Current Events > Is the Kingdom Hearts series worth playing?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've haven't gotten passed the Wonderland portion after 3 attempts spanning the last decade.

Yes

its good if you dont try to understand the story

1 and 2 are pretty good never played three or many of the spin-off games cause it was just a mess. I did do a watch of 356/2days which was actually pretty enjoyable if a bit wait what?

Yes

They dropped the full series on ps premium so I was considering giving them a shot.

Is there any option that'll let me skip all the cutscenes and every piece of dialogue?

refmon posted...

Is there any option that'll let me skip all the cutscenes and every piece of dialogue?

P sure the option to skip cutscenes was added in 2 and I assume it was added in the 1 re-releases. Sure would have appreciated it when I played 1 on ps2. There's no way you're taking Kairi's heart.

Every game has a skip scene feature, including the first game thanks to the HD releases.

But yeah, the series is worth playing. You either find the story charming and stick with it, find the story charming and then drop it after a certain point because it gets dumb as hell but keep fond memories of the ones you like, or you don't care for the story at all but find the combat in the mainline games good. Or just enjoy is casually, not caring how zany the story is or how bad the gameplay can be at times.

Keep in mind though that KH1's gameplay and tone isn't really indicative of what comes after. KH2 is the game people praise for its gameplay.

But if you only end up caring about the gameplay, I wouldn't recommend the handhelds, tbh.

First one's good. Second one's alright but not as good as the first. Don't bother with the rest.

As someone who likes the games, no they're pretty bad.

SSJ2GrimReaper posted...

its good if you dont try to understand the story

The only way that happens is if you skip most of the games

yup, the story is ridiculous but I appreciate the ridiculousness tbh, and the gameplay is always pretty fun, even if 1's can get pretty repetitive.

1 and 2 are pretty good games, especially if they handed out the FM pack. I've been enjoying BBS as well though it has a few extra moving pieces that I have a hard time remembering exist. Can't speak for anything else just yet, decided to go through "in order" when I picked up the 1.5+2.5 FM pack.

I think 1 and 2 were very solid, but after that I utterly lost any and all interest because so much of the lore got divided up and stretched out in handheld games and shit.

Rharyx211 posted...

Every game has a skip scene feature, including the first game thanks to the HD releases.

But yeah, the series is worth playing. You either find the story charming and stick with it, find the story charming and then drop it after a certain point because it gets dumb as hell but keep fond memories of the ones you like, or you don't care for the story at all but find the combat in the mainline games good. Or just enjoy is casually, not caring how zany the story is or how bad the gameplay can be at times.

Keep in mind though that KH1's gameplay and tone isn't really indicative of what comes after. KH2 is the game people praise for its gameplay.

But if you only end up caring about the gameplay, I wouldn't recommend the handhelds, tbh.

Eh, it's more KH2:FM that people, like me, praise it for and it's mostly because the game gives you enough options for self expressions and making a lot of different play styles actually workable. KH3 probably comes close after the patches they released where the game doesn't feel so floaty anymore.

Prestoff posted...

Eh, it's more KH2:FM that people, like me, praise

True. I don't usually distinguish between vanilla and FM, but I probably should, as I was talking about 2FM there. Vanilla KH2 feels really lacking in comparison.

KH3 with the patches is good, but the game as a whole left a terrible taste in my mouth. I need to try out the DLC one day, but that $30 price point is just too much.

KH1 is the only one of the series that I'd call charming. The combat is enjoyable enough, but it's not particularly deep. It's the only game where the Disney characters are actually important to the story rather than just being set dressing. The story, for the only time in the series, is a quite straightforward JRPG/shonen storyline with the usual tropes with the twist that Disney characters are involved.

Chain of Memories is a card battle game. Some people like it. Way, way more people hate it. It's more-or-less remaking the first game; you play through the exact same worlds as the first one, just in a far more truncated, card-battling focused style. The story is still pretty focused here, though I found the insistence to actually contextualize the card battling system in the story itself to be super fucking weird.

KH2 is widely considered the best game in the series for good reasons. The combat is actually quite good and, when it comes to the plethora of secret bosses, legitimately challenging. The downside is that the level design takes a huge step back, a trend for most of the series. The worlds are essentially just long, Disney-themed hallways rather than levels to explore (in fairness, the platforming in the first game is something that was criticized). The story becomes notably more anime and introduces the first elements that are just really stupid, but it's still fairly straightforward and the anime elements fall on the "mildly cringey but still cool" side.

Re:Coded is a movie adaptation of a mobile game that was canon for some reason. It yet again just goes through the worlds of the first game. I hand-to-god watched all three hours and couldn't tell you a single fucking thing that happened. I'm almost certain nothing of relevance happens in it.

358/2 Days is another movie adaptation, this time of a DS game. It's mostly backstory for a character that I found pretty pointless, but a lot of people like it.

Birth By Sleep is probably better than I remember it being. If you imagine a portable KH game, this one is probably what you'd expect: it's more-or-less a worse version of KH2 with simplified mechanics. The issue is that the combat is just fucking garbage. For most of the game, this isn't an issue, but the last bosses are tough enough that the flaws become very evident, thus leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth. This is also when the story starts to get completely fucked, but only in the context of the series as a whole. On its own, it's only slightly stupid.

Dream Drop Distance is a far better portable game than BBS, but the story just absolutely shits the bed. Like rolls out the portajohn and upends it all over the fucking mattress.

KH: was a browser game that was canon for some reason. It has an hour-long movie version called Back Cover which I actually enjoyed a fair bit, at least in comparison to DDD's stories.

KH3 is a fun spectacle. The combat is unsurprisingly miles ahead of the portable games' ports, but it's still not as good as KH2's. The worlds are also given a lot more attention this time around, being the first time since KH1 that they were actually interesting to explore. Given that it has to tie all the plot threads together, you shouldn't be surprised to learn that the story is not good. The biggest flaw is that it's paced about as well as a nursing home marathon, but it adds its own little warts to the shambling trash hag that is the series' lore.

Overall, I'd say give it a shot.

pegusus123456 posted...

The story becomes notably more anime and introduces the first elements that are just really stupid, but it's still fairly straightforward and the anime elements fall on the "mildly cringey but still cool" side.

To add to this, I feel like it was the perfect game to come out in the mid-2000s. It's really the only era were KH2's type of "cringe but cool" style works in its favor.

Just imagine you're a high schooler in 2006 when you play it and it should come off as really cool.

I and II still hold up, not sure about anything else

Depends on who you ask

First game has okay story but the combat itself aged like milk

The original is. And Kingdom Hearts II. Annnd Kingdom Hearts III.

Actually, Birth by Sleep is pretty good too.

I played the original game and I have watched 3 guys play 2 on YouTube while talking over the cutscenes

The series seems like it went insane after the first game. Even in 2, they have stupid bullshit that makes no sense

Imo it isn't. The first game is okay but the combat has not aged well and it's kind of a slog to play. The sequel improves combat but the story really starts getting dumb. After that the plot just becomes unbearable, full of lame ass characters, terrible dialogue, and just generally awful writing.

The first game was really charming and unique for its time, shame what happened to the series as a whole.

Play the first game and forget the rest ever existed.

First 2 then yeet

The gameplay gets significantly better starting with 2