Here's a pinned comment with some thoughts: I feel the need to elaborate on what I mean by "great writing". Since this is a Japanese game, many of the individual lines come across as off or strained due to their translation. When I refer to the writing, I'm more so referring to the events and how they play out, the characters and how they react to things, stuff like that. I wish I had said this in the video, but here it is at any rate.
Well, hey, such a gigantic project that is this one episode (not to mention the KH series as a whole you got going on here) must be hard to make look so easy. I get you though, the game seems like is could be universal in it's visual language that can be understood without dialogue or narration.
it's a shame we can't use Japanese voiceovers in the English version. I think it would have helped the way the lines come across, as it usually does in this kind of Japanese media
@@randolphcarter1758That's because they don't even get Japanese Voices. KH1 Final Mix in Japan has no Japanese Voices. The Japanese audience is fine and even prefers it because of how they perceive the "International Version" of the games to be the true version of the game. So for a part of the Japanese community they only had English Voices for their experience. Which should completely change your outlook on how to interpret the translations. Nomura has even stated how in KH2 they had to scrub Sora's "Handwriting" because it was only done in Japanese and how he even wishes that he can put English into KH2 when it came out in Japan.
This game occurs after Naminé was kidnapped and abused by organization XIII and yet she still says “I don’t know if the organization is good or evil” during the prologue
I demand these heavily analyzed and edited 4 hour videos DAILY But for real, fantastic quality as usual and I only wish you the best moving forward with your RU-vidr path
At 42:13 Hold up!... Oh my God! I just got the joke in KH3 about Sora not being able to count! 😲 🫨😂🤣 Donald heard Sora count the three of them, Riku and the king as 6 people instead of 5 and waits until KH3 to roast him on it - no one seeming to realize it was because of him counting Roxas.
I was kicking myself for not thinking of it before I recorded the gameplay footage so I could just not have goofy in my party for those sections but I think it turned out better for it in the end
Correction on Final Form's unlock condition. It has a chance to unlock by using any drive form whenever you have the chance to go into anti-form (so during ANY combat encounter, not just during certain bosses) after encountering Roxas in TWTNW. On average, it takes around 3-5 anti-forms, the chance for Final increasing for every Anti, before unlocking.
I'm not even really a Kingdom Hearts fan (Only played the first one) but this series is just so well done and compelling I always look forward to the next episode. Keep up the great work man!
Imagine being 6 and this being your first real video game. Not even playing either of the two previous games, or understanding RPG mechanics whatsoever. It’s a miracle I’m so attached to this series with that sort of intro, but it also speaks to just how fucking good this game is.
Pleasantly surprised to hear UNSIGHTED music. As someone who has spent a lot of time going in depth on this game's combat, I was expecting to know everything you'd talk about, but I surprisingly learned some stuff about the battle level balancing.
Ok but why did Riku pull a Keyblade out of his ass for Kairi? Also, on Ansem's personality change. He actually showed signs of mercy as far back as the start of the game. "Why did you show him the train?" "Because he missed the trip to the beach." Bro really went out of his way to code that for Rucksack.
I found this channel through the MGS V analysis and immediately subscribed. I'm so happy I did because I get to enjoy the Kingdom Hearts videos. You are an amazing critic, writer, and video maker. The Goofy bit was inspired and was a pain to edit, I'm sure.
The first video in this series quickly convinced me to subscribe. The second video convinced me that I needed to try the KH series if only to get to CoM and see how a realtime actionRPG/Deckbuilder would feel. This video has convinced me that this series is probably the best thing coming out on RU-vid right now. Seriously, I really appreciate how you can discuss all parts of a story; the themes, the characters, the events, the individual scenes, etc. And I love that you can discuss how they connect and how they can elevate, diminish, be elevated, or be dimished by each other and also the many aspects that video games bring (VA, music, gameplay). Hope you are enjoying making these as much as I enjoy the results!
Thanks for making this vid, Tetra. Because of it I actually went and played KHII Final Mix on Critical and had a blast. I still have to beat 12 of the 13 data forms and Lingering Will and almost gave up on the Roxas fight, but critical mode in two is one of my fav challenging experiences in game. It honestly makes me sad that Critical mode in the other games is not like KHIIFM's Also your analysis is excellent as always and I know I will be returning to watch this entire vid many times in the future.
Another great analysis and I share your vids with anyone that I can. I can't wait until we get into all the time fuckery in the later games. I always felt the concept of time travel, unless for comedic effect, was just an excuse for lazy writing.
@@enoyna1001 In the mobile game is explained that you need have a someone that remembers you , a vessel and way point to travel thought time. The three faries remember Malificent , her cape is the vessel and the way point.
This is the only kingdom hearts game I've played, and as such I don't really have much nostalgia for it. But I do remember one thing clear as day. The only time I ever got the anti form was the stretch after goofy died. So for the longest time I thought it was a scripted event.
Them having to remember malifecent was actually explained in union cross When she was felled by sora in kh1, she tried going back in time to the bbs era, but one of the 13 darknesses set a trap for her in the data world In exchange for her help, the darkness would help her get back to her time (kh2) However to time travel, you need 2 things; 1. A version of you where you plan to go; and 2. Someone who remembers you in that time So after malifecent helped the darkness, the crow brought her cloak (1) to the faries, thus making them remember (2) her, and thus letting her revive at the beginning of kh2
I just remembered this. As to Atlantica, it's worth sitting through the first, maybe second musical if you put the controller down. It's so much better if you let the quick time events fail throughout the musical.
I was going to cut in a montage of that but forgot about it during the production phase lol, it was the first time I did that and I cackled a number of times
I sincerely hope that you talk about the original 358/2 days in the next video, as you did this one. I believe it goes way underlooked for the type of experience it offers the player, moreso I'd say than the other hand held titles.
I found that most Summons help get around Zexion's book attacks too. Most of them either have mechanics that can keep you alive, or enough AoE utility to find him quickly. Helps consume MP too, so you can use limits for the moments where you can actually damage him.
There actually is a way to "quickly" change targets. At least in the default camera setting, holding R2 will make the right analog stick change targets with zero auditory feedback. It's so obscure and awkward that it may as well not exist.
1:41:00 There IS a way to switch targets and it's to hold L2 and move the stick left or right.... This is why manuals are important because it probably doesn't say it in the game.... But I hope this helps SOMEBODY !
Yeah, others have mentioned this. It’s in the control section of the original kh2 manual, but not the kh2.5 manual. It is listed under the “lock on” section however. Very bizarre.
Data Zexion's book world can be turned into a joke with 2 reflects allowing escape in ~7 seconds even at level 1. Limits can cheese it and are 100% safe b/c they don't really require the precision the reflect strat does. Just my opinion, but removing the limit dependence in favor of the reflect strat elevates the fight to something much more enjoyable.
As they stand, the original releases of KH1 and KH2 are clean and could have ended right there. Going forward, the Final Mixes are kind of the Star Wars Special Editions, and titles released later get more and more muddy. I still love this series though it has bumps in the road. I wish the originals could be included or restored in some way to remastered collections. I'm not a fan of the palette swapped heartless.
So, someone may have mentioned it already, or you were doing a bit, but Maleficent's return has to do with the phone game, Union/X/Dark Road. After Riku released her heart in KH1, she travelled back in time to those games. Then travelled back to her return in KH2.
I’m “doing a bit” in the sense that I’m only discussing the stories in the context they were originally intended for. As in, future games (dark road etc) and they way they change the story are not a part of the discussion until those games actually come up in the release order.
As someone who didn't obsessively play KH, I have to disagree on the difficulty assessment. It's fine for people who played each game once or twice. Kinda like people who beat Dark Souls dozens of times complaining the later games were too easy lol
This was before Tetsuya Nomura became an agent of chaos, destroyed Final Fantasy XV, and killed the queen of England in secret. Let's not even start on the Final Fantasy 7 "Remake" I'm shocked he's able to get away with all of this. Like the Jack the Ripper of Japanese game designers. 😢
Man, i'm finding this series really interesting, not just because of your analysis, but because I only played the first game and holy shit did this series get fucking bonkers and i have no idea how anyone keeps up with this shit. And you can't even try a wiki to understand because it gets. So. Much. Worse.
Alrighty, this should be my last comment for this video. I keep splitting them up based on where I pause for the night since I watch it in chunks. Shouldn't bee too much more to ramble on about after the gameplay section, though! To address a question in your video, maybe "the six of us" is referring to Jiminy Cricket, even though I'm fairly sure it refers to Roxas. No, Maleficent coming back to life is not a Sleeping Beauty thing; that's just a weird Nomura thing. I don't know why the Good Fairies would forget about Maleficent anyway since Namine wouldn't be able to erase memories unrelated to Sora from people! I also have no idea why there's a segment where you have to defend the gate from the Nobodies when you just had a segment where you fought them after they teleported into town. Clearly they can get around the gate! For that matter, why is Jack able to die in the Barbossa fight when he just became immortal? It's not like he has to worry about being hit by magic like the other pirates! Regarding Jafar, his boss fight sucks but you can sneak in a combo or two on his head to speed up the fight just a bit so that you spend less time dealing with his crappy DM. The fight against the MCP can also be sped up a bit, since Sark will have an instant kill RC pop up after you kill him the first time if you run away from him. Also, during Final Xemnas, you can weave in Reflect between the Reaction Command spam to deal damage to him, but you have to learn the timing or you'll take damage. The Halloween Town second visit is a little weird to me, if only because the boss seems like it should be an artificial Nobody instead of a Heartless. It's trying to get presents to replace its missing heart, after all, in much the same vein as the Nobodies are trying to do with Kingdom Hearts. Also, a neat detail is that you can see Dr. Finklestein constructing it in your first visit to Halloween Town. Not only do all of the menus change for each world, there's a Castle Oblivion themed menu for the White Room in Twilight Town. I think this is later recycled for the Cavern of Remembrance's final hallway as well. And then you also have a (usually) hidden Mickey Mouse emblem on each menu as well. The Corrupted doesn't play against Barbossa. Vim and Vigor plays there. The first instance of The Corrupted is the Hostile Program which, fitting the song's name, is corrupted to serve the MCP. In fact, all instances of this song play with similar enemies. Hot Rods can be countered by Chicken Little and you can interrupt Dancer's aggressive phase with Magnet.
You touch upon this multiple times, but I think it gets slightly lost in the conclusion: KH2's gameplay has always been deeper than KH1. Summons are much better designed, drive forms are alright in terms of technical complexity, but each have unique use cases. Magic is much better, etc. Even in proud mode, you could get away with button mashing relatively easily (depending on your level - if you have low HP it's even harder than crit), but that doesn't mean the right systems weren't in place. Crit made them necessary to use, which I agree is much better (just more interesting and engaging). But crit didn't really add deeper gameplay, it just gave better oportunities to use what was there. FM of course added many more great things too. But for people who are not looking for deep action gameplay and do not want to learn enemy patterns, KH2 was a huge improvement. On beginner and standard, you have just a much more satisfying loop. If you're that kind of person that enjoys mashing x (and kid me was that), it's super fun. That's what beginner should be, honestly. I think story-wise this one is good and you're right with the themes. But not all threads fit nicely together and are satisfying. KH1 had this overarching theme of growing up and finding your place - conceptually brilliant for a game where you travel through Disney movies. I think the character moments in KH2 are mostly stronger (mostly - Sora and Kairi I'd say are the exception). The organization is fantastically written. But KH2 also introduces some bad trends, including reviving old characters and giving them nothing to do, changing who characters are of previous games (although it's alright I guess in this one), spending tons of time just explaining things like a wiki page that could have been plotted much more elegantly, and of course mediocre Disney world scenarios that are weakly linked to what KH2 is about. So overall when the credits of KH1 rolled, I felt I witnessed one good story about 3 kids growing up. When the credits of KH2 rolled it was more like many smaller great stories more spread out and not always well connected. But yeah, I think both gameplay and story-wise it's downhill from here unfortunately.
Yup, someone else pointed that out, this is a relic of an old “superstition” of sorts I had as a kid, probably based off bad info from the time or just personal experience and I didn’t double check its validity lol
These analysis videos are great but I think you spend too much time just letting entire cutscenes play. I imagine most people who watch these videos have probably already played the game for themselves so it just seems like a waste of time. I think it would be better to use smaller clips as long as they’re in support of a point you’re making
You and this series have singlehandedly elevated the assumed IQ of Southern English speakers by like 40 pts. Goofy 😢 is hyucking in heaven, in the right hand of Gawrd.
Hello ! I really love your KH videos, it's a chief kiss for all of them. But I'm not a native english-speaker, so it's hard for me to stay focus without the subtitles, I know the video starts to get old and i'm not sure if you'll see this, but is it possible to activate the auto-generated subtitles ? :)
@@Tetramorre oh that was fast, thank you ! And don't worry haha, youtube is weird anyway for many things so. I'm just really happy to enjoy 4h+ of very well done KH2 content after work. Keep it up and have a nice day !
I know it's not the most important thing by any stretch, but having Sir Christopher Lee voice DiZ was pretty damn cool. It's one of the cooler things about this game. Among other things.
I legit keep forgetting that Disney villains used to have something approaching an actual presence (in Timeless River, at least,) and that Final Fantasy characters almost actually did stuff, because MAN did both of those get sidelined hard going forward. I also forgot that Timeless River technically breaks the Kingdom Hearts rules for time travel, but upon reflecting on that sentence, I can't even remember what the rules were even supposed to _stop_ at this point...
Some people say that they intended Goofy to be in the game way later than when he died, as evidenced by the glitching visuals when he's removed. Personally I think they did that intentionally, to show the Goofy-shaped void left in our hearts.
It's all but been confirmed that he's referring to Kirie or namine. I believe the line is supposed to be showing that the effects of what happened to him in Castle Oblivion and the beginning of Kingdom hearts 2 are still having an effect. His memory isn't quite fixed yet. There's also the fact that there's a parallel line in chain of memories. Also, numora confirmed multiple times that neither namine or Roxas were supposed to return after Kingdom hearts 2 as characters. It's only post Kingdom hearts 2 that we retroactively can conclude that he could be referring to Roxas.
Personally I dislike KH2 Gummi the most. KH1 & 3 was faster time wise if you upgraded your ships. In KH2 it just gets you a new high score but since it's auto rails none of your input actually helps progress through the game. You can upgrade gummis but since it just feeds you new blueprints there's actually zero reason to engage with the system even if you're a fan of it. There's tangible benefits to gummis being customized in 1 & 3. KH1 was at least brave enough to put actual flying obstacles versus KH2's design which is more or less a glorified cutscene you're forced to watch.
Mickey may be an incredible keyblade wielder but he is still a disney character after all, can’t have mickey mouse going around saying “revenge is cool kids! Haha!”
And once again even though I have many disagreements of opinions with you here (I'm particularly more lenient on kh2 original than you), this is a good video and I'm glad someone is making truly long form content about these games. Looking forward to the next entry. I only wish you'd be even more in depth and make these patrician style 10 hour reviews.
Stories like mgs2 and KH2 are so amazing and deep. You're really good at explaining deep and intricate plots. Your story summaries are EXCELLENT, man. I really like how seriously you were able to make me take this story. You got to the root of the mystery.
Man finding out KH3 wasn’t really planned/meant makes sooooo much sense. They really REALLY should’ve let the current arc end with 2. It wrapped things up so well. I don’t think the series needed to end, but definietly they shouldn’t have tried so hard to make 3 part of the arc from 1 and 2. The retconning jst became so obnoxious and ridiculous to me by the time we got to the third one. KH3 felt like baby’s first fanfic was allotted a budget of millions. 😅
It’s funny because on first playthrough I hated Roxas and was so confused as to where Sora was (Didn’t play CoM because of card game battle system). But in retrospect, I personally find Roxas MILES more compelling/interesting/endearing a character than Sora. Sora isn’t bad, he’s likeable. Just Roxas and the Org has so much more going for it. Maybe that’s another reason I didn’t care for KH3. I feel like Sora never grew in complexity and his story (and the island trio) had already lost its intrigue.
I just recalled something someone pointed out to me about Timeless River that I wanted to share. Let's talk about KH2's early plot for a second. - *Twilight Town:* Pete shows up and is introduced to Sora and Co. as a bumbling villain. - *Hollow Bastion:* Pete meets Maleficent again shortly after her revival. - *Olympus Coliseum:* Pete helps Hades actually succeed at his goal of unlocking the Underdrome and weakening Hercules of his powers. - *Disney Castle/Timeless River:* Maleficent fires Pete for incompetence and Pete wishes he could go back in time and fix his life, spawning a door to the past. Isn't that kind of odd? Maleficent fires Pete... immediately after he helps Hades win? Sure, with Days in mind you could assume that she's upset he accomplished nothing during the year of her absence, but that doesn't seem to be the case within the context of the scene. If we go a little further, we then see the following. - *Port Royal:* Pete shows up here to try and recruit Barbossa. Barbossa is defeated and Pete fails to get a new ally for Maleficent. - *Agrabah:* Pete tries to turn Jafar into a Heartless, but fails. - *Halloween Town:* Maleficent decides to take matters into her own hands and shows up personally to revive Oogie Boogie. - *Pride Lands:* Pete shows up here to try and recruit Scar. Scar is defeated and Pete fails to get a new ally for Maleficent. Now, if Maleficent were to fire Pete after THESE events, that would make more sense, right? Yet she noticeably never gets upset with him after this, even though he fails here more than he did previously. Consider the following evidence: - Pete is fought twice in Olympus Coliseum. This is then immediately followed up with a final story battle with him one world later. - Sora is surprised to learn that Maleficent is alive again. Despite this, he conveniently misses running into Maleficent in Halloween Town multiple times. - Disney Castle/Timeless River don't get a revisit like the other worlds, suggesting that they were meant to have some sort of special role originally. Based on this, it seems like Timeless River was meant to be a middle of the game event around the time of the Twilight Town and Hollow Bastion events, but was moved earlier for some reason or another.
Something you missed, if you miss that RC, which by the way it goes by fast and has a specific timing, you get hit by xemnas and he deals a lot of damage
With Goofy's death, plus the loss of Valor Form, it makes the double jump from Master Form even more vital since we lose out on High Jump. Really makes you feel Goofy's absence. It's definitely an interesting way to feel such a sad death not only from a story perspective but from a gameplay perspective as well.
