crystallis showing up in KH4's trailer and Sora being put into Crystal Stasis by Yozora in Re:Mind if you fail the fight)
One of my favourite underwatched long form channels to listen to alongside Private Sessions and PatricianTV. It's funny how you even mention The Elder Scrolls series in this analysis making me wonder how long it will be til you give your take on them.
Keep it up!
I have this game concept inspired by KH that I've worked on for years, and there I've made it so that the Magic option on the command menu doesn't even exist, it's just the shortcut menu.
You decide what 4 spells you want to use beforehand based on your playstyle.
Triangle acts as the shortcut shortcut essentially, whatever spell you place on Triangle will always be a button press away without having to hold L2 (I've assigned L1 to Target Switching here).
The spell variety veers in the direction of BBS and DDD, but you're still limited to 4 spells, wide options plus restricted slots promotes developing your own preferences.
Items take on a whole new level of importance, as relying on Cure robs you of an offensive spell, if you can make good use of the riskier option that is potions instead, then your attack options increase as a reward.
If you're good enough to just not get hit, then I've also provided a whole category of consumable items that do more than just refill your bars, 20 second long boosts to your movement or attack speed, either as separate items or combined together within a higher tier one. There's even whole ass attacks, that you can just repeatedly use, that are treated as items to put in your item slots, repeating the interplay of "cure or potions?" with a whole new tier of risk, potions or attacks?
The influence items have on your gameplay changes based on your skill level, relying on cure is the most restrictive, and the further you're able to move away from that playstyle, the more fun the game becomes.
seeing the announcement vid yesterday: oh cool, so like a new 40 ish minute kingdom hearts video every couple months interspersed with the occasional 10 minute video devoted to recoded or something. got it
seeing this video in my sub box: ah.
Regarding difficulty, I think its because its a kids game and being able to avoid challenge by grinding a couple levels and swapping gear around is a good way to have some challenge but also allow a parent to help the kid out without needing to play the game for them.
My parents arn't gamers tho haha. I funnily enough got filtered out of kh 1. But i was able to play and finish kh2 bcs of how accessibly easy it is.
@blenky5516 They don't need to be. An adult who isn't completely ignoring what you're doing will be able to help you.
In the beginning in Traverse Town you don't actually need to kill any shadows to progress the story. If you see all 4 cutscenes of Sora and Donald & Goofy missing each other and visit the Third District you can then go back in to the Accessory Shop and leave to continue the story. Killing 5 shadows is just the easier and quicker options which is the reason why most people think is the way to progress.
I believe the control scheme of the original PS2 release is superior to the remix versions because the right stick scrolls through the command menu and L2 and R2 pan the camera. This allows you to comfortably maneuver Sora around the battlefield while searching spells and items.
Wish we had the option to change to the PS2 controls.
Another long form analysis channel to add to my collection
After working my way through your MGS vids I cant wait to continue with Kingdom Hearts.
Really appreciate the work you put into your content - love it! Please keep it up even in tough times.
Fantastic video! I've only played KH for about 15 minutes as a kid but I loved the video start to finish! A great mix of analysis and story explanation.
Figured I'd leave a comment to boost this video in the algorithm
What you say about stats versus skills is interesting. I must have been really terrible at the game, because anytime I tried to get involved in boss fights I would get killed all the time. I just let Donald and Goofy take care of everything while I stayed as far away as possible.
I honestly don't find anything wrong with the Platinum Match. It's hard to be hard and that's why I love it. Run from his pillars before he uses them and you'll be fine. He hits you without warning? Better have aeroga on and curaga on the ready for use. The abilities in the game are meant to help you with it. I don't think it is bad design if it's meant to be that unforgiving. Plus, his match is child's play compared to the data battles. Ugh, those are nuts.
Man, it's definitely nostalgic to watch this. I never ended up playing KH 2 or any of the many games that came after Kingdom Hearts. I forgot all about the scene where Goofy backs Sora up like that... That's why he's the MVP! 😅
As always, your analysis is dangerously based and very well thought out. I'm looking forward to the next installment! I'm curious to hear you thoughts about 3. Keep up the amazing work my guy!
They are bad at the game, it's not well thought out. You're just too limited to realize.
I have to say I've been playing this series since it first came out in 2002 when I was 11 years old. Only during this retrospective did it dawn on me that you fight a shadow version of yourself in Neverland because it's an homage to Peter Pan's Shadow coming to life...
Absolutely enjoying the content, keep up the grand work chief 😊
You're not at all imaging things about Dearly Beloved. I have no history with this series at all, but I feel exactly what you describe. I think Halo is the only other game series to have as an iconic theme that's used so meaningfully throughout the whole series. Something to be proud of and cherish to be sure.
"I have no history" but comments anyway. Extreme loser.
simba, mushu, and bambi are all really good summons i dont know why you think otherwise. I also find the way the jump works quite intuitive cause how long you press the button determines how high and long you're in the air much like hollow knight and some other games
Yea the camera was easily the biggest problem for me when it came to platforming
You're gonna get big one of these days dude, these videos are really good I hope it takes off
really interesting retrospective on kh1! looking forward to the next one.
Man I was watching patricians metal gear survive vid you were on, thinking to myself yeah this is cool but I wanna watch a kingdom hearts retrospective, but I like this dude patrician has on his vid so I'll go sub to him. Search your name, and kh1 retrospective uploaded 1 day ago. Wtf, what a treat.
Can't wait for part 2 of chain of memories, liked this analysis
If my brother ever happens to watch this, I still haven’t forgotten when you needed me to beat Cerberus for you 🤷♂️
Comment to help with algorithm shenanigans. Good stuff. I like it.
Probably the best video on kingdom hearts 1 on UA-cam atm. After listening to private talk about rewatching this video I decided to do it too, and it’s so disappointing seeing the view count be so low. You’ll blow up soon enough I’m sure but it’s still frustrating seeing such good content being seemingly thrown by the wayside.
Wow, UA-cam legit never showed me that these videos were even out until I saw the most recent one pop up in my feed just now. Glad to have several hours of good shit to dive into 👍
This is a truly fantastic analysis. I think you capture some points here that I have never seen another reviewer even consider. I cannot wait to watch the rest of your videos!
This is probably the most in-depth video of the game that I've seen. Thanks for focusing on so much of the gameplay, as there were things I had no idea of. Good work!
[Personal edit: Gameplay discussion at 38:44]
It just occured to me that it's kinda odd that Riku-Ansem fights like Riku, and that Riku uses many of the unique moves used there later in the series.
You're not fighting Riku in that fight, you're fighting Ansem, you're fighting Xehanort, he should have his own unique way of swinging the keyblade around.
Though Riku later using the unique moves from that boss fight, Dark Firaga (edit: forgot he used that one in Riku 2), Dark Break, and Dark Aura, does play into the theme of him claiming control over the darkness and using it for good.
Dearly beloved is such a good song. I got KH2 as a gift from my mom's friend thinking it was going to be some lame Disney trash but was admittedly drawn to it's silver color and the cool character designs. As soon as I heard dearly beloved and saw that immaculate title screen I changed my mind instantly.
Amazing retrospective g, Hoping you’re gonna get more views
What I find fascinating about ultima weapon is that it's always specifically the strongest *BALANCED* keychain in a given entry, but can still be outclassed in *specific* areas by other keychains, at the cost of being *less* effective in everything else.
1:13:06 Damn that transition was clean!
If I'm not mistaken, if you pop into Jiminy's journal, it tells you what you need to do next. Like your current objective
Kingdom Hearts 1 only does that if you dig into the story section. KH2 has a clear distinct blurb on the first page of the journal
@Tetramorre oh that's why I mixed it up lol. And wow quick reply! Esp for an older video! Moving on to the com vid rn, but I'm loving the series so far! Keep it up!
great analysis of all aspects of the game, i resonate with your message about the title music, hope you are successful
That intro to this video is awesome
God, I'm 25, this series shouldn't work on me on an emotional level but IT DOES! AND I CAN'T EXPLAIN WHY TO SAVE MY LIFE!
1:01:14 Magic is actually key to mix into your combat if you want to defeat enemies and bosses with lower stats. For example stop works on both giant Ursula Churnabog, to the point where with a few items you can keep them from attacking at all. Summons also work well on level one, simba can clear most of final rest and mushu can kill the first fight with ansem
I literally was combing through comments to see if someone had already mentioned this or not lol. Im glad you did.
Worth mentionning tough that before 1.5 HD Remix the Zero EXP didn't exist even in the Final Mix version, the game wasn't design with LV1 in mind so they had to make Zero EXP gives benefit to the player to make LV1 doable, hence why Zero EXP allow you to survive if you get hit at Full Health and the hit should have One-Hit Kill you, and the buff to damage on bosses and especially the effect of having all hits that isn't a physical hit after a finisher having the power of a finisher, this actually makes Summon that have multi-hit attack like Genie or Mushu much more powerfull than they originally were, and you can exploit it on bosses even outside of LV1 in Proud since well nothing prevent you to activate the ability before a boss fight and desactivating after it.
your channel is relatively small, but this video is top knotch. good work, friend.
That Sephiroth bit was very fascinating 😅
wow, I'm glad i found this video in my side bar, incredibly well made, I've got the other KH video qued up now, excited
I feel some catharsis with you tearing apart sephiroths fight like that because it shows just how truly BS his fight is.
I don't remember Kingdom Hearts: A Topic for Next Time, but I look forward to hearing about it.
I’m not going to lie, the way heartless are described in this game sound exactly like darklings, which is funny as the heartless proceed to act completely differently in future compared to how we think they are now
Not the toontown music at 57:20. Man of culture
One thing I love about Ice Titan is how he turns Aero against you. If you're like me and spam Aero in every encounter, you soon realize his attacks are bigger and harder to block
Loving these long-form reviews man, keep it up!
When you were talking about the menu system in combat it reminds me that ever since I switched to keyboard and mouse I can use the scroll wheel for the menus whilst still moving lol
Playing kh on kb+m sounds like hell on earth to me but to each their own I suppose lol
Great video as always, really hoping you make a video on KH2 down the road.
This is pretty-much exactly what I searched for
29:37: Uh Goofy, you OK there, buddy?
Let’s see… we got time travel, pocket universes, pocket multiverses, parallel multiverses, divination, possession, and a dance with death. With the tinkering of heart, body, and soul. Off the top of my head.
Little correction on the Sephiroth fight actually, compare to the original version the actually modify him, specifically they make me more unpredictable compare OG and most important of all they made him much MUCH more trigger happy with the Fire Pillar attacks, in the OG he mostly use the Fire Pillar at the end of a sword attack, so you could predict it, in Final Mix he can use it whenever he want basically, specifically the big difference is in Final Mix he can teleport and when he appears immediatly use the Fire Pillar, he never does that in the OG or of he does it's very rarely in the OG, also when he retaliate after 4 hits in OG I'm pretty sure he couldn't retaliate with the fire pillar.
52:58 You knew exactly what you were doing there.
You said that you've never heard of telling your party members to attack being used. Well, I'm here to say that I've used it. And to great success.
When I was young and far less skilled, I went into more than a couple boss fights that at the time were just too difficult for me to do without getting significantly stronger first. But I found a way around that.
Using level geometry, I was able to avoid most attacks that Clayton and dragon form Maleficent could use on me. Allowing me to use Donald and Goofy to chip away at their health until I felt comfortable in running out to deal the final blows. Cheap way to win a fight, but I was Eleven, and loading a save meant going back and still being stuck on the world till I got to a high enough level that you could pretty much tank your way through.
Ah nice, very clever
Hi, LV1 speedrunner here. Impressed with the deep dive into the game, I'm mostly here to clarify some things about how EXP Zero works. I'm one of the few people who went into Cheat Engine to chart out the damage while re-routing the category once we had access to the PC ports of the game. For one, you mention that Sora deals "a basic amount of damage across the board," when the reality is a bit more nuanced than that. Sora's damage scales against all enemies with at least 300 HP, or one full bar of health if you could see it with Scan - not sure why the 300, but I guess this is how the designers decided to categorize boss vs. non-boss enemies. The higher a boss's HP bar, the more damage Sora will deal to that boss. Once an enemy has 300, each add-on of a section of 1-150 HP changes the math ever so slightly. The reason that this can seem indistinguishable from a fixed amount of damage is that over the addition of 1-2 HP bars, the individual non-finisher hits probably only change by 1-2 points, but the finishers will grow at a much rapid rate since they're dealing more or less double damage compared to the non-finishers (the reason I say "more or less" is that sometimes, due to damage being rounded because all damage is dealt in integers rather than floating-point numbers, there'll be off-by-one calculations). Unfortunately, this does mean that forced fights against bosses with less than 300 HP will not have any scaling engaged, which is why fights like Lock, Shock, and Barrel are such a pain - against bosses under the threshold, Sora is only dealing the minimum of 2 HP damage per Keyblade swing, no matter if it's a finisher or not. Lock, Shock, and Barrel (and Oogie Manor, while we're at it) are particularly notorious as run-enders among the community for this reason, you pretty much have to camp them out with Blizzaras to get any decent damage whatsoever. Oh, and this scaling only applies to Sora's default physical attacks - if you use some additional ability like Blitz, even though Blitz is a finisher, it will only deal chip damage to bosses while EXP Zero is equipped if you fall enough below the enemy DEF (which is pretty much all the time on LV1).
What's more is that this can actually yield to incredibly weird results - you mentioned the damage caps inherent to bosses, but EXP Zero's scaling can sort of break these. Ansem I has a damage cap of 15, for example, but with EXP Zero's scaling, Sora deals 8 HP damage with a non-finisher hit and 16 HP with a finisher. This is actually funnier when you have enough Strength to regularly hit the damage cap, because you can whip out a full combo on Ansem with EXP Zero equipped and then you'll deal 15 + 15 + 16 HP damage total, which is just not how the game was intended to work haha.
Against standard mob Heartless, you also get a bit of scaling, although we still have no idea how the game sidesteps the usual formula - it seems that you'll deal next to chip damage against certain enemies, but you'll be turbo-boosted against others, and we haven't been able to tie this to any variable such as HP or shared DEF or other such things. The game just sorta...assigns you damage against a particular Heartless. Magic damage is always pretty reliable, though, and EXP Zero doesn't really affect this outside of damage storage.
Also, special bosses aren't the only instance in which Sora will take more than 2 hits to get KO'd; your hit count changes whenever you're in a Coliseum Cup (also some fights in End of the World).
LV1 is super-weird and fascinating for a game like KHFM in terms of its math, imo. Let me know if you want more details like the raw formula for the adjusted EXP Zero damage!
Thanks for the extra insight!
I don't agree with all your points in this but I'm extremely happy that this game finally has a video that actually does it justice. Excited to hear your opinions on the later entries as the series just falls apart and loses the what it had. Though most fans like them, just from the title of your series I have a feeling on where you think the games ultimately headed. Personally I'm only a fan on 1, CoM, and 2 and just pretend it ended there.
Well fuck this was a damn good analysis. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on critical mode in kh2
Great video! Thanks for the content, very fun to listen to and look back on.
Kindness to aid friends.
A shield to repel all.
...I never realized the other weapons were different, as I never picked one...
Really great work here.
I followed the series also for over a decade and i appreciate the hard work you did out into it. awesomo :3
edit:
kairi is the girl in the secret ending back then, now its gonna get reckoned to someone else xD
That thing about Mickey not being in 3D before is wrong. 2 years before KH there was a 3D racing game by Rare called Mickey's Speedway USA, which did feature Mickey rendered in 3D. Both as an in game character and for promotional renders. Oh, and development on that game started a year before in 1999 while development for KH started in 2000.
You’re right, that terrifying Rare game was probably actually the first. While that’s true, there still wasn’t a style guide for the character, making it difficult to green light a design for Mickey given the barriers present between the America based Disney and Japan based Squaresoft. Not my words by the way, Shuji Utsumi said so in his interview in the Otocoto source.
forgot about speedway USA when thinking about mickey in 3d
I’m at the part around 47:30 where you are talking about a fix for the multiple inputs needed to reach certain spells from the command menu.
The fix you mentioned uses the circle button and I think that the devs purposefully left out circle as a means of allowing the player to jump before casting.
Your solution wouldn’t technically remove that option, but it would definitely make it more technically challenging as you would have to jump, than press and hold L2, than cast. Almost like a street fighter combo… honestly maybe it could even be fun.
But I also believe if they were to set up the shortcuts to allow for all spells to be cast on a whim, that would take away from the strategy of the gameplay. I personally believe that, although frustrating to new players, the command menu introduces a unique way of introducing skill to the game beyond learning and understanding enemy attack patterns. And I think they made the right call of keeping the quick spell slots to a minimum so players wouldn’t be frustrated about not pulling off a heal on time.
I personally think even removing quick spells all together wouldn’t be that detrimental. Maybe allowing the system to be unlocked via ability’s like dodge rolling and stuff. This could even give healing items a little more usefulness since it’s a simpler input to preform quickly than cure?
Anyways rant over. Liking the video so far
Also making the lock on mechanics devoted to the bumpers would mean you can’t change your lock on while having your quick spell triggered. Not a big deal but taking small options like that away from real time combat can feel clunky.
Okay now I swear that’s the last thing
Sora essentially megaman’d himself to monotony:.:🤔
2:27 Disney did this countless times, merging franchises. Kingdom hearts was just the first time they did it with video games. Outside of the occasional cameo.
Before this, there was who framed roger rabbit, and wrath of the chaos god.
I remember when I first played it, I misunderstood the keychains and just thought they were key items, so I made it all the way to the second Riku fight in Hollow Bastion with the Kingdom Key equipped.
I also love FromSoft games now, so y’know. Pretty on trend for me.
I love this game so much, thanks for the content! 😊
The L1 menu isn't limited to spells. You can also assign items, so if neccessary you can quickly pop an ether or elixir during hectic boss fights.
Nope, not KH 1. You're probably thinking of KH 2 and later.
Also combo pluses do exist but there are plenty of options for you to limit the amount of combos you use and actually do more damage in a smaller amount of hits that's one of the things that you do for sephiroth to win
1:55:35 nah you’re not nostalgic I played my first kh game (kh1) at 16 or 17 and even then dearly beloved made me feel like the series has been in my life forever
seeing how you describe sephy, waiting to see your take on mysterious figure from BBS. Literally unfair fight.
Hm...I DO appreciate that you use a speedrunner's input to point out inconsistencies in the Sephiroth fight, but I also want to point out that speedrunners are not always the best gauge, especially on the 'I might get lucky' front. Speedrunners are used to dealing with things as fast as possible. They want to take the shortest route between the start and end of a fight. That means in a non-deterministic fight the decisions they're making aren't necessarily to avoid damage, they're to set themselves up for the best possible scenario to deal damage quickly. They go for speed, not consistency, and they would rather scrap a run than do suboptimally, at a certain point.
That means there are probably a few of those situations where there IS a safer way to play, and the runner is just not taking it because doing so would be slow.
1:56:38 Melody of Memory’s rendition of Dearly Beloved is my new favorite version.