Kingdom Hearts HD II.5 ReMIX - 0.5 left to go

[Tetsujin]

It's been out for a few days so time to create a proper discussion thread for playthroughs.

...is anyone here actually playing it at the moment or are people too busy with Dragon Age or whatever?

I started II on Critical Mode for the first time to get those difficulty trophies (which fortunately do stack this time so everything's doable in one playthrough). I like how Critical gives you a bunch of extra abilities and tons of AP. I like that type of balancing more than just "every enemy is just ridiculously OP and takes forever to kill".

Still in Twilight Town with Roxas though.

The re-recorded music is once again a welcome bonus. Hope my HD ReMIX soundtrack gets here soon.

 

[Strangelove]

i can't remember if i played on critical mode when i played kh2 fm. i might try that when/if i get it

i really want to play bbs again now though

 

[Marcus]

I'm playing it right now, just finished up my second visit to Twilight Town. Currently playing on Proud Mode and I am not looking forward to running on Critical. I can see alot of continues coming my way!

and I had no idea they stacked as I am yet to find a good trophy guide ahh well looks like it will be three runs for me xD

 

[Tetsujin]

Okay, so I just watched re:coded and it's definitely put together better than 358/2 Days. Feels more coherent, includes battle scenes (short as they may be), interludes narrated by Mickey and it also helps that the characters don't go eating frickin ice cream over 9000 times.

Also, two new scenes with relation to KHIII. One somewhere in the middle and a second secret ending.

On the other hand: Just like Days or the cutscenes in Re:CoM, it's all prerendered video. I sit fairly close to the tv and I see compression artifacts EVERYWHERE. Not very pretty. :p

 

[Tetsujin]

Going into Drive Forms has a loading time of 2 - 3 seconds.

Square-Enix, pls.

 

[Strangelove]

what does the lip sync look like for this? with 1.5 (the japanese one anyway), it was a weird mishmash of japanese and english lip sync depending on the scene. which was annoying, because the syncing was usually really good for kh games.

 

[Tetsujin]

Haven't been paying much attention to the lip sync to be honest. But it didn't seem off, I think?

Anyway, I'm still at Beast's Castle. I did some power levelling because I'm to chicken to take on Critical Mode normally.
Good to see the trick where you leaving a world while in one of the Drive Forms will restore your Drive gauge is still intact.

Also, how the hell did Huey, Dewey and Louie and Scrooge get to Hollow Bastion?

 

[Tetsujin]

My thread feels so abandoned.

Okay, so. Agrabah. Aladdin: "I like coming here. There's always something going on. The action, the people..."

-Camera shows Agrabah, literally devoid of any life-

KH3 *really* needs to step up its game in making these worlds feel ALIVE. There need to be people SOMEWHERE.

 

[ForceStealer]

I'm getting it for Christmas, I'll participate in your thread then

 

[Alex Strife]

I was lazy to finish Re:CoM until I got KH2.5... I just finished it today so from tomorrow onwards, I'll play KH2 properly (I just got to the Sora segment).

 

[Celes Chere]

I'm getting it for Christmas, I'll participate in your thread then

same B)

 

[ForceStealer]

Holy crap the intro to KH2 is TORTURE. I remembered it being very slow, but I had forgotten just how interminable it was. But I powered through it yesterday, so I can start the actual game now

 

[Keveh Kins]

Atlantica continues to be the least interesting world in the series

Aside from Deep Jungle, that was immensely tedious

Do love how much faster and fun the combat is in KH 2 though, and BBS's was even better

 

[Kuja9001]

Just completed Critical Mode.

I haven't played KH2 since 07-08 and I started 2.5 on critical.

The load times during drives has gotten me hit with heartless angel once.

 

[Kuja9001]

Just got the plat.

Only took 11 days.

 

[Tetsujin]

Congrats

I just remembered I still haven't continued. I stopped sometime around Christmas (fittingly, after I just got to Christmas Town in KH2).

 

[Ami]

Same here.

I completed the first game once and then forgot to continue past Destiny Islands on a more difficult mode. I may have to do this in August when I've got two weeks off work.

 

[Dashell]

I'm sorry but the Roxas fight in this game is really fucking stupid. I'm at level 50 which, my understanding is, WAAY overleveled for that fight. I don't like to go into TWTNW over leveled because I enjoy the challenge of the fights of the Org members. And ofc, every time I google how to beat him or help to beat him I just get people going, "Lol really? That fight is SUPER easy! Just learn the patterns!" and so on which of course makes me feel like a moron for, once again, not being able to do something that everyone else in the world can do.

And no matter what happens with his reaction command I ALWAYS end up taking damage. Even if my cursor is right on the "The End" selection when it appears, when I hit it, I always end up being the one taking the damage. I did it right once I think... am I not supposed to hit X? Am I supposed to hit O or something?

Seriously Roxas was an idiotic character before this and now he's just a piece of shit.

and for the record, yes I use guard and reflect and everything like that. It doesn't matter. Roxas ruined this game for me


EDIT

Won the battle by spamming reflect and using up like 4 of my elixirs. Then the scene that followed made me cry... this fucking game

 

[Tetsujin]

So I'm trying to platinum KH2 currently and played some of the data battles for the first time and uh

UGH

LARXENE

why

why you gotta make me cry ='(

it's so hard

Reflect has been pretty useful so far but I'm looking at videos and people somehow have Reflect take off several health bars at once when she's attacking with all the clones and like
what
how
it never does that for me =(

edit: Alright I got it now. Complaining on the internet always works

 

[Tetsujin]

So I finally got around to beating the Replica Org. XIII battles. Whew. That's a first for me.

It's interesting reading people ranking them from easiest to hardest. I feel like Axel ranks fairly low for a lot of people but he almost made me throw the controller. Him, Larxene and Roxas are the infernal trio that will haunt me in my nightmares.
Vexen with his anti-Sora is a bit of a problem but Final Form+Firaga is ridiculously effective.

Marluxia, Lexaeus are whatever. Xigbar annoyed me because I kept mistiming my blocks and Reflects so I died quite a bit.

Then there's the dudes I only died once against: Luxord, Saix, Xaldin, Zexion.

Luxord was easy as hell and only his minigame at the end screwed me over. Saix is easy and boring which led to me being careless and dying once after all. I came into Xaldin's battle prepared (thanks Bizkit pro strats ) so I only died once to what could've possibly been pretty hard. I don't think I used a single standard attack against him, it was all Jumps.
Zexion trapped me in the book, which killed me. I think I ran out of MP so I couldn't use Reflect against it.

And finally, Demyx and Xemnas went down first try.
I dreaded Xemnas especially since he's got two phases and you gotta do it all over again if you die at the second but I managed despite constantly accidentally triggering the Session limit with Riku and draining my MP because I forgot to take off auto-limit or whatever.

The quest for the platinum continues. Still gotta do minigame stuff, synthesis stuff, gummi ship stuff, beat the Hades Paradox cup (...somehow I thought I had already done it...), do the Mushroom XIII quest and beat Lingering Will.

 

[Tetsujin]

I'm just updating this thread for myself and I'm okay with that

HOLY SHIT, Lingering Will. Even looking up strats on how to deal with his attacks, applying all that in practice is a whole 'nother thing and I still got my ass whooped like, 30 times. This was tough as shit. But oh so satisfying to finally beat him. He's got some bullshit moves (fuck that thing where he locks either your attacks or magic or when you get hit by the bow) but I'd say in the end he was actually more fun to fight than some of the replica battles despite being harder. Most gratifying win since no-damaging Armstrong in the Metal Gear Rising DLC

Ah, to finally watch that super secret ending without needing YouTube for the first time in 14 years

This platinum felt pretty earned and fun/challenging. Unlike the Chain of Memories one where it's a boring slog all the way through and you ask yourself why you put yourself through all that. Curse that Riku lvl grind.

 

[ultima espio]

Modding for the PS2 version of FM is really taking off. Here's KH1 Sora, in KH1 Traverse Town, in KH2:

Hollow Bastion's High Tower:

Destiny Islands:

There are also extensive mods to play as Vanitas, Ventus and Aqua,

 

[Lex]

I'm sorry but the Roxas fight in this game is really fucking stupid. I'm at level 50 which, my understanding is, WAAY overleveled for that fight. I don't like to go into TWTNW over leveled because I enjoy the challenge of the fights of the Org members. And ofc, every time I google how to beat him or help to beat him I just get people going, "Lol really? That fight is SUPER easy! Just learn the patterns!" and so on which of course makes me feel like a moron for, once again, not being able to do something that everyone else in the world can do. _

I'm four years late but I came here to vent about this very same thing, you're not alone. I never finished my KH2 playthrough before KH3 came out, and now that I have work vacation time I thought I'd remedy that (plus do a BBS playthrough - haven't played that since I had it on PSP) then follow it up with another KH3 run because I didn't really get to enjoy it when it came out (my ex ruined it for me, this playthrough will be a purification ritual lmao).

ANYWAY

Yeah so having played KH before I'm used to some bullshit when it comes to the human enemies. And by that I mean the mechanics are obviously incredibly different to like, the entire rest of the game. Suddenly blocking is essential - and I'll be honest, the only games I've ever learned how to perfect block in are Lightning Returns and the PS4 God of War. To be brutal about it, the timing for it in KH is pure garbage. There is no universal telegraph so you can't react (other than to memorise the attack itself and then work out what moment you should press square to block for each given attack), and the window of time you have to actually do it is really unforgiving. Couple that with the fact that the human enemies are deliberately unpredictable and it's a recipe for frustration. I know the attacks/ upcoming combos themselves have telegraphs, but Roxas for example has no set pattern. He can combo you into oblivion and even if you perfect block 5 times in a row, he can just decide to do another attack, or trigger his contextual attack, or do a different attack, or be staggered for less than a second. There is no actual way to tell which one of those things is ABOUT to happen, you just have to learn all of his attacks and hope you can react fast enough to whatever might be coming.

Let me be clear - I have already done the absent silhouette battles. They took a fair few attempts sure, but they didn't take me the 25+ that the main story Roxas fight took me. I get that this is a Final Mix addition, but I think what the game throws at you up until that point does sweet fuck all to prepare you for how difficult it is. Suddenly all the tools you've been using to get through the game are useless. And I get it - that's what some people like about it. But for the love of fuck, why would you make a battle like this a gate in the main story? Every other fight after it is easier.

Something I've always found frustrating in KH is how much you get punished for taking a hit. It's very easy to get stun locked and it becomes really frustrating when you know a fight well, because you know that if you're a frame off that like, 0.5 frame window you have to press a button then you get hit by one move, you're locked into a 20-hit combo that has massive gaps in it you should totally be able to press buttons in to evade the rest (like aerial dodge etc), but suddenly none of your buttons work. It hurts.

I know these are aspects that some KH players like, and I'm all for challenging fights. But that Roxas fight is bullshit.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Roxas fucking fights you for your existence. He's one of the hardest Organization fights in Final Mix. What difficulty were you on? Even on regular he's lethal but it becomes a straight up massacre on Proud and above.

KH2 was definitely the Dark Souls before Dark Souls existed. I think Nomura or a battle gameplay developer even said in an interview over Final Mix they felt like they sorta made Roxas sadistic or dangerous in the game and felt bad.

The secret data fight against

Spoiler

Xion

in KH3 is basically Roxas 2.0 and intensified. Dunno if you'll ever do it but good luck if you do.

 

[Tetsujin]

Roxas is definitely the toughest regular boss in the game. And then it gets worse in the data battles.
I don't know why they made the story version so hard though. I feel the emotional impact this is supposed to have is undermined when you inevitably get frustrated because the game's difficulty suddenly and unexpectedly spiked up 300%.

I actually agree about the combo thing, I get super annoyed when I'm just stuck in a lengthy combo that you can't do anything about and KH2 has lots of bosses that do that. Sometimes there are opportunities to break out but it's deathbait because doing so will just leave you open for the next unavoidable hit and now Second Chance and Once More cannot help you anymore
I get why the combos are so long because the challenge is basically to block/avoid all of the hits but once you get caught I feel like the combo should end once it gets you down to 1HP because it has fulfilled its fucking purpose
I don't get frustrated by the fact I took damage for messing up, but I do get frustrated that the game has the extra punishment of wasting your fucking time for no reason.
Although to some degree at least you can do that to the bosses as well if you stop your combo before the finisher and then restart while they're still stunned.

That being said, I still had fun with some of these fights...but it wasn't without its fair share of frustration for sure.

Anyway, that reminds me at some point I should continue my platinum run of the series. Although apparently the BBS superbosses like the Unknown are just pure nonsense. I had watched videos from this Bizkit dude, and whereas he's got all these detailed breakdowns of the mechanics in KH2 battles, the Unknown one is just like 'this fight is bullshit, understand that if the game wants you dead, you're dead'