What KH1 & KH2 Did Right (gameplay)

Nah I’m not gonna bash….well I wont be but I know how some fans are with anything negative but why not hear me out a bit?

It’s just something I’d like to talk about, passively, like in my 'What Coded Did Right' post.

You see there’s one thing KH1 & KH2 did right and it’s one of the things that give them their unique feels in comparison to the handhelds.

“What’s that?” You ask? Simple. Options.



It was something mentioned in one of my favorite watches on youtube. You see the thing about KH1 and Kh2′s menu system is it’s options. There’s literally several ways you can go about a battle.

You can just ham it and spam X using combos like most do or most of us did back in 2002 when Kh1 first launched.
HOWEVER you can play with magic. Summons. Guarding even. Everything in KH1 has an effect on your enemy.

Literally everything does something. Guarding a fireball from a Fire Bandit heartless or even ice shards from a secret boss like Ice Titan repels the attack and sends it back.

Not only does it do damage to these enemies but it encourages you to do it more by rewarding you with “tech points” one of the best things any KH game introduced.

What’s a Tech Point?

Simple. It’s extra experience (exp) for doing an action outside of combos or that picks at an enemies weaknesses.

You can guard back projectiles which not only stun some enemies but does damage and rewards you with exp.
There’s also weaknesses to each enemy. Like fire related heartless are weak to ice, ice to fire, hell even the darkball heartless or the heartless that wield the dog faced shields. They have a weakness in gravity. If you use it on them their HP drops to near defeat.

Stop, fire, thunder, gravity, every spell had at least on enemy they had a super effect on like you’d see in pokemon. Lots of these heartless reward you with tech points for finding that weakness and exploiting it.



Then there’s summons. Granted even with 14yrs of experimentation I haven’t found much use for them outside small things like farming synthesis items for the Moogles.

But each game does have at least one surprisingly useful summon. For Kh1 this is Tinkerbell. She doesn’t cause you to lose party members, she constantly heals you and she also revives you once if you die in a fight.

So long as you can find a place to stand you can summon Tinkerbell even in the final battle with Ansem. (just land on his huge heartless body thing after retrieving Donald & Goofy)

KH2 as well has two very useful summons. Stitch can really lower the difficulty of many bosses even in the Final Mix Critical mode. As long as you let Stitch roam the screen he’ll keep your MP full and deflect projectiles such as and including Lingering Will’s attacks.

Then there’s Chicken Little-

“CHICKEN LITTLE!? BWHAHAHAHAH ARE YOU F*CKING HIGH-”



Sssshhhh I tell you it’s true. Just like Stitch if you let Chicken Little be he’ll follow Sora around and do his little whistle move which draws enemies helplessly to Sora making places with large swarms of heartless a breeze for grinding or just shortening how long it’d take to finish them off.

Like Stitch this tactic comes in VERY handy in Critical Mode or even Level 1 runs.

This isn’t Kh2′s only perk either. Much like Kh1 there’s many option open to you. You can ham it and spam X and Triangle like many do or you can experiment. In fact Kh2′s Critical Mode actually requires that you do to survive.

Learning from KH1 the development team waaayy back in 2005 even made it more appealing to you so you’d try these options by incorporating them into the combo system since you kids like to ham combos so much.

Wanna use fire? Sure thing! Spam it or apply it to the end of a keyblade combo! Wannt quickly finish harder nobodies in the cave of rememberance? HA! Just turn on all the negative combos press X followed by Magnet.

Then of course outside Summons or Magic you now even have drive forms to promote certain aspects. Each one entirely changes how you combo and each one has a certain fan.

You like to spam keyblades? Valor for is for you!
You like to weave magic like a master mage? Then Wisdom form is your man!
You want a little of both? Welp guess what you have final form!
You want a call back to Kh1? Boom Limit Form!
You want a little of both but with more control and less floating than final? Or perhaps just something specialized in air combat? BOOM YOU GOT MASTER FORM!



Granted KH2 does have somethings it could’ve used. Namely it lacks Kh1′s Tech Point system to encourage exploring magic and it also lacks the small touches of heartless having weakness to certain tactics.

But nonetheless you have options and if anything I have seen that people explore them more in this game than in KH1 solely because of the Drive Form system.

The core point is that these games gave you OPTIONS. You could go back over and over, which let’s face it many of us have, and always discover something new or try out some new strategy or even limit yourself purposely to make it more challenging. (like Lvl 1 runs or no drives/magic/summons runs)

“But the other games had fun combat systems with options! Your just a KH1/2 lover!”

Welllll do they really? I mean first of all no. I hate Kh2. I could list for pages the issues with it and what it did to the story later. However there’s no denying it’s gameplay can be fun and loved most by many fans over any other.

As for options…let me ask you do they really?



Let’s look at Birth by Sleep for example. Yes they put a lot of things into it. DLinks, commands, style changes, shot locks, etc.

But just how many of these options do you use?

Yes Dlinks are a helpful early game tool but they quickly become powerless in the face of your deck. By mid game or even world 4 the only Dlink useful later is Stitch for leveling your main deck.

Then there’s combos and style changes. The combos are clunky, slow and feel stiff. Let’s be honest.
Then there is the style changes. Yes your combos get better but how often has changing into a style got you killed or interrupted you in the middle of an attack? They’re forced and annoying.

Shot Locks are basically your limits but rarely do you get a chance to stand still to build one up especially with bosses or secret and super bosses.

In the end you usually spend more time focusing on your deck and building it up to the point it’s so powerful it renders the other options not as effective. Especially once you discover the game breakers Mine spells and Thunder Surge.

Then there is Days and Coded. You dont even get options with these two. Granted I found Coded one of the funnest games in the series it too had a set system you HAD to use.

There’s no options to even list. You had this one system and your were stuck with it.

Then of course you have Chi and it’s mobile clone Unchained. They have that typical addictive gameplay associated with free browser games or mobile apps.
Fun in spurts and meant to make you feel powerful even though all your doing is tapping a screen.

Is these things horrible? No not at all.
(^^^ surprised you there didn’t I? =P)

Many love these titles and I myself loved Coded. In my opinion what breaks these games or the story is the writing rather than the gameplay. (well mostly)

However there’s no denying KH1 and KH2 did something right these other titles didn’t. Can they still be fun? Yes but there’s no denying your being forced into a format with them.

It’s what makes KH1&2 the best sellers even to this day. The gameplay had options. It was fun and it’s limitations honestly depended on your own imagination.
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Yes more posts of older things since I'm bored but eh. Enjoy the time killer :3

 

Looking back myself I think the reaction command wasn't so much a bad idea as it was just an overused one. Like way overused. If it had been kept to select bosses, a few enemies and was for show rather than dealing damage it would've been better I felt. BBS tried a bit of that route to be fair though and it wasn't so bad till the vanitas finale...that quick time sequence at the end was such bullsh*t....

Well depends. Like mentioned BBS had lots of options, maybe more than Kh2, but they didn't really pan out. Style changes were forced and interrupting but your commands dictated the type of style so you could put planning into choosing one, it's just the act of a change itself that' unavoidable without some specific command choosing.

Styles, Dlinks, Shotlocks, finishers, etc. BBS was a handheld with a lot of options. It's just the set up of BBS more or less punished you or made them moot in the face of the broken deck format.

So handhelds did have range for options as well, maybe not as many in the cases of Days/Coded/CoM/DDD, but they could've had them. They just didn't. It's not really so much how much option but creativity I think as well.

KH1 & 2 had options but they can be done in many ways. BBS' options were moot by it's own system despite arguably having more. Days, Coded, DDD, CoM they just plain lacked them.
Something could've been done despite their systems. Well for most of them. I'm not sure how much wiggle room the original GBA version of CoM had.

 

Tech points were one of the most amazing things. I remember first noticing them and realizing I could help grind by guarding those fat fire heartless lol.
I forgot about bosses giving exp!! o-o

I have that fear as well. It's "based" on KH2 but ya know they're using their handheld experiments to add into it. I worry it'll ruin what solid things KH1/2 did.

 

Oh man I remember that. Took me forever to get that level 100 haha
It's minor but remember the play timer on the pause screen? Or was it the save screen...either way you could actually go over the 9999 or whatever limit and it'd start over with a different color clock. x'D Something random yet new I learned.

Duuudddee the ice titan too was damn good for it. All his attacks were guards so tech points.

Hopefully. I hope KH3 is mostly like KH2 but with just small things added.

 

You actually managed to complete the Hades time attack? You sir get +1 respect. o-0

Ugh I hope they have. I hated flowmotion in DDD. It was more broken than reaction commands or the BBS command deck. Worse yet if you tried to turn it off by taking off all the flowmo abilities you just made it so Sora would bounce off walls with you being unable to control him. Dx

 

Then you probably enjoyed DDD a LOT more than I did. Dx