So soulu you say your enjoyment Jaś importer do dar pber the original?
If I thought Zexion was a handful, Larxene is on a whole new level. She apparently was holding back in CoM cause holy hell is she a pain to fight in this game. In between just zapping you with thunder magic and shanking you with her knives, she loves to create clones of herself to help her do it as well. Will definitely come back later. Finished Agrabah and forgot how obnoxious the Fat Bandits were made in this entry, they pretty much always target Sora which makes getting around them a chore. I was able to get Valor Form to it's next checkpoint. Now I need to level Wisdom a little longer. Asusual for the series, Aladdin is OP as hell, though I would argue the game has done a great job of making all of the Disney guest characters pretty awesome, and the removal of the silly Trinity Marks, means I can switch out Donald and Goofy as I please. After that, I mostly played around with some Gummi Ship missions, finished the Panic and Pain Cup, and have been trying to complete Jiminy's abomination of a journal just so I can get the secret ending. Kind of annoyed they changed the rules on how to get them in Final Mix since the journal requirements are so annoying in this entry.
I feel my love for it stems both from having several of these shorts in my childhood since my family had the Disney Channel when I was growing up; and due to my fascination with early film and animation. It's why I was rather impressed here, because the team went above and beyond trying to recapture the feel of those cartoons with the scratchy record like music and the more mono audio voice work. It's just impressive to me. My other favorite world in KH2 is likely Tron, but I'm still a ways from there. Finished Port Royal, totally spaced that Crispin Freemen voiced Will Turner in this version. Actually made him charming for once. I think my real beef with PR is both the fact the enemies and bosses in this world fall a little too hard into gimmick territory, though I do appreciate having a magic-centric world; as well as just the overall VA work not doing the characters justice. The nice thing about all the other Disney Worlds is that most of them all voiced by their original casts because Disney owns their souls, but here we're dealing with newcomers, and while they do a pretty decent job, they just can't really recapture the original performances, especially the VA for Jack Sparrow who is just not as "loopy" as Johnny Depp's performance. I also forgot how gloriously awful the music in Atlantica was. Still enjoy this world. I finally took down Zexion. It helped that I leveled up Wisdom Form to get the Quick Step ability which comes in real handy during his final phase.Just as I figured from watching all those combat videos, it's really just the new boss battles that make the combat system really shine. Regular battles are still a clustersmurf of chaos and mashing X and occasionally Triangle to win, but the organization fights will punish you for that kind of fighting. I just unlocked the Larxene fight, and I'm already dreading that one but I'll check it out tonight. I'll admit the new content fixes a glaring issue with the original, which was namely how sparse the content was finally justifying several of the mechanics within the game like the movement abilities and the core combat system. So I do hope you get a chance to play it sometime in the future.
Somehow, I never was that big a fan of Timeless River? It felt like one of the more cramped world, and while it's charming how they brought together various old cartoons, in today's pop culture climate of mindlessly regurgitating nostalgia, I just don't feel it. I know this came before it, but I can't help but look past that nowadays. Plus, for some reason, this was the only world in KH2 that made me nauseaous while playing. Destiny Islands did the same in I, which is why I've never really been a fan of that place from an exploration standpoint, aside from maybe its appearance in CoM. I do wish I would get to play this version one day, if only for all the challenges they added, since they sound pretty exhilerating, to be honest. Maybe someday.
I cannot stress how much I think Timeless River is my favorite Disney World in the series. Had a blast going through it, even if the circumstances of it's existence in the plot feels unnecessary and creates a few plot holes later down the road for the series by haphazardly introducing time travel to the series. I honestly feel the writers totally spaced this sequence when they decided to come up with Xehanort's convoluted time travel plot twist in 3D. Regardless, the sequence is an absolute joy and I either forgot, or never realized since I last played KHII on an aging vacuum tubed TV back in the day, but the audio design of this area is really steller and perfectly emulates the audio of old timey cartoons with a strange mono dissonance to it and the feel of a record being played for the music. It's just a well crafted world. Challenged Zexion and was quickly thumped for my trouble. He's still annoying like he was in CoM, but here, it's a little less aggravating surprisingly enough. Partly because him sealing your commands is less of a hassle than him outright stealing your commands. I'll have to come back to him after I gain a few more levels or a stronger keyblade. I could probably beat him now, but I don't really want to focus too much time on this since I'll likely be doing so at the end of the game. In 358/2 news, I just tackled my second major boss, and was grateful I remembered the trick to fighting him. I'm now in Herc's world, but I quickly realized I had the wrong keyblade for the task at hand, so I backed out.
Totally spaced that one. I think it also has something like the Mushroom XIII and even a new style mode. Should be interesting.
Well there’s the added Aqua chapter
It will be interesting to tackle BbS' Final Mix since I don't remember much about all of the new content added to it besides the extra optional boss fights against Xehanort and Eraqus' armored forms.
Yeah, I have heard that the extra content is really substantive and makes the game much more involving. I mean, considering II’s cult following didn’t start until II.5, this isn’t really surprising
True, since KHII is more action packed, the maps don't need to be too involving, it just feels weird and a bit more barren since KH1 had platforming segments, and CoM places heavy emphasis on map construction for the core game, so coming into KHII, it feels a bit barren. My one gripe is really that some worlds are not created equally. Olympus Coliseum/Underworld is surprisingly huge, I guess as payback for being the smallest world in the first game, whereas Mulan's world kind of feels tiny and only seems longer than normal because it's bit heavy on backtracking and reusing areas over and over with the mission gimmick. I just finished Hercules world, and I'm heading Disney Castle to hit up my favorite world in the series. Despite my gripes, KHII does still have my overall favorite world selection in the series. Definitely the nostalgic "childhood" entry for me since I grew up with every film in this one. I've already reached the level limit for Valor form for the moment until I unlock the other drive forms, and acquired Chicken Little summon who I still feel was an odd choice for a summon in this game. He's still at base level, but I'll likely level summons better once the Underworld tournaments begin since that's the only place they're useful. I have discovered my first optional Org. XIII fight, and may backtrack to test it out, though considering it's Zexion, I'm not sure if I really want to deal with it. There is also another Mushroom XIII member here. These guys are pretty amusing minigames in themselves. The one in Mulan's world makes you play tag, but the longer you play the more clones he summons to get you. I'm waiting for Wisdom Form to unlock to get the Journal requirement completed. Overall, the extra content in this entry has actually been kind of nice.
