I’ve never tried a wand build honestly, and it sounds pretty killer. I was pleasantly surprised with Monstro on a replay however, as it played much better than I’d remembered it. I think Wonderland and Deep Jungle are still my least favorite world in I. Meanwhile, I’m kind of stuck in coded for the moment since I’m having trouble beating an optional system sector. The worst thing is that if you did, you need to restart a floor (which isn’t so bad), but you also lose also the points you wagered for the floor, which is tripled by the fact that, if you want to afford the cool stat bonuses and extra keyblade, you need to wager like 70% of your points upon entering a floor. I’m also slowly grinding tag mode, which is a bit of a chore without people playing... well anything on a DS around me, I have to leave the system in sleep mode for hours. Good thing is I’m not too far from reaching the maximum 10” unlikely extra dungeon floors, but I can get a maximum of three per tag lose session, so it’s gonna take a big more time. I haven’t had much time to play Union χ since I got the new Corcoran Strike book and that’s been keeping me busy during commutes, but I did manage to finally leave Wonderland after 300 years.
I feel my only beef with Final Mix so far has been the fact that everything I found kind of tedious in the original got amplified a bit. Gummi Ship segments have a new mission objective feature which is thankfully optional but still annoying if you try. Synthesis has been retooled to make it more difficult to make some of the better gear and more obnoxiously, certain materials that were already a pain to get in the original have been attached to the new enemy types this game brings in. I like the enemies, they're interesting, but they're all basically mini-puzzle bosses, and if they're wasn't an online community, you would have a hell of time figuring out what you need to do to beat them. Some also seem like they can only be beaten once you've reached a certain point of the game and have the right abilities. As for the Wand build I'm trying, it has been interesting. On the one hand, it's been neat to get early access to a few of the new abilities the game added, in fact, I would almost argue many of these moves were designed specifically for the Wand build since many of them are based on Sora's MP or Magic power. On the other hand, I never realized how useful and how much I used Block until it was taken from me. In fact, I just learned I probably won't even see the move until I reach Hollow Bastion because it's a move the Wand build gets ridiculously late in the game and only if I seriously grind for it. It's like a level 70 skill for this build. So I have definitely been playing out of my comfort zone with this entry. Just reached Monstro, grateful to have a better balanced Keyblade like Three Wishes. Not looking forward to Monstro as it's my least favorite world and probably the second most frustrating part of the game only behind the Little Mermaid. I've taken a break from 358/2, I'm going to start diving into it more once I reach Chain of Memories in my marathon. So for handhelds, I've become addicted to KH Union X, which has been pretty neat so far. My only really beef is that the Story Mode is slow and it doesn't take much to break this game in two. I'm almost at the same level as some of the veterans in the Raid Battles. Not helped that my early draws got me some ridiculously powerful medals, I never thought I would say that Kairi is OP. I'm on missions like 150 at the moment, still 200 missions away from the real meat of the plot of this game.
I never really had a beef with Wonderland. It's trippy in the right way, though the boss battle in KH1 is kind of solid proof about how shoddy the lock on/camera combo is in this game, course a more thorough player will realize it when you try to fight Riku on Destiny Island. I didn't mind it in 358/2 either except for one particular missions but I frankly hated every mission like it, so it hardly was the world's fault. As for my comments about 358/2 being a console entry, I agree the structure is better suited for a handheld, which is why I kind of wanted it on the PSP instead, or the 3DS. I honestly just would like the world's to have a little more meat to them is all, and I would have preferred co-op without having to deal with Nintendo's obnoxious Friend's Code nonsense. Still, I feel like the core battle mechanics of the game are great in theory, and considering the hardware limitations they have, are pretty well executed as well. I just feel like the system held this game back a little. This is a game that could have had DLC missions had SE been ambitious enough. The weapon mechanics are cool but feel a bit too simplistic at times. Hell, I'm still annoyed the game doesn't have a genuine secret story boss like the Final Mix entries and BbS. Would have been pretty cool to have pulled the Vanitas Remnant fight out of BbS and put it in this game instead. Would have been cool foreshadowing. Most of all, I feel like better hardware with larger worlds would have given the devs the ability to fix some of the wonkier missions like the "follow the enemy without being detected" ones or the "Kill the Giant wandering Shadow". I really wanted the upgrade to simply refine the quality of what's here. Believe me, I love 358/2, it's not like I feel it's a bad game. It's honestly been easier to get into than trying to replay KH1, I just get annoyed because I know with some refinement and horsepower, this game could have easily been one of the stellar entries in the franchise. Hell maybe a bigger system would have allowed them to give the rest of Org. XIII a little more screentime. In KH1 news, I'm back in Traverse Town trying to get the Gummi Ship upgraded while also unlocking 100 Acre Woods, Summons, and if memory serves me correct, my rematch with the area boss. I can honestly say that I hate the Gummi Ship sequences, they're ugly, control awfully, and the building mechanic is so cumbersome that I'm reminded why most people don't bother. Seeing how Proud mode is murdering me with my fragile Wand build, I opted to do Tarzan's world before tackling Hercules world and the notorious Cerberus fight. If Sora didn't have all of these neat special combo finishers unlock ridiculously early in this game, I probably would have rerolled him cause his health is not any better than Donald's at the moment and he hits like a wet paper. Donald, bless his heart, is just not meant for Proud mode it seems. My only consolation is that the battle with the Phantom should potentially go pretty smoothly with this build.
While I’ll agree Days is wa more fun than people claim, I don’t really feel it’s work as a home console release. You still explore small chunks of worlds at a time in a million repetitive missions. This makes perfect sense for a handheld as it’s very much perfect for a pick up and go playstyle, but it might become exhausting on a console. Btw, this is weird but coded is pretty much the only game where I actuallysctively enjoy Wonderland. Then again, there are a grand total of three Disney worlds, so maybe it was just easier for it to stand out, especially combined with the gameplay gimmicks. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the χ version of Wonderland. I think it’s meat that, thanks to the art shift, all the worlds look different and we visit totally different places than before. And then there’s Daybreak Town which is just gorgeous.
Would have made it more novel at least. Honestly, I really enjoy 358/2's gameplay for the most part. I think the only thing I'm not partial to is the Challenge/Mission Modes which effectively force you to play the game almost three times to unlock everything. Kind of a hassle. I really wish Nomura and the dev team had the time to properly remake the game like they originally planned for the HD Mix. I still feel it's one of the more underrated games in the franchise.
It’s taxked on but the gameplay is still stellar. The 358/2 gameplay never bothered me at all as much as other people seem to hate it, but coded really does a fantastic job of just being an absolute joy to play. I’m now much more positive about the game than during my retrospective, though it’s still definitely the least necessary game in the series, story-wise. And it should’ve been Mickey
coded, more than any other entry, feels the most tacked on overall. I was playing 358/2 again before Union X took over. I'll probably pick it back up once I hit Chain of Memories in the playthrough since they're co-current and I don't believe for a moment that the movie version on the Final Mix 1.5 I have will do the game justice. Still, it's because of that game, that I can see how off KH1 feels because even that title is better with the controls than KH1 has been.
I went with Leopardis, but I started playing way before Back Cover was even a thing, so I just picked the one with the cat. Imagine my surprise when it turned out it’s the least popular and lowest ranking of the unions And yeah, KHI does have a lot of earlyinstallment weirdness, but like you said, it still has a lot of charm because of that. It’s really interesting to see how coded kinda reinterprets these events and tries to tie them more with the rest of the series? Idk, it’s dumb.
I will say that KH1 has definitely not aged well. Even with some of the fixes made in the HD Final Remix version, this game has a lot of technical problems. The story is also kind of laughable right now because so much of the lore they're laying down at the moment has no meaning after this game. It feels like watching a pilot episode of a TV series that was retooled drastically after feedback. It's still charming of course and I'm enjoying it, but it feels like I'm playing a different series almost.
Oh I have my fair share of great medals so far as well, so I was murdering things long before the level boost debacle. I'm still salty that everyone seems to be getting Roxas Medals but me. My best Medal is a Kairi one ironically enough. I went with Ava the Fox. Partly because Fox and Serpent would have been my choice to begin with, partly because Back Cover showed she's the only sane member of the Fortellers.
