What’s weird is that first time I played Olympus and found the forge and even a hidden quest, for as useless as it was, I enjoyed it and thought kh3 was gonna be full of these stuff, but then there’s almost nothing else
they clearly had the ideas there. i hope they just needed more time and were rushed by a deadline. hopefully kh4 just takes its time and creates a masterpiece but i'll believe it when i see it
I remember in Olympus there being an Achilles statue where you have to break his heel to open a kinda secret path that leads to a chest. Thought that was pretty clever. Needed more stuff like that.
you can definitely tell that, aside from the final parts of the game, most of the work went into the first world. as much love and sweat and blood went into the whole disney/pixar part of the game, it seemed olympus went a step further in every way.
@@mixttime everytime I go back to KH1 I dread having to actually traverse the worlds. It's the #1 thing that keeps me from going back to that game as much as I want to.
@@ImaTroper I blame the camera. The camera in KH1 is _way_ too close for the amount of platforming they expect you you do. At least Final Mix moved the camera off of L2/R2 and onto the left stick. The camera is my only big gripe about KH1.
I played KH1 for the first time recently and I LOVED the level design, because of how chests and Trinities were hidden behind puzzles and environment interactions. And I'm STILL learning new stuff about it, I had no idea you could freeze those bubbles in Hollow Bastion until this video, my mind is fucking broken lmao
KH1's design is definitely a bit rusty, but it has a lot of charm that I wish the other games held onto. Trinities and magic-puzzles and such helped you feel more in touch with the world, and I honestly wish they'd bring that back. And yeah, the bubbles in KH1 are just....such an obscure touch. to the point where So many people dont even think to do it. But it's there, and frankly it's such a neat little thing. I want more games to build off of KH1's design philosophy please.
@@TheKeyblader133 Story, level design, excellent use of the Disney Element, clunky gameplay that one could argue was on purpose to give just the right amount of challenge. There is just so much about KH1 that so many don't appreciate.
I’ve always missed the KH1 interactive world, and especially that rare, special little boopity-boop-boop! chime that would play when you had accomplished something special and secret. I don’t think that sound effect was ever used again after 1. Oh and the trinities, lord persevere me how I miss the trinities...
trinities are just keys in a game where the protag already has a superkey so they needed to recontextualize the keys as stuff like balancing on goofy's dick to cross a gap to explain why sora can't just open the path with his superkey ... and it's kinda telling that the _first trinity you get_ genuinely makes less sense than the phrase "balancing on goofy's dick to cross a gap"
@@hi-i-am-atan yeah, but that’s not the point, they’re fun environmental rewards for your progression and attentiveness to the environments of the worlds you’ve visited. Balancing on goofy’s groin is all about the journey, not the destination.
@@foffingCh. i just find it bizarre that you so badly miss unlocking secrets you couldn't before by starting a cutscene of goofy launching his extendodick and watching sora automatically balance over to a frustratingly-out-of-the-way chest, especially when kh1 already had plenty of miniature puzzles that are along the lines of organically using the extendodick and pulling off the balance minigame yourself when writing this comment, i was originally using "grinding" in the sense of how sonic games do it, but then i looked back over on it and realized i probably shouldn't be using that word to connect goofy's extendodick and a 14-year-old sora
@@hi-i-am-atan again, the haha funnee cutscene is not the part I miss as much as the unlocking of secrets and encouraging interaction with the worlds and how it encourages you to return to previous ones to unlock more things, which is way better than something like hunting for hidden Mickeys just to get a full completion. Though it is nice to see the main three get skills to solve the problems together as a team over the course of the story, especially when at the start they weren’t particularly good friends, Sora and Donald were just trying to exploit the other for their own means, but by the end they’re a team. So in that way, it’s significantly better development than the later games just talking about how good of friends everyone is
@@foffingCh. yeah but that didn't stem from trinity marks, that was a part of kh1's design as a whole. spells, high jump, and glide all accomplished the same thing, but far more organically. the trinity marks _were_ a part of it, sure, but they were easily the weakest form and, honestly, basically boil down to kh3's chests but with _locks_ like, hunting them down was largely just checking generic goodiebags off a checklist, except sometimes you can't actually check them off until _several_ hours after you already found them. so, you either have to try to remember the color and location of all the ones you can't use so you can come back to them once you finally can use them ... or you just don't bother with the optional ones until you've unlocked all the trinities, reducing them to just kh3's chests anyway for as half-baked as it was, the trinity sled from kh3 took the whole concept behind trinity marks and executed on it ten times better. the most glaring issue with it is that a. you unlock it in the first world and b. it's the _only trinity technique of its kind,_ so at no point do you get to unlock a new trinity technique and go "oh, wait, i can probably use this in that other world!" but it still makes for a _fantastic_ foundation that hopefully will be expanded on in later games, far moreso than the trinity marks
In regards to the chest thing, it feels like KH1 has chests in view a lot of the time. Like if you just move around the world you will see plenty, and the challenge comes from making tough jumps or finding out how to get to the chests whereas KH3 chests' challenge is just finding the chests in massive worlds. Both are exploration but with KH1 you have constant miniature goals shown to you that you want to solve while KH3 you aimlessly run around to hope you find chests.
@@disasterrook2656 i was the guy would didnt use shorter length key blades... I used fairy harp for ALL of hades cup.. Ive never wiffed so many times in my life before
One of the things i found unfortunate about KH3's level design was the fact that exploring the more open worlds didnt really feel...natural. The bigness and freedom of movement weren't really..reigned in through a satisfying way. Either chests are really obvious, or completely obscure to find (I'm looking at you BH6. The idea of a giant city is fun at first, but eventually it all just started blending together and I couldnt remember where I'd looked, or predict where they might just throw a chest.) Definitely one of the things that would be rather difficult to manage when you design your worlds to be super open, but having care in a level to teach you how to search it would have done a lot. But then I guess that's better than what happened to Frozen xD
Potc was easily my favorite world to explore though. Breaking up the exploration into smaller islands, while getting to enjoy sailing to them and exploring the map on your ship was really enjoyable. Tbh the only thing I think POTC failed on was how inconsistent the enemy ship encounters were. You could sometimes just run into 3 back to back, and sometimes accidentally de-agro them and the fights would disappear (I'm looking at you, Super-Boss fleet). Otherwise, it and Toy Box probably were my favorite worlds to play.
I keep thinking that it would have been great if each world had a different functionality as they did in Caribbean, putting a pirate ship for us to explore the world was a very good idea and it intensified the immersion of gameplay, bringing the feeling that the worlds really are different, work differently and we need to adapt to it, if they had made San Fransokyo an open-world subgenre, like GTA but with simpler objectives, we had to save citizens, chase evildoers, enter establishments, and etc, it would have been a great thing, and it could work for all other worlds differently
@@TronSAHeroXYZ It's also oddly small though. You look around and think, oh, I haven't explored that yet, only to have that blue boundary wall just block you off. You can't even go back to the bridge that opened the level unless you do the battle gate that takes you back there for a fight.
KH3 might've had the same design mentality as DDD, but the reason people dislike DDD's level design is because the INDIVIDUAL places in each world were empty. There are a lot more linear corridors and some treasure chests require too much wall jumping to reach. The main problem with DDD's level design is that (and I'm quoting SomeCallMeJohnny here): "The developers gave you flowmotion, and they want you to use the hell out of it to travel around". They realized that if they design normal sized worlds, like in past games, with DDD's flowmotion they will be over too quickly. Unfortunately, instead of nurfing it to be less broken or to make the worlds only slightly bigger, they designed the the worlds to last as long as a normal world in past games, which meant MUCH larger worlds. In DDD there's only 1 logical way to travel around, which is wall-jumping, and that's tedious. Whereas DDD was pure wall-jumping, in KH3 you combine the usage of all of Sora's moveset to travel around. Some places require a specific tool to bypass and some wall-running segments have enemies on them that might screw you and you'll fall of (forcing you to dodge them mid-wall-running). Some areas even allow you to do sequence-break with proper use of movement. For example: In Kingdom of Corona, if you use Aero in the platforming segment right before the horse boss fight, you can rely on the jump panel made be the Aero to reach high areas earlier than intended and potentially skip mob fights. You can bypass the lasers segment in Mostropolis by going to a wall, doing a wall-jump, and attacking+air-sliding repeatedly. It feels like you are more than just doing flowmotion repeatedly to travel around. Also, while big treasures are often filled with disappointing rewards, the TOTAL AMOUNT of treasures in KH3 is larger than DDD's so the rate, which you collect treasures at is more frequent, giving the feel that you are constantly being rewarded for exploration. The treasures are also placed a lot more cleverly and hide within the environment better in KH3 than in DDD. It makes the worlds FEEL less empty and more entertaining to explore. Going back to SomeCallMeJohnny, he was afraid KH3's world will be as empty as DDD's, but was relieved to see that they were full of exploration with treasure chests and lucky emblems (which you had unfairly ignored to include within you essay). Now, a counter-arguement for that will be that the exploration is only fun on first playthrough because on repeated playthroughs you already know the locations of the secrets and it becomes mindless, but the feel of constant rewarding by reaching to those treasures is still more interesting than DDD's reacher, but less entertaining exploration.
i also dont understand why he didnt include the lucky emblems. they are a great tool to force the player to be more focused of his surroundings which passively supports the world exploration aspect. it felt rewarding to find a lucky emblem if u looked hard enough and thought about hiding spots. the emblem in toy box which u had to reveal by punchibg away some boxes for example. in addition to that all of them are great easter eggs which, for some emblems, also make great use of the environment (hercules stone emblem, monstropolis color splash emblem, etc) also as a grand reward u would obtain oblivion which provided you with more gameplay fun. all in all a great system which enhanced the world exploration tremendously imo.
@@benjaminrizzuti510 Thanks. I do agree with him that KH1 had more puzzles and gimmicks that made the worlds interesting, but KH1 is SO inconsistant. For every good world like Hollow Bastion and Traverse Town you have bad ones like Deep Jungle and Monstro. Some of the gimmicks also feel like frustrating mechanics I could've done without like swimming combat in Atlantica and platforming in... basically everywhere. The worlds in KH1 might be better designed than KH3's, but they are also full of jank carried by the game's unpolished mechanics. That's why I enjoy KH3's worlds more, because the stuff within the worlds feels like it was designed with the super mobiled Sora in mind so it never feels frustrating. Also, KH1 has Neverland. NOTH SAID!
@@thomasstolz9777 No, it's Oathkeeper. Oblivion is given to you by beating the game on crit. But yeah, the lucky emblems are no less a part of the level design than actual exploration, especially the one in Toy Box where you have to stand at the right position to see 3 disco balls combine into a Mickey head.
I loved Scala in Remind KH3 because they had all the little puzzles to find the pieces of Kairi's heart. Definitely needed more of that in the rest of the game.
25:35 (Talking from own experience, I've played all of the games in the series) -DDD has wide ROOMS while KH3 has gigantic AREAS that are begging you to explore them until you've seen everything it can offer you. DDD was just as an empty corridor as KH2, although it could have offered the player interest to explore all of this huge spaces/rooms, it didn't. This forces the player in not wanting to spend time running around pointless and boring areas. KH3 solved that aspect and that is directly related to the difficulty of finding chests, as the main purpose of the chests in KH3 (at least from my point of view) was encouraging the player to explore all of those areas (and I must admit that, although they may ease exploration a bit too much, KH3's movement abilities give a feeling of freedom -you're finally able to move fast and where you actually want instead of being force to use mecanics that were there to solve the limitations of KH1's small rooms such as HB's bubbles). -The main idea of spreading the chests throughout every part of a certain world was making the player enjoy their time doing a Treasure Hunt -as you've said relating the Caribbean- (Where is this chest? Instead of How do I get THAT chest?) while you really get caught in the ambience of KH3's great soundtrack (specially the field themes obviously). -Finally (there are more reasons but I don't want to make this comment that long), KH3 offered variety in all of its worlds. San Fransokyo streets and areas were never the same but were quite similar, The Caribbean isles had different feeling and atmosphere (I remember for example one having a sunken ship and other allowing you to explore an area first covered in vegetation), Olympus offered three completely different atmospheres in a single world (and even with their own field themes!)...etc. All of this focuses on appealing the player on exploring those little paradises on their own, while DDD's worlds were just corridors that were exactly the same in every single aspect (The Grid, for example, was a big disappointment whith its awfully linear and identical hallways, specially considering how interesting was this exact some world, as Space Paranoids, in KH2), this leads into a feeling of anxiety, as everything seems exactly the same to you, what forces to players to wanting to get out of that "cage" as soon as they can. PD: I actually enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean main story in KH3 xD. Maybe it is because I loved PoC at World's End.
I feel like the reason KH3's level design is so well regarded is twofold. One, it's much better than 2's. Two, while the design of 1 is probably better, the jankiness of the platforming (real or perceived) made people more frustrated with the design. You talked specifically about chests and how to get them being difficult and more puzzle like. While that might be the case, I think that many people ended up trying to get those chests and failed, and just got angry and blamed the platforming, and subsequently the level design for it. I know it happened to me when I was younger, and I can even tell you exactly where it was: the chest near Merlin's House that you need to Glide to. I was already annoyed enough that I had to backtrack to get the chest (because while I know people like that "required" backtracking to get chests after you get new abilities, I personally hate it with a passion), but failing to land on the island and needing to go all the way back to try again made me really angry at the game. So yeah, while I can say that from as objective of a standpoint as you can get on something like this that KH1's level design is probably superior to 3's, I personally get more enjoyment out of 3's levels than I ever did from 1's
I don't HATE the idea of backtracking in games, but tbf it has to be worth it or be relevant to progress. It is usually done better in stuff like Metroidvania type games where you get a power up and it is like "wow there is so much I can access now". This also tends to happen a lot earlier than you know.....the second to last world of a 20-30 hour game such as in your scenario with Glide.
This pretty much relaly. KH1 also has tendency on placing enemies next to chests or high platforming, causing you unable to open the chest or got knocked down. It's frustrating.
@@amethonys2798 I guess should clarify that my opinion on backtracking is mostly limited to RPGs. And I don't mind it for story purposes... So long as it's not done for blatant game padding. For example, second visit to Traverse Town is good. Second visits in KH2 are not. But when it's backtracking for the sake of getting optional things within an area (e.g. chests, trinities), that's when I get pissed off. It feels like the game is creating artificial reasons to make me come back to an area instead of just making the area interesting or memorable in the first place. This is why I like lucky emblems much better than trinities. If you know where the lucky emblems are, you're able to collect all of them the first time you enter a world (exception of Olympus). But realistically, when you first play the game you're not going to. So it encourages more exploration of the world and encourages you to come back without forcing you to leave something behind and come back later
@@amethonys2798 Also, as far as chests go, I think it's just a relic of the old design of the bottom command slot. Remember, back in vanilla 1 (and I think the original PS2 release of 1FM), you opened chests (and activated trinities) with the bottom Command Menu option. Since this option was also where you activated your "limits" (Sonic Blade, Strike Raid, etc), they probably felt that if they made chests openable in combat, there would be situations where a player wanted to use a limit, but opened a chest instead and got killed because of it. Granted, the same thing could have happened in KH2, but the more contextual nature of RCs probably made them feel like it was much less likely.
I think a mix of kh3 and kh1 as a way to give chests to the players would be best. In my opinion, kh3 is satisfying and easy, and kh1 is rewarding because it's challenging. Giving some rewards that are easy to get and others that are difficult/require later growth abilities and spells while also keeping the large worlds and npcs seems ideal to me.
To answer the question about why people like kh3's design more than DDD's, it's probably because the movement is better for one. For me, flowmotion felt really clunky and I would often go in a direction I didn't want to. Kh3 airstepping, glide, air slide (especially repeated jump to airslide combo on a slope) at least seems smoother. So even if they have the same level design, I think the tools they give you are better and less frustrating to use.
I think more chests need to be solved using magic since your movement in 3 is already so good that simply showing a chest slightly out of reach isn't going to cut it. In KH1 it had a mix of magic and platforming based puzzles you may only solve later in the game once you achieve a particular ability or magic to get to it later because Sora was more grounded in that game.
The thing I love about KH3'S level design is how it manages to keep things varied without breaking pace. Look at Arrendel, you are constantly shifting the method of traversal, the use of niche mechanics like the slide shot and the snow ball, the type of enemies and how you interact with them, etc. (Juggling heartless with a snowball never gets old!) Even in a more straightforward level like Monstropolis, they have a variety of areas, such as the one with all the pipes, the room with all the boxes before the elevator, the arena with the fire where your encouraged to keep the flames under control, the list goes on. While it would be great to have slightly more hidden/puzzle based chests, the actual experience of going through the levels is very well done, at least in my opinion.
I would say the level design in KH1 was confusing but intriguing, in KH2 and BBS it was clear but linear, and in DDD and KH3 it is was visually impressive but boring to explore.
Having just played KH1 recently i would say i found the experience the exact opposite, its chests was either painfully obvious how to get, you just had to wait for the right ability or bash your head against the controls, or so obscure that it was just frustrating to find them. As for the freezing bubbles thing, i never knew you could do that until i watched this video, so i just thought i was stupid in the puzzle room and spent a good hour or so messing around because the game never hinted at it being a possibility.
He is just talking from nostalgia not actual experience or level design creator perspective, you be surprised how many people say Riku final battle was random as hell and the hardest boss battle to date only for newer players to defeat him in 1 try because he is easy a hell.
An important thing to consider with KH3s lack of memorable landmarks and breadcrumbing. You are completely at the whim of the minimap. Meanwhile in KH1 each area in each world (save monstro) you know exactly where you are.
I’m not some kh3 shill but like I think it’s BECAUSE of the advanced movement that you can’t really have jumping puzzles you know? Like flying around the map literally anywhere you want to go is very easily within reach so it would be hard to make movement puzzles. I will say that I was extremely disappointed after finding the forge in Olympus and then realizing that was pretty much the only secret thing to find in the entire game, that was whack. Critical was really really fun too, i didn’t play the game on release so my first experience was the updated version with the dlc data fights so it ended up being my fav KH game
they could have gliding puzzles like flying through lasers or something, timed airstep puzzles with points that only appear for a fraction of a second over bottomless pits, that kind of thing. but well... considering they rushed it out before critical mode was even done I'm not surprised they didn't e.e
alexander martinez you know, I was thinking that after I posted the comment but like you’re definitely right, a lot of the game felt really rushed. I think they put most of their efforts into visuals rather than into decent level design or cool game mechanics. Reprisals are cool af tho I like dems
They don't need puzzles. They just need to do SOMETHING with all that open space. Instead of just climbing up the mountain in Olympus, have us climb all the way to the top, release a boulder that smashes part of a wall, then let us backtrack through the wall to get a chest or two. In Monstropolis, have the door section take us to 5 or 6 different paths with different routes and rewards. In San Fransokyo, have airstepping play a more significant role in traversal and exploration instead of relying on wall running. They had a lot of opportunities to make the world just slightly more interactive and they only really did it in one or two sections in Olympus.
As for why people praise Kh3's level design and don't talk about DDD's I feel it's because of the worlds themselves. People aren't as attached to things like Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Tron Legacy as they are with Toy Story and Monster's Inc.
DDD had beautiful worlds. The thing I heavily dislike about them is that they're just so empty. Little to no NPCs, and flowmotion allows you to get everywhere in your first visit.
The platform the games were on would be a huge factor. Dream Drop Distance was on the 3DS, which had more technical limitations and fewer buttons. With the PS4 there’s two four button set ups, two joysticks and four shoulder buttons, while the 3DS has two four button set ups, one joystick and two shoulder buttons, with the shoulder buttons being relegated to camera rotation. Dream Drop Distance was pretty impressive for an RPG on the 3DS, especially compared to the scope, gameplay and visuals on the DS titles 258/2 Days and re:coded.
I feel like airstepping and certain flowmotion abilities should have been unlocked later into the game to make it feel like Sora actually grew throughout his journey, even from a movement perspective.
Yessssssssssss, this is everything I’ve thought about KH3’s level design. I was planning on making a video myself in the future if no one else did. KH3 was definitely a step in the right direction in certain areas, but personally I don’t think that’s enough for a game that was meant to conclude the Xehanort saga... A few other issues I personally had with the level design: - when chests could be hidden in any given nook, cranny or building in a world, why would I even want to use my movement options to zip around if that can really easily lead me to missing a chest? - while the worlds got bigger, the chests did not. That, compounded with the more realistic shading and textures, made chests blend in with the environment and hard to see at times. This could have been used in clever ways, but this happens with even the most inconsequential chests. - this is a problem I’ve had since KH2, but ever since they included a treasure list in the series, treasure hunting became more of an obligation/chore than actual exploration.
I remember playing Olympus, breathing a huge sigh of relief and thinking to myself “I can only imagine how amazing Twilight Town, Radiant Garden and the Realm of Darkness/Castle Oblivion are going to be.” I also remember thinking, “If the Rock Titan is THIS epic, imagine what the Keyblade War will be like!” Sigh lol I ultimately enjoyed KH3 for what it was and I respect the Osaka team’s improvements and hard work....but there was only one Xehanort Saga finale and that still hurts a little 1.5HD years later.
I enjoyed KH3, but when I first played KH1 & 2 as a kid I didn’t have a memory card so I had to restart them every Saturday and Sunday morning. The exact chest BB mentioned was always tantalizing and sometimes I would forget it and swing back when I saw it at a later point of traverse town. I was always getting it at different points in the first 2 hours of the game, so I found different ways to do it in order to get further in the game before I would be forced to shut it down. KH2 with the speed of valor form made progress so much easier.
Kh1 puzzles were amazing , like never lands clock tower chests if you comeback during certain playtimes you’ll get a new chest or the candle puzzle in traverse town ,the wonderland flowers that give you chests or make you bigger and the bizarre room the mechanics in opening clams with magic in alantica
Flowmotion in DDD was literally my favorite thing to do and way to get around, while in KH3, I literally never used it unless I was forced to, like at some parts in Arendale or whatever.
You know it's funny that he didn't mention this or I'm not really done with the video but 19 minutes and he hasn't even mentioned Kevin a remembrance. It might not have been that awesome to some people but I really thought it was cool how they make you use your growth abilities in ways that you didn't know for example quick run fall down a bit and then aerial Dodge
SOLDIER 1st Class He has actually mentioned CoR (different stream, but he said it’s one of the best areas in the game because it has parkour and puzzles and stuff from KH1 missing from KH2). Also I don’t know who Kevin is sorry
I want KH1 worlds (general design and cool stuff) combined with KH3 worlds (expansive and few loading zones) with KH2's tight gameplay. They do that and it'll be a buttery good game.
I think the big difference is that after KH1 chests became an official collectible, the journal tracks them and hence they are required for 100%. Once chests became necessary for journal completion they can’t be as well hidden as the bubble Blizzard chest in KH1.
I feel like that's a lazy reason. Getting 100% in a game shouldn't be easy in the first place, so why would the developers actively be scared to make a hidden chest?
As a whole and the premise i agree, there was a lot of things they could've done to improve the experience from each world,. I wouldn't call it boring however, there was a lot of interesting sections when you deviated from the main path, although they could've been more consistent in making it a rewarding experience. An idea that could've made it feel more rewarding was to make less soras in the final world sequence and make them more difficult to gather and require some more interesting use of wall run or air step. The last thing I'd say is I really like Classic Tone, it's a copy of hyper hammer sure but it has great magic stats, has a 360 shield, and has its own unique finisher, like sure functionally with physical combos its just like hyper hammer but i think the intention for boom hammer was for it to be a magic damage physical stagger hybrid and thats what makes it one of my favs, so in defense of Classic Kingdom at least you get a pretty neat keyblade.
They'd probably need to make the parkour abilities less jank in order for that to work. Sora may be the most mobile he's ever been in this game but he also feels the most clunky when trying to do anything outside of combat because of how much animation priority or awkward pauses he has between actions. For instance, that automatic mantle he does legitimately ticked me off a few times because I would try to make micro adjustments to my position at certain points and he'd go through the entire animation with no opportunity for me to get out of it. That's not even going into how the flowmotion still doesn't have a very great sense of flow or how disjointed the flow-mo attacks feel.
tbh I feel like with such powerful movement options where you can basically just zoom anywhere and fly as well a great way to make some challenge would be for some chests you will need too race through to somewhere on the map with a time limit to get the chest
It's good to make these Simply because we know people like Tai yasue who knows english pretty well follows a lot of kh content creator,maybe he saw this already. These videos are useful for the next games
Right off the bat: I think KH1 and KH3 had the best level design. "KH3 Level Design > KH2 Level Design and therefore it is good." Sounds like people who try to deflect KH3 criticism by saying "Nyeh, you just want KH2FM. You don't care about anything new. Nyeh." A lot of people hated it (including me, for quite some time), but Wonderland might have one of the best level designs in the entire Kingdom Hearts series. Getting around was a puzzle, and there were so many tricks that you had to figure out to find new pathways. There were also a bunch of bonuses that you unlocked by exploring and interacting with things. For example, if you hit the shelf, a teddy bear drops down and causes a book to become real. Open the book and you'll find a synthesis item. Move the bear and a grandfather clock becomes real. Move the clock and it will open a passage back into the Tea Party Garden. There are so many secrets to uncover if you have the patience to explore. And yeah, nothing ever told you that you could even freeze the bubbles in Hollow Bastion in the first place. You had to figure it out by exploring on your own. The Caribbean was built entirely around the exploration sidequest, and no attention was paid to properly developing and interacting with the story save for the obligatory boss fights. Who wouldn't have wanted to explore Shipwreck Cove?
Honestly, as someone who enjoys 3, I mostly agree with everything you say, but honestly, I would rather have a mix of both 3 and 1's design. Kh1 was fun to play, but after a while, I just kinda wanted to be done with it, and stopped caring about exploring for new rewards. Once I got past a certain point, it all just felt like too much to deal with, and with the mechanics and combat for me only being decent, it all added to me just wanting to finish it and get through it. Kh3 was just a fun casual experience and I could just enjoy going through the worlds and reveling in its beauty while I went through the story. I do wish there would be more of kh1 style exploring and treasures, but if I'm still doing all that after 6 worlds of trying to do that same thing, I think it would just be tiring and I'd just skip through some of it since I'm just trying for a more casual experience with some challenge involved
I feel the opposite to you but I play games so avidly that I go for almost everything every time I play a game, so I feel a great sense of reward from KH1's design.
@@CloneLoli That's fair, I'm not gonna disagree with that, it just wasn't for me at the end of it all, and I like to be a completionist. I mainly play kh for casual fun, the rewards and challenges are nice but I just like to run through a game casually for me. Everyone will see it differently for sure
KH3D's exploration did feel like KH3D, but I absolutely loved KH3D's world exploration more than anything else in the game. Kh3 at least has some decent combat though.
20:24 "But the process of getting that chest is something you will literally remember for the rest of your life" In Kingdom Hearts 2, the only chest I remember is the one in the lobby of the Twilight Town mansion because it was the last chest I needed for 100% and I spent 3 hours gliding around trying to find it. I remember at least one cool chest in every KH1 world.
It's funny knowing how KH1 was made in 2002, but some things have been found only a few years ago, there may even be a secret that still hasn't been found yet.
The biggest blemish on KH3’s level design (imo) is that you can VERY CLEARLY see that 1) the worlds were, in fact, made by different teams, and 2) which teams were better at it than others (and just how big that gap can be). Some of the worlds were great; some of them were fucking awful. I don’t think KH1 OR KH2 really had the same kind of low points in terms of world design, they were much more consistently good. Also, this is just a personal preference thing, but I really do NOT care for big open-world spaces in games, *especially* when those huge open spaces translate into spending the overwhelming majority of your time traveling from point A to point B. The worlds in KH1 and KH2 were overall relatively smaller, sure, but they also had a lot of value in revisiting them AND they’re snappy to move through thanks to save points. KH3’s loading times alone make the size of the levels kind of not worth it for me, but also some of the worlds were just an absolute slog to complete because of the scale and a lack of adequate save points to travel between (Frozen is by far the biggest culprit for me).
I think Kingdom Hearts 3 ends up reflecting the problem with people prioritizing a game being open world over having interesting level design. Having a big open world only means anything if it feels fun to explore and interact with. If it's not just stick to having smaller areas with a better focus on level design
@@gamerprince-tl5hg compared to the previous games it's a little bit more open but yeah I wouldn't strictly classify all the worlds as open aside from definitely pirates and Big hero 6
one of the ones i still remember is in arendelle well in the ice maze, theres one section where youre forced to rail flowmotion across dealing with enemys, but if you notice theres a second rail, and also notice your attacks break some of the terrain you can break one part and try to get on the upper rail to get to a higher place for a chest you dont really got access to other wise. overall the areas with alot more railroaded exploration or focused areas kinda made them build odd tricks to hide making you just wanting to see what would be a point of intrest for you to see if something is there
Even replaying the game knowing where the treasures are its always fun to explore the worlds and collect the treasures in KH 1. There are a lot of staat boost Items hidden in those worlds.
Dream Drop was a revelation at the time and did deserve special mention, which is actually REALLY funny because Dream Drop was just Birth by Sleep's engine running on a machine with over thrice the usable RAM of the PSP! The usual complaints about enemies never staggering from your attacks, grinding Dream Eaters for commands, and the worlds being bigger for the sake of it are all true, it isn't a game I am itching to entirely replay, but getting to see Traverse Town, Paris, Pleasure Island, and Organization XIII's castle basically to scale was probably worth the trip.
I think the earlier worlds in KH3 were much better and I wonder if it's because it was either running on the old engine at the time or if they had a slightly different team then or what. I remember there being an interview around I think when Frozen was revealed or something that the earlier worlds were nearly done and the later worlds like Big Hero 6 were still near the beginning phases, so they probably had a lot of ambition and time to flesh out those earlier worlds and I guess some point along the way they just tried to do what they could to make the worlds in the first place.
That would make sense, I found the Big Hero 6 world to be really empty. There were NPCS but they weren't asking me for tasks. They were just standing there repeating the same dialogue.
All the Ub era Mickey references built into the Classic Mickey games were my favorite part of KH3 (besides the Saix fight music). In addition, I loved seeing Square-Enix take on Game & Watch, which I considered a nice little full cricle moment when you consider the the first Kingdom Hearts was Square's attempt at Mario 64
KH1's Metroidvania-ism saved it and made full use of the little boxes they had to deal with to map the game. Always sad for me how little insentive you have to ever go back to a world or area in these games because they completely got rid of that aspect. As you get so many maneuverability in KH3 through the game that it surprises me that they only used it for comfort? Options for the sake of options? Instead of integrating it fully into their game
I feel like the ddd comparison is pretty accurate, but I felt like while the scale and design was similar, 3 made it a lot easier to tell where to go, and had a lot more stuff in those wide open areasd. In both the DS and PS4 version of DDD, I always felt lost because most of the levels look the same everywhere and connect unusually, but I almost never felt lost in 3.
I sometimes wonder if Flowmotion as a recurring feature could mean we never get to see the more complex rooms and chest placements of KH1 again, since Flowmotion necessitates large areas and would make getting to chests incredibly simple almlst regardless of where they are place.
We need a character with limited movement options who can actively learn them throughout the story. KH3 gives Sora a lot of his movement abilities in the very beginning. KH2FM makes the big mistake of locking them to Drive Forms that nobody will level up until they run into the Cavern of Remembrance. KH1 lets Sora (and Donald/Goofy) learn all four abilities naturally throughout the story.
I think theyve laid a solid foundation with kh3 world design. Its still flawed in a few areas but alot better than the majority of the series but they can now keep building upon it in future entries. Olympus, Toy Box, Corona and Carribean I find very fun to explore due to their visual variety, freedom and cool little secrets extra things to uncover. Arandelle, Monstropolis and San Fransokyo dont fare quite as well and are more bland exploration wise but with how fun kh3 movement is even in a world as visually dull as Arandelle I can have some fun just scaaling the mountain as fast as possible.
Some similar things to the KH1 stuff you mentioned Mehaman Zero 3. You know how in Z3, you had to Jump on an enemy with Recoil Rod's Downward Charge Thrust, to get a Reserve Tank? Or in Ninja Gaiden Black, where you go into a dead end, but do your wall jumps that only a Ninja can do, to find the Windmill Shuriken & an Xbox logo that fully healed you? Shit like that sticks with you
Another big issue I'd like to mention (at least one that happens to me personally), is that because Corona and Arendelle are so big and have such same-y color pallettes (Corona is just green and brown and Arendelle is just blue and white), I have a tendency to get lost, especially if my map isn't fixed to north. Monsters suffers from this as well to some extent. I think it's confusing to navigate.
Level design only really matters as far as actual content. San Fransokyo reflects “level design” in KH3. Yes it’s big, yes it’s impressive how open it is. But what’s there to do? There’s only so many treasure chests and emblems you can paste everywhere before you ask yourself “Was this really worth it? Do I actually need or _want_ these?”
also i think you should get some sorta vibrating when a chest is close in proximity it helped a lot in ghost of tsushima and should be in other games aswell
Great analysis BB. I know you don't respond much anymore, but here's hoping you read this: Have you played World of Final Fantasy? The world was full of forks: go left or go right. Go the wrong way there's a dead end and chest, go the right way you miss it, and forced to backtrack to get the chest if you wanted it, then rebacktrack. Sure there might be some nice view at the dead end, but most times not so much. Much of the kh3 chest collection feels like WoFF. I quick game I'd recommend you try out though!
One thing that really sucked about the large rooms (especially on critical mode with all its BS that entailed) in KH3 was if you died somewhat near the end, your only checkpoints weere at the start of the room so I was incentivised to run past all the enemies, grabbing as many safe chests as I could and just run to the end as fast as possible (looking at you, Arendalle). God forbid you die while treasure hunting in Sanfransokyo Similarly, I remember ragequitting DDD because I was doing pet minigame grinding for a solid hour, didn't room save, died to an enemy in the same room and lost all the progress because I didn't room save.
All these points are amazing, but one big thing that I think KH2 nailed that they should've made a trend is giving each world a second trip. Each world, for me, overstayed their welcome; usually I'd be completely done with a world 10 or more minutes before I'd get to the world boss. Cut each world's story in half or so and I'd WANT to come back for the bonus revisit. Plus, KH2 had an amazing balance between the movie we love on the first trip, but an interesting original story that further involved the Organization or the Heartless interacting with the Disney characters like they're disturbing the natural order rather than standing in the background of the movie. One of my favorite examples is the Pirates of the Caribbean world in KH2. The first trip had Pete slightly alternating the cast of the movie, but didn't alter the events. The second trip had the organization coming in, playing by the pirates' rules, redoing the curse, and having Jack comment on how they're making pirates, "look like proper gents." And that may be more of a story problem than a level design problem.
I don't like how unimportant the first visits are in KH2, but at least the split made the worlds less tiring to go through. Going through Arendelle, I was so bored and every time I thought it would approach near the end, it went on for another 10 minutes.
In my Option the KH3 Level design is a evolution of KHDDD. KH3 made flow motion Not spamable and Had more Love to the World. For exampel all the integration with Rapunzel in Kingdom of Corona. It's Level Design is functional but not to great. But some of this Moments are such fantastic in my View. And i hope there will improve in this Basic. 0.2 had better Puzzel. And if the Evolution in both things, we will get Something great. Well that what i hope
I think wall running marred my enjoyment of moving around the worlds- I would have liked to be forced to use Sora's other tools. In small spaces it was just annoying, especially since it happened automatically. At least they got it right sometimes with giving you abilities and then forcing you to use them. Doubleflight, like you said, and also superjump in Rapunzel world.
One of the most egregious things to me is still how they ordered chests. It's impossible to find out what chest in the Journal references what location like you could intuit in KH2. There's no flow in the log and chests seem ordered almost randomly.
To be fair: I do like the level design for dream drop for making its world come to life and really capture the feel of those Disney worlds. It really made me feel like I was exploring cyberspace, Paris, and the abstract beautiful world of fantasia It isn't perfect but I think it's better than the design of BBS and kh2
I agree with most of the points in the video but thinking about what was praises for KH1. I actually think BBS did well with some of the exploration and Easter Eggs on some of the worlds (despite de combat system being what it is)
In terms of treasure chests. Make it a combination of both KH1 and KH3, where they’re hard to find, but you can’t do a full sweep of them in your first visit. I believe you could actually get every chest in your first sweep throughout the worlds in KH3, minus a chest or two.
Please no. I absolutely despise seeing chests that I can't get the first time through a world. Sure it makes the chests more memorable, but not in a good way. It pisses me off, and feel like they're creating artificial reasons to make me return to an area
I felt that the KH3 worlds were, really cool for the first time! and then through the second playthrough I was just. It feels as though the flow of the worlds are just.. weird?? It's a lot of me getting lost, or being like "where do I go now" and I know KH3 is much less linear compared to KH2fm. I also skipped all the cutscenes on my second playthrough so I definitely could blame my ignorance on where to go from that. Pirates world was still my favorite, but I disliked areas that were "blocked off" so to speak. Like, the forest areas that are blocked by just, solid walls. Let me explore the whole world man!
I'd say I do agree that treasure hunting is more rewarding when you have to work for it as you do in earlier games... But on the other hand, it's a tough spot to put developers in. Sora had gained all these incredible abilities and it's important to make these things feel effortless to show his incredible progress since KH1. You could always design worlds to challenge Sora in the use of all his abilities in order to be rewarded ... But honestly, with all his incredible powers, how crazy would these worlds have to be designed in order to effectively do that without making the worlds unrealistic or impractical to the source material (Disney movie it's inspired from)?
What’s weird is that first time I played Olympus and found the forge and even a hidden quest, for as useless as it was, I enjoyed it and thought kh3 was gonna be full of these stuff, but then there’s almost nothing else
Seriously what the heck, I was expecting a special forge for every world. Such a drop for this set up.
What was the hidden quest?
@@philmstud2k You can give this little kid golden hercules dolls found around the map
Hence why Olympus is the best and only good KH3 world
they clearly had the ideas there. i hope they just needed more time and were rushed by a deadline. hopefully kh4 just takes its time and creates a masterpiece but i'll believe it when i see it
I remember in Olympus there being an Achilles statue where you have to break his heel to open a kinda secret path that leads to a chest. Thought that was pretty clever. Needed more stuff like that.
you can definitely tell that, aside from the final parts of the game, most of the work went into the first world. as much love and sweat and blood went into the whole disney/pixar part of the game, it seemed olympus went a step further in every way.
Olympus is the most epic world
@@TheToffen yeah its actually a fun world to go through unlike other worlds.
@@TheToffen yeah, Olympus felt fun to go through!
I think it's quite cathartic that Olympus got the best level design this time around...
(took 'em what, 17 years?)
This is actually a KH1 level design appreciation video😂
KH1 deserved it
@@comunisman4368 not really
@@user1982 To each their own I guess. But I love the KH1 worlds. That's the game I find myself going back to time and again.
@@mixttime everytime I go back to KH1 I dread having to actually traverse the worlds. It's the #1 thing that keeps me from going back to that game as much as I want to.
@@ImaTroper I blame the camera. The camera in KH1 is _way_ too close for the amount of platforming they expect you you do. At least Final Mix moved the camera off of L2/R2 and onto the left stick. The camera is my only big gripe about KH1.
I played KH1 for the first time recently and I LOVED the level design, because of how chests and Trinities were hidden behind puzzles and environment interactions. And I'm STILL learning new stuff about it, I had no idea you could freeze those bubbles in Hollow Bastion until this video, my mind is fucking broken lmao
KH1's design is definitely a bit rusty, but it has a lot of charm that I wish the other games held onto. Trinities and magic-puzzles and such helped you feel more in touch with the world, and I honestly wish they'd bring that back.
And yeah, the bubbles in KH1 are just....such an obscure touch. to the point where So many people dont even think to do it. But it's there, and frankly it's such a neat little thing. I want more games to build off of KH1's design philosophy please.
Wonderland has so much cool stuff that you can interact with its insane
@@TheKeyblader133 Story, level design, excellent use of the Disney Element, clunky gameplay that one could argue was on purpose to give just the right amount of challenge. There is just so much about KH1 that so many don't appreciate.
Was hopin all things u encountered in every kh game like environment interactions card duels n shit would end up in kh3
@@TeryJones its crazy how you're just like "this game plays bad and that makes it harder so that's a good thing"
I’ve always missed the KH1 interactive world, and especially that rare, special little boopity-boop-boop! chime that would play when you had accomplished something special and secret. I don’t think that sound effect was ever used again after 1. Oh and the trinities, lord persevere me how I miss the trinities...
trinities are just keys in a game where the protag already has a superkey so they needed to recontextualize the keys as stuff like balancing on goofy's dick to cross a gap to explain why sora can't just open the path with his superkey
... and it's kinda telling that the _first trinity you get_ genuinely makes less sense than the phrase "balancing on goofy's dick to cross a gap"
@@hi-i-am-atan yeah, but that’s not the point, they’re fun environmental rewards for your progression and attentiveness to the environments of the worlds you’ve visited. Balancing on goofy’s groin is all about the journey, not the destination.
@@foffingCh. i just find it bizarre that you so badly miss unlocking secrets you couldn't before by starting a cutscene of goofy launching his extendodick and watching sora automatically balance over to a frustratingly-out-of-the-way chest, especially when kh1 already had plenty of miniature puzzles that are along the lines of organically using the extendodick and pulling off the balance minigame yourself
when writing this comment, i was originally using "grinding" in the sense of how sonic games do it, but then i looked back over on it and realized i probably shouldn't be using that word to connect goofy's extendodick and a 14-year-old sora
@@hi-i-am-atan again, the haha funnee cutscene is not the part I miss as much as the unlocking of secrets and encouraging interaction with the worlds and how it encourages you to return to previous ones to unlock more things, which is way better than something like hunting for hidden Mickeys just to get a full completion. Though it is nice to see the main three get skills to solve the problems together as a team over the course of the story, especially when at the start they weren’t particularly good friends, Sora and Donald were just trying to exploit the other for their own means, but by the end they’re a team. So in that way, it’s significantly better development than the later games just talking about how good of friends everyone is
@@foffingCh. yeah but
that didn't stem from trinity marks, that was a part of kh1's design as a whole. spells, high jump, and glide all accomplished the same thing, but far more organically. the trinity marks _were_ a part of it, sure, but they were easily the weakest form and, honestly, basically boil down to kh3's chests but with _locks_
like, hunting them down was largely just checking generic goodiebags off a checklist, except sometimes you can't actually check them off until _several_ hours after you already found them. so, you either have to try to remember the color and location of all the ones you can't use so you can come back to them once you finally can use them ... or you just don't bother with the optional ones until you've unlocked all the trinities, reducing them to just kh3's chests anyway
for as half-baked as it was, the trinity sled from kh3 took the whole concept behind trinity marks and executed on it ten times better. the most glaring issue with it is that a. you unlock it in the first world and b. it's the _only trinity technique of its kind,_ so at no point do you get to unlock a new trinity technique and go "oh, wait, i can probably use this in that other world!" but it still makes for a _fantastic_ foundation that hopefully will be expanded on in later games, far moreso than the trinity marks
In regards to the chest thing, it feels like KH1 has chests in view a lot of the time. Like if you just move around the world you will see plenty, and the challenge comes from making tough jumps or finding out how to get to the chests whereas KH3 chests' challenge is just finding the chests in massive worlds. Both are exploration but with KH1 you have constant miniature goals shown to you that you want to solve while KH3 you aimlessly run around to hope you find chests.
When he was talking about rewarding surprising chests... When I found the Oblivion holy shiiiiit
Lol, they put that in the room where you most needed it, but a cutscene blocks your path.
@@shimsokshim2995 They're little trolls who meant it for your return trip, but wanted you to know about it the first time.
I wish Oblivion wasn't made so useless in KH1FM though.
Shame that Divine Rose, a keyblade that you get LITERALLY THE ROOM BEFORE, completly outclasses in a genuinely baffling bit of game design
@@disasterrook2656 i was the guy would didnt use shorter length key blades... I used fairy harp for ALL of hades cup.. Ive never wiffed so many times in my life before
One of the things i found unfortunate about KH3's level design was the fact that exploring the more open worlds didnt really feel...natural. The bigness and freedom of movement weren't really..reigned in through a satisfying way. Either chests are really obvious, or completely obscure to find (I'm looking at you BH6. The idea of a giant city is fun at first, but eventually it all just started blending together and I couldnt remember where I'd looked, or predict where they might just throw a chest.) Definitely one of the things that would be rather difficult to manage when you design your worlds to be super open, but having care in a level to teach you how to search it would have done a lot.
But then I guess that's better than what happened to Frozen xD
Potc was easily my favorite world to explore though. Breaking up the exploration into smaller islands, while getting to enjoy sailing to them and exploring the map on your ship was really enjoyable. Tbh the only thing I think POTC failed on was how inconsistent the enemy ship encounters were. You could sometimes just run into 3 back to back, and sometimes accidentally de-agro them and the fights would disappear (I'm looking at you, Super-Boss fleet). Otherwise, it and Toy Box probably were my favorite worlds to play.
San Fransokyo is like literally a huge box, with a few devisions, really boring.
I keep thinking that it would have been great if each world had a different functionality as they did in Caribbean, putting a pirate ship for us to explore the world was a very good idea and it intensified the immersion of gameplay, bringing the feeling that the worlds really are different, work differently and we need to adapt to it, if they had made San Fransokyo an open-world subgenre, like GTA but with simpler objectives, we had to save citizens, chase evildoers, enter establishments, and etc, it would have been a great thing, and it could work for all other worlds differently
@@TronSAHeroXYZ It's also oddly small though. You look around and think, oh, I haven't explored that yet, only to have that blue boundary wall just block you off. You can't even go back to the bridge that opened the level unless you do the battle gate that takes you back there for a fight.
KH3 might've had the same design mentality as DDD, but the reason people dislike DDD's level design is because the INDIVIDUAL places in each world were empty. There are a lot more linear corridors and some treasure chests require too much wall jumping to reach.
The main problem with DDD's level design is that (and I'm quoting SomeCallMeJohnny here): "The developers gave you flowmotion, and they want you to use the hell out of it to travel around". They realized that if they design normal sized worlds, like in past games, with DDD's flowmotion they will be over too quickly. Unfortunately, instead of nurfing it to be less broken or to make the worlds only slightly bigger, they designed the the worlds to last as long as a normal world in past games, which meant MUCH larger worlds. In DDD there's only 1 logical way to travel around, which is wall-jumping, and that's tedious.
Whereas DDD was pure wall-jumping, in KH3 you combine the usage of all of Sora's moveset to travel around. Some places require a specific tool to bypass and some wall-running segments have enemies on them that might screw you and you'll fall of (forcing you to dodge them mid-wall-running). Some areas even allow you to do sequence-break with proper use of movement. For example: In Kingdom of Corona, if you use Aero in the platforming segment right before the horse boss fight, you can rely on the jump panel made be the Aero to reach high areas earlier than intended and potentially skip mob fights. You can bypass the lasers segment in Mostropolis by going to a wall, doing a wall-jump, and attacking+air-sliding repeatedly. It feels like you are more than just doing flowmotion repeatedly to travel around.
Also, while big treasures are often filled with disappointing rewards, the TOTAL AMOUNT of treasures in KH3 is larger than DDD's so the rate, which you collect treasures at is more frequent, giving the feel that you are constantly being rewarded for exploration. The treasures are also placed a lot more cleverly and hide within the environment better in KH3 than in DDD. It makes the worlds FEEL less empty and more entertaining to explore. Going back to SomeCallMeJohnny, he was afraid KH3's world will be as empty as DDD's, but was relieved to see that they were full of exploration with treasure chests and lucky emblems (which you had unfairly ignored to include within you essay).
Now, a counter-arguement for that will be that the exploration is only fun on first playthrough because on repeated playthroughs you already know the locations of the secrets and it becomes mindless, but the feel of constant rewarding by reaching to those treasures is still more interesting than DDD's reacher, but less entertaining exploration.
A point I raised myself, but more eloquently explained in depth. Perfect. 👌
i also dont understand why he didnt include the lucky emblems.
they are a great tool to force the player to be more focused of his surroundings which passively supports the world exploration aspect.
it felt rewarding to find a lucky emblem if u looked hard enough and thought about hiding spots. the emblem in toy box which u had to reveal by punchibg away some boxes for example.
in addition to that all of them are great easter eggs which, for some emblems, also make great use of the environment (hercules stone emblem, monstropolis color splash emblem, etc)
also as a grand reward u would obtain oblivion which provided you with more gameplay fun.
all in all a great system which enhanced the world exploration tremendously imo.
@@benjaminrizzuti510 Thanks. I do agree with him that KH1 had more puzzles and gimmicks that made the worlds interesting, but KH1 is SO inconsistant. For every good world like Hollow Bastion and Traverse Town you have bad ones like Deep Jungle and Monstro. Some of the gimmicks also feel like frustrating mechanics I could've done without like swimming combat in Atlantica and platforming in... basically everywhere. The worlds in KH1 might be better designed than KH3's, but they are also full of jank carried by the game's unpolished mechanics. That's why I enjoy KH3's worlds more, because the stuff within the worlds feels like it was designed with the super mobiled Sora in mind so it never feels frustrating.
Also, KH1 has Neverland. NOTH SAID!
@@thomasstolz9777 No, it's Oathkeeper. Oblivion is given to you by beating the game on crit.
But yeah, the lucky emblems are no less a part of the level design than actual exploration, especially the one in Toy Box where you have to stand at the right position to see 3 disco balls combine into a Mickey head.
@@roiitzkovich4545 oh, got 'em switched up. sorry for that one. thanks for correcting me!
KH1 levels: run in circles until you solve everything
KH2 levels: run forward and fight a lot
KH3 levels: Parkour forward and fight a lot.
I loved Scala in Remind KH3 because they had all the little puzzles to find the pieces of Kairi's heart. Definitely needed more of that in the rest of the game.
25:35 (Talking from own experience, I've played all of the games in the series)
-DDD has wide ROOMS while KH3 has gigantic AREAS that are begging you to explore them until you've seen everything it can offer you. DDD was just as an empty corridor as KH2, although it could have offered the player interest to explore all of this huge spaces/rooms, it didn't. This forces the player in not wanting to spend time running around pointless and boring areas.
KH3 solved that aspect and that is directly related to the difficulty of finding chests, as the main purpose of the chests in KH3 (at least from my point of view) was encouraging the player to explore all of those areas (and I must admit that, although they may ease exploration a bit too much, KH3's movement abilities give a feeling of freedom -you're finally able to move fast and where you actually want instead of being force to use mecanics that were there to solve the limitations of KH1's small rooms such as HB's bubbles).
-The main idea of spreading the chests throughout every part of a certain world was making the player enjoy their time doing a Treasure Hunt -as you've said relating the Caribbean- (Where is this chest? Instead of How do I get THAT chest?) while you really get caught in the ambience of KH3's great soundtrack (specially the field themes obviously).
-Finally (there are more reasons but I don't want to make this comment that long), KH3 offered variety in all of its worlds. San Fransokyo streets and areas were never the same but were quite similar, The Caribbean isles had different feeling and atmosphere (I remember for example one having a sunken ship and other allowing you to explore an area first covered in vegetation), Olympus offered three completely different atmospheres in a single world (and even with their own field themes!)...etc. All of this focuses on appealing the player on exploring those little paradises on their own, while DDD's worlds were just corridors that were exactly the same in every single aspect (The Grid, for example, was a big disappointment whith its awfully linear and identical hallways, specially considering how interesting was this exact some world, as Space Paranoids, in KH2), this leads into a feeling of anxiety, as everything seems exactly the same to you, what forces to players to wanting to get out of that "cage" as soon as they can.
PD: I actually enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean main story in KH3 xD. Maybe it is because I loved PoC at World's End.
I feel like the reason KH3's level design is so well regarded is twofold. One, it's much better than 2's. Two, while the design of 1 is probably better, the jankiness of the platforming (real or perceived) made people more frustrated with the design. You talked specifically about chests and how to get them being difficult and more puzzle like. While that might be the case, I think that many people ended up trying to get those chests and failed, and just got angry and blamed the platforming, and subsequently the level design for it. I know it happened to me when I was younger, and I can even tell you exactly where it was: the chest near Merlin's House that you need to Glide to. I was already annoyed enough that I had to backtrack to get the chest (because while I know people like that "required" backtracking to get chests after you get new abilities, I personally hate it with a passion), but failing to land on the island and needing to go all the way back to try again made me really angry at the game.
So yeah, while I can say that from as objective of a standpoint as you can get on something like this that KH1's level design is probably superior to 3's, I personally get more enjoyment out of 3's levels than I ever did from 1's
I don't HATE the idea of backtracking in games, but tbf it has to be worth it or be relevant to progress.
It is usually done better in stuff like Metroidvania type games where you get a power up and it is like "wow there is so much I can access now". This also tends to happen a lot earlier than you know.....the second to last world of a 20-30 hour game such as in your scenario with Glide.
This pretty much relaly. KH1 also has tendency on placing enemies next to chests or high platforming, causing you unable to open the chest or got knocked down. It's frustrating.
@@RPGNoZero yeah idk what they were thinking with no opening chests in combat. I can see not interacting with some objects, but chests??
@@amethonys2798 I guess should clarify that my opinion on backtracking is mostly limited to RPGs. And I don't mind it for story purposes... So long as it's not done for blatant game padding. For example, second visit to Traverse Town is good. Second visits in KH2 are not.
But when it's backtracking for the sake of getting optional things within an area (e.g. chests, trinities), that's when I get pissed off. It feels like the game is creating artificial reasons to make me come back to an area instead of just making the area interesting or memorable in the first place. This is why I like lucky emblems much better than trinities. If you know where the lucky emblems are, you're able to collect all of them the first time you enter a world (exception of Olympus). But realistically, when you first play the game you're not going to. So it encourages more exploration of the world and encourages you to come back without forcing you to leave something behind and come back later
@@amethonys2798 Also, as far as chests go, I think it's just a relic of the old design of the bottom command slot. Remember, back in vanilla 1 (and I think the original PS2 release of 1FM), you opened chests (and activated trinities) with the bottom Command Menu option. Since this option was also where you activated your "limits" (Sonic Blade, Strike Raid, etc), they probably felt that if they made chests openable in combat, there would be situations where a player wanted to use a limit, but opened a chest instead and got killed because of it.
Granted, the same thing could have happened in KH2, but the more contextual nature of RCs probably made them feel like it was much less likely.
I think a mix of kh3 and kh1 as a way to give chests to the players would be best. In my opinion, kh3 is satisfying and easy, and kh1 is rewarding because it's challenging. Giving some rewards that are easy to get and others that are difficult/require later growth abilities and spells while also keeping the large worlds and npcs seems ideal to me.
To answer the question about why people like kh3's design more than DDD's, it's probably because the movement is better for one. For me, flowmotion felt really clunky and I would often go in a direction I didn't want to. Kh3 airstepping, glide, air slide (especially repeated jump to airslide combo on a slope) at least seems smoother. So even if they have the same level design, I think the tools they give you are better and less frustrating to use.
Precisely a good middle ground. If KH3 just had a bunch more challenges and unique requirements for rewards I would have loved it.
I think they really should have alliwed for infinite flowmotion tho. There are a few people like me that find wallrunning boring in comparison.
I think more chests need to be solved using magic since your movement in 3 is already so good that simply showing a chest slightly out of reach isn't going to cut it. In KH1 it had a mix of magic and platforming based puzzles you may only solve later in the game once you achieve a particular ability or magic to get to it later because Sora was more grounded in that game.
The thing I love about KH3'S level design is how it manages to keep things varied without breaking pace. Look at Arrendel, you are constantly shifting the method of traversal, the use of niche mechanics like the slide shot and the snow ball, the type of enemies and how you interact with them, etc. (Juggling heartless with a snowball never gets old!) Even in a more straightforward level like Monstropolis, they have a variety of areas, such as the one with all the pipes, the room with all the boxes before the elevator, the arena with the fire where your encouraged to keep the flames under control, the list goes on.
While it would be great to have slightly more hidden/puzzle based chests, the actual experience of going through the levels is very well done, at least in my opinion.
Should’ve been more interactive like the 0.2 passage
0.2 was great in that, like a true adventure
I would say the level design in KH1 was confusing but intriguing, in KH2 and BBS it was clear but linear, and in DDD and KH3 it is was visually impressive but boring to explore.
Having just played KH1 recently i would say i found the experience the exact opposite, its chests was either painfully obvious how to get, you just had to wait for the right ability or bash your head against the controls, or so obscure that it was just frustrating to find them.
As for the freezing bubbles thing, i never knew you could do that until i watched this video, so i just thought i was stupid in the puzzle room and spent a good hour or so messing around because the game never hinted at it being a possibility.
He is just talking from nostalgia not actual experience or level design creator perspective, you be surprised how many people say Riku final battle was random as hell and the hardest boss battle to date only for newer players to defeat him in 1 try because he is easy a hell.
Ohhh class is in session
An important thing to consider with KH3s lack of memorable landmarks and breadcrumbing. You are completely at the whim of the minimap. Meanwhile in KH1 each area in each world (save monstro) you know exactly where you are.
I’m not some kh3 shill but like I think it’s BECAUSE of the advanced movement that you can’t really have jumping puzzles you know? Like flying around the map literally anywhere you want to go is very easily within reach so it would be hard to make movement puzzles. I will say that I was extremely disappointed after finding the forge in Olympus and then realizing that was pretty much the only secret thing to find in the entire game, that was whack.
Critical was really really fun too, i didn’t play the game on release so my first experience was the updated version with the dlc data fights so it ended up being my fav KH game
they could have gliding puzzles like flying through lasers or something, timed airstep puzzles with points that only appear for a fraction of a second over bottomless pits, that kind of thing.
but well... considering they rushed it out before critical mode was even done I'm not surprised they didn't e.e
alexander martinez you know, I was thinking that after I posted the comment but like you’re definitely right, a lot of the game felt really rushed. I think they put most of their efforts into visuals rather than into decent level design or cool game mechanics. Reprisals are cool af tho I like dems
They don't need puzzles. They just need to do SOMETHING with all that open space. Instead of just climbing up the mountain in Olympus, have us climb all the way to the top, release a boulder that smashes part of a wall, then let us backtrack through the wall to get a chest or two. In Monstropolis, have the door section take us to 5 or 6 different paths with different routes and rewards. In San Fransokyo, have airstepping play a more significant role in traversal and exploration instead of relying on wall running. They had a lot of opportunities to make the world just slightly more interactive and they only really did it in one or two sections in Olympus.
As for why people praise Kh3's level design and don't talk about DDD's I feel it's because of the worlds themselves. People aren't as attached to things like Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Tron Legacy as they are with Toy Story and Monster's Inc.
DDD had beautiful worlds. The thing I heavily dislike about them is that they're just so empty. Little to no NPCs, and flowmotion allows you to get everywhere in your first visit.
The platform the games were on would be a huge factor. Dream Drop Distance was on the 3DS, which had more technical limitations and fewer buttons. With the PS4 there’s two four button set ups, two joysticks and four shoulder buttons, while the 3DS has two four button set ups, one joystick and two shoulder buttons, with the shoulder buttons being relegated to camera rotation. Dream Drop Distance was pretty impressive for an RPG on the 3DS, especially compared to the scope, gameplay and visuals on the DS titles 258/2 Days and re:coded.
I feel like airstepping and certain flowmotion abilities should have been unlocked later into the game to make it feel like Sora actually grew throughout his journey, even from a movement perspective.
Yessssssssssss, this is everything I’ve thought about KH3’s level design. I was planning on making a video myself in the future if no one else did. KH3 was definitely a step in the right direction in certain areas, but personally I don’t think that’s enough for a game that was meant to conclude the Xehanort saga...
A few other issues I personally had with the level design:
- when chests could be hidden in any given nook, cranny or building in a world, why would I even want to use my movement options to zip around if that can really easily lead me to missing a chest?
- while the worlds got bigger, the chests did not. That, compounded with the more realistic shading and textures, made chests blend in with the environment and hard to see at times. This could have been used in clever ways, but this happens with even the most inconsequential chests.
- this is a problem I’ve had since KH2, but ever since they included a treasure list in the series, treasure hunting became more of an obligation/chore than actual exploration.
I remember playing Olympus, breathing a huge sigh of relief and thinking to myself “I can only imagine how amazing Twilight Town, Radiant Garden and the Realm of Darkness/Castle Oblivion are going to be.” I also remember thinking, “If the Rock Titan is THIS epic, imagine what the Keyblade War will be like!”
Sigh lol I ultimately enjoyed KH3 for what it was and I respect the Osaka team’s improvements and hard work....but there was only one Xehanort Saga finale and that still hurts a little 1.5HD years later.
Nice joke with the “1.5HD” LOL
KH1 puzzles were godlike!
I enjoyed KH3, but when I first played KH1 & 2 as a kid I didn’t have a memory card so I had to restart them every Saturday and Sunday morning. The exact chest BB mentioned was always tantalizing and sometimes I would forget it and swing back when I saw it at a later point of traverse town. I was always getting it at different points in the first 2 hours of the game, so I found different ways to do it in order to get further in the game before I would be forced to shut it down. KH2 with the speed of valor form made progress so much easier.
I used to just keep my PS2 on and just turn off my tv hahahaa
Kh1 puzzles were amazing , like never lands clock tower chests if you comeback during certain playtimes you’ll get a new chest or the candle puzzle in traverse town ,the wonderland flowers that give you chests or make you bigger and the bizarre room the mechanics in opening clams with magic in alantica
I was actually dicussing the other day that I missed the puzzles of kh1 and felt very rewarding like doing the hippo jumps in the deep jungle
Flowmotion in DDD was literally my favorite thing to do and way to get around, while in KH3, I literally never used it unless I was forced to, like at some parts in Arendale or whatever.
Ddd level design is amazing. I climbed up notre damm just for the sake of doing it, it's so fun moving about even if the game isn't too great
Kh3 level design is visually good but it has technical Issues. The levels has to be like CoR or kh1 wonderlands MORE puzzles
You know it's funny that he didn't mention this or I'm not really done with the video but 19 minutes and he hasn't even mentioned Kevin a remembrance. It might not have been that awesome to some people but I really thought it was cool how they make you use your growth abilities in ways that you didn't know for example quick run fall down a bit and then aerial Dodge
SOLDIER 1st Class He has actually mentioned CoR (different stream, but he said it’s one of the best areas in the game because it has parkour and puzzles and stuff from KH1 missing from KH2). Also I don’t know who Kevin is sorry
@@yash_kapoor forgive me I was voice typing LOL Cavern of remembrance
Next topic combat, music, character design?
I liking this so far
I want KH1 worlds (general design and cool stuff) combined with KH3 worlds (expansive and few loading zones) with KH2's tight gameplay. They do that and it'll be a buttery good game.
I think the big difference is that after KH1 chests became an official collectible, the journal tracks them and hence they are required for 100%. Once chests became necessary for journal completion they can’t be as well hidden as the bubble Blizzard chest in KH1.
I feel like that's a lazy reason. Getting 100% in a game shouldn't be easy in the first place, so why would the developers actively be scared to make a hidden chest?
As a whole and the premise i agree, there was a lot of things they could've done to improve the experience from each world,. I wouldn't call it boring however, there was a lot of interesting sections when you deviated from the main path, although they could've been more consistent in making it a rewarding experience. An idea that could've made it feel more rewarding was to make less soras in the final world sequence and make them more difficult to gather and require some more interesting use of wall run or air step. The last thing I'd say is I really like Classic Tone, it's a copy of hyper hammer sure but it has great magic stats, has a 360 shield, and has its own unique finisher, like sure functionally with physical combos its just like hyper hammer but i think the intention for boom hammer was for it to be a magic damage physical stagger hybrid and thats what makes it one of my favs, so in defense of Classic Kingdom at least you get a pretty neat keyblade.
They'd probably need to make the parkour abilities less jank in order for that to work. Sora may be the most mobile he's ever been in this game but he also feels the most clunky when trying to do anything outside of combat because of how much animation priority or awkward pauses he has between actions. For instance, that automatic mantle he does legitimately ticked me off a few times because I would try to make micro adjustments to my position at certain points and he'd go through the entire animation with no opportunity for me to get out of it. That's not even going into how the flowmotion still doesn't have a very great sense of flow or how disjointed the flow-mo attacks feel.
tbh I feel like with such powerful movement options where you can basically just zoom anywhere and fly as well a great way to make some challenge would be for some chests you will need too race through to somewhere on the map with a time limit to get the chest
Sees another KH talks
I've been looking forward to this
I really like your kh talks i want more of them! :)
It's good to make these Simply because we know people like Tai yasue who knows english pretty well follows a lot of kh content creator,maybe he saw this already. These videos are useful for the next games
Right off the bat: I think KH1 and KH3 had the best level design.
"KH3 Level Design > KH2 Level Design and therefore it is good." Sounds like people who try to deflect KH3 criticism by saying "Nyeh, you just want KH2FM. You don't care about anything new. Nyeh."
A lot of people hated it (including me, for quite some time), but Wonderland might have one of the best level designs in the entire Kingdom Hearts series. Getting around was a puzzle, and there were so many tricks that you had to figure out to find new pathways. There were also a bunch of bonuses that you unlocked by exploring and interacting with things. For example, if you hit the shelf, a teddy bear drops down and causes a book to become real. Open the book and you'll find a synthesis item. Move the bear and a grandfather clock becomes real. Move the clock and it will open a passage back into the Tea Party Garden. There are so many secrets to uncover if you have the patience to explore.
And yeah, nothing ever told you that you could even freeze the bubbles in Hollow Bastion in the first place. You had to figure it out by exploring on your own.
The Caribbean was built entirely around the exploration sidequest, and no attention was paid to properly developing and interacting with the story save for the obligatory boss fights. Who wouldn't have wanted to explore Shipwreck Cove?
Yo I can't wait till you get to the lack of Coliseum in KH3. Super good video.
Honestly, as someone who enjoys 3, I mostly agree with everything you say, but honestly, I would rather have a mix of both 3 and 1's design. Kh1 was fun to play, but after a while, I just kinda wanted to be done with it, and stopped caring about exploring for new rewards. Once I got past a certain point, it all just felt like too much to deal with, and with the mechanics and combat for me only being decent, it all added to me just wanting to finish it and get through it.
Kh3 was just a fun casual experience and I could just enjoy going through the worlds and reveling in its beauty while I went through the story. I do wish there would be more of kh1 style exploring and treasures, but if I'm still doing all that after 6 worlds of trying to do that same thing, I think it would just be tiring and I'd just skip through some of it since I'm just trying for a more casual experience with some challenge involved
I feel the opposite to you but I play games so avidly that I go for almost everything every time I play a game, so I feel a great sense of reward from KH1's design.
@@CloneLoli That's fair, I'm not gonna disagree with that, it just wasn't for me at the end of it all, and I like to be a completionist. I mainly play kh for casual fun, the rewards and challenges are nice but I just like to run through a game casually for me. Everyone will see it differently for sure
KH3D's exploration did feel like KH3D, but I absolutely loved KH3D's world exploration more than anything else in the game. Kh3 at least has some decent combat though.
20:24
"But the process of getting that chest is something you will literally remember for the rest of your life"
In Kingdom Hearts 2, the only chest I remember is the one in the lobby of the Twilight Town mansion because it was the last chest I needed for 100% and I spent 3 hours gliding around trying to find it.
I remember at least one cool chest in every KH1 world.
This has been a necessary series. Keep it coming, BB. 👌💯
It's funny knowing how KH1 was made in 2002, but some things have been found only a few years ago, there may even be a secret that still hasn't been found yet.
you should a series abouot the good and bad of every kingdom hearts game because i am loving this so much and its really interesting
These remind me of the bbs video. Awesome format and content! Can't wait for more!
The biggest blemish on KH3’s level design (imo) is that you can VERY CLEARLY see that 1) the worlds were, in fact, made by different teams, and 2) which teams were better at it than others (and just how big that gap can be). Some of the worlds were great; some of them were fucking awful. I don’t think KH1 OR KH2 really had the same kind of low points in terms of world design, they were much more consistently good.
Also, this is just a personal preference thing, but I really do NOT care for big open-world spaces in games, *especially* when those huge open spaces translate into spending the overwhelming majority of your time traveling from point A to point B. The worlds in KH1 and KH2 were overall relatively smaller, sure, but they also had a lot of value in revisiting them AND they’re snappy to move through thanks to save points. KH3’s loading times alone make the size of the levels kind of not worth it for me, but also some of the worlds were just an absolute slog to complete because of the scale and a lack of adequate save points to travel between (Frozen is by far the biggest culprit for me).
I think Kingdom Hearts 3 ends up reflecting the problem with people prioritizing a game being open world over having interesting level design. Having a big open world only means anything if it feels fun to explore and interact with. If it's not just stick to having smaller areas with a better focus on level design
Most of the worlds weren't even that open lol
@@gamerprince-tl5hg compared to the previous games it's a little bit more open but yeah I wouldn't strictly classify all the worlds as open aside from definitely pirates and Big hero 6
one of the ones i still remember is in arendelle well in the ice maze, theres one section where youre forced to rail flowmotion across dealing with enemys, but if you notice theres a second rail, and also notice your attacks break some of the terrain you can break one part and try to get on the upper rail to get to a higher place for a chest you dont really got access to other wise. overall the areas with alot more railroaded exploration or focused areas kinda made them build odd tricks to hide making you just wanting to see what would be a point of intrest for you to see if something is there
Even replaying the game knowing where the treasures are its always fun to explore the worlds and collect the treasures in KH 1. There are a lot of staat boost Items hidden in those worlds.
Hey, BB. Here's an interesting idea for a KHtalk: Wonderland! Is it good? Is it bad? What could it do better? What did it do correctly?
Hey great video👌 Very on point and informative.
What I got from this: I need to try DDD at some point since I have it.
Dream Drop was a revelation at the time and did deserve special mention, which is actually REALLY funny because Dream Drop was just Birth by Sleep's engine running on a machine with over thrice the usable RAM of the PSP! The usual complaints about enemies never staggering from your attacks, grinding Dream Eaters for commands, and the worlds being bigger for the sake of it are all true, it isn't a game I am itching to entirely replay, but getting to see Traverse Town, Paris, Pleasure Island, and Organization XIII's castle basically to scale was probably worth the trip.
I think the earlier worlds in KH3 were much better and I wonder if it's because it was either running on the old engine at the time or if they had a slightly different team then or what. I remember there being an interview around I think when Frozen was revealed or something that the earlier worlds were nearly done and the later worlds like Big Hero 6 were still near the beginning phases, so they probably had a lot of ambition and time to flesh out those earlier worlds and I guess some point along the way they just tried to do what they could to make the worlds in the first place.
That would make sense, I found the Big Hero 6 world to be really empty. There were NPCS but they weren't asking me for tasks. They were just standing there repeating the same dialogue.
All the Ub era Mickey references built into the Classic Mickey games were my favorite part of KH3 (besides the Saix fight music). In addition, I loved seeing Square-Enix take on Game & Watch, which I considered a nice little full cricle moment when you consider the the first Kingdom Hearts was Square's attempt at Mario 64
I don't think I ever actually found a way to the chest in the waterway that you showed. I remember seeing it through those gates though!
Oh yeah with the kh2 fm level editor, can't we try to fix it up and make it more engaging?
I enjoy these talks about kh
KH1's Metroidvania-ism saved it and made full use of the little boxes they had to deal with to map the game. Always sad for me how little insentive you have to ever go back to a world or area in these games because they completely got rid of that aspect. As you get so many maneuverability in KH3 through the game that it surprises me that they only used it for comfort? Options for the sake of options? Instead of integrating it fully into their game
can you do a video like this specifically deep diving on kh3 combat and enemy design?
Is he willin to deal wit bullshit n cheapshots and n rage hopefully
@@oathkeeperkingdom4909 yea that's the problem :( people get enraged as soon as their fav game is criticized, even if it's constructive
I feel like the ddd comparison is pretty accurate, but I felt like while the scale and design was similar, 3 made it a lot easier to tell where to go, and had a lot more stuff in those wide open areasd. In both the DS and PS4 version of DDD, I always felt lost because most of the levels look the same everywhere and connect unusually, but I almost never felt lost in 3.
Where did you get that Sora shirt from?
Nice to see love for Kingdom Hearts 1 more and more.
I sometimes wonder if Flowmotion as a recurring feature could mean we never get to see the more complex rooms and chest placements of KH1 again, since Flowmotion necessitates large areas and would make getting to chests incredibly simple almlst regardless of where they are place.
We need a character with limited movement options who can actively learn them throughout the story. KH3 gives Sora a lot of his movement abilities in the very beginning. KH2FM makes the big mistake of locking them to Drive Forms that nobody will level up until they run into the Cavern of Remembrance. KH1 lets Sora (and Donald/Goofy) learn all four abilities naturally throughout the story.
I had no idea you could freeze the bubbles in Hollow Bastion holy shit!
I think theyve laid a solid foundation with kh3 world design. Its still flawed in a few areas but alot better than the majority of the series but they can now keep building upon it in future entries.
Olympus, Toy Box, Corona and Carribean I find very fun to explore due to their visual variety, freedom and cool little secrets extra things to uncover. Arandelle, Monstropolis and San Fransokyo dont fare quite as well and are more bland exploration wise but with how fun kh3 movement is even in a world as visually dull as Arandelle I can have some fun just scaaling the mountain as fast as possible.
Some similar things to the KH1 stuff you mentioned
Mehaman Zero 3. You know how in Z3, you had to Jump on an enemy with Recoil Rod's Downward Charge Thrust, to get a Reserve Tank?
Or in Ninja Gaiden Black, where you go into a dead end, but do your wall jumps that only a Ninja can do, to find the Windmill Shuriken & an Xbox logo that fully healed you?
Shit like that sticks with you
Another big issue I'd like to mention (at least one that happens to me personally), is that because Corona and Arendelle are so big and have such same-y color pallettes (Corona is just green and brown and Arendelle is just blue and white), I have a tendency to get lost, especially if my map isn't fixed to north. Monsters suffers from this as well to some extent. I think it's confusing to navigate.
I honestly forgot I could do the lock-on dash thing.
Wow. All these years and I didn't kno you could freeze bubbles in KH1 :O
Level design only really matters as far as actual content. San Fransokyo reflects “level design” in KH3. Yes it’s big, yes it’s impressive how open it is.
But what’s there to do? There’s only so many treasure chests and emblems you can paste everywhere before you ask yourself “Was this really worth it? Do I actually need or _want_ these?”
You should def do how good is KH3’s gameplay!
Olympus, corona, and toy box were the only worlds that stood out to me.
You sir, should direct Kingdom Hearts IV.
Thanks chadd thunder cuck
also i think you should get some sorta vibrating when a chest is close in proximity it helped a lot in ghost of tsushima and should be in other games aswell
Random question: where did you get your shirt?
BB I see you with those Sajam recommended vids 😉
We need to voice this. More interaction in worlds. Have the levels challenge the player like in kh1.
Great analysis BB. I know you don't respond much anymore, but here's hoping you read this: Have you played World of Final Fantasy? The world was full of forks: go left or go right. Go the wrong way there's a dead end and chest, go the right way you miss it, and forced to backtrack to get the chest if you wanted it, then rebacktrack. Sure there might be some nice view at the dead end, but most times not so much. Much of the kh3 chest collection feels like WoFF. I quick game I'd recommend you try out though!
Yo I have played WoFF! It's one of my favorites.
I love the just a pancake Easter egg
You can freeze the bubbles in Hollow Bastion?!
One thing that really sucked about the large rooms (especially on critical mode with all its BS that entailed) in KH3 was if you died somewhat near the end, your only checkpoints weere at the start of the room so I was incentivised to run past all the enemies, grabbing as many safe chests as I could and just run to the end as fast as possible (looking at you, Arendalle).
God forbid you die while treasure hunting in Sanfransokyo
Similarly, I remember ragequitting DDD because I was doing pet minigame grinding for a solid hour, didn't room save, died to an enemy in the same room and lost all the progress because I didn't room save.
All these points are amazing, but one big thing that I think KH2 nailed that they should've made a trend is giving each world a second trip. Each world, for me, overstayed their welcome; usually I'd be completely done with a world 10 or more minutes before I'd get to the world boss. Cut each world's story in half or so and I'd WANT to come back for the bonus revisit. Plus, KH2 had an amazing balance between the movie we love on the first trip, but an interesting original story that further involved the Organization or the Heartless interacting with the Disney characters like they're disturbing the natural order rather than standing in the background of the movie.
One of my favorite examples is the Pirates of the Caribbean world in KH2. The first trip had Pete slightly alternating the cast of the movie, but didn't alter the events. The second trip had the organization coming in, playing by the pirates' rules, redoing the curse, and having Jack comment on how they're making pirates, "look like proper gents."
And that may be more of a story problem than a level design problem.
I don't like how unimportant the first visits are in KH2, but at least the split made the worlds less tiring to go through. Going through Arendelle, I was so bored and every time I thought it would approach near the end, it went on for another 10 minutes.
In my Option the KH3 Level design is a evolution of KHDDD. KH3 made flow motion Not spamable and Had more Love to the World. For exampel all the integration with Rapunzel in Kingdom of Corona. It's Level Design is functional but not to great. But some of this Moments are such fantastic in my View. And i hope there will improve in this Basic. 0.2 had better Puzzel. And if the Evolution in both things, we will get Something great. Well that what i hope
crazy thing i didn’t know you could freeze bubbles in kh1😂
As long as I been playin I even noticed that my damn self
DO KHI's LEVEL DESIGN!
I think wall running marred my enjoyment of moving around the worlds- I would have liked to be forced to use Sora's other tools. In small spaces it was just annoying, especially since it happened automatically.
At least they got it right sometimes with giving you abilities and then forcing you to use them. Doubleflight, like you said, and also superjump in Rapunzel world.
Oh the gizmo shop chest can be obtainrd easily by jumping off the building next to it (on the right in the first clip of it)
One of the most egregious things to me is still how they ordered chests. It's impossible to find out what chest in the Journal references what location like you could intuit in KH2. There's no flow in the log and chests seem ordered almost randomly.
To be fair:
I do like the level design for dream drop for making its world come to life and really capture the feel of those Disney worlds.
It really made me feel like I was exploring cyberspace, Paris, and the abstract beautiful world of fantasia
It isn't perfect but I think it's better than the design of BBS and kh2
I agree with most of the points in the video but thinking about what was praises for KH1. I actually think BBS did well with some of the exploration and Easter Eggs on some of the worlds (despite de combat system being what it is)
In terms of treasure chests. Make it a combination of both KH1 and KH3, where they’re hard to find, but you can’t do a full sweep of them in your first visit. I believe you could actually get every chest in your first sweep throughout the worlds in KH3, minus a chest or two.
Please no. I absolutely despise seeing chests that I can't get the first time through a world. Sure it makes the chests more memorable, but not in a good way. It pisses me off, and feel like they're creating artificial reasons to make me return to an area
Dream Drop Distance feels to me like what KH3 would have looked like if it came out on the PS3.
I felt that the KH3 worlds were, really cool for the first time! and then through the second playthrough I was just. It feels as though the flow of the worlds are just.. weird?? It's a lot of me getting lost, or being like "where do I go now" and I know KH3 is much less linear compared to KH2fm.
I also skipped all the cutscenes on my second playthrough so I definitely could blame my ignorance on where to go from that.
Pirates world was still my favorite, but I disliked areas that were "blocked off" so to speak. Like, the forest areas that are blocked by just, solid walls. Let me explore the whole world man!
I'd say I do agree that treasure hunting is more rewarding when you have to work for it as you do in earlier games... But on the other hand, it's a tough spot to put developers in.
Sora had gained all these incredible abilities and it's important to make these things feel effortless to show his incredible progress since KH1.
You could always design worlds to challenge Sora in the use of all his abilities in order to be rewarded ... But honestly, with all his incredible powers, how crazy would these worlds have to be designed in order to effectively do that without making the worlds unrealistic or impractical to the source material (Disney movie it's inspired from)?
You can freeze bubbles in Hollow Bastion! My childhood was a lie.
i've never seen that chest in hollow bastion before wow...