+the story is honestly a fascinating unreliable narrator tale with solid pacing throughout
+introduces many great Org XIII characters, many of which return later through story fuckery
+roughly speaking, the room card system gives the game a bit of a fresh roguelike feel.... I'm stretching here....
+riku's story cuts much of the fluff out of each disney world
-the card combat is terrible. there was no reason for them to try to juggle real-time combat with flipping through a card deck, it's just too frustrating
-to clarify: individual keyblade slashes are tied to cards. it directly contradicts the main component of kh combat, which is mashing X
-the worlds are all straight out of the first game, assets and all. even bosses are reproduced, though with different strategies (mostly)
-the disney stories have been pared down and their cutscenes are barely worth watching
-each world has a generic layout due to the room card mechanic, so virtually every world feels the same to move through
-there is no even gradation in strategy efficacy. you will either be destroyed by bosses or you will accept strategies that bust the game wide open
-heartless battles are tedious and lack any real danger. they are purely a way to grind room cards to synthesize upcoming rooms
-as implied earlier, each room in the game needs to be synthesized with a card or set of cards. some requirements require many cards and thus an uncomfortable amount of grinding
-some room card requirements require very specific cards as well, and without other room cards that can help ease looking for said cards, the grinding can become excrutiating
-riku's story strips any strategy out of the game and renders the card system pointless by using premade decks and making virtually every card an attack card
-some of the boss fights are repeated (I'm looking at you RR, six times in a single game is too much)
a frustrating and boring experience, but honestly necessary to understand kh2 at all. the main campaign had no right being 20 hours long, especially with another 6 hour campaign tacked on afterwards that is essential for plot reasons. thankfully, the good Org XIII members return as optional boss battles in kh2fm, so they haven't been completely wasted here. this may have been impressive or fun on a gba, but really does not hold up well as a 3d action game
+introduces many great Org XIII characters, many of which return later through story fuckery
+roughly speaking, the room card system gives the game a bit of a fresh roguelike feel.... I'm stretching here....
+riku's story cuts much of the fluff out of each disney world
-the card combat is terrible. there was no reason for them to try to juggle real-time combat with flipping through a card deck, it's just too frustrating
-to clarify: individual keyblade slashes are tied to cards. it directly contradicts the main component of kh combat, which is mashing X
-the worlds are all straight out of the first game, assets and all. even bosses are reproduced, though with different strategies (mostly)
-the disney stories have been pared down and their cutscenes are barely worth watching
-each world has a generic layout due to the room card mechanic, so virtually every world feels the same to move through
-there is no even gradation in strategy efficacy. you will either be destroyed by bosses or you will accept strategies that bust the game wide open
-heartless battles are tedious and lack any real danger. they are purely a way to grind room cards to synthesize upcoming rooms
-as implied earlier, each room in the game needs to be synthesized with a card or set of cards. some requirements require many cards and thus an uncomfortable amount of grinding
-some room card requirements require very specific cards as well, and without other room cards that can help ease looking for said cards, the grinding can become excrutiating
-riku's story strips any strategy out of the game and renders the card system pointless by using premade decks and making virtually every card an attack card
-some of the boss fights are repeated (I'm looking at you RR, six times in a single game is too much)
a frustrating and boring experience, but honestly necessary to understand kh2 at all. the main campaign had no right being 20 hours long, especially with another 6 hour campaign tacked on afterwards that is essential for plot reasons. thankfully, the good Org XIII members return as optional boss battles in kh2fm, so they haven't been completely wasted here. this may have been impressive or fun on a gba, but really does not hold up well as a 3d action game