Originally Posted by
The White Wizard of Fynn
Originally Posted by
Polnareff
Kingdom Hearts got bogged down with unnecessary games like Re:Coded and Chain of Memories, just so they could make some quick bucks off KH fans. 8 years later and there is still no KH3.
While I'll agree with you on coded, Chain of Memories is both very important to the overarching plot, as well as very "inspired", what with its interesting story concepts, an overhauled battle system, and one of the best written stories in the series. Actually, I think KH is an example of SE doing things right (aside from everything being released on a different console). Aside from coded, I think every entry is a great game.
I actually made an error. I was talking about Re:Chain of Memories. I always get those two confused.
Anyway, IMO, the only really good KH games were 1, 2, and the original CoM. 358/2 Days got immensely boring because you took on the same types of missions over and over in the same locations. There were a lot of playable characters other than Roxas, but since there was no story for any of them other than him, it didn't really matter. It's good as a portable game, but fails as a KH game.
Re:Coded was Squenix spitting in the fans' faces. You could actually tell it was originally meant for mobile phones. It's so lackluster and bereft of focus that you end up wondering if they could make a decent KH game after that.
Re:Chain of Memories looked good, but wasn't really necessary.
Birth by Sleep was decent, until you realized that the story is essentially the same for all three characters. In a fairly (read: very loosely) similar manner to 358, you went through almost exactly the same story with all three characters. The battle system was pretty good, though, but the game was too short and too easy to really get much fun out of it.
KH3D was a good game, ruined by the stupid Drop mechanic. It can sometimes totally take you out of the experience. I never did like timers in games, so maybe that's just me. I loved the Flowmotion feature though.
I have to disagree about the entire industry falling off as well. Squenix has done it worse than most. Look at Mistwalker. They're still around making great RPGs. While Namco Bandai pumps out a new Tales game pretty much every year, they're still pretty damn good, and I'd venture to say they get better with each new game (at least.....after Tales of Destiny 2 came out, anyway, which is IMO the best Tales game). Gust hit a rough spot with some of their games, like Ar tonelico and some of the less-awesome Atelier games (looking at you Rorona!), but have since recovered and are back to making excellent games.
Hell, even Nintendo/Intelligent Systems are still making great RPGs, and Ninty as a whole isn't known for RPGs. But play games like Fire Emblem Awakening and Bowser's Inside Story, and they're some of the most top-notch games you'll find. Meanwhile, Square digs itself deeper into mediocrity. They ruined the Mana series with Children of Mana, pretty much said screw it to the Saga games (although Saga 3 on DS was quite good), have milked Kingdom Hearts for all it's worth with crazy gimmicks, and are now making Final Fantasy into a Fisher-Price pop-up book. They even kind of screwed over Dragon Quest by making it more like FFXII! And let's not get started on their iOS stuff. All The Bravest alone is enough to make any former Square fan puke. It's no wonder that most fans just prefer to play their older games.