Current Events > Kingdom Hearts 2 playthrough attempt (Spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Sound like you... got it remembered!

ViewtifulJoe posted...

I'm not enormously attached to this character but I guess we can do him the honor of letting him keep his name while giving every other organisation character dumb new names.

If you're going to do this, I suppose I should point out that Xemnas' name has a very famous anagram. See if you can guess what it is.

pegusus123456 posted...

Xaldin can eat the entirety of my ass, I hate that motherfucker.

I've played KH2 probably 6 times and I never could figure out how to dodge the giant aeroblast wind cannon that sweeps across the bridge. You don't have a high enough jump or air dodge at that point yet, and I don't think wisdom form's dodge worked either.

I would just be like alright time to take this hit. At that point at least you had the two things that let you survive with 1 HP. Or if not, I would heal up beforehand because it took so long for him to cast.

One down.
That wasn't even a fight, it was a cutscene. In which a former player character purges himself of all player character attributes. I should be pitying him but he joined the organisation so all I say is that this character is named Professor Stumbles and his one true hobby is painting every individual piece of cereal purple and then eating them, crying as he desperately tries not to throw up.

pegusus123456 posted...

If you're going to do this, I suppose I should point out that Xemnas' name has a very famous anagram. See if you can guess what it is.

Oh this is familiar, I've definitely heard people call him m-a-n-s-e-x before.
You know I feel like this is pretty far in the game and all I've heard about this guy is that he's the evil time/shadow clone of a guy who either was or wasn't the true villain of the previous game which I didn't play.

MatzoTov posted...

I've played KH2 probably 6 times and I never could figure out how to dodge the giant aeroblast wind cannon that sweeps across the bridge. You don't have a high enough jump or air dodge at that point yet, and I don't think wisdom form's dodge worked either.

I would just be like alright time to take this hit. At that point at least you had the two things that let you survive with 1 HP. Or if not, I would heal up beforehand because it took so long for him to cast.

You know that thing where he follows you around and you mash the button to learn the jump attack?
I got run over the first time but after that I started hoarding jumps and saving them so I could run to the right then use it to kind of warp over the laser.
That worked fine as a weird improvised dodge. Beat him on my 3rd or 4th go.

MatzoTov posted...

I've played KH2 probably 6 times and I never could figure out how to dodge the giant aeroblast wind cannon that sweeps across the bridge. You don't have a high enough jump or air dodge at that point yet, and I don't think wisdom form's dodge worked either.

I would just be like alright time to take this hit. At that point at least you had the two things that let you survive with 1 HP. Or if not, I would heal up beforehand because it took so long for him to cast.

Aerial Dodge and Quick Run both give you enough i-frames to get through it. In FM you also get Dodge Roll which also works. And Limits make you invincible so I guess that can work too.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

You know I feel like this is pretty far in the game and all I've heard about this guy is that he's the evil time/shadow clone of a guy who either was or wasn't the true villain of the previous game which I didn't play.

People in this setting are made up of body, mind, and heart (more like what most media call a soul). When they lose themselves to darkness, their heart becomes a Heartless. Their body and mind become a Nobody. Most people don't retain their normal bodies, they turn into something like the Dusks, but particularly strong-willed people can. Without their hearts, they supposedly don't experience emotions, but members if the Organization are said to fake them.

Ansem is a dude who was studying the darkness and eventually gave into it willingly for power. In the first game, you fight his Heartless who is indeed the main secret villain. Xemnas is his Nobody (the Organization's names are just anagrams of their human ones with an X added; see also Roxas and Sora).

ViewtifulJoe posted...

One down.
That wasn't even a fight, it was a cutscene.

In the re-release they made it a full fight. It's pretty cool and has some nice music.

You know I feel like this is pretty far in the game and all I've heard about this guy is that he's the evil time/shadow clone of a guy who either was or wasn't the true villain of the previous game which I didn't play.

The first game and Chain of Memories (as well as later games) help expand on him and what his deal is but purely in the context of 2 you basically just want to stop him because he's the guy behind the Org.

Wait, Roxas isn't a real fight in the original?

Holy shit, TC, you dun goofed

pegusus123456 posted...

Wait, Roxas isn't a real fight in the original?

Holy shit, TC, you dun goofed

Big time goofed, also apparently he is aware of Penance and the extras version of FFX, should have gotten the same version for this game. It's certainly easy to get.

Darkinsanity1 posted...

Big time goofed, also apparently he is aware of Penance and the extras version of FFX, should have gotten the same version for this game. It's certainly easy to get.

If anything its easier than getting vanilla.

Oh I got both of them around 10 years ago. Little more than 10.
With FFX, an old Spoony review which was actively making fun of the game ended up making it seem really fun so I gave it a try. It was great.

With this, we were the ones making fun of it. "Look it's the game with Donald Duck and the big key guy and apparently they won't shut up about DARKNESS!" that + it being really cheap by that point was grounds for trying it as a joke.

Darkinsanity1 posted...

Big time goofed, also apparently he is aware of Penance and the extras version of FFX, should have gotten the same version for this game. It's certainly easy to get.

Penance and all the international version stuff was in the initial version of the game released in Europe back then

Defeated Homework Harrison.
He was deported to Organisation 13 after winning a contest on the back of a pack of Pringles.
Nobody knows why he is upside down.

I didn't like this one. It felt unreasonable. He has this move where he just TOD gun combos you to pieces near the end. The game gave me the shadow drive form when I didn't want it four times in a row. The time I won he inexplicably didn't do the big blue super move. The failed run before that he did it twice.
Feels like there's a delay on the guard too. Like you don't get it immediately, you have to complete the animation where he holds the key out before you start sending anything back. I don't like that.

I legit dunno what you're talking about.

Honestly can't even tell if TC enjoys this game (or knows what's happening in it) the way they're describing what they're playing.

Jupiter posted...

It really bothered me how you couldn't kill a boss unless you hit them with the final string of a combo. I think that was the only KH game that did that.

Magic is a good solution for that. Boss is at 1 hp? Thunder and they're dead.

Defeated MAN WHO REPEATEDLY SAYS "Cards!"
Backstory: You're supposed to say "Snap!" when you both have the same card. This guy would yell "Cards!" whenever any two cards, match or no match were put down. He lost every card game but would never admit it. Completely unrelated to cards, similar to how you can win the jackpot, it turns out you can actually get last place in the lottery. One day Cards Man managed to get last place and as an anti-prize, he was forced to join Organisation 13.

I don't really understand what was happening in the fight. You can hit him but you can also flip some cards and that'll make him give you a timing minigame where you can win some health? But not the time bar health?
And then late in the fight he gives you a big match 4 game where I don't know, the buttons are randomised? Because it wasn't working for me.
But I won? Cool?

Defeated Aloysius The Aggravated.
Backstory: After successfully dropping a Nintendo Wii on his foot and causing himself a great deal of pain on a dare, Aloysius visited the local fashion emporium to try out some of the new items in stock. The second he laid eyes on a bright orange trilby with the Ben And Jerry's logo on it, he knew he had to have it. Unfortunately his hubris got the best of him and while trying it on, he accidentally applied it to his head with too much force resulting in several fractures and a debilitating shoulder injury. From that day forward he was some blue haired organisation 13 guy with a bunch of glowing blue attacks who would not stop yelling.

His catchphrase is "HUH! HUH! HUH! HUH! MOVE ASIDE!!"
...But you already knew that!

That was... Something.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

I didn't like this one. It felt unreasonable. He has this move where he just TOD gun combos you to pieces near the end.

You can skip the Desperation Move by not doing any finishers past the HP gate for it, but honestly I never found it too difficult. Its mostly just walking in a circle.

The game gave me the shadow drive form when I didn't want it four times in a row.

The game's RNG for Anti doesn't chsnge if you die. If you get Anti, die and go back into the fight you'll always get an Anti transformation. Organization Fights also have something like a 5 or 10x multiplier on your Anti chance.

Feels like there's a delay on the guard too. Like you don't get it immediately, you have to complete the animation where he holds the key out before you start sending anything back. I don't like that.

Yeah, you have to time it.

And then late in the fight he gives you a big match 4 game where I don't know, the buttons are randomised? Because it wasn't working for me.

The command menu repeatedly changes between X and O, and you need to time it so you press it when its an O, and it gets faster with each one.

MOVE ASIDE!!!!

*lobs dildo at j00!*

We have one more guy.
Sora has reunited with Kylie and Rick (Whoever they were. They weren't really in the game.) but they've still gotta stop the guy who probably had the original idea for the anagram + x names.

Why is my sword a key anyway

BurmesePenguin posted...

MOVE ASIDE!!!!

*lobs dildo at j00!*

I always heard it as "Ubercide" which should be a real word.

Why is my sword a key anyway

Lore stuff

I've beaten up some building blocks, a generator and a knight.
And Darth Xemnas before that.

Sephiroth Jr was about to go on about darkness but then they opened a distinctly evil looking portal to go home. These people really don't have a lot of hesitations about jumping into frothing black voids.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

I've beaten up some building blocks, a generator and a knight.
And Darth Xemnas before that.

Sephiroth Jr was about to go on about darkness but then they opened a distinctly evil looking portal to go home. These people really don't have a lot of hesitations about jumping into frothing black voids.

Oh man you're about to get to one of my favourite set pieces in the game, and with the original music to boot

The finale is ridiculous but fun as hell

Pretty sure that was the last guy. The one in the big white void.
The bit where you have to play as Rick and rescue Sora got me a few times. The one where it worked I just ran in without targeting and kind of lucked my way over to Sora.

That was a lot of random things crammed together in one game.

I don't get it. This was inevitable since I'm playing the second game with no prior context but still, it's like a bunch of different demographics each get a fraction of a game.
You have a level for people who want to watch Winnie The Pooh lose his mind. There's a level for people who like learning the true meaning of Christmas. There's a FF7 level where they are friends with Merlin the wizard. There's the whole intro bit with Roxas for some reason.
They all look different but you're doing the same run up and down the map and fighting the same slightly edited cartoon enemies with the occasional on-rails minigame thrown in.

I'm not gonna say much about the gameplay because it's meant to be one of those games with a deep combat system and meanwhile I face-tanked everything and sometimes mashed X and triangle at the same time.
The camera does whatever it wants and sometimes there were a lot of overlapping enemies/attacks. I don't like the delayed parry/guard thing.
It didn't click. I'm guessing Final Mix fixes all this.

Final Mix is indeed a tighter experience.

You should go fight Sephiroth.

Final Mix is a more content rich experience but it's not fixing any of that. That's what Kingdom Hearts is. A crazy amalgamation of IPs with a main story that's got heart but also gets lost in its own sauce sometimes

Blue_Inigo posted...

Final Mix is a more content rich experience but it's not fixing any of that

It would fix this part:

ViewtifulJoe posted...

I'm not gonna say much about the gameplay because it's meant to be one of those games with a deep combat system and meanwhile I face-tanked everything and sometimes mashed X and triangle at the same time.

Well, sort of. 90% of the game is the same. But the secret bosses are superb.

pegusus123456 posted...

Well, sort of. 90% of the game is the same. But the secret bosses are superb.

True, but Critical mode fixes all of that. There is no getting through that mindlessly mashing X

Oh, that might be true, I didn't bother playing Critical.

Critical is the best mode

KH2FM Critical truly is the Kingdom Hearts experience of all time.

Might as well ask.
What was KH3 like?
That was a long wait between games.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Might as well ask.
What was KH3 like?
That was a long wait between games.

The story became even more nonsensical despite all odds. It's the conclusion to the overarching plot, yet all of that was put in a massive dump in the last hour of the game. You're mostly running through Disney worlds that have zero connection to the plot or don't even have any of the KH original like Org XIII showing up.
Worlds mostly became more open again rather than just a hallway. Combat is generally considered to be okay but not as great as KH2FM. The reaction commands were replaced with neon Disney attractions like the teacup ride.

TheSavageDragon posted...

The story became even more nonsensical despite all odds. It's the conclusion to the overarching plot, yet all of that was put in a massive dump in the last hour of the game. You're mostly running through Disney worlds that have zero connection to the plot or don't even have any of the KH original like Org XIII showing up.
Worlds mostly became more open again rather than just a hallway. Combat is generally considered to be okay but not as great as KH2FM. The reaction commands were replaced with neon Disney attractions like the teacup ride.

Was is worth waiting that long at least?

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Was is worth waiting that long at least?

I wasn't part of the wait but tbh it's still a great game. Probably second best KH behind 2

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Was is worth waiting that long at least?

The general consensus at the time seemed to be "no". Saw many claim to have played it just to finally have a conclusion to the overarching plot. And at the end it felt like it was more concerned with setting up the next overarching plot than wrapping up this one. There also were a ton of complaints of needing to play the non numbered entries in order to even grasp what was going on in that last hour of the game.
When people started playing KH2, you only "needed" to play Chain Of Memories on GBA to get the full picture of who Organization XIII is, who/what Namine is and just what Sora was doing in that pod. To get the full picture in KH3 you need to play the numbered titles, Chain Of Memories, 358/2 Days, Birth By Sleep, Dream Drop Distance and a mobile game. All of which were spread across multiple consoles and handhelds until the 1.5/2.5 collections became a thing.

My personal opinion is pretty much the same. I liked it well enough though, it's still a really fun game and some of the worlds truly are a blast to visit. The long wait was entirely due to the clusterfuck that was FF Versus XIII which got repurposed into FFXV. Most of the KH dev team was busy with that.
If you liked KH2 you'd probably like KH3, especially as someone that doesn't have an attachment to the series and didn't need to wait 13 years to finally see it conclude.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Might as well ask.
What was KH3 like?
That was a long wait between games.

-I found the story really underwhelming. The game is basically entirely predicated on the big final battle, which leaves most of the game feeling super filler-y, where the villain's plans aren't threatening since they don't want to kill the heroes too early. The game also brings back a lot of characters and seems to assume that bringing them back is enough to get the player pumped for the final battle, but there's basically no cohesion or moments of the villain group interacting, so they again lack threat.

-The gameplay is overly flash over substance. Sora theoretically has a lot of stuff at his disposal, but mechanically a lot of it amount to "big damage explosion". He's also limited by the fact that options aren't as more readily available. You have to build a lot of them up or get them randomly, as opposed to KH2 and KH1 where you can use anything you want at any time so long as you have the resources for it. It leads to a lot of encounters being one note, using Sora's slow and clunky base combos until you get your instagib buttons. Magic is also worse, as its lost almost all of its variety it had in KH1 and KH2 and most spells function pretty much the same. Its made worse by enemy design. Most enemies aren't aggressive ans some don't stagger, and a lot of encounters are in big open spaces with a ton of enemies, leaving them flat and unengaging since you don't really have to even consider the enemies and environment. Base game boss fights suck ass, since the majority of them are of the worst kind of KH Boss variety, where you just have a giant unstaggerable dude flying around waiting for him to attack.

-The DLC has 14 super bosses and a small expansion of the ending. The superbosses are really fun, but the story episode is a complete mess.

KH3 craps out super fucking hard on the pacing. For comparison's sake, imagine Avengers Endgame where the first two and a half hours are Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor them aimlessly wandering around the world solving random crimes while Thanos' goons randomly show up to talk shit. Then they shove the plot of the real Endgame into that last thirty minutes.

It does have this scene though so I can't hate it.
https://youtu.be/pIk5GWQSXjI?si=nwSEYUplKg2lSARt

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Might as well ask.
What was KH3 like?
That was a long wait between games.

Shit story that doesn't hold up even if you did keep up with all the side games.

Fun gameplay, tho. Better after the patches.

Fired the game up again.
It's been a few days and I'm still thinking about it which is promising.
Gonna play some more and try some things I neglected.

I picked the wand at the start instead of the sword.
Not seeing much of a change.
I totally ignored magic last time because you have to wait for it to recharge. Trying to give it a fair chance this time.

Magnet and Reflect are busted.

If you feel like going through the entire game again, might as well just get 2.5 and just play KH2FM. With the vanilla playthrough fresh in your mind you'll appreciate how much better is all the more

Barbossa took a few goes that time.
How is it fair that AI Jack can just run into the shade and get destroyed, game overing on your behalf?
Was there a way to tell him to pull back?

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Was there a way to tell him to pull back?

Not really. The most you could do, is go into the party AI settings, put it on Huddle Attack which keeps him close to Sora, but even that doesn't guarantee anything