The Kingdom Hearts Series: KINGDOM HEARTS 4 ANNOUNCED! STAR WARS POTENTIALLY TEASED (page 175)

[KHCast]

The mod scene for KH3 has been so fucking crazy 

 

Man, I really wish KH3 had the option to play as these characters post game. This shit looks awesome. Hell there are even mods with mixed disney party members, which would have been AWESOME. The mods really makes base KH3 look...empty 

[Perkilator]

Two years already....I remember the wait feeling like forever and my hype increasing back in 2018, when the game entered its full marketing phase.

[DarkRula]

I've been streaming this purely because this is the month that it released. I've been skipping most of the cutscenes, but still having an absolute blast with the gameplay and the worlds. Be finishing it tomorrow, where I'm sure three hours will be enough to see it complete.

[Perkilator]

Sooo...yeah, I'm glad the series is finally on PC, but the way it was handled makes me wanna strangle a cat.

[Bobnik]

If that was the only way to get the games to PC at all in any kind of capacity, then sure, I'll live with the EGS exclusivity I guess, I'm already a clown anyway, honk honk. 

But the prices are absolutely insane, like they were on Xbox. KH3 with ReMind I can somewhat swallow at 60 euros, from what I gathered ReMind by itself never really lowered in price. Maybe KH1.5+2.5 would've been also somewhat fine if not for the fact that All-in-One collection on PS4 exists and the whole package costs 30 dollars on sale. 2.8 and especially KH:MoM are just not worth 60 in the slightest and the fact that this isn't the first time they're doing this is just sad. 

 

[KoDaiko]

Ah. I was beginning to get interested in the series, so it's a nice opportunity I guess. Though instead of buying 1+2 for $50, I can go and buy used copies of the Remix's on PS3 for $20 each. Idk about the other ones. The whole series and it's releases is so confusing.

[Sonicka]

So, I need to vent about my recent purchase of Melody of Memories…

Whilst I finally managed to grab it on a sale for a decent £24.99 it doesn’t take away from the fact that I still find myself very disappointed overall, and I say this as a huge fan of the Rhythm Music genre in general. 

OK where to begin…

- Tracks I: Whilst I get that there are well over 400 tracks in general for the series and 140+ is still a lot of content for a music rhythm game... my god is there a lot of weird filler and dull choices in here (and a LOT of notable omissions as well). Whilst I appreciate they were mostly going for a field + battle theme approach to a lot of the levels in the world tour campaign (alongside "darkened worlds") there is no reason it couldn't have been expanded on. Even then the consistency died out for some of the game entries in the series with KH3 really getting the short end of the stick. Allegedly I've heard MOM was made alongside KHIII (I find this somewhat hard to completely believe), but even so, the lack of KHIII representation is disgusting. Arguably had some of the best tracks of the series.

- Tracks II: Why is "Let it Go" in this game? (I know why, but WHY?) . Also...Circle of Life ? I don't recall this being in KH2. For a game supposedly revolving around the celebration of Yoko's work, we have two tracks she didn't even compose. 

- Tracks III: The lack of any of the 9 or 10 renditions of Dearly Beloved is criminal... and where are the Orchestral versions of the main themes of the games? Why is the main theme of KHIII missing? Just what?

- Tracks IV: Missing Worlds. I can understand some copyright issues may stand in the way for certain tracks (then again; Circle of life, Let It Go…) - so why is Port Royal missing? 100 Acre Wood? …or most weirdly all of - Symphony of Sorcery?

- Tracks V: Whilst the purest in me is happy they kept the original versions, I'm on the side of the fence that agrees that about 90% of the remastered soundtracks from KHI and KHII were far superior and brought it in line with current entry standards. But they opted for the lower quality MIDI originals (IN A MUSIC GAME) which sucks. There should have been at least a toggle option or something here for purists.

- Gameplay: This is the main problem where it really fails to hit the mark with me. First off I feel mapping three buttons that do the same action for any IMO was a mistake - I understand the theory behind it considering there are three characters on screen but IMO this just confuses matters rather than making them simpler which was probably the intention due to other mechanics. One button for central character + L and R for the left and right respectively would have worked much better.

- Gameplay II: Leads me nicely into Visual Prompts. The attack reticle simply does not serve it’s desired purpose well enough - this should have been represented with the unique button prompt for action (EG ‘L1’ ‘X’ & ‘R1’ or a visual to represent the buttons). What confuses matters is that there is a triangle prompt for magic (hilariously it’s triangle on switch as well making it more confusing), so to me there’s no reason why the others could not have got the same (yes, I know it’s because they share the same action).

- Gameplay III: This further leads me onto jumping. It’s easy to pretty much grasp when to jump and whether or not an action is required afterwards from the prompts. The problem effectively is the fact that certain enemies can only be hit when you jump whilst others can’t. Visually this becomes incredibly confusing when you have enemies flying at you from above but no jump is actually required and only an action. Sometimes there are suddenly enemies in the sky and on the ground requiring the double or triple action input which is unexpected when you’ve leapt in the air and nothing appears to be upcoming. I end up mashing all three buttons just to be sure a lot of the time. 

Gameplay IV: Visually I love the Kingdom Hearts games and they have a timeless quality to them (even if the current models have been overused to death). Here? It’s fucking distracting. I’m relying on seeing the small reticles and timing to hit them, and the enemies approach is supposed to be the first indicator. But instead half the bloody time I can’t see the enemy when the infinity track bends around corners, or if you’re gliding in the air and I’m left guessing on the press times simply because I know the beat of the tune so hope for the best... unless I know the track inside out.

Gameplay V: Gliding, a useless holdover gameplay feature from Theatrhythm. I understand it’s use in that game and it’s a fun mechanic on a touchscreen - here… it’s like they just shoehorned it in because there are sometimes some unpredictable note patterns or beats that are potentially way to fast for user input. Basically it’s a lazy gameplay mechanic and essentially boils down to watching notes on the screen with the user sometimes pushing left and right.

Gameplay VI: Whilst the Memory Dive sections (the FMV tracks) are “serviceable” they are quite tenuous and don’t add a lot apart from use of the twin sticks. I wish there was more done here to spruce the action up or make it so you’re engaging in some way with the “movie” scene.

Gameplay VII: …I suppose this is why Boss Battles exist. All 4 of them. And they are all equally shite to play. Creatively I think it’s a fun idea, but visually it another complete nightmare for me and there is just far too much distracting visual information to comprehend. I’ve gotten lost in the madness and missed so many musical cues due to the background distractions, not only that but it never seems to quite match up to inputs which is also confusing. The marriage of ideas could have been good here but neither compliment each other. it's also not helped by the positioning of the note execution line in the bottom right of the screen? Why is it here? Central screen would have made so much more sense and it (still)  throws me off. I didn’t even know I was supposed to be “dodging” on certain sections of the battles either until after the fact, no indication to me when it happens I can’t tell visually tell or even by listening when the correct time to dodge an attack should be. This is really bad. I suspect the team knew this which is why they doubled the boss tracks and put a “field track” version of these in as well for 'enjoyment' purposes.

Gameplay VIII: With the Memory Dives and Boss battles there’s also this weird mechanic of holding down a button and letting it go on time… which is fine until they mix this with pressing an input at the end of taking your thumb off another button at the same time… or vice versa… (they game called this chain linking I think?) or sometimes they'll ask you to do other actions mid hold. It’s too confusing (or maybe my brain just can’t comprehend this particular mechanic? I literally have to turn my brain off and not think about it in order for me to have any hope of getting through these sections.

Story: That’s great they tacked this little ditty on at the end, fine, I’m used to that usual BS from square. But I’m not sure why they bothered late in development to add a narration from Kairi over certain recap sections of the game. I assume they think is a quick “get you up to speed” information dump with the cutscenes, but it’s a bad recap as lot of events are skipped and it makes watching this very puzzling. I don't see the value or purpose here. 

Characters I: It’s bad enough that this is referred to as “the game which will finally appease Kairi fans” but you barely play as her. Even then she doesn’t unlock as playable in a team. WTF? To be honest, considering she is the vessel/narrator I would have thought it too have made more sense for her to have been the centralised character you follow on the field tracks or have her as part of a trio of characters with the other two being customisable. The overall Team mechanic was a mistake in my opinion anyway.

Characters II: Ok, so 4 Teams of 3? Sure. But only 10 (to 12) characters in reality (not counting Riku’s dream eaters or the guest Disney characters) makes this is pretty lacking. Why aren't there even guest FF characters? 

There is a lot of missed potential here for unlocks like:

Team Radiant - Squall, Yuffie, Aerith
Team Island - Tidus, Selphie, Wakka
Team Mickey - Mickey, Riku, Sora
Team KH1 - Sora, Riku, Kairi
Team KH2 - Sora, Riku, Kairi

I could go on…

There’s probably a lot more gripes I could write about, but overall I’m just disappointed is this is supposed to an amazing blend of two of my favourite things (music rhythm games and the Kingdom Hearts series). It’s not even badly put together or anything and looks great. It just lacks soul, lacks reward (exp levelling up system is mostly bollocks IMO), and it lacks any sort of tactile or responsive input that a rhythm game usually rewards its players with on hitting the correct note, if you know what I mean. It’s always difficult to pull that sort of rhythmic reward off with just a gamepad controller anyway, but here? …it just flounders. 

I should point out I've mostly been playing this on proud because normal is a bit... pedestrian/boring for me personally. And it's interesting that they have a 'performance' mode in this game as well as an additional feature rather than as part of the increased difficultly settings - I don't know how to feel about that one. Whilst performance does have the visual cues for button prompts - it is in addition to what I already think is a mess (and again I think the team knew this which is why the mode was relegated to optional only). Trying to do performance mode on proud is pretty impossible unless you have a godlike reaction and critical knowledge of your controller. 

Yeah... overall I'm real gutted about this one. No way I'm gonna 100% this. 

[DabigRG]

Sounds like I made the right choice not blowing more money on a rhythm game, somewhat unfortunately.

[Sonicka]

17 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Sounds like I made the right choice not blowing more money on a rhythm game, somewhat unfortunately.

Yup, it's unfortunate really because I hold their Final Fantasy Theatrhythm games to quite high regard on 3DS. It's a shame that the overall experience didn't translate very well across to consoles for Kingdom Hearts - because the idea in itself is solid, and the presentation is lovely.

For me it's just the execution that wasn't great - which is really what you need to nail in this genre, that... and a decent selection of the entire series main tunes. You can't just promote 140+ tracks as a huge amount if over 50% of them are padding.

It's not a good celebration of the series music in my eyes - and even if they DLC the better content/orchestrated versions of the first 2 games/KH3's missing tracks... I'm not even sure I would want to play with them in the manner this game is setup. At this stage I would rather them just add it to Deemo or something.  

[Perkilator]

This may sound crazy, but I'd be interested in seeing a Wha Happun on Kingdom Hearts III.

[mayday2592]

Finally got around to finishing KH3, and had much more fun after the third world.

The worlds are more interesting to explore now that they're not just flat rooms and little more, but they're just too big in some cases. Moreso in the cases  of San Fransokyo and the Frozen world. San Fransokyo is just empty feeling with no interesting reason to revisit when you complete the story there. Can already tell finding the chests there is gonna suck.  The Frozen world just feels like padding by having you go up and down the mountain multiple times. Sure the path is different, but it still feels very samey and could have been cut in half.

The combat is for the  most part a lot of fun. Just wish there was a progression system instead of having nearly all of the systems thrown at you in the beginning. Still though it was just fun to slash through everything and trigger flashy special moves every now and then. Honestly though forgot about most of the stuff like shotlocks and links due to everything else you can do  at the start. 

Overall, a very fun game.

[KHCast]

This is kinda awesome! Ray Chase, (the official voice of the Master of Masters) recently voiced the recent Union Cross cutscene he’s in! (Lots of spoilers as this is one of the last story updates, so heads up on that).

Said it before, will say it again, they did a fucking amazing job getting ray to play the part of the MoM. Dude has so much range and personality, and brings so much life to the character. You can tell he legit enjoys playing this guy 

[KHCast]

They updated a cutscene in Melody of Memory in one of the most recent patches 

ok lol. I mean I guess it adds a little context to those not aware this game takes place in Kairi’s memories, but like, idk, if you didn’t play Re:mind, it doesn’t really do much 

[KHCast]

The KH series is out on PC now. Apparently there’s unlocked framerate, and also super interesting, the games saves are tied to PNG’s

 

There seems to be some issues with the KH1 cutscenes when changing the framerate up, but gameplay wise it’s been reported to have been running pretty damn great. 
 

also, jealous PC gamers have japanese and US audio. Why is that not just a standard feature yet for everyone???

[Bobnik]

I haven't tried out other games, so I can't comment on the quality of the collections, but I've been playing KH3 on PC for a little while now. I was concerned that, since there's been barely any info on the ports before the release, KH3 port would be bad. Boy am I glad that I was wrong, cuz goddamn, playing a KH game at 1080p 120fps is a hell of a treat.

I will say that the last boss of Olympus dropped the frames pretty bad, at points it went sub-60 even, but the rest of my playtime was around 120fps on max settings and it looks great and feels great. Cutscenes running at an unlocked framerate instead of 30 are freaking me the hell out, but in a good way. The load times on a SATA SSD also aren't too bad, around 10 seconds or so for a world to load, which I think is on par with the game running on a PS5? Still, overall I'm impressed with the port. It still has some issues - some character animations play at that weird 30fps (Herc throwing a rock is the notable one), the same general bugs in console versions being replicable on PC, the already mentioned Olympus final fight, there's at least one instance where someone didn't get a Proof for going through the game on Critical mode, among other things I can't list. But overall it's a very solid port and a very enjoyable experience.

Side note - the keyblade they give you for getting the game is OP, you get a random -za spell for every situation command, it's nuts.

[KHCast]

It’s officially begun 

 

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Holy shit, this is a find. Uploaded a year ago, we got over an hour of footage from the lost KH game - V-Cast, showing everything right up til the end of Agrabah.

It seems we're still missing Wonderland, and Maleficant's lair but this is the biggest discovery in the game in years.

[KHCast]

So remember how people had told us that the cutscenes in KH3 were pre-recorded/compressed video files so wouldn’t be able to be accessed and messed with? Well sounds like that was a big lie lol

 

I personally can’t wait to see mods that replace the characters with completely different assets not even from KH3. Mario instead of Mickey, PS2 graphics Sora, GTA characters, Noctis, etc lol. The floodgates are open. Heck, replace Kairi with Riku, we got our Sora x Riku ship lol. I’m genuinely surprised disney did a PC port given how they had to have known this was inevitable lol

[Bobnik]

8 hours ago, KHCast said:

So remember how people had told us that the cutscenes in KH3 were pre-recorded/compressed video files so wouldn’t be able to be accessed and messed with? Well sounds like that was a big lie lol

I only heard people say that some cutscenes were pre-recorded video files, and that's still true - the Pandora's Box one, the continuation of that cutscene in ReMind, the first cutscene in the Secret Episode, etc. It's even more noticable on PC version due to uncapped framerate in in-engine cutscenes, and some apparently use both techniques (Xehanort opening Kingdom Hearts for example). But yeah, a bunch of cutscenes are in-engine and definitely can be messed with.

[KHCast]

I wish formchanges were just this 

 

 

[KHCast]

Aaaand we officially got model mods.

Disney knew this would happen lol. Now we just wait for Shrek, Rick & Morty, and any other ungodly thing to get modded into the game lol. It’s a fucking Pandora’s box at this point, for all the KH games, (including the movies I bet lol)

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, KHCast said:

Aaaand we officially got model mods.

Disney knew this would happen lol. Now we just wait for Shrek, Rick & Morty, and any other ungodly thing to get modded into the game lol. It’s a fucking Pandora’s box at this point, for all the KH games, (including the movies I bet lol)

 

Found on Reddit:

[KHCast]

It’s both a blessing and a curse that I get to witness this lol. KH is about to become the new Skyrim in terms of modding the most batshit out there stuff

 

Edit: Neku‘s been modded in

Thomas the Train

 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

And now let's go to other worlds.

[KHCast]

Are you fucking kidding me? GTAV got modded into KH3

 

I’m just...wtf. Skyrim didn’t even get to this level of ridiculousness as far as I know haha. KH fans are passionate as fuck lol 

 

So how long before we get KH2 maps modded into KH3? That’s what I’m waiting for. That’ll be pretty hype.