Demi
BACKER
2006
Very interesting when it comes to the presentation, kind of okay when it comes to sticking RPG mechanics on top of a shoot-em-up formula
2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=podX_cPaIHU
"In games, there are believable lies and unbelievable lies. We want to create realities that are believable."
- Translated quote from Rika Suzuki (https://shmuplations.com/adventuregames/)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is the kind of game to make elevator-sounding-music hit different.
Going to start off with the unconventional human-feeling parts of why I like this game but
the premise and the position Cing and the Hotel Dusk ip feel so close (and some have said
the sequel to this game is arguably even closer). Hotel Dusk is a game about being in a small
hotel in the middle of the California desert right before the new year of 1980, something
that very much to me draws in ideas of being alone while finding your way in life as time
progresses. I would say this game is about as accurate to having a feeling that captures
a lonely pre-New Years December and post-New Years January based on my personal experiences lol.
The protagonist of this game, Kyle Hyde, is shown directly at the beginning to
be in a very introspective time in his life where he can't let go of the past and ends up
working as just a door-to-door salesman after being fired as a police officer. I was a bit
worried that this game was going to turn a blind eye to the moral implications of sleuthing
to find whatever items you could use in a situation but I was pleasantly surprised to find
that this game did not let me down at all and only used those aspects to highlight Kyle's
character as well, a guy who absolutely was a cop at some point and is not even remotely
good with people but deep down he wants to listen and understand them. In fact to build on this
point this game is bold enough to hit you with a few "game over" scenarios that you can
quickly recover from which I found to absolutely spike some much-needed tension in the story.
Some other reviewers here (and critics in general) complain about this aspect and I think at
times it can be a bit too harsh but also this isn't Ace Attorney where you're going into a
court room, you are literally some nobody door-to-door salesman grilling people in a hotel
so why the hell wouldn't you back your stuff up or carefully think about what you're saying?
If there's an overall tone/appeal I can say that this game has it's that it can morph between
a sitcom and an intriguing mystery at ease, there wasn't any time where I was wondering why
the tone of the game changed the writing (done by Rika Suzuki) was solid. I was lucky enough
to find this game physically and the form factor of the DS is directly used multiple times
for puzzles, with the DS being turned sideways to be read like a book. With how I was holding
my DS, my thumb was on the bottom right corner of the screen where dialogue would be displayed
so I could quickly continue on with dialogue and I can't help but feel like this was absolutely
used to play into the detective novel aspect of the story while having an easy way to go
through dialogue.
Hotel Dusk is an excellent example of how just good writing (and art direction) and a consideration of the player interface
can trascend something as simple as "an adventure game where you play as a former cop in the 1970's" into something that
can still draw in those who would appreciate the concept today. Hotel Dusk uses the medium of games to draw you into
the mindset and perspective of Kyle with how it lays down character interactions, sets up its user interface to
make the Nintendo DS LITERALLY a book, and a narrative layout that recollects as many times as it progresses a story.
I very much believe this game was intended for a casual audience who probably never played a lot of video games
(or of the adventure game variety), and I think it succeeds in bringing the appeal of detective fiction to the DS.
Although the game is incredibly linear and at times grinds up against adventure game design issues such as
"what do I do to progress the story" and "why do I have to look at these items in that order", there were more times
I was using my head to think about where events could lead in the hotel and I think the focus on a singular setting
absolutely helps this game a lot. Hotel Dusk isn't a game that revolutionizes, it innovates on the kind of emotion
video games are supposed to invoke by playing into basic adventure game sensibilities, hooking you in on the
characters and mystery like a good book you just can't put down.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is the kind of game to make elevator-sounding-music hit different. A place
can just be a place but there are always secrets and wishes people have, everything depends on
how you spend your time on this Earth and Hotel Dusk is a game that shows that in the small moments
of nothing you can find something even if you're down on your luck.
"In games, there are believable lies and unbelievable lies. We want to create realities that are believable."
- Translated quote from Rika Suzuki (https://shmuplations.com/adventuregames/)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is the kind of game to make elevator-sounding-music hit different.
Going to start off with the unconventional human-feeling parts of why I like this game but
the premise and the position Cing and the Hotel Dusk ip feel so close (and some have said
the sequel to this game is arguably even closer). Hotel Dusk is a game about being in a small
hotel in the middle of the California desert right before the new year of 1980, something
that very much to me draws in ideas of being alone while finding your way in life as time
progresses. I would say this game is about as accurate to having a feeling that captures
a lonely pre-New Years December and post-New Years January based on my personal experiences lol.
The protagonist of this game, Kyle Hyde, is shown directly at the beginning to
be in a very introspective time in his life where he can't let go of the past and ends up
working as just a door-to-door salesman after being fired as a police officer. I was a bit
worried that this game was going to turn a blind eye to the moral implications of sleuthing
to find whatever items you could use in a situation but I was pleasantly surprised to find
that this game did not let me down at all and only used those aspects to highlight Kyle's
character as well, a guy who absolutely was a cop at some point and is not even remotely
good with people but deep down he wants to listen and understand them. In fact to build on this
point this game is bold enough to hit you with a few "game over" scenarios that you can
quickly recover from which I found to absolutely spike some much-needed tension in the story.
Some other reviewers here (and critics in general) complain about this aspect and I think at
times it can be a bit too harsh but also this isn't Ace Attorney where you're going into a
court room, you are literally some nobody door-to-door salesman grilling people in a hotel
so why the hell wouldn't you back your stuff up or carefully think about what you're saying?
If there's an overall tone/appeal I can say that this game has it's that it can morph between
a sitcom and an intriguing mystery at ease, there wasn't any time where I was wondering why
the tone of the game changed the writing (done by Rika Suzuki) was solid. I was lucky enough
to find this game physically and the form factor of the DS is directly used multiple times
for puzzles, with the DS being turned sideways to be read like a book. With how I was holding
my DS, my thumb was on the bottom right corner of the screen where dialogue would be displayed
so I could quickly continue on with dialogue and I can't help but feel like this was absolutely
used to play into the detective novel aspect of the story while having an easy way to go
through dialogue.
Hotel Dusk is an excellent example of how just good writing (and art direction) and a consideration of the player interface
can trascend something as simple as "an adventure game where you play as a former cop in the 1970's" into something that
can still draw in those who would appreciate the concept today. Hotel Dusk uses the medium of games to draw you into
the mindset and perspective of Kyle with how it lays down character interactions, sets up its user interface to
make the Nintendo DS LITERALLY a book, and a narrative layout that recollects as many times as it progresses a story.
I very much believe this game was intended for a casual audience who probably never played a lot of video games
(or of the adventure game variety), and I think it succeeds in bringing the appeal of detective fiction to the DS.
Although the game is incredibly linear and at times grinds up against adventure game design issues such as
"what do I do to progress the story" and "why do I have to look at these items in that order", there were more times
I was using my head to think about where events could lead in the hotel and I think the focus on a singular setting
absolutely helps this game a lot. Hotel Dusk isn't a game that revolutionizes, it innovates on the kind of emotion
video games are supposed to invoke by playing into basic adventure game sensibilities, hooking you in on the
characters and mystery like a good book you just can't put down.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is the kind of game to make elevator-sounding-music hit different. A place
can just be a place but there are always secrets and wishes people have, everything depends on
how you spend your time on this Earth and Hotel Dusk is a game that shows that in the small moments
of nothing you can find something even if you're down on your luck.
1993
Sid Meier’s-esc historical context meets Sim City but for commercial flight networks as you set up your business (and also compete with others to be #1) with simplistic menu commands that can sometimes be intuitive, but there’s always some sort of key information you end up needing to dig through. I think it’s obvious part of the limitation here was the combination of it being made for a console and the memory as if there ever was a sequel/remake of this game you could easily pull all these numbers into a more streamlined interface
It’s an incredibly fun game to play with the right kind of people, it’s a board game that can only be simulated to have any sort of fun factor because you’d basically have to be doing fictional accounting if you did this as an actual board game
It’s an incredibly fun game to play with the right kind of people, it’s a board game that can only be simulated to have any sort of fun factor because you’d basically have to be doing fictional accounting if you did this as an actual board game
1996
Taking your shiny 3D Italian baby man on a test drive at an amusement park in the sense that you will go to sections of a park and find some that you love a lot and keep looking around in and find some that are neat I guess until it's time to go home
I think I unconsciously suppressed my childhood memories of holding an N64 controller in my hands
I think I unconsciously suppressed my childhood memories of holding an N64 controller in my hands
An old-fashioned handheld RPG for the post-Pokémon era
Random encounters are gone, you can local co-op with friends SEAMLESSLY AND HELP THEM OUT IN BATTLES, an open world to walk around/explore/chill in, and a story that still stands out in the Dragon Quest franchise
I’m not kidding if Square remastered this game for the switch and had online play Dragon Quest would be even bigger than it did when VIII/XI showed up with voice acting
Random encounters are gone, you can local co-op with friends SEAMLESSLY AND HELP THEM OUT IN BATTLES, an open world to walk around/explore/chill in, and a story that still stands out in the Dragon Quest franchise
I’m not kidding if Square remastered this game for the switch and had online play Dragon Quest would be even bigger than it did when VIII/XI showed up with voice acting
2015
A "choose-your-own-adventure novel" video game.
What makes games fun to me is being able to be pulled into decision making whether it's planning out future moves, exploring possibilities, taking into context how much experience I have with said game to keep learning the mechanics, etc. I had fun with Undertale but not really for reasons that would make it a ground-breaking video game to me personally.
The combat is neat and changes up as you keep going but it is very much one-sided with dodging, using an item, and executing a command (in this case SPARE and whatever they need so I can spare them) with very little ways for me to change this pattern. The narrative is fun with a great cast of characters but suffers from being designed to feel open-ended when the game basically slaps you in the face that attacking monsters is wrong (and it does not make attacking that much different from pacifying besides just having to be in combat a tiny bit longer).
There are a lot of good things here but like a "choose-your-own-adventure" novel it's very obvious that you can just pick something to completely go down an opposite path and once you've seen something you generally could go back and clear house on a replay. The most interesting aspect of this game to me are found in the ending of the pacifist run I did where it sort of "tests" you around the core theme of befriending people. The "true pacifist" ending is kind of sweet but also one of the corniest I think I've ever seen in a video game really, I think the game can be incredibly overindulgent at times to a detriment. It's hard for me not to mention Earthbound/Mother (especially since this game basically made that franchise even more popular) and this game very much just borrows a lot of ideas from it (especially for the pacifist ending) without any of the actual trial-and-error or reading-between-the-lines the player had to do to because that series wasn't just about being a twist on popular RPGs, it was about using that basis of games like Dragon Quest to tell a heartfelt story that you could only get in a medium where you are progressing on a journey.
I (and a lot of other people) like this game because Toby Fox writes good music, characters, and has some good ideas, not because he replaced "Attack" with "Spare" when I have to go through random encounters in a video game. I personally couldn't really imagine liking this game too much if someone hasn't played a lot of video games before besides everything I mentioned that makes this game great.
What makes games fun to me is being able to be pulled into decision making whether it's planning out future moves, exploring possibilities, taking into context how much experience I have with said game to keep learning the mechanics, etc. I had fun with Undertale but not really for reasons that would make it a ground-breaking video game to me personally.
The combat is neat and changes up as you keep going but it is very much one-sided with dodging, using an item, and executing a command (in this case SPARE and whatever they need so I can spare them) with very little ways for me to change this pattern. The narrative is fun with a great cast of characters but suffers from being designed to feel open-ended when the game basically slaps you in the face that attacking monsters is wrong (and it does not make attacking that much different from pacifying besides just having to be in combat a tiny bit longer).
There are a lot of good things here but like a "choose-your-own-adventure" novel it's very obvious that you can just pick something to completely go down an opposite path and once you've seen something you generally could go back and clear house on a replay. The most interesting aspect of this game to me are found in the ending of the pacifist run I did where it sort of "tests" you around the core theme of befriending people. The "true pacifist" ending is kind of sweet but also one of the corniest I think I've ever seen in a video game really, I think the game can be incredibly overindulgent at times to a detriment. It's hard for me not to mention Earthbound/Mother (especially since this game basically made that franchise even more popular) and this game very much just borrows a lot of ideas from it (especially for the pacifist ending) without any of the actual trial-and-error or reading-between-the-lines the player had to do to because that series wasn't just about being a twist on popular RPGs, it was about using that basis of games like Dragon Quest to tell a heartfelt story that you could only get in a medium where you are progressing on a journey.
I (and a lot of other people) like this game because Toby Fox writes good music, characters, and has some good ideas, not because he replaced "Attack" with "Spare" when I have to go through random encounters in a video game. I personally couldn't really imagine liking this game too much if someone hasn't played a lot of video games before besides everything I mentioned that makes this game great.
2005
This was neat and I literally only bought it just, because it was just something I did not expect to exist. Making an RPG with only a PS2 controller absolutely reminded me of the kind of feelings I had when I got into computer programming in middle school where I was just impatient and connecting whatever worked and the final product was just plain bad because I didn't have any good teachers/resources besides a book called "C for Dummies" that I would skip around.
Very novel but also, literally there is nothing to share you game with other people lmao
Very novel but also, literally there is nothing to share you game with other people lmao
"Well, just as I was working on FFVII, Mario 64 was released. The fully three-dimensional spaces and the freedom you had to run around them had a big impact on me. When I told my colleagues I wanted to make a game like that, they said 'but Mario's already a world-famous character. It would be impossible to start from scratch with an all-new character.' "
-Tetsuya Nomura
(https://web.archive.org/web/20150725233103/http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/0)
-----------------------------
Intro
-----------------------------
Kingdom Hearts is one of the main reasons I got into JRPGs, I vividly remember getting into
the series with Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance and essentially
most of my childhood was me just playing that and Square Enix JRPGs on the DS (spoiler: Dragon Quest IX was the best one).
Front-loading with nostalgia here because I just want to juxtapose that with
where I am now where I can't help but think about that Tetsuya Nomura quote
about Mario 64 now that I'm sitting here playing through (and finishing) the first game after
all these years (I got Re:Coded when it dropped so I guess technically
I "played" this before lol) even though the only Kingdom Hearts game I've technically finished before
was Terra's route in Birth By Sleep back in 2015 funny enough (if finishing a route in a game even counts as finishing a game).
It's interesting coming back to a game series that is so open with just being a(n overly self indulgent) metaphor for
growing up while also very literally being on that threshold line of "I am young and there's time" and "Wow I'm old oh god".
-----------------------------
Gameplay - "Final Fantasy Limit Breaks with subpar stereotypical-licensed-game-type gameplay"
-----------------------------
Anyways Mario 64, wow they should have played that game more and took some notes on it while developing this one cause it's just so hard for
me to sit down and chill in a game that basically has painted rooms that have puzzle switches and
enemies dumped in to be honest. Kingdom Hearts kind of had to start somewhere and the idea of even making an action-RPG during the early 2000's is a position I could not even imagine being in. That being said,
there are so many moments where the game really does not care to even work on the core
RPG combat because there is so much padding with the level design and gummi ship segments.
Starting off with the world design I'll focus on the progression aspect of it and I'm just gonna be honest with you
there are Lego games that kind of beat this in my opinion. It's one thing to have puzzles/mini-games
when they add variety but it's another to basically make me run around and do chores all day because you just couldn't think of ways
to keep the core appeal of this game going and this becomes apparent towards the end when there's a lot of fighting
(to where it was a bit of a slog honestly). Right from the starting point on Destiny Island it is shown that finding items/people/places
is the main way of progressing the story which feels good in certain instances but to me there were just too many moments where it felt
detached from everything and was just busywork such as Deep Jungle where you are essentially just walking towards whatever area
has a key moment in the story so you can keep.
Going into the combat, one major issue I have with the combat actually is the level design that is used with it, it's at best just a plain arena
to keep fighting Heartless in and at its lowest it is just absolutely unfun and makes the aspect of this still being a bit
in the early full-3D era of gaming a bit obvious. A lot of areas in the game are just filled with obstacles but at times
you might have to deal with traversing levels in an area and the tendancy of the combat to prioritize locking onto a specific
enemy which can throw you frame of positioning in the environment completely off. It's one thing to make it a challenge to climb a tower
but if I can't do any of the sick anime combos without falling all the way back to the base level I'm going to just do my best to
either keep spamming magic or have to wait to get the enemies to be in a better spot. Another really bad aspect
of the level design comes when you have to fight and are either flying/swimming (in this playthrough I skipped the world that The
Little Mermaid takes place in but there's a small swimming level at the end still), from all technical aspects these levels suck out any sort of
fun from the combat. If Kingdom Hearts is a 3D action rpg that has so many abilities that rely on context with just you pressing the X
button, then why would they take away the most interesting input of aerial vs ground combat? It's a baffling decision that
just does not feel fun at all and while it doesn't take up most of the levels here, it was absolutely a slog to go through.
Speaking of padding, the gummi ship segments are neat and add some variety, but I'm really not gonna pretend like it went above "wow that's neat I guess" levels of enjoyment.
Like, I guess someone working on this game thought the segments were fun but they can drag on in my opinion as they are basically plain bread Star Fox 64 with an incredibly
low-poly look that absolutely feels like this was some small side game just to add something to do. I would say that it at least builds on the core action gameplay of
"attack and dodge" but still which could be used to justify the swimming/flying segments for the combat but still I can't say it beats just fighting with
actual variety.
Nowadays the Kingdom Hearts series is known for being an action-RPG series
that streamlines combat for a great anime/Final Fantasy-esc presentation and that was definitely the foundation set here. Besides
having "techs" - a sort of parry that you do when an enemy is attacking by hitting them at them at the right time -
you are essentially just running around and putting as much damage as you can into the enemy as possible when the opening shows up.
It's not bad, it's not insanely good (besides a certain second-to-last final boss that was fun), but hey it's alright.
It's not really too surprising that some of my favorite fights in this game are you just fighting some regular guy
(whether they be a Final Fantasy character, literally Sora, or someone with grey hair) when you take
all these elements together. If you boil down what you do in this game, it's pressing down one button but the
context of the enemies/levels in this game can add some variety to where you can utilize the movement or magic/items.
I'm not gonna pretend like I've played as many action games as I have JRPGs, but I think just based off of my experience with
Devil May Cry 1+3, No More Heroes, a bit of Yakuza 0, Metal Gear Rising, and Resident Evil 4 I think my standard for 3D
action games really is set by the question of "can I have a fun time by fighting guys in an empty room with some vague sort of progression" and this game
to me feels like it is on the lower end of that spectrum, especially with how the ending gauntlet leads into being
something like a Bloody Palace in DMC3.
This is really the kind of video game that would be ABSOLUTELY adored by people who
have nostalgia for it (or are here to poke fun at the premise in general really) in my opinion,
as there are some different gameplay flavors but none of them
really outshine the core action-RPG combat and just feel like small things to do in a game
to pass the time.
-----------------------------
Story - "A childhood rival anime battle between The Heart and Darkness (with a milligram of Star Wars), and whatever we found in the Disney vault clearance bin at Target"
-----------------------------
A lot is put into the presentation and I think the main rule here with the story is "coolness over logic". There's a very evident
rival story going on here with Sora and Riku but if you even remotely think about 1 or 3 details in the story it absolutely
makes no sense but also, this is literally a Disney game (but then again Kingdom Hearts means something completely different now
than it did back in 2002) so who cares that much really. I really don't think it's the worst thing ever to just have a silly dumb anime story though, but I will say
so far I just absolutely prefer games like KH: Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days when it comes to having a story that I actually enjoy
with each step along the way because those games actually bother to have intrigue/characterization over "SOMETHING IS HAPPENING" or "this is how the world works"
every time a character opens their mouth or just following the basic hero's journey guideline you'd see in a high school english class.
I think what really adds to the awkwardness here are the cutscenes and voice acting which can be awkward at times but is charming in its own Kingdom Hearts way (I'm certain if you are
on this website I don't need to show an example of what I'm talking about) which, none of the handheld games I grew up with really had voice acting
so that might just say something a bit but I do have a bit of fondness for how overdramatic the acting can get at times.
Square has kind of always had a deep love for Star Wars (or the tropes it uses) whether it was Golbez in FFIV, Biggs and Wedge, Empires, etc.
and Kingdom Hearts absolutely follows down that pathway in my opinion with "light" and "darkness" essentially being something like "The Force" but
a lot more in your face and constant throughout the world and less uh, interesting. I would also say the game goes on over and over about
"light" and "darkness" a lot but if you really think about how (most of) the Disney properties featured here have villains who are just evil
for the sake of being selfish or evil it really isn't that bad just you know, very simple and too straightforward.
Concerning the Disney worlds, I just do not care for any of the Disney worlds here
and I have always felt like they don't add too much to the story really. I like how in this game there are small moments of building on
the dynamic of the main cast like in the Tarzan world you have Sora and Donald still not getting along, Sora being put in his place
a bit and understanding he still has a lot of room to grow while also proving himself in the Colosseum world thing, and heck
Alice in Wonderland is about as perfect of a starting option of a world as you can get as Sora loses his home and faces a bizarre reality.
Sometimes it works with small moments, but in the long run it drags because you can tell part of each world is just summarizing what their specific movie/show/whatever
has going on to catch up people who haven't seen them and already we're working with a plot that really is kind of just basic. I will say
that it's just so obvious A Nightmare Before Christmas has the best world just for the mere fact that it actually pokes a bit of fun
at the main premise of the game, lovingly puts detail into the world, etc. Overall though, this playthrough didn't entirely change my
stance on the Disney worlds really, they just aren't that good and I think show a lack of creativity in the crossover aspect by being
literal stories crossing into the main story rather than taking risks like with Mickey/Donald/Goofy where they are entirely different
characters that have a base in their original incarnations when it comes to their personality. A good example of this also is with some Final Fantasy characters,
I think it's really cool having Squall/Leon be a sort of older brother figure for Sora (sort of almost like he's Laguna a bit but still the same old Squall)
and there are details of his character that REALLY reflect how he was in FFVIII but also he's still different that the character he was in that game
because this is a different series.
To me the worst part of the story is the last section around/after the climax, it's awkwardly put together and feels
like it was sort of an attempt to at least give the players the chance to do endgame content and maybe flesh some characters out a
tiny bit more but also it's just weird to sit around the same spot when we already know what we need to do to stop the main threat.
I did enjoy the ending and thought it was great, but it was just very obvious that towards the end the idea of having any sort
of pacing for a story was thrown out the window for just enemies showing up and more things to fight.
Overall, Sora's journey is fairly simple (lol) but I think it was at least pretty neat, he's just a kid facing literal
Disney villains (and one anime nihilist) and obviously they set up something for a sequel if this did well, but I really don't think "light" and "darkness"
are too complex here besides very much being literal symbolic devices that just show up a bunch.
-----------------------------
Conclusion
-----------------------------
If the PS1 FF games were an investment on 3D tech to make battles flashy (even with the continued FFIV ATB system), cutscenes that hit harder, and music to be more involved with the scenario then Kingdom Hearts
builds on that lineage with fun button mashing anime action, voice acted scenes with big dramatic moments with rivals/villains, and music that weaves
in and out of the state of the game to where battles blend with traversal. I will be honest I started writing this review with the Nomura quote about Mario 64 to show how Kingdom Hearts
was absolutely the complete opposite of that with almost no sort of exploration in a 3D space besides basic set pieces, but I'd say honestly while that's a criticism I have
with this game there's at least a bit of freedom in expression in combat that works with the 3D space. Instead of Square's RPG mechanics and action being limited to separate states in a game system,
they blend in as one in a space with the player having options to express said action and that's at least an obvious goal this game had that I think it accomplished pretty well even if it is hidden
behind boxes of lazy/mediocre game design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqTd7YZ8cu4
-Tetsuya Nomura
(https://web.archive.org/web/20150725233103/http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/0)
-----------------------------
Intro
-----------------------------
Kingdom Hearts is one of the main reasons I got into JRPGs, I vividly remember getting into
the series with Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance and essentially
most of my childhood was me just playing that and Square Enix JRPGs on the DS (spoiler: Dragon Quest IX was the best one).
Front-loading with nostalgia here because I just want to juxtapose that with
where I am now where I can't help but think about that Tetsuya Nomura quote
about Mario 64 now that I'm sitting here playing through (and finishing) the first game after
all these years (I got Re:Coded when it dropped so I guess technically
I "played" this before lol) even though the only Kingdom Hearts game I've technically finished before
was Terra's route in Birth By Sleep back in 2015 funny enough (if finishing a route in a game even counts as finishing a game).
It's interesting coming back to a game series that is so open with just being a(n overly self indulgent) metaphor for
growing up while also very literally being on that threshold line of "I am young and there's time" and "Wow I'm old oh god".
-----------------------------
Gameplay - "Final Fantasy Limit Breaks with subpar stereotypical-licensed-game-type gameplay"
-----------------------------
Anyways Mario 64, wow they should have played that game more and took some notes on it while developing this one cause it's just so hard for
me to sit down and chill in a game that basically has painted rooms that have puzzle switches and
enemies dumped in to be honest. Kingdom Hearts kind of had to start somewhere and the idea of even making an action-RPG during the early 2000's is a position I could not even imagine being in. That being said,
there are so many moments where the game really does not care to even work on the core
RPG combat because there is so much padding with the level design and gummi ship segments.
Starting off with the world design I'll focus on the progression aspect of it and I'm just gonna be honest with you
there are Lego games that kind of beat this in my opinion. It's one thing to have puzzles/mini-games
when they add variety but it's another to basically make me run around and do chores all day because you just couldn't think of ways
to keep the core appeal of this game going and this becomes apparent towards the end when there's a lot of fighting
(to where it was a bit of a slog honestly). Right from the starting point on Destiny Island it is shown that finding items/people/places
is the main way of progressing the story which feels good in certain instances but to me there were just too many moments where it felt
detached from everything and was just busywork such as Deep Jungle where you are essentially just walking towards whatever area
has a key moment in the story so you can keep.
Going into the combat, one major issue I have with the combat actually is the level design that is used with it, it's at best just a plain arena
to keep fighting Heartless in and at its lowest it is just absolutely unfun and makes the aspect of this still being a bit
in the early full-3D era of gaming a bit obvious. A lot of areas in the game are just filled with obstacles but at times
you might have to deal with traversing levels in an area and the tendancy of the combat to prioritize locking onto a specific
enemy which can throw you frame of positioning in the environment completely off. It's one thing to make it a challenge to climb a tower
but if I can't do any of the sick anime combos without falling all the way back to the base level I'm going to just do my best to
either keep spamming magic or have to wait to get the enemies to be in a better spot. Another really bad aspect
of the level design comes when you have to fight and are either flying/swimming (in this playthrough I skipped the world that The
Little Mermaid takes place in but there's a small swimming level at the end still), from all technical aspects these levels suck out any sort of
fun from the combat. If Kingdom Hearts is a 3D action rpg that has so many abilities that rely on context with just you pressing the X
button, then why would they take away the most interesting input of aerial vs ground combat? It's a baffling decision that
just does not feel fun at all and while it doesn't take up most of the levels here, it was absolutely a slog to go through.
Speaking of padding, the gummi ship segments are neat and add some variety, but I'm really not gonna pretend like it went above "wow that's neat I guess" levels of enjoyment.
Like, I guess someone working on this game thought the segments were fun but they can drag on in my opinion as they are basically plain bread Star Fox 64 with an incredibly
low-poly look that absolutely feels like this was some small side game just to add something to do. I would say that it at least builds on the core action gameplay of
"attack and dodge" but still which could be used to justify the swimming/flying segments for the combat but still I can't say it beats just fighting with
actual variety.
Nowadays the Kingdom Hearts series is known for being an action-RPG series
that streamlines combat for a great anime/Final Fantasy-esc presentation and that was definitely the foundation set here. Besides
having "techs" - a sort of parry that you do when an enemy is attacking by hitting them at them at the right time -
you are essentially just running around and putting as much damage as you can into the enemy as possible when the opening shows up.
It's not bad, it's not insanely good (besides a certain second-to-last final boss that was fun), but hey it's alright.
It's not really too surprising that some of my favorite fights in this game are you just fighting some regular guy
(whether they be a Final Fantasy character, literally Sora, or someone with grey hair) when you take
all these elements together. If you boil down what you do in this game, it's pressing down one button but the
context of the enemies/levels in this game can add some variety to where you can utilize the movement or magic/items.
I'm not gonna pretend like I've played as many action games as I have JRPGs, but I think just based off of my experience with
Devil May Cry 1+3, No More Heroes, a bit of Yakuza 0, Metal Gear Rising, and Resident Evil 4 I think my standard for 3D
action games really is set by the question of "can I have a fun time by fighting guys in an empty room with some vague sort of progression" and this game
to me feels like it is on the lower end of that spectrum, especially with how the ending gauntlet leads into being
something like a Bloody Palace in DMC3.
This is really the kind of video game that would be ABSOLUTELY adored by people who
have nostalgia for it (or are here to poke fun at the premise in general really) in my opinion,
as there are some different gameplay flavors but none of them
really outshine the core action-RPG combat and just feel like small things to do in a game
to pass the time.
-----------------------------
Story - "A childhood rival anime battle between The Heart and Darkness (with a milligram of Star Wars), and whatever we found in the Disney vault clearance bin at Target"
-----------------------------
A lot is put into the presentation and I think the main rule here with the story is "coolness over logic". There's a very evident
rival story going on here with Sora and Riku but if you even remotely think about 1 or 3 details in the story it absolutely
makes no sense but also, this is literally a Disney game (but then again Kingdom Hearts means something completely different now
than it did back in 2002) so who cares that much really. I really don't think it's the worst thing ever to just have a silly dumb anime story though, but I will say
so far I just absolutely prefer games like KH: Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days when it comes to having a story that I actually enjoy
with each step along the way because those games actually bother to have intrigue/characterization over "SOMETHING IS HAPPENING" or "this is how the world works"
every time a character opens their mouth or just following the basic hero's journey guideline you'd see in a high school english class.
I think what really adds to the awkwardness here are the cutscenes and voice acting which can be awkward at times but is charming in its own Kingdom Hearts way (I'm certain if you are
on this website I don't need to show an example of what I'm talking about) which, none of the handheld games I grew up with really had voice acting
so that might just say something a bit but I do have a bit of fondness for how overdramatic the acting can get at times.
Square has kind of always had a deep love for Star Wars (or the tropes it uses) whether it was Golbez in FFIV, Biggs and Wedge, Empires, etc.
and Kingdom Hearts absolutely follows down that pathway in my opinion with "light" and "darkness" essentially being something like "The Force" but
a lot more in your face and constant throughout the world and less uh, interesting. I would also say the game goes on over and over about
"light" and "darkness" a lot but if you really think about how (most of) the Disney properties featured here have villains who are just evil
for the sake of being selfish or evil it really isn't that bad just you know, very simple and too straightforward.
Concerning the Disney worlds, I just do not care for any of the Disney worlds here
and I have always felt like they don't add too much to the story really. I like how in this game there are small moments of building on
the dynamic of the main cast like in the Tarzan world you have Sora and Donald still not getting along, Sora being put in his place
a bit and understanding he still has a lot of room to grow while also proving himself in the Colosseum world thing, and heck
Alice in Wonderland is about as perfect of a starting option of a world as you can get as Sora loses his home and faces a bizarre reality.
Sometimes it works with small moments, but in the long run it drags because you can tell part of each world is just summarizing what their specific movie/show/whatever
has going on to catch up people who haven't seen them and already we're working with a plot that really is kind of just basic. I will say
that it's just so obvious A Nightmare Before Christmas has the best world just for the mere fact that it actually pokes a bit of fun
at the main premise of the game, lovingly puts detail into the world, etc. Overall though, this playthrough didn't entirely change my
stance on the Disney worlds really, they just aren't that good and I think show a lack of creativity in the crossover aspect by being
literal stories crossing into the main story rather than taking risks like with Mickey/Donald/Goofy where they are entirely different
characters that have a base in their original incarnations when it comes to their personality. A good example of this also is with some Final Fantasy characters,
I think it's really cool having Squall/Leon be a sort of older brother figure for Sora (sort of almost like he's Laguna a bit but still the same old Squall)
and there are details of his character that REALLY reflect how he was in FFVIII but also he's still different that the character he was in that game
because this is a different series.
To me the worst part of the story is the last section around/after the climax, it's awkwardly put together and feels
like it was sort of an attempt to at least give the players the chance to do endgame content and maybe flesh some characters out a
tiny bit more but also it's just weird to sit around the same spot when we already know what we need to do to stop the main threat.
I did enjoy the ending and thought it was great, but it was just very obvious that towards the end the idea of having any sort
of pacing for a story was thrown out the window for just enemies showing up and more things to fight.
Overall, Sora's journey is fairly simple (lol) but I think it was at least pretty neat, he's just a kid facing literal
Disney villains (and one anime nihilist) and obviously they set up something for a sequel if this did well, but I really don't think "light" and "darkness"
are too complex here besides very much being literal symbolic devices that just show up a bunch.
-----------------------------
Conclusion
-----------------------------
If the PS1 FF games were an investment on 3D tech to make battles flashy (even with the continued FFIV ATB system), cutscenes that hit harder, and music to be more involved with the scenario then Kingdom Hearts
builds on that lineage with fun button mashing anime action, voice acted scenes with big dramatic moments with rivals/villains, and music that weaves
in and out of the state of the game to where battles blend with traversal. I will be honest I started writing this review with the Nomura quote about Mario 64 to show how Kingdom Hearts
was absolutely the complete opposite of that with almost no sort of exploration in a 3D space besides basic set pieces, but I'd say honestly while that's a criticism I have
with this game there's at least a bit of freedom in expression in combat that works with the 3D space. Instead of Square's RPG mechanics and action being limited to separate states in a game system,
they blend in as one in a space with the player having options to express said action and that's at least an obvious goal this game had that I think it accomplished pretty well even if it is hidden
behind boxes of lazy/mediocre game design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqTd7YZ8cu4
1986
There used to be a time period where if you wanted long D&D-esc adventures to play on your own you essentially had to play PC games developed by creative programmers who also suffered from the archaic nature of software development in the 70’s-80’s with over-complicated control schemes, incredibly tedious mechanics that sounded way cooler in their head, and vague stories that basically required you to look at a piece of paper (and also write on one) while you played.
While that style of RPG isn’t even remotely bad, it was the opposite of user-friendly and it’s why we celebrate Dragon Quest so many years later because very literally it brought that style of adventure to casual players with way less memory. Obviously by the standards of today there isn’t a lot going on here but the progression of your character on a journey is something that (especially to me) pulls players in and makes RPGs unique from other genres.
Dragon Quest is a fantastic example of the importance of user interface and game design over spreading an adventure too thin.
While that style of RPG isn’t even remotely bad, it was the opposite of user-friendly and it’s why we celebrate Dragon Quest so many years later because very literally it brought that style of adventure to casual players with way less memory. Obviously by the standards of today there isn’t a lot going on here but the progression of your character on a journey is something that (especially to me) pulls players in and makes RPGs unique from other genres.
Dragon Quest is a fantastic example of the importance of user interface and game design over spreading an adventure too thin.
2017
Based on my first playthrough back in 2020 I'll say that I had some issues with this game's writing (if you even followed me on twitter this is a charitable way of phrasing this) in the second half just kind of falling apart and the combat being pretty slow at times but also I did cry at the end so it did something right with having some good characters
Not my favorite PS1 FF (currently) but a great FF still
I intend on revisiting it sometime soon cause I really wouldn't be surprised if I ended up liking it more now as someone who has at least in some ways changed (as a person and video game enjoyer) since that first playthrough
Not my favorite PS1 FF (currently) but a great FF still
I intend on revisiting it sometime soon cause I really wouldn't be surprised if I ended up liking it more now as someone who has at least in some ways changed (as a person and video game enjoyer) since that first playthrough
I gotta play the PS1 version someday but I just love this game man it means a lot to me.
If Dragon Quest already was a series about having fun simplified RPG adventures this is like, literally a playable One Piece (or Shonen anime) with big story intrigue, lovable filler to add variety, and a cast that changes and grows over time.
It’s evident DQ changed after Chrono Trigger and this title shows that the biggest lesson they learned is that time travel can absolutely make for stellar world building even for small locations while adding epic stakes.
I love this game
If Dragon Quest already was a series about having fun simplified RPG adventures this is like, literally a playable One Piece (or Shonen anime) with big story intrigue, lovable filler to add variety, and a cast that changes and grows over time.
It’s evident DQ changed after Chrono Trigger and this title shows that the biggest lesson they learned is that time travel can absolutely make for stellar world building even for small locations while adding epic stakes.
I love this game
An ideal early 2010’s angry gameplay channel with funny commentary kind of game
As one of the few PS3 games I vaguely remembered reading about in Gameinformer as it was coming out, I’m not too surprised that this game’s main story is a bit awkward when it comes to its structure and introducing certain gameplay elements. With that being said, the core gameplay here is fast, fun, and at least to me felt like something I still can keep learning which is more than I can say for other action games I’ve played. On the story end, I ended up jumping into this one without playing MGS4 since I was just in an action game mood but I’ll just say there are definitely WAY worse and actual bad methods of building on Raiden as a character (and Metal Gear as a whole) while also meeting a deadline of having a cool Hollywood-esc action game.
(I’ll probably edit this after I finish MGS4)
(I’ll probably edit this after I finish MGS4)
2013
I haven't played Gen 5 but this is certainly the origin of “Modern Pokémon” where it’s a quick single player RPG campaign you could beat in a weekend and then a heavy reliance on the fact that there are now 500+ Pokémon to keep the postgame fresh until the next installment comes.
Not saying it’s entirely bad but obviously there could be more, but I will say this game/generation had phenomenal online UI which easily makes this the only Pokémon game I will ever have 100+ hours in.
There’s some novelty/intrigue with the story when it brings it (wow anyone remember those Pokémon Z rumors), a pretty good new art style, 3D all around which was pretty cool (but I’d still argue a new game with the sprite style would own), and uh yeah it was indeed a Pokemon game
Not saying it’s entirely bad but obviously there could be more, but I will say this game/generation had phenomenal online UI which easily makes this the only Pokémon game I will ever have 100+ hours in.
There’s some novelty/intrigue with the story when it brings it (wow anyone remember those Pokémon Z rumors), a pretty good new art style, 3D all around which was pretty cool (but I’d still argue a new game with the sprite style would own), and uh yeah it was indeed a Pokemon game
2011
I think a lot about the time in my life before maybe my junior year of high school where I would just walk around in a game because it was just some game to play. This was essentially THE game I did that with in middle school and it’s very interesting how essentially the first half of a decade since I started this game was me treating this game as a goofy sandbox adventure I’d play with my siblings (or use as basically a sort of weird first MMO) to “oh yeah that thing I should beat in survival mode”.
Weekends after school where I’d build Finn and Jake’s house from Adventure Time while Steven universe was airing or messing around and overreacting to any monsters was neat, at best Minecraft is a space to be in.
This weekend I sat down and grinded up through the survival portion to make it to “The End” which felt like just taking those memories and hanging them up in a boring as hell office cubicle. The awkward combination of RPG and Zelda mechanics in survival is novel at first until you are tempted to look something up to cut down time. It was so strange how I booted up survival and I was so dead set on seeing the end I didn’t even bother to make my own epic tower until I had diamonds and was just around the corner to starting the old Endermen and portal hunting. That’s really just what hit me, survival is kind of sad as it is currently because in another reality (hint: Terraria) there’s a single player (or just not modded LAN co-op) adventure that could’ve utilized the sandbox element so well but now we’re here and Minecraft is an icon that is so beloved this core just will not be touched by Microsoft and so they edge around the main problem by just adding more.
Minecraft will always be great to me because it’s a space to be in and the survival aspect while awkward can be a great thing to do with others, but it’s hard not to think about how we’ve moved on from an era of hype for Terraria’s and Cube Worlds.
Reviewing Minecraft on here is absolutely meaningless, but also building a house in a world where there’s a place you have to go to to see the ending credits called “the end” feels pretty pointless as well so why not build that house and horribly dangerous single block highway.
Weekends after school where I’d build Finn and Jake’s house from Adventure Time while Steven universe was airing or messing around and overreacting to any monsters was neat, at best Minecraft is a space to be in.
This weekend I sat down and grinded up through the survival portion to make it to “The End” which felt like just taking those memories and hanging them up in a boring as hell office cubicle. The awkward combination of RPG and Zelda mechanics in survival is novel at first until you are tempted to look something up to cut down time. It was so strange how I booted up survival and I was so dead set on seeing the end I didn’t even bother to make my own epic tower until I had diamonds and was just around the corner to starting the old Endermen and portal hunting. That’s really just what hit me, survival is kind of sad as it is currently because in another reality (hint: Terraria) there’s a single player (or just not modded LAN co-op) adventure that could’ve utilized the sandbox element so well but now we’re here and Minecraft is an icon that is so beloved this core just will not be touched by Microsoft and so they edge around the main problem by just adding more.
Minecraft will always be great to me because it’s a space to be in and the survival aspect while awkward can be a great thing to do with others, but it’s hard not to think about how we’ve moved on from an era of hype for Terraria’s and Cube Worlds.
Reviewing Minecraft on here is absolutely meaningless, but also building a house in a world where there’s a place you have to go to to see the ending credits called “the end” feels pretty pointless as well so why not build that house and horribly dangerous single block highway.