Too easy?

[Radje]

Reading all of the posts on this thread i find myself awfully confused.

I played KHII on normal mode and fought my way through the game with inexplicable ease. I didn't die once and was rarely in any danger of doing so even with i was half heartedly staring at the screen. There wasn't any skill involved which ruled out the idea that i might just somehow be excellent at the game.

This really put me off of the game, The original challenged me from the moment i set off with it, the puzzles and the battles were both well designed / a decent level of difficulty and this inspired me to carry on with the story line, but with the sequel it was almsot a struggle to play a game that seemed far too tilted towards younger children.

The only reaosn i can think of for the difficulty is that just before i played it, i had gone through KHI so was used to the battle system, but that doesn't really explain why it was so damned easy. What infuriated me more was that in the last battle when you lose control of Sora and have to run towards him with Riku, I found Riku far too weak and he continuously died when trying to get to Sora!

Has anyone else experienced this weird game layout? Or is the game designed with younger children in mind?

[Dynast-Kid]

Actually, the game is directed towards an older audience than just children, which explains why in this installment they use words like die, and kill.

But I thought it was pretty easy too.

[f f freak]

The only battle I found hard was the Xigbar battle but after a knocksmash or two he went down pretty easy.

[SeeDRankLou]

The thing about RPGs is that they are very story driven. Yes, the fighting is fun and the mini-games are nice, but they don't want the fighting to be so difficult that it haults the story just so you can get to a high enough level to be able to pass through the fights and the bosses.

That being said, this game is rather easy. I played through the first time on Normal mode. I did this thing where you visit Twilight Town for the second time, and then the Hollow Bastion is covered in darkness. The game wants to visit the last few worlds before you go to Hollow Bastion again, but I just went to Hollow Bastion right afterwards. I was down two or three spells and 6 levels from where the game wanted me to be. This made the Demyx fight rather difficult, because I just didn't have high enough HP or defense, and I kept running out of potions. Not to mention Donald and Goofy being next to useless. And, I kept running out of time on those fights with the dancing waters. This happened again during the Xaldin fight, because again I didn't go back to the two worlds I missed, and I was still several levels below where the game wanted me to be, several spells down, several skills down. Until I figured out the reaction command trick to this fight I died like ten times. When I finally caught up to the worlds and the levels and stuff like that, the game became easier. Although I did die once against Xemnas during the fight against the dragon while Riku was driving that hover scooter (or whatever that was).

I played again on Proud mode. Surprisingly, the Twilight Thorn battle presented a good challenge. He hit rather hard when he had his hands in the ground and was shooting that stuff at you. I died twice before I barely won the third time. I was like "wow, this might be hard." Alas, no. Since I knew to visit the worlds in a certain order and what to focus on as far as skills were concerned and the like, the game became pretty easy, even the Sephiroth fight. The only thing that was really challenging was the last twenty rounds of the Hades Paradox Cup. 31-40 were challenging because of the time constraint and the only thing I could think to do was spam Thundaga with Thunder Boost on, then go to Master Form and keep spamming it (because it was a constant finisher). And then rounds 41-48 are just hard no matter how you spin it.

I didn't find this game to be so much of a button masher as the last one. The reaction commands made it so that I didn't just press the X button endlessly, I was waiting for the triangle button to present itself. And at higher levels you started to get a lot of square button commands, which made for interesting combos and the like. I used quite a few of the square button commands for some really nice combos, especially against Sephiroth (who at the point was really the only one who could withstand those combos and still stand). And then there were the forms, which had their own sets of square button commands and magic usage. Limit commands were rather nice to use. And then there were summons, which were far more fun to use than in the first game. Yes, they use up your MP and aren't the most powerful attacks in the world, but remember, this game is fun and all.

So, too easy...unfortuantely yes. But I didn't find this as much of a button masher as the first game, especially when you got to the second of the game and started getting several square button commands and more summons and the like.

[Tavrobel]

KHII is far more directed to the young teenage audience as opposed to the tweens. However, the difficulty that most people find in KHI as compared to KHII is the lack of KHII's platforming base, and if not that, then is much of the drastic change. A game is alot harder if you have no idea what you are doing. The second premise is that with KHII, I'm just going to assume that you have played KHI already, and therefore, have some idea of how and when to hit this little friendly button I like to call reset X.

Either way, I found KHI to be more difficult than KHII, but only at the beginning. After you get past Traverse Town in KHI, the difficulty is similar, and in essence, not that different. I have not touched KHII in any mode below Proud. To do so would like trading all of my D2 accounts for Mephisto's Soulstones, which, by the way, needs to get a different sprite, because Annihulus is way cooler.

[Eiko Guy]

i always hated the fight using riku he's less badass then sora

[Summoner]

I think the only true challenge, besides Sephiroth (who, once you have a good strategy for, shouldn't even be mentioned, since that's the key to beating him), and some of the Organization XIII members, was in Proud Mode. I personally thought that KH2 was easier than KH1 because of the reaction commands, but it could be because of all of the abilities that you can earn, as well. It didn't help much that there were spots in the game where you could leve up endlessly (such as the top of Pride Rock, though I think you have to beat all 2/3 stages of the Pride Lands to get this event to occur. I'm not sure.), but that was probably meant for harder bosses. Still, it makes the lesser enemies push overs. So I agree on both that and the significant increase in maturity, due partly because of the fans and partly because of some of the chosen Disney worlds (Pirates of the Caribbean), which were a bit violent to begin with. Well, compared to other Disney films.

[Ouch!]

KHII is hardly easier than its predecessor (which was also fairly easy). The only reason I ever had any difficulty with the original is because I was twelve when it came out. Having played through both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II through again, I didn't find either particularly difficult, and that wasn't just because I knew what to do.

[TheBanzaiKitten]

KHII was easier then KH1 in a few ways. But that's because of the Limits and the Reaction Commands. The bosses could've been a little more innovative (like Ursula or Genie Jafar in KH1). However a few challenges I had were Xaldin (I had to use Mickey twice against that bitch, on NORMAL!!!) and Xigbar. Sephiroth was pretty hard until I leveled up good enough. Once you understand how Sephiroth fights by losing to him a few times, he's easy to beat.

[Clawsze]

KHII is hardly easier than its predecessor (which was also fairly easy). The only reason I ever had any difficulty with the original is because I was twelve when it came out. Having played through both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II through again, I didn't find either particularly difficult, and that wasn't just because I knew what to do.

You found KH hard when you were 12?
I finished it with ease when I was 11.