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    I feel you need to have a love-hate relationship with Kingdom Hearts to enjoy it. I'd be kind of concerned if I met a fan who loved it unconditionally and felt every entry was perfect.

    Once you start getting more of your abilities, Days starts to fall more into place. It's a bit like KH1 where you start off incredibly underwhelming but end game you're kind of a death machine. I was watching a vid where they did the Data Sora vs. Data Roxas fight and the two things that struck me the most is how good of an actor Roxas VA is, and how they basically ripped the sprites and move sets of Roxas from Days. Even his light attacks are just his final limit break.

    It does feel weird that BbS was once hailed as one of the better entries and now it seems like it's been getting an unnecessary beating as of late. I don't deny it's still regarded highly, but it kind of feels like one of the safest entries to take pot shots at that isn't one of the more loathed entries like all of the Nintendo handheld ones. I don't think even HK1 gets as much criticism as BbS does from the YouTube feeds I've listened to. Course it's probably because it falls into the classic NES defense where the game started it all so everyone understands it hasn't aged as well but it's amusing watching people still act like it's just as good as some of the later entries in terms of gameplay.
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    I think it goes along with the shift in KHII from "stupid fun" to "serious hardcore business". I kind of feel like whenever someone spewd out that KHII has the best battle system, it needs an asterisk attached to it with a note on the bottom that say "if you play it on Critical Mode, which is the only mode you should play you pansy ass newb". It was something I noticed from the glowing review by KingK where he admits that he never really understood how intricate the system was until he finally started playing it on harder difficulties. Granted I don't feel it's wrong for a system depth to be hidden away in harder difficulties, but I would point out that KHII's mechanics are still a bit lopsided. I'll probably tackle it on Proud and leave Critical for another time.

    In CoM news, I've almost finished the first half of the worlds. I'm on the sixth floor getting ready to tackle Halloween Town before I have to have my first fight with Larxene. I kind of forgot how tough the Coliseum was in this game since Cloud and Hades both introduce you to the proper flow of boss combat and teach you quickly that you need to separate the Zero card to the back of your deck build for easy access.

    My deck could be better, but I'm surprised how much I'm using Simba. He's such a good opener attack for battles, I'm almost tempted to try my luck and see if I can get another decent numbered one in a draw, but I'm kind of waiting to reach higher floors before really expending my Moogle Points.

    I actually maxed out my map cards already by accident. for some reason the game just loves to hand me Calm Bounty cards. I'll probably spend a few in the next area, especially since I believe this is the first world o offer two rewards for Calm Bounty rooms. Even then, getting more Pumpkinhead Keyblade cards won't hurt.

    In terms of the plot, I always forget how goofy this game is, and how much of a larger role Jiminy Cricket gets in this game compared to the console titles. I mean it makes sense he doesn't appear in 358/2 and BbS but after coded, has he even made another appearance? Nothing wrong with this of course, just something interesting to note. It has been interesting going back through this game with the Days story knowledge. It definitely gives this game a more complete feel now that I'm at this point.

    The video was cute, got me looking forward to BbS Final Mix.
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    My KingK guy failed me. After listening to his gushing review of KHII where he ignores a lot of what I feel is wrong with it, he didn't even bother finishing his retrospective as I was looking forward to see him talk about Birth by Sleep which seems to be the entry that gets nailed the hardest for "ruining the gameplay of the series". I'm a little miffed right now.
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    That video was quite amusing and fairly accurate surprising enough.

    I started CoM on Proud mode and sadly, a lot of my concerns about shifting the game into 3D have sort of been verified. I'm only on the third floor, but I can already see how the new dimension sort of hurts the flow of combat by weakening magic since the devs couldn't be bothered to give Sora a new animation to attack from angles. Makes using Blizzard practically pointless unless you're on top of the enemy, and some of the Summons got nerfed thanks to this as well. So one of my biggest praises about the original is pretty much gone now in this addition. I know a few cards have been nerfed as well, so we'll see how that affects things as well.

    It's also kind of lame that only the Castle Oblivion sequences are actually fully voiced. I'm still having fun, but I definitely fall into the camp of players who regard the GBA version as the "definitive version". Also, if Riku's Dark Aura ability works the same way it did in the KH1 version, then Riku Replica is going to be a smurfing joke in this game.
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    I opted to watch 358/2 first. Largely because I've been ill for the past few days and I doubt my brain was ready to tackle something more challenging than watching a movie. I will agree with the general consensus that the movie doesn't do the game justice and I'm even more annoyed now that SE ran out of time to just remake the game for the collection.

    While the overall quality of the video is strong and the VA work is top notch, the story just feels incredibly choppy, especially since they cut out the story scenes from most of the missions which you never realize how much they feed into the overall narrative until they are missing. There were a few sequences that also got cut that made me sad such as Roxas leaving the castle. The video wasn't bad, but I do feel like it didn't do this particular entry any favors. I can only imagine my feelings for coded will be like since I never played the original to even compare.

    I'll probably start CoM tonight, though I did find out a Youtuber that I keep an eye on did a retrospective of the series. I found him thanks to Dark Souls and while I don't always agree with his opinion, he tends to make good points. Sadly for me, he absolutely hates my favorite entry, but I do feel his complaints against it are legitimate issues, though for me, I feel his issues stem from liking the series as an action/skill based game series and being less interested in the RPG/character building aspect. I just reached his retrospective of KH2 and while I think he's firmly in the "KH2FM is god" group, they videos have been interesting to say the least. He at least had a more favorable response to 358/2 than most people I've seen on the web, and it will be interesting to see how Birth by Sleep fares for him since he seems to have a more fair judgement of the franchise.

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    Yeah, it's kind of sad how much the speed running scene can sometimes wreck a good franchise. Granted, it's just a few bad apples but the amount of elitism that gets thrown around by the bad ones is annoying. Dark Souls has a similar problem as does Zelda.

    Finished KH1 on Proud Mode this evening. Since I was so close to maxing out levels, I did so to get a trophy because I'm a tool. Obviously Ansem was a pushover but he feels like a pushover after more legitimately tough fights like Phantom, who I still contend is the toughest fight in the game thanks to the gimmick aspect of the fight.

    Still love this ending. It may still be one of my favorites in the series just because I like how well the scenes fit the music and the fact we get a "where are they now?" element with the supporting cast. Since I hit all the requirements and then some, I saw the Deep Dive trailer. Completely forgot how battrout insane that trailer was and overly cryptic as all hell. It's funny how this trailer launched a huge change in the visual style of both KH as well as being the basis for what they wanted to do in Advent Children and Dissidia. Hell, looking back now, I feel like Nomura was channeling this trailer hardcore when he had the devs make the original Versus XIII trailer. It's funny to think this might be the third most important thing Nomura made after FFVII and Kingdom Hearts.

    Now I'm conflicted, because I read somewhere that if I watch the 358/2 movie and unlock everything, it will unlock some special cards added into CoM:Re. Yet, I'm kind of back to playing the game proper. Not sure what to do at the moment on that. Maybe watch the video tomorrow night and then start CoM the following day. Might be interesting to see how the movie measures up while I'm playing the game proper.
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    Yeah, reading the TV Trope page shows you're right and it's the HD release that finally brought this game back into good graces. Course, even back in the day, it felt obvious that Final Mix fixed a lot of problems with the game which made it more annoying that it was Japanese only. It's probably why I'm a little bit more ecited to play it despite my usual mixed feelings for it. I think my confusion comes from the fact that I forgot that this collection has been available for years now, so it just felt to me like it popped out of nowhere, but considering I checked out of the series around 3D, it's not surprising that I missed this weird bandwagon.

    I skipped the video I told you about, just a quick look at the comment section told me everything I needed to know about the video and considering some of the other videos the guy did, it's pretty obvious he's one of the "KHII:FM is end all be all of the series" types, so I don't really need to watch another video of him beating a dead horse.

    I did find this cool video though.
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    That's kind of how my Days playthrough has been for me. I remember feeling like it had some good ideas but was adequate at best. Now, I'm starting to feel like the gameplay might be one of the more underrated in the series.It helps that unlike most entries, the day to day monotonous missions serve a story purpose as well, which was really clever for it's time though garnered the ire of most of the game's detractors.

    I'm now watching someone's overview of Birth by Sleep, and how it relates to the series. I'm like barely five minutes in and I can already tell it' going to quickly spiral down into a circle jerk about KHII while ignoring a lot of the issues that game had and how BbS largely exists to rectify it. Not helping things is that he's already started the whole "I play games for the gameplay and don't necessarily need a real plot" so yeah,. it will be interesting to see how far I get into this video before my biases clash with his bias.

    It has been interesting to see how KHII has suddenly found itself on this strange pedestal as of late. Maybe it's largely because I never delved too deep into the fandom, but I don't exactly remember the fanbase treating this game like the pinnacle of the series back in the day. Maybe it's because our forum is more of a pro-story RPG forum which is where a good chunk of KHII's problems stem from has given me this skewed perspective, but there is also a part of me that just see a lot of this as revisionist. I find it all fascinating to say the least.
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    Oh I agree. A large part of why I prefer the command deck system is because it gives the game a more traditional turn based feel to character progression that is sorely lacking in the numbered entries. It's a large part of the reason why I like the handheld entries better because they offer deeper and more strategic playstyle options whereas the console entries tend to be purely skilled based.I think the issue with KHII's combat I largely have is that while I can concur it has a lot of depth to it, it's like racing your Formula F-1 racing car on a Go-Kart track. There is very little outside of a handful of bosses in KHII that require the level of complexity the combat system can offer and this is a problem SE has had for a majority of all their games since post-FFV.

    Congrats on beating the area on critical. I may sometimes venture into coded, but I'm really not terribly as interested as I could be. It's not like CoM memories where the story ultimately drew me in to actually buying it and then I was floored by how much I loved the gameplay.
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    I watched one video of someone trying to defend that part of the fandom; and while I can agree with several of his points, I honestly feel that the reason why SE has moved away from KHII's design is largely for balancing reasons. I feel the removal of the Revenge mechanic and the addition of more floaty controls is to give the enemies a fair shot and prevent the player from dominating combat so badly. KHII's combat is far too powerful for its own good, and I disagree that you have to have real skill to make it so. Granted, I did completely agree that the optional bosses in BbS and 3D are all bulltrout in there design.

    It's been nearly a decade since I played KHII, so we'll see how I feel about it when I reach that game.
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About Fynn

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About Fynn
Real Name:
Patryk
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dude
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View Fynn's Blog

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Part of your world

by Fynn on 06-06-2017 at 04:37 PM
So there's this nagging issue I've had for quite some time now. It's a pretty abstract issue but one I think is pretty interesting and perhaps even important to share nonetheless. For many reasons, it has only become more pronounced recently.

As some of you may know, I want to be a writer. I try to do as much writing as I can. I even do writing for a living, though as an SEO copywriter, it's not exactly that I have an opportunity to spread my creative wings as part of what keeps giving

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On FFVII (part of my Fmarathon rant)

by Fynn on 11-23-2016 at 11:16 AM
Decided this is worthy of being a blog-post, since it turned out to be a much bigger rant than I expected and I'm not sure the marathon's audience is really there for that kind of stuff

Quote Originally Posted by Fynn View Post
Welp, got all the way to the Shinra building. I was thinking of barging in for once, but it just feels so stupid. I just had to take the stairs again. What sane person would just charge in, guns blazing, when there's a clearly safer, less-disruptive option?

So far, I can say that

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Frustrations of the writerly sort

by Fynn on 07-01-2016 at 11:13 AM
So there's this thing I've been struggling for quite some time. I don't want to call it a "writer's block" because it kind of seems like an excuse for being lazy. And it usually doesn't last long. This is something that's been eating at me for a long time.

I just kinda feel that I can't write anymore.

I mean, I still write articles for the site sometimes and I write other texts at my work, but it seems like, creatively, I've dried up. I'll come up with ideas

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On story expectations

by Fynn on 03-30-2016 at 11:57 AM
So this is kind of a general discussion, but the general rant I have is based on three popular 3DS RPGs: Bravely Default, Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Shin Megami Tensei IV. Sorry if this is chaotic, as I'm just writing this as it comes into my mind. Also, spoilers from the three games abound.

All of those games were very well received, though for different reasons. SMT is kind of here to serve as a neutral ground, as the evaluation of its story is pretty divided, whereas the consensus

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Character Appreciation: Junpei Iori

by Fynn on 03-30-2016 at 10:37 AM
This is in no way an idea I stole from Pumpkin, no siree.


Junpei Iori is a character from the Persona franchise. He first appears in Persona 3 and all of its subsequent releases as a playable party member. He becomes a social link character as well in the female path of Persona 3 Portable, though he isn't date-able. He is also playable in

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