Reviews Kingdom Hearts 2; Critical Analysis
- Thread starter Ryatta
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Super excited to watch this later today or tomorrow!
EDIT: Watched it, and enjoyed it. I didn't really disagree with much other than very minor things. Like for example, while the continuation of the Cloud VS Sephiroth stuff was no doubt included because of Advent Children, I think it fits KH rather well. I've always seen the thematic design of Cloud and Sephiroth in FFVII as an intentional look at the light and dark paths of two people from similar backgrounds. Both men are experiments, both are intended to be supersoldiers, both have tragic pasts. But Sephiroth chooses to forsake everything and become the villain, succumbing to his feelings of hate and betrayal. Cloud almost heads in the same direction, before eventually choosing the opposite. I think that perfectly encapsulates the struggle between light and dark that KH is ultimately all about too. And even though that's not technically part of their background in KH, it's a good way to make them feel deeper through player's meta understanding of who those characters are outside of KH. It's also a mirror of Riku and KH1 Xehanort-Ansem in that way, with one choosing to embrace both light and dark, and the other enveloping himself entirely in darkness.
The video also did make me realize how easy it would've been to fix the 'press triangle to win' aspect of Reaction Commands; keep them the same on easier difficulties, but give them a limited window on harder difficulties, where mashing before it shows up will cause you to fail. This would force players to use strategic timing, making failure for normal reaction commands a real possibility.
That being said, they could have just played with them more, and balanced them better instead. Like one example of using them cleverly, is against the first fight of data Xehanort. When you start running up the building, a reaction command shows up. Cleverly, if you don't hit it, it's replaced by a more powerful one, which if also skipped is replaced with the most powerful one, essentially ending the fight right there. This punishes the act of mashing as soon as you see the command.
The important thing is that they needed to be better balanced. If they're not going to require precision from the player, they should have instead been designed more as 'state changes' for the enemies. As they are, many of them are just get out of jail free cards. Instead, what if they, say, made it so that using a reaction command against a certain boss made them more susceptible to magic attacks than physical, or changed which attacks they used most often from their moveset. Then maybe they could've given enemies potential ways to be stunned or critically damaged through that. If you use the reaction command that changes their moveset, maybe they start using an attack that if countered correctly leaves them wide open for a few combos. This doesn't really add difficulty or take away from the ability to be flashy on easier difficulties. Instead, it simply gives them more ways to experiment and explore;it's no longer an instant win button. But it still requires that players on more unforgiving difficulties still need to use them strategically to win, and it keeps them engaged while using said commands. I think the important thing is that getting stunning/damaging reaction commands to show up should require something specific from the player, rather than just showing up automatically in certain moments or phases during the fight.
EDIT: Watched it, and enjoyed it. I didn't really disagree with much other than very minor things. Like for example, while the continuation of the Cloud VS Sephiroth stuff was no doubt included because of Advent Children, I think it fits KH rather well. I've always seen the thematic design of Cloud and Sephiroth in FFVII as an intentional look at the light and dark paths of two people from similar backgrounds. Both men are experiments, both are intended to be supersoldiers, both have tragic pasts. But Sephiroth chooses to forsake everything and become the villain, succumbing to his feelings of hate and betrayal. Cloud almost heads in the same direction, before eventually choosing the opposite. I think that perfectly encapsulates the struggle between light and dark that KH is ultimately all about too. And even though that's not technically part of their background in KH, it's a good way to make them feel deeper through player's meta understanding of who those characters are outside of KH. It's also a mirror of Riku and KH1 Xehanort-Ansem in that way, with one choosing to embrace both light and dark, and the other enveloping himself entirely in darkness.
The video also did make me realize how easy it would've been to fix the 'press triangle to win' aspect of Reaction Commands; keep them the same on easier difficulties, but give them a limited window on harder difficulties, where mashing before it shows up will cause you to fail. This would force players to use strategic timing, making failure for normal reaction commands a real possibility.
That being said, they could have just played with them more, and balanced them better instead. Like one example of using them cleverly, is against the first fight of data Xehanort. When you start running up the building, a reaction command shows up. Cleverly, if you don't hit it, it's replaced by a more powerful one, which if also skipped is replaced with the most powerful one, essentially ending the fight right there. This punishes the act of mashing as soon as you see the command.
The important thing is that they needed to be better balanced. If they're not going to require precision from the player, they should have instead been designed more as 'state changes' for the enemies. As they are, many of them are just get out of jail free cards. Instead, what if they, say, made it so that using a reaction command against a certain boss made them more susceptible to magic attacks than physical, or changed which attacks they used most often from their moveset. Then maybe they could've given enemies potential ways to be stunned or critically damaged through that. If you use the reaction command that changes their moveset, maybe they start using an attack that if countered correctly leaves them wide open for a few combos. This doesn't really add difficulty or take away from the ability to be flashy on easier difficulties. Instead, it simply gives them more ways to experiment and explore;it's no longer an instant win button. But it still requires that players on more unforgiving difficulties still need to use them strategically to win, and it keeps them engaged while using said commands. I think the important thing is that getting stunning/damaging reaction commands to show up should require something specific from the player, rather than just showing up automatically in certain moments or phases during the fight.
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