**I originally began this write-up as the latest Backlog Barbecue. I took a break from Assassin’s Creed to focus on getting this game hammered out. Things didn’t really go according to plan.**
Man, nostalgia can be a cruel mistress. I bought Kingdom Hearts back in 2002 when it first released on the PS2, and it was fantastic. With what was probably the most accurate representations of Disney characters in video games to date, it was very much like living your favorite Disney classics. While some of the “worlds” were little more than cameos, it was still like playing through a greatest hits album.
Being a Disney fan, I was instantly enthralled. I played it nonstop, until I hit a wall in the game and couldn’t figure out how to progress. I remember it clearly, I was in Halloweentown and running around in circles. This was back before the internet was the helpful, Facebook-infested world we know today, so I didn’t really have the tools to get the help I needed, and eventually just stopped playing.
Fast-forward 15+ years, and that Kingdom Hearts disc is still sitting in my old game binder, unfinished, thanks to Sony’s reluctance to release any type of method to replay those old games. I did, however, pick up Kingdom Hearts 1.5/2.5 HD Remix for PS4, and have recently dived back in to complete the game I began so many years ago.
And holy shit, is it rough. I attributed my getting stuck back in the day to just being impatient or possibly even just a moron. But playing it today, at almost 40, and I can honestly put my mind at ease that it wasn’t me all those years ago. This game is designed horribly.
I’ve had to resolve to online walkthroughs on more than one occasion, as the game is purposefully vague about what you are expected to do next. While some of it might be my old age making me impatient, or maybe it’s the lack of time I have nowadays to just run around in circles and tap the X button on everything, but most of the levels are designed as a series of rooms arranged in a circle, with one specific branch progressing you forward. Unless you choose that correct branch, you literally find yourself running in circles, appearing back at the beginning of a world with no idea how you got there. To figure out how to progress, go back through the series of rooms and make sure you pick the right path next time, or else you’re back to the beginning.
Add to it the fact that some paths are actually objects that must be inspected, like a coffin (that was the dead end I ran into in 2002.) The problem is, these objects don’t indicate that they can be inspected unless you are standing right up against it, and even then sometimes it doesn’t highlight unless you lock onto it. If you happen to miss this or that particular detail in any given world, you’re left running back and forth, battling endless waves of Heartless while being frustratingly clueless on what you’re doing wrong.
To make matters worse, the camera is so wonky and jittery that it can be really hard to see what you’re doing at times. Combat can be a confusing, indiscernable mess, especially in tight quarters. Locking onto something that’s continually flying around the room is probably enough to give some people motion sickness. Boss battles are a mixed bag, with some being really easy, and some containing bosses with attacks that do a lot of damage. At least, I imagine they do a lot of damage, you never actually know how much damage anything does, because all you have is a little life meter, and when you get hit, you either die or you don’t. I’ve had some encounters where I thought I was safe with half my health, but have been hit while casting a healing spell and died. So far a solid strategy has been mashing the X button and just healing myself whenever I get to half health. So far so good.
The reason I’m ranting about a game that’s over fifteen years old is because I’m playing this in anticipation of Kingdom Hearts III, and I’m actually a bit concerned. The game we knew and loved over a decade ago actually kind of sucks, and from what I’ve read from preview events, they’re sticking to the formula.
Kingdom Hearts is a bad game. It’s wrapped in a very pretty package, and has a wonderful cast of characters we’ve loved for a long, long time. But as a game, it’s kinda shit. The combat is erratic and the camera is wonky, and what little pacing and excitement there is when discovering a new world is crushed by the realization that it’s just another series of rooms wrapped in a pretty thin story. The individual world stories are limited and the over-arching story is, well also pretty thin. I haven’t played the other games in the series, so the story hasn’t gone to shit, yet. The ridiculously convoluted KH story is the stuff of legend, so I can’t help but wonder what I’m in for with that.
In any case, the final, let’s say, ten percent of the game ramps up the difficulty. While the first few battles with Riku and Maleficent are relatively easy, the second battle, with Maleficent in her dragon form, is a flashy, ridiculous mess. The spectacle of fighting the dragon from Sleeping Beauty is still kinda cool, but the battle itself is so sloppy and chaotic it’s hard to really enjoy it.
After a few tries I finally sent her packing, only to realize that Kingdom Hearts, in true JRPG fashion, didn’t end there. It was only one of a string of boss battles that led up to the “final, FINAL” boss battle. By this point I was honestly so fatigued with the combat in the game I just wanted it to end already, and the fact that it just kept going was fatiguing in itself.
As of right now I’m stuck at the Ansem battle at the very end. The difficulty in the game spiked again, and holy shit it’s inducing a rage in me that I have not felt in a long, long time. The only answer I have is that I should probably go back to the Hercules arena and grind levels. Which I’m totally capable of doing, but I don’t have the time or the willpower right now. There are so many other great games I could be playing rather than grinding battles over and over for the simple purpose of finally finishing off a game I’ve already put too much into. I don’t have the luxury.
So this write-up changed from being a Backlog Barbecue entry to a Rant-astic. Because for right now, fuck this game.
