If you enjoyed the video a Like or Comment would hugely help for the algorithm! Let me know what you think and what's the best sequel you ever played? Make sure to drop a follow on the twitch page for future streams too if you're interested: twitch.tv/reliableprez
~ Life itself is just billions of different pov's meshed together while everyone is their own mc ~ Idk why but i needed this video rn thx for creating such wonderful content ❤
I'm a fan of Roxas, but when KH2 first came out it was years after the first KH, so that long intro with him was standing in the way of an overdue reunion with Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Nowadays, new players don't have to wait, and the only concern is the length of the prologue.
KH2 was my favorite game from 2006 to 2014, when Sunset Overdrive made me unsure which I like more. I'm replaying KH2 now, on Critical for the first time, and I'm starting to question if it's actually better than the first. The combat, like you said, is objectively better, but the worlds seem faster than I remember, only being in them for an hour at most before leaving. I think I just like the darker vibe of KH1 more than the happy, fun journey of meeting old friends that a lot of KH2 is. Overall, KH2 is still better. I also like the lore of KH1 the most in the series. In that game, there's only 2 1/2 Keyblades total: Sora's from the realm of light, Mickey's from the realm of darkness, and the artificial one the villains try to make with the Princesses of Heart. It feels like a much more special and legendary weapon that way. I also like the ruler-consumed-by-darkness Ansem over the Ansem with evil apprentices, but one of the apprentices is retconned to be a time traveler or whatever. This comment is getting long, but I also wanted to mention that I like the Roxas opening because it's really chill, but has cool mysterious stuff gradually come up each day.
Tbf, kh2 moves worlds quicker but also includes a second play of every world. But I understand what you're saying. I just finished 100% on critical mode and it was every bit of fun I remember and the data battles had some hard moments that made it more enjoyable. Still so many broken combat mechanisms though haha
When you were listing off all of those traits that were shared between KH2 and AC2 I thought for sure that you were talking about Halo 2 and I was *extremely* confused when you said that the third game was controversial. AC makes a lot more sense.
I'm actually playing through KH2 for the first time right now. I'm not new to the series, as I played 358/2 Days as a kid and later watched playthroughs of all the games --- but over the last few months I've had a chance to play the other games for myself for the first time. I can't give my full judgement on KH2 thus far (although I already know the story), but I do think it serves its purpose as a sequel. I'm surprised though that so many people I've seen talk about this series discount KH1 as outdated while saying KH2 is where it's at. I will admit I think the combat in KH2 feels better --- but so far I think that's the only thing I like about it more than KH1. As a sequel, I think it's working for me just fine so far and the story as a whole does a pretty good job giving you that feeling of familiarity while introducing new elements. But personally I think it does very little that actually improves upon its predecessor. Maybe I just happened to like a lot of the platforming and light puzzle solving elements in KH1 that many people didn't.
Nah that's a totally reasonable opinion especially when you consider KH2 took away basically all platforming which made up most of KH1 so it really does depend on what sort of gameplay people enjoy more
Man im glad im not the only one who actually enjoyed the worlds😭. I recently fimished the game and it was awesome lol. Sure ive seen criticisms of people complaining about the linearity but i never felt like it hindered my experience. I still thought the levels were fun to travel through and still felt super immersive. Anyway, thanks for doing this video, it was really cool to hear your thoughts on this game.
I barely played this game yet, through my biggest issue trying to get into it was that there is little flexibility present. I was always more of a player of the DS KH games and I played them for hundreds of hours. Days gets rid of the issue of a combat responce being really hard by making the enemies more passive and reactible while Recoded made cancelling actions a more major thing so one isn't animationlocked into a basic combo. Though I understand that it's largely a me-thing and I should probably just push more against the mountain, because it's not like those games don't have their own quirks that are annoying. When it comes to the story, I know the full thing(Plus most of the relevant translationerrors, so that can't taint my view on it) and I feel as though the only thing that is good over here is Roxas and the things around him with everything else being subpar and decent at best. Issue being that like 85% of the game really has nothing to do with the character besides the Organization trashtalking Sora. I can pick apart everything in more detail if anyone wants to hear it, but it would be too long for this initial comment. The Tldr is that it largely copies the vague KH1-formula while doing it way worse and issues that did infact exist in KH1 are blown up to the degree where they actually drag it down. Also it sorta messes with Riku as a character, one of my only few issues with the story of Days is the fault of this game establishing the plotline in question. The worlds are...the worlds. They are largely filler with poor leveldesign for the most of it, I guess. The thing is that it only really looks bad compared to KH1, worlds being meh is basically a staple of the series with only some few breaks, like Recoded and 3D offering a relatively engaging gameplay-experience if one is there for it(And doesn't play Olympus in Recoded, that one just sucks). It's still an issue, but it feels wrong to give a penalty to any specific game for it when it's shared.(Though BBS still gets some minuspoints for it, because those worlds are often poor, even for these low standards.)
I always found kh2 to be heavily flawed in both gameplay and story wise. The Disney worlds, with the exception of Beast's Castle, Land of Dragon, Olympus Coliseum, Port Royal, and Space Paranoids, didn't serve any purpose. They were mostly fillers and didn't have any plot progression. The second visits, with the expectation of the Disney worlds I've mentioned, just worsens the pacing. The drive forms are a pain since you have to grind them to get the field abilities. In the base game, you didn't even have Dodge Roll. In Final Mix, it's a tad worse since you have to beat half the game to even obtain the Limit Form, and it's still locked behind the irritating grinding. You even get punished for using those drive forms just because you were trying to level up your forms. It's just so tedious. And the reaction commands are pure garbage since they're mostly braindead with mashing just one button. There are a few good ones, but it's so bad and unfair that there are so very few while most of them are awful. Anyways, that's my take on the game. KH2 is good, it's just not great or the best everyone makes it out to be.
KH2 definitely overdoes it with the filler, but it's filler that has a purpose. (It just way outlives that purpose.) Simulated Twilight Town and Hollow Bastion 2 are both VERY plot-heavy worlds with a ton of emotional scenes. The Disney visits in between them allow the main plot time to breathe in between major plot points, and also allow more of a focus on KH2's best strength - its core gameplay. The Drive Forms have many flaws associated with them, but they (and the base combat) are still a lot of fun. The Reaction commands... well, if you can squint a bit and just consider them flashy phase changes, they're pretty good. In my experience with a low-level Proud run on the original PS2 game, in which I had way less damage output than a normal Proud run, they went from "I Win" buttons to appropriately timed phase changes/stun opportunities. It's also worth pointing out how KH2 was a very unique game in its time. Almost anything else out there at the time of its release was clunkier, slower, or generally less accessible. Seriously, KH1 was considered fairly groundbreaking in its time, and it's clunky and slow as fuck compared to KH2. (I still prefer its gameplay style because I love the stronger RPG elements, but that's an uncommon taste.) The level of advancement between the two titles is just unbelievable. It's ALSO worth pointing out that the level of advancement after KH2 stopped dead in its tracks. All future games until and INCLUDING KH3 went and included some sort of weird one-off gimmick that tended to be inoffensive at BEST, and... fairly offensive at worst. They also included many small flaws in the core gameplay that added up to a design that just couldn't match up. By the time KH3 released and could be considered mostly comparable to KH2, it had been so long, and there had been so many other advancements in the rest of the industry, that it didn't even feel like the series had just maintained a solid gameplay style. This is also worsened by the fact that most of the flaws that future games would see were flaws that had/have been noted for years, yet were at best ignored and at worst, WORSENED, as time went on. To sum up, in proper context, KH2 does deserve most of the praise it gets. Its core gameplay design was top tier for the time, and its flaws more excusable than they'd end up being later down the line, as future games released that did nothing to fix them. And I'm saying this as someone who, back in the day, pointed out most of the flaws in the game like the low difficulty and numerous story issues.
@@Nyzer_ "KH2 definitely overdoes it with the filler, but it's filler that has a purpose." & "The Disney visits in between them allow the main plot time to breathe in between major plot points, and also allow more of a focus on KH2's best strength - its core gameplay." I feel like we should not excuse them for the terrible pacing just because of those reasons. While KH1 did this back then, you only have to do one filler Disney world before continuing on with the plot. (Two, if you're willing to do both.) Compared to kh2's pacing where you have to do basically all of the Disney worlds and their second visits to get the plot moving, nothing really happens except for certain worlds. Especially since after the big reveal from the thousand Heartless battle, Sora is conflicted that he's helping with the Organization's plan. If he had been smart enough to know the clues about the contains inside that box, he would've gone straight to Twilight Town instead of goofing out in those Disney worlds. I would've been fine with certain worlds that implements to the plot and then moved on to Twilight Town. "The Reaction commands... well, if you can squint a bit and just consider them flashy phase changes, they're pretty good. In my experience with a low-level Proud run on the original PS2 game, in which I had way less damage output than a normal Proud run, they went from "I Win" buttons to appropriately timed phase changes/stun opportunities." My problem with those reaction commands is that most of them aren't even earned. You just have to wait for it to happen and just mash one button. Which isn't very skillful at all. I'll admit that there are some good ones like the Samurai and the Gambler enemies where you'll get punished if you don't act fast enough and you'll be rewarded and get bonuses from the Gambler if you win against it. "It's ALSO worth pointing out that the level of advancement after KH2 stopped dead in its tracks. All future games until and INCLUDING KH3 went and included some sort of weird one-off gimmick that tended to be inoffensive at BEST, and... fairly offensive at worst." Much like how it did with Chain of Memories and kh2? I really couldn't call them gimmicks since they're part of the core gameplay and it gives those games a sense of identity. I mean, look at Re:Coded for example, it has a variety of gameplay feature, gives you the option to change the difficulty anytime you like, and has a fun leveling up system. I wouldn't say they're the worst. Sure, flawed. But not the worst. "To sum up, in proper context, KH2 does deserve most of the praise it gets. Its core gameplay design was top tier for the time, and its flaws more excusable than they'd end up being later down the line, as future games released that did nothing to fix them." You can't just ignore what the future KH games improved from kh2. KH3 improves from previous games. You have the ability to guard and use items in midair. You can use airstepping to get close to your opponents. And those formchanges has plenty of unique abilities and moveset. I fully understand that kh2 got a lot of hate back then. But I think it deserves as many criticism it receives because it's still heavily flawed in both gameplay and story. As I said before with the drive forms and reaction commands, they weren't properly utilized. I thought BBS implemented those reaction commands better. And KH3 did those formchanges a lot better too. Especially with the Rage Form since it acts more like a risk/reward system rather than just a punish.
@@Redxan600 It's not so much excusing KH2's filler as trying to point out that it's at least got more of a narrative purpose than it does in most other games. DDD and KH3 in particular are horrible for this. And I'd say that while CoM is certainly gimmicky, we didn't get over a decade of CoM-like entries between main games in that case. And that brings me back to the context of KH2 being widely praised because of what came after it: the games that came after it have all been more flawed than KH2 was. KH3, for all its additions, still comes with the Attraction Commands and the hours of hours of filler desperately pretending not to be filler by having the Organization show up to talk about old concepts or new concepts that didn't even factor in to KH3 anyway.
@@Nyzer_ "It's not so much excusing KH2's filler as trying to point out that it's at least got more of a narrative purpose than it does in most other games. DDD and KH3 in particular are horrible for this." I disagree with that since both of those games have better pacing than kh2. Especially with KH3 since all of those Disney worlds are implemented better than what kh2 did. And that includes DDD, too. Most of the worlds in kh2 doesn't even contribute to the plot. What's the point of going to Halloween Town? It's just a rehash of the movie. It's even worse when you come to find out that it takes place after the movie and it's retelling the same movie as before where Jack doesn't even learn his lesson. What's the point of going back to Agrabah if the Organization aren't contributing to that world? There's not even a single scene with one of the members in Pride Lands. Like I said, I don't mind if we have to do the second visits with Beast's Castle, Land of Dragon, Olympus Coliseum, Port Royal, and Space Paranoids before moving on to the main plot. But the rest adds nothing. "And that brings me back to the context of KH2 being widely praised because of what came after it: the games that came after it have all been more flawed than KH2 was." Once again, I disagree with that. Sure, BBS is flawed with the gameplay, but it adds variety to said gameplay with its characters. It implements the reaction command better. And the pacing is far better than what kh2 did. While I cannot say much about Days gameplay, the story for that game told me more about Roxas's character and his relationship with Axel better than what kh2 did. "KH3, for all its additions, still comes with the Attraction Commands and the hours of hours of filler desperately pretending not to be filler by having the Organization show up to talk about old concepts or new concepts that didn't even factor in to KH3 anyway." I've already said what I said about the combat up above. And once again, I disagree with the fact that KH3's worlds are fillers. Olympus: Sora goes to ask Hercules for advice on how to regain his strength back and kept that advice throughout the story. Not to mention, Xigbar is there to drop some foreshadowing and warns Sora about what's going to happen to him. Toy Box: Young Xehanort is there to experiment to see how a toy's heart can work and how it brings Xion back. Kingdom of Corona & Arendelle: Sora learns about the new Seven Hearts of Light, and if he doesn't gather his Guardians in time for the battle, the organization will go after them. Not to mention that Sora learns more about love. Monstropolis: Vanitas got revived thanks to the screams of children, and he told Sora that Ventus lives in his heart. The Caribbean: Luxord is looking for the box. And we have Sora growing to be mature in this world and learns more about what love is. San Fransokyo: Dark Riku is there to see how a heart can be made out of data, which foreshadows bringing Xion back. Winnie The Pooh: It shows that Sora is growing up. And it foreshadows about the ending with Merlin telling Sora that whatever is lost can be found again. Which plays a major part through the story.
@@Redxan600 @Redxan600 No, those games do not have better pacing. Pacing is not "the main antagonist faction showed up and did nothing", it's the main plot actually progressing. Each of those two games starts with "anyway, plot happened off screen/in the previous game(s), so now your adventure starts" and almost entirely lacks anything remotely tied to initiating action. They also lack almost any mid-game plot development - they're all heavily, heavily backloaded. With each of them, you could drop everything shy of the end sequence and the story would still be almost perfectly coherent. With KH2, you'd still need Twilight Town and Hollow Bastion 2 to make sense of things. Never even mind how KH3 is supposed to revolve around rescuing characters and doesn't do any of that until after the Disney worlds are all gone. But whatever. I'm not going to try to point out the nuances of KH2's flaws or that the fanbase's lack of acknowledgement for its flaws came about due to how later entries' flaws drastically overshadowed KH2's - not when I'm dealing with someone willing to argue that people FAILING TO FIND the unfired Chekhov's Gun, the red herring, the sequel bait that is the still-unexplained black box counts as main plot development for KH3. You're simply wrong, taken in by the game pretending it matters a lot to the plot of the game when it's nothing but empty sequel bait in a game that is SUPPOSED to be wrapping up its numerous existing plot threads. I have no confidence that you're arguing in good faith, as opposed to resentment at a fanbase that stayed fond of KH2 long past its time. I've seen far too many bad faith defenses of KH3 to be able to take any defense of it seriously as soon as it counts using fakeout plot points as not filler. KH2's filler, at least, doesn't pretend its filler isn't filler - doesn't draw attention to it BEING filler by setting up concepts only to leave them unfulfilled.
Did my man just say Agrabah was one of the best worlds in KH2? Back in the day Agrabah was a such a slog for me, I hated it lol. Otherwise I agree that KH2 was one of the best sequels to a video game I ever could have asked for, especially when put against it's contemporaneous releases like FFX-2 from the same company. They kept the tone, the gameplay and the magic of the first one alive, without much compromise. However, like all peaks of a series, it leads to a valley. They can't really capture that lightning in bottle anymore with subsequent sequels. Not saying they have to constantly try t one up themselves but I feel the latter entries are really just victims of time and circumstance of having to follow up after an already excellent sequel.
That’s how I felt about the original one but KH2 Agrabah hit the spot personally purely from a gameplay aspect though, the story of it I didn’t care at all lol
If you have recently opened this gaming channel, I recommend you to play Danganronpa. (if you play don't make the mistake of playing it with the English dub, play it in Japanese)
6:51 wait a moment… does that mean that kh4… by way of the nature of the current state of Disney.., will introduce political correctness and woke culture? 🤨
![BAK Jay - Find Out (For Your Love) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/10FJO_XBCvY/mqdefault.jpg)
If you enjoyed the video a Like or Comment would hugely help for the algorithm! Let me know what you think and what's the best sequel you ever played?
Make sure to drop a follow on the twitch page for future streams too if you're interested: twitch.tv/reliableprez
I like the word "Excellent" over "Perfect", because Excellence is just a tad more realistic than Perfection.
Brilliant is also another good word for the same idea
@@haxkn Absolutely! Bloody brilliant suggestion, that.
KH may be my favorite game franchise ever, but I’d call it anything but perfect.
Oh yeah it is full of flaws lmao but we all (mostly) love it regardless
@@reliableprez “mostly” is a weird way of spelling “Re:Coded”
~ Life itself is just billions of different pov's meshed together while everyone is their own mc ~
Idk why but i needed this video rn thx for creating such wonderful content ❤
Glad you enjoyed!
I'm a fan of Roxas, but when KH2 first came out it was years after the first KH, so that long intro with him was standing in the way of an overdue reunion with Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Nowadays, new players don't have to wait, and the only concern is the length of the prologue.
KH2 was my favorite game from 2006 to 2014, when Sunset Overdrive made me unsure which I like more. I'm replaying KH2 now, on Critical for the first time, and I'm starting to question if it's actually better than the first. The combat, like you said, is objectively better, but the worlds seem faster than I remember, only being in them for an hour at most before leaving. I think I just like the darker vibe of KH1 more than the happy, fun journey of meeting old friends that a lot of KH2 is. Overall, KH2 is still better.
I also like the lore of KH1 the most in the series. In that game, there's only 2 1/2 Keyblades total: Sora's from the realm of light, Mickey's from the realm of darkness, and the artificial one the villains try to make with the Princesses of Heart. It feels like a much more special and legendary weapon that way. I also like the ruler-consumed-by-darkness Ansem over the Ansem with evil apprentices, but one of the apprentices is retconned to be a time traveler or whatever.
This comment is getting long, but I also wanted to mention that I like the Roxas opening because it's really chill, but has cool mysterious stuff gradually come up each day.
Tbf, kh2 moves worlds quicker but also includes a second play of every world. But I understand what you're saying.
I just finished 100% on critical mode and it was every bit of fun I remember and the data battles had some hard moments that made it more enjoyable.
Still so many broken combat mechanisms though haha
For me, it has to be street fighter 2
Not only took the idea from the 1st one and made it better, but also created a whole genre.
Can i just say I loved your choice of thumbnail 👍
Appreciate that
Easily one of my favorite and most cherished games of all time, I agree it’s not a perfect game but it is a perfect sequel in my opinion.
When you were listing off all of those traits that were shared between KH2 and AC2 I thought for sure that you were talking about Halo 2 and I was *extremely* confused when you said that the third game was controversial. AC makes a lot more sense.
Kind of shows how similar multiple sequels end up being for franchises
I'm actually playing through KH2 for the first time right now. I'm not new to the series, as I played 358/2 Days as a kid and later watched playthroughs of all the games --- but over the last few months I've had a chance to play the other games for myself for the first time. I can't give my full judgement on KH2 thus far (although I already know the story), but I do think it serves its purpose as a sequel. I'm surprised though that so many people I've seen talk about this series discount KH1 as outdated while saying KH2 is where it's at. I will admit I think the combat in KH2 feels better --- but so far I think that's the only thing I like about it more than KH1. As a sequel, I think it's working for me just fine so far and the story as a whole does a pretty good job giving you that feeling of familiarity while introducing new elements. But personally I think it does very little that actually improves upon its predecessor. Maybe I just happened to like a lot of the platforming and light puzzle solving elements in KH1 that many people didn't.
Nah that's a totally reasonable opinion especially when you consider KH2 took away basically all platforming which made up most of KH1 so it really does depend on what sort of gameplay people enjoy more
@@reliableprez True that!
Stumbled on your channel and I’m a fan now. Keep going
Other perfect sequels to me would be Spyro 2, Ratchet & Clank 2, Pokemon Gold & Silver.
Man im glad im not the only one who actually enjoyed the worlds😭. I recently fimished the game and it was awesome lol. Sure ive seen criticisms of people complaining about the linearity but i never felt like it hindered my experience. I still thought the levels were fun to travel through and still felt super immersive. Anyway, thanks for doing this video, it was really cool to hear your thoughts on this game.
Hope you get round to the critique one day!
Kingdom Hearts 2 is the *REAL* Kingdom Hearts 3. And I will forever hold that statement until I die
I barely played this game yet, through my biggest issue trying to get into it was that there is little flexibility present. I was always more of a player of the DS KH games and I played them for hundreds of hours. Days gets rid of the issue of a combat responce being really hard by making the enemies more passive and reactible while Recoded made cancelling actions a more major thing so one isn't animationlocked into a basic combo. Though I understand that it's largely a me-thing and I should probably just push more against the mountain, because it's not like those games don't have their own quirks that are annoying.
When it comes to the story, I know the full thing(Plus most of the relevant translationerrors, so that can't taint my view on it) and I feel as though the only thing that is good over here is Roxas and the things around him with everything else being subpar and decent at best. Issue being that like 85% of the game really has nothing to do with the character besides the Organization trashtalking Sora. I can pick apart everything in more detail if anyone wants to hear it, but it would be too long for this initial comment. The Tldr is that it largely copies the vague KH1-formula while doing it way worse and issues that did infact exist in KH1 are blown up to the degree where they actually drag it down. Also it sorta messes with Riku as a character, one of my only few issues with the story of Days is the fault of this game establishing the plotline in question.
The worlds are...the worlds. They are largely filler with poor leveldesign for the most of it, I guess. The thing is that it only really looks bad compared to KH1, worlds being meh is basically a staple of the series with only some few breaks, like Recoded and 3D offering a relatively engaging gameplay-experience if one is there for it(And doesn't play Olympus in Recoded, that one just sucks). It's still an issue, but it feels wrong to give a penalty to any specific game for it when it's shared.(Though BBS still gets some minuspoints for it, because those worlds are often poor, even for these low standards.)
Another banger review.
Appreciate this
Best sequel I’ve ever played was a Carmageddon 2: better graphics, more cars, bigger levels, more power ups, more people to vehicularly manslaughter.
The huge upgrade kh2 was to the series makes it perfect imo
Sonic Adventure 2 childhood perfect sequel
Never heard a massive community say Bioshock infinite was better than 2 but keep cooking
I always found kh2 to be heavily flawed in both gameplay and story wise.
The Disney worlds, with the exception of Beast's Castle, Land of Dragon, Olympus Coliseum, Port Royal, and Space Paranoids, didn't serve any purpose. They were mostly fillers and didn't have any plot progression. The second visits, with the expectation of the Disney worlds I've mentioned, just worsens the pacing.
The drive forms are a pain since you have to grind them to get the field abilities. In the base game, you didn't even have Dodge Roll. In Final Mix, it's a tad worse since you have to beat half the game to even obtain the Limit Form, and it's still locked behind the irritating grinding. You even get punished for using those drive forms just because you were trying to level up your forms. It's just so tedious. And the reaction commands are pure garbage since they're mostly braindead with mashing just one button. There are a few good ones, but it's so bad and unfair that there are so very few while most of them are awful.
Anyways, that's my take on the game. KH2 is good, it's just not great or the best everyone makes it out to be.
KH2 definitely overdoes it with the filler, but it's filler that has a purpose. (It just way outlives that purpose.)
Simulated Twilight Town and Hollow Bastion 2 are both VERY plot-heavy worlds with a ton of emotional scenes. The Disney visits in between them allow the main plot time to breathe in between major plot points, and also allow more of a focus on KH2's best strength - its core gameplay.
The Drive Forms have many flaws associated with them, but they (and the base combat) are still a lot of fun. The Reaction commands... well, if you can squint a bit and just consider them flashy phase changes, they're pretty good. In my experience with a low-level Proud run on the original PS2 game, in which I had way less damage output than a normal Proud run, they went from "I Win" buttons to appropriately timed phase changes/stun opportunities.
It's also worth pointing out how KH2 was a very unique game in its time. Almost anything else out there at the time of its release was clunkier, slower, or generally less accessible. Seriously, KH1 was considered fairly groundbreaking in its time, and it's clunky and slow as fuck compared to KH2. (I still prefer its gameplay style because I love the stronger RPG elements, but that's an uncommon taste.) The level of advancement between the two titles is just unbelievable.
It's ALSO worth pointing out that the level of advancement after KH2 stopped dead in its tracks. All future games until and INCLUDING KH3 went and included some sort of weird one-off gimmick that tended to be inoffensive at BEST, and... fairly offensive at worst. They also included many small flaws in the core gameplay that added up to a design that just couldn't match up. By the time KH3 released and could be considered mostly comparable to KH2, it had been so long, and there had been so many other advancements in the rest of the industry, that it didn't even feel like the series had just maintained a solid gameplay style. This is also worsened by the fact that most of the flaws that future games would see were flaws that had/have been noted for years, yet were at best ignored and at worst, WORSENED, as time went on.
To sum up, in proper context, KH2 does deserve most of the praise it gets. Its core gameplay design was top tier for the time, and its flaws more excusable than they'd end up being later down the line, as future games released that did nothing to fix them.
And I'm saying this as someone who, back in the day, pointed out most of the flaws in the game like the low difficulty and numerous story issues.
@@Nyzer_ "KH2 definitely overdoes it with the filler, but it's filler that has a purpose."
&
"The Disney visits in between them allow the main plot time to breathe in between major plot points, and also allow more of a focus on KH2's best strength - its core gameplay."
I feel like we should not excuse them for the terrible pacing just because of those reasons. While KH1 did this back then, you only have to do one filler Disney world before continuing on with the plot. (Two, if you're willing to do both.) Compared to kh2's pacing where you have to do basically all of the Disney worlds and their second visits to get the plot moving, nothing really happens except for certain worlds. Especially since after the big reveal from the thousand Heartless battle, Sora is conflicted that he's helping with the Organization's plan. If he had been smart enough to know the clues about the contains inside that box, he would've gone straight to Twilight Town instead of goofing out in those Disney worlds. I would've been fine with certain worlds that implements to the plot and then moved on to Twilight Town.
"The Reaction commands... well, if you can squint a bit and just consider them flashy phase changes, they're pretty good. In my experience with a low-level Proud run on the original PS2 game, in which I had way less damage output than a normal Proud run, they went from "I Win" buttons to appropriately timed phase changes/stun opportunities."
My problem with those reaction commands is that most of them aren't even earned. You just have to wait for it to happen and just mash one button. Which isn't very skillful at all. I'll admit that there are some good ones like the Samurai and the Gambler enemies where you'll get punished if you don't act fast enough and you'll be rewarded and get bonuses from the Gambler if you win against it.
"It's ALSO worth pointing out that the level of advancement after KH2 stopped dead in its tracks. All future games until and INCLUDING KH3 went and included some sort of weird one-off gimmick that tended to be inoffensive at BEST, and... fairly offensive at worst."
Much like how it did with Chain of Memories and kh2? I really couldn't call them gimmicks since they're part of the core gameplay and it gives those games a sense of identity. I mean, look at Re:Coded for example, it has a variety of gameplay feature, gives you the option to change the difficulty anytime you like, and has a fun leveling up system. I wouldn't say they're the worst. Sure, flawed. But not the worst.
"To sum up, in proper context, KH2 does deserve most of the praise it gets. Its core gameplay design was top tier for the time, and its flaws more excusable than they'd end up being later down the line, as future games released that did nothing to fix them."
You can't just ignore what the future KH games improved from kh2. KH3 improves from previous games. You have the ability to guard and use items in midair. You can use airstepping to get close to your opponents. And those formchanges has plenty of unique abilities and moveset. I fully understand that kh2 got a lot of hate back then. But I think it deserves as many criticism it receives because it's still heavily flawed in both gameplay and story. As I said before with the drive forms and reaction commands, they weren't properly utilized. I thought BBS implemented those reaction commands better. And KH3 did those formchanges a lot better too. Especially with the Rage Form since it acts more like a risk/reward system rather than just a punish.
@@Redxan600 It's not so much excusing KH2's filler as trying to point out that it's at least got more of a narrative purpose than it does in most other games. DDD and KH3 in particular are horrible for this.
And I'd say that while CoM is certainly gimmicky, we didn't get over a decade of CoM-like entries between main games in that case.
And that brings me back to the context of KH2 being widely praised because of what came after it: the games that came after it have all been more flawed than KH2 was. KH3, for all its additions, still comes with the Attraction Commands and the hours of hours of filler desperately pretending not to be filler by having the Organization show up to talk about old concepts or new concepts that didn't even factor in to KH3 anyway.
@@Nyzer_ "It's not so much excusing KH2's filler as trying to point out that it's at least got more of a narrative purpose than it does in most other games. DDD and KH3 in particular are horrible for this."
I disagree with that since both of those games have better pacing than kh2. Especially with KH3 since all of those Disney worlds are implemented better than what kh2 did. And that includes DDD, too. Most of the worlds in kh2 doesn't even contribute to the plot. What's the point of going to Halloween Town? It's just a rehash of the movie. It's even worse when you come to find out that it takes place after the movie and it's retelling the same movie as before where Jack doesn't even learn his lesson. What's the point of going back to Agrabah if the Organization aren't contributing to that world? There's not even a single scene with one of the members in Pride Lands. Like I said, I don't mind if we have to do the second visits with Beast's Castle, Land of Dragon, Olympus Coliseum, Port Royal, and Space Paranoids before moving on to the main plot. But the rest adds nothing.
"And that brings me back to the context of KH2 being widely praised because of what came after it: the games that came after it have all been more flawed than KH2 was."
Once again, I disagree with that. Sure, BBS is flawed with the gameplay, but it adds variety to said gameplay with its characters. It implements the reaction command better. And the pacing is far better than what kh2 did. While I cannot say much about Days gameplay, the story for that game told me more about Roxas's character and his relationship with Axel better than what kh2 did.
"KH3, for all its additions, still comes with the Attraction Commands and the hours of hours of filler desperately pretending not to be filler by having the Organization show up to talk about old concepts or new concepts that didn't even factor in to KH3 anyway."
I've already said what I said about the combat up above.
And once again, I disagree with the fact that KH3's worlds are fillers.
Olympus: Sora goes to ask Hercules for advice on how to regain his strength back and kept that advice throughout the story. Not to mention, Xigbar is there to drop some foreshadowing and warns Sora about what's going to happen to him.
Toy Box: Young Xehanort is there to experiment to see how a toy's heart can work and how it brings Xion back.
Kingdom of Corona & Arendelle: Sora learns about the new Seven Hearts of Light, and if he doesn't gather his Guardians in time for the battle, the organization will go after them. Not to mention that Sora learns more about love.
Monstropolis: Vanitas got revived thanks to the screams of children, and he told Sora that Ventus lives in his heart.
The Caribbean: Luxord is looking for the box. And we have Sora growing to be mature in this world and learns more about what love is.
San Fransokyo: Dark Riku is there to see how a heart can be made out of data, which foreshadows bringing Xion back.
Winnie The Pooh: It shows that Sora is growing up. And it foreshadows about the ending with Merlin telling Sora that whatever is lost can be found again. Which plays a major part through the story.
@@Redxan600 @Redxan600 No, those games do not have better pacing. Pacing is not "the main antagonist faction showed up and did nothing", it's the main plot actually progressing. Each of those two games starts with "anyway, plot happened off screen/in the previous game(s), so now your adventure starts" and almost entirely lacks anything remotely tied to initiating action. They also lack almost any mid-game plot development - they're all heavily, heavily backloaded. With each of them, you could drop everything shy of the end sequence and the story would still be almost perfectly coherent. With KH2, you'd still need Twilight Town and Hollow Bastion 2 to make sense of things.
Never even mind how KH3 is supposed to revolve around rescuing characters and doesn't do any of that until after the Disney worlds are all gone.
But whatever. I'm not going to try to point out the nuances of KH2's flaws or that the fanbase's lack of acknowledgement for its flaws came about due to how later entries' flaws drastically overshadowed KH2's - not when I'm dealing with someone willing to argue that people FAILING TO FIND the unfired Chekhov's Gun, the red herring, the sequel bait that is the still-unexplained black box counts as main plot development for KH3. You're simply wrong, taken in by the game pretending it matters a lot to the plot of the game when it's nothing but empty sequel bait in a game that is SUPPOSED to be wrapping up its numerous existing plot threads.
I have no confidence that you're arguing in good faith, as opposed to resentment at a fanbase that stayed fond of KH2 long past its time. I've seen far too many bad faith defenses of KH3 to be able to take any defense of it seriously as soon as it counts using fakeout plot points as not filler.
KH2's filler, at least, doesn't pretend its filler isn't filler - doesn't draw attention to it BEING filler by setting up concepts only to leave them unfulfilled.
Did my man just say Agrabah was one of the best worlds in KH2? Back in the day Agrabah was a such a slog for me, I hated it lol. Otherwise I agree that KH2 was one of the best sequels to a video game I ever could have asked for, especially when put against it's contemporaneous releases like FFX-2 from the same company. They kept the tone, the gameplay and the magic of the first one alive, without much compromise. However, like all peaks of a series, it leads to a valley. They can't really capture that lightning in bottle anymore with subsequent sequels. Not saying they have to constantly try t one up themselves but I feel the latter entries are really just victims of time and circumstance of having to follow up after an already excellent sequel.
That’s how I felt about the original one but KH2 Agrabah hit the spot personally purely from a gameplay aspect though, the story of it I didn’t care at all lol
Can you do an opinion video on Final Fantasy X? Love that game.
Still one of my favorite franchises!
Well written
Appreciate it
If you have recently opened this gaming channel, I recommend you to play Danganronpa. (if you play don't make the mistake of playing it with the English dub, play it in Japanese)
Banjo tooie. Ratchet and clank 2, 3, Mario bros 3… final fantasy x-2…
Diablo 2 perfect sequel and still has yet to be topped in 22 years by other games in the genre
6:51 wait a moment… does that mean that kh4… by way of the nature of the current state of Disney.., will introduce political correctness and woke culture? 🤨