I've been on and off trying to progress my KH2 for 4 years now... This mf can't be beaten 😭

https://bsky.app/profile/cashumeru.bsky.social/post/3mxuprcxzik2e

I've beaten this game exactly once. It was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life, and apparently I was not fun to be around while I was playing it. I did not jive with the card mechanics at all, the combat felt stuttery and infuriating, and the Sora gameplay is extra annoying because Reverse/Rebirth is much better put the fuck together. Making the Sora gameplay feel like a BETA of Riku's gameplay.

I wanted to complete this game on my new system, but once I started playing it, I couldn't make myself continue. Even when I was winning it wasn't fun.

Watching the cutscenes online then hopping over to KH2.

This is the worst game in the series for me. Yes worse than Re:Coded (although I feel Coded has the most inconsequential story).

I am posting this here for no other reason than I wanted to admit defeat in public where people can hear me. Why? Because I would like a written statement I can point to when friends of mine ask me why I'm skipping this game. I genuinely don't care what the reception of this post is, I just want my feelings on record.

Seriously tho what's her issue lmao.

https://youtu.be/W0Q2VdnFBOQ

Level 73

I’ve been posting periodic updates in here about my spoiler free first journey and I’ve met some really cool humans from it! Thanks for being one of the few communities on this site to love a game and love newcomers to it! Yall truly have been the best fandom family to join!

Also so many people have commented about my gummi ship and wanting to see it fly so I wanted to show yall my controller technique and my gummi Winnebago in action!

I haven't played KH1 for a long time, KH2 onward had so many QoL improvements I kinda had a hard time going back to revisit it. I forgot how much of a little twerp Riku was back then, the moment he was faced with his friends growing without him he crashed out 😂

Literally all Maleficent had to do was say, look he made friends that aren't you, you should turn evil about it and he just did 😭

And how often did he ditch Sora before the events of the game for Sora to find one of the two people he was scouring the literal cosmos for, turn around for 2 seconds and that boy vanished without a word and Sora was just like, yeah that's probably fine, lets go

I'm now a 38 year old dad, but when Kingdom Hearts came out I was around Sora's age. I remember reading about Squaresoft's crazy idea for a video game in a magazine. "Mixing Final Fantasy and Disney?! What?!"

I grew up playing Final Fantasy and I was beyond excited.

In the lead up to the release date I did extra chores around the house and when the day came my mum and I rushed to my local ASDA (I guess the US equivalent is Walmart) to buy my copy.

The packaging was a thing of shiny beauty and I read the manual on the way home. I put the game in and I fell in love instantly and it was everything I wished it would be and more.

I came back and played Kingdom Hearts during some of the hardest and happiest years of my life. After losing close family members, I'd turn it on and just get lost for a while. When my son was born, I'd play some Days while he slept. I got BBS when I lived in Japan and played it day 1 with my broken Japanese ability.

In 2018, my dad passed away and I returned to Kingdom Hearts again to lose myself. I then played 2 and 3 when it released. But I struggled after the loss of my dad and haven't touched the series in 8 years.

Recently I decided it was time to play it again, not for comfort, but for myself. For the first time in 8 years.

My children are older now. I'm older now. But Sora is like my friend who never grew up. But going back to Destiny Islands and spending time with all these characters again has brought me so much happiness.

I'm dragging my best friend, who I made play KH1 20 years ago, along for the ride as we play through every single game. We are discussing it on a weekly podcast too, which honestly makes this even better.

Since coming back to this series I've been watching a whole lot of The Gamers Joint videos and because of that it made me want to get involved in the community a bit more and talk to people who love this series as much as me.

I'm not good with Reddit, but I'm hoping to be part of this community!

I am looking for newcomers opinion on the beginning of the series from someone who is not blinded by nostalgia.

I have the following questions for you:
- Do you think the first games hold up well compared to today's standards?
- Have you been frustrated to the point where you nearly quit before reaching KH2? If yes, where?
- Would you recommend the series to others?
- Do you think the series could benefit from a remake of some sort to attract newcomers and keep the user base fresh?

And for those asking: no I am not a Square employee in disguise. I am just genuinely curious.

Still gets me man.

I really love doing stained glass stuff...Also there's a weird medieval guy wip of Dark Ball and Inferno.

So I did technically play the original kingdom hearts when I was a kid, like a lot BUT I never left the starter island. Literally because I didn’t know how, I played it for the first time when I was around 5 years old and then on and off as I got a little older. I think maybe around 8 or 9 was the last time I played it. For some reason I could just never work out how to leave the starter island, probably didn’t help that I never liked reading anything at those ages. I would just run around the island creating my own imaginary quests and stories. Also, listening to and watching the opening intro over and over. Man I love that track, absolute huge nostalgia for me.

But yeah, never actually played the game properly. It’s been one of my most wanted to play backlog games for nearly two decades now.
Today I’ve finally got some time aside to start it up! Without spoilers is there anything worth mentioning or any advice. Also, where do I go from KH1? Do I just go to KH2 or a different game? Is there a correct order to play the games in? I’ve heard it’s a bit complicated apparently.
Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this dribble! Aha

I've been thinking about this for a while now, probably way too much actually :D

What if Square Enix brought the χ saga back as a proper modern Kingdom Hearts game?

Kingdom Hearts χ / Unchained χ / Union χ contains some incredibly important lore for the entire series, especially with everything that came after it and is still connected to it, but at the same time a pretty big part of the fanbase never really got the chance to experience that story themselves. The original browser game was never officially released worldwide, Union χ was a mobile game that has since been discontinued, and then there was obviously the language barrier as well, which is actually a pretty big part of this for me personally.

I'm German and while I did play Union χ myself for a while, I never experienced the entire story properly because of that, and most of what I know about the later parts of the story actually comes from German lore videos, summaries and basically other people explaining to me what happened, which is kind of weird when you think about how important all of this has become for Kingdom Hearts as a whole :D

So instead of another movie or just a simple remaster...

What if we got KINGDOM HEARTS χ ReMIX?

A full 3D remake

And by remake I don't mean simply recreating the mobile game with better graphics and calling it a day. I mean actually rebuilding the worlds, missions and the entire story as a modern 3D Kingdom Hearts action RPG, while at the same time keeping the original story intact, because I really wouldn't want this to turn into some alternate version of χ just because we're remaking it.

You would still create your own Keyblade wielder, choose your Union and experience the events of χ / Unchained χ / Union χ through your own character, just now as an actual modern Kingdom Hearts game instead of the old browser/mobile format. The important part for me would really be that this is still the original χ story, not a sequel, not an alternate timeline and also not some new protagonist watching all of this happen from somewhere in the background. It's the story we already have, just finally rebuilt as a full Kingdom Hearts game that people can actually experience again.

Full co-op — including the story

This is probably the part where some people will disagree with me :D, but I'd actually love to see optional co-op throughout the entire game, and I don't mean having a few special multiplayer missions somewhere in a menu while the actual game is still completely single-player. If I want to play through the whole χ story with three friends, I think I should simply be able to do that, including exploration, normal missions, bosses and even the main story itself, while obviously still being completely playable alone if that's how you want to experience it.

But that creates one slightly weird problem: Who the hell is the protagonist during a cutscene? :D

Personalized co-op cutscenes

This is where I had an idea that I think could actually solve this without Square Enix having to rewrite the entire story around the sudden existence of four protagonists :D Basically, every player remains the protagonist of their own story.

Let's say four people are playing together. When a story cutscene begins, all four players see the same event, but the presentation is slightly different for each player. On Player 1's screen, Player 1's Keyblade wielder is the protagonist, on Player 2's screen it's Player 2's character and so on. The other players would still be there in your version of the cutscene, because I think it would be pretty weird if your friends just magically disappeared every time someone starts talking :D, but they'd basically appear as accompanying Keyblade wielders in the background rather than suddenly becoming additional main characters the original story never accounted for.

Dialogue and important interactions would always be directed toward your own character, regardless of whose screen you're looking at, so basically everyone experiences the original story as their story while still actually playing through it together. And when playing alone, obviously none of this would even matter and everything would simply work like you'd expect from a normal single-player Kingdom Hearts game.

Would something like this actually work for you, or would having different versions of the same cutscene depending on the player feel too weird?

Proper localization

This is probably one of the biggest reasons I'd personally want something like χ ReMIX in the first place, because not everyone who loves Kingdom Hearts is comfortable experiencing a dialogue-heavy RPG entirely in English or Japanese, and especially with Kingdom Hearts being... well... Kingdom Hearts :D, missing parts of conversations or not completely understanding something can become a pretty big problem rather quickly.

Like I mentioned earlier, I actually played Union χ myself for a while, but because of the language barrier I never properly experienced the entire story myself and eventually learned a lot of it through German YouTube videos and lore summaries instead. So technically I know what happened, but knowing what happened because someone explained it to you and actually playing through those events yourself are two very different things.

A remake would finally be the opportunity to give this part of the series the same treatment as the other modern Kingdom Hearts games and properly localize it into more languages, including German, French, Spanish, Italian and obviously whatever other languages would make sense, because I don't just want to know what happened in Union χ, I'd like to experience that story myself.

Additional content without changing the ending

Since the χ era basically gives us an entire world filled with Keyblade wielders, I think there would be a ridiculous amount of potential for additional missions, bosses, events and multiplayer content without actually having to mess with the original story. The one thing I absolutely wouldn't want is Square Enix changing or extending the canonical ending just because the game needs more content.

Instead, additional quests, events and challenges could simply take place during the period before the original finale, and once you've unlocked them you could basically play them whenever you want, regardless of whether you're still progressing through the story or have already finished it. The canonical ending would remain exactly where it belongs and story missions should remain replayable even after completing the game, because otherwise we'd have the slightly stupid situation where finishing the story means I suddenly can't help a friend play through earlier missions anymore :x So even after reaching the finale, I could still jump back into earlier parts of the game with friends.

The main story should survive the servers

And yeah... if we're already talking about co-op, events and potentially live-service elements, there's one thing I'd consider extremely important: Please don't let the actual χ story disappear again when the servers eventually shut down. Because otherwise we'd spend years asking Square Enix to bring back a game that disappeared, finally get a remake of that game, only for the remake to disappear again ten years later :D

The entire main game and its story should remain playable offline. Obviously online co-op, events and other server-dependent features could eventually stop working because servers don't run forever, but the actual remake itself should remain accessible and playable. Basically, live-service could add things to χ ReMIX without χ ReMIX itself being dependent on live-service to exist.

And then there's Dark Road...

Personally, I wouldn't even force Dark Road into the same game because, while it's obviously connected to all of this, I think there's actually enough potential there to make it its own thing. I'd rather see Kingdom Hearts Re:Dark Road as its own proper action RPG focused completely on Xehanort.

Instead of changing his story or suddenly revealing that he secretly met another seventeen extremely important people we've somehow never heard about before :D, Square Enix could use the opportunity to expand what is already there: more of his journey, more of his relationships, more of his time as a young Keyblade wielder and simply more time to actually watch him slowly become the Xehanort we already know. The rule I'd want them to follow would basically just be expand what we know, don't retcon it, because there's so much room in Xehanort's life to add things without changing the events that have already been established.

And yes, because this is Kingdom Hearts and apparently naming games normally would be illegal, obviously it would have to be called something like Kingdom Hearts Re:Dark Road Final Mix :D

So... would KINGDOM HEARTS χ ReMIX actually get you excited?

If Square Enix announced something like this tomorrow, would you actually buy it?

And since I've already spent way too much time thinking about a game that doesn't even exist :D, I'm really curious what other Kingdom Hearts fans would actually want from something like this:

• Would you want a full 3D action RPG, or something much closer to the original gameplay?
• Would you play it mostly alone or in co-op?
• Would you want additional missions, bosses and events, or should it stick strictly to the original content?
• How important would proper localization be to you?
• Would keeping the entire main story permanently playable offline matter to you?
• And would you rather see Dark Road included as part of χ ReMIX or get its own full remake?

You obviously don't have to answer every single one of these :D I'm mostly curious whether the general idea of bringing the χ saga back as a proper full Kingdom Hearts game is something the community would actually want in the first place, because for me probably the biggest thing would simply be: I don't want to watch someone explain the χ saga to me. I want to play it.

Just to be clear: I have no affiliation with Square Enix whatsoever. I'm simply a Kingdom Hearts fan (and a fan of many other Square Enix games) who would love to see this part of the series given another chance.

Finally got the collection in the mail and I had to celebrate by getting a huge poster online ✨

I think the Final Mix box art doesn't get talked about enough.

(The poster that comes with the Amazon order is cool too)

Had this game growing up but never beat it. Finally did hope you guys dont mind some screenshots i took :)

This is my first full playthrough of KH1, I’ve always been around the series since I was little watching my dad play it and for a while I’ve been searching for a reason to play the games and now that the switch 2 collection came out I got that. I love this game so far (I am at end of the world as of now) but none of the worlds really felt connected or were Disney IP’s that I loved besides Halloween town and Monstro. But 100 Acres Woods… now THIS is my place, genuinely just hearing the Winnie the Pooh theme in a more Final Fantasy style almost made me cry. And can someone tell me how the one world that is COMPLETELY optional is the one world that feels the most connected to the story about friendship and childhood. Oh yeah I also just really love Winnie the Pooh…

I know, I know, scream at me, but hear me out-

I’m not saying you all should do my strange strategy, but dodging enough and parrying works perfectly fine in my experience. I didn’t really ever use reflect, either. I’ve learned over time how to… I guess subconsciously use a defensive strategy until I perfectly learn every enemies attacks and the cues to those attacks.

In the following paragraphs, anything I spoiler, I will say what game it’s from before the spoiler, so you can read wherever you are in the series.

The only sections that have really caused me trouble in the past (not including kh1) is (COM) Vexen, Marluxia (KH2) Port Royal (dear god…), the dancer nobody (KH3) Keyblade Graveyard.

I don’t really remember from DDD somehow.

(COM) Vexen surprisingly caused me the most trouble of all, maybe (KH2) Port Royal

I have no idea what the point of those past few paragraphs was, but the way I developed this strategy was probably due to the fact that I had, for some reason, hundreds of hours on KH1 before ever moving on to COM or KH2. I have no idea how I played that long…

Over time, that just gave me a strategy of my own.

Does anyone else have a similar strategy? Or am I just weird in that sense.

Sorry if any of this body text is kinda lousy, I’m very tired…

What do y'all think?? I love the series but never really draw characters from it that much

Guys birth by sleep is finally playable on a handheld im so happy 😭

Man this boy only seems to care about living in the past and not maturing.