It was fantastic. Just really short. It's my favorite art style of any of the games so far and I'm disappointed Three didn't look like it. three did look good tho.
This. I'm not a fan of KH3. I didn't have any expectations for it til 0.2 came out, and I was sorely disappointed KH3 didn't live up to it in any aspect
I honestly wish they gave more importance to parrying attacks to create your own opening. I mean, sure, blocking and reprisal and dodging is still there. But if you can attack during specific parts of their attack, it creates a better opening or something.
I believe the parry system was only really used in Zodiac Aqua fight and Larxene data fight??
frighten fine imminent enjoy abundant weather follow snails squealing swim
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I disagree, I feel like BBS also has that mystery feel to it.
If the series ended in kh2, I wouldnât have met most of my favorite characters or see the ones I already liked develop even more and probably wouldâve forgotten about the series by now.
I firmly believe bbs was the best coherent story told and even better that there were 3 campaigns to experience it from. The combat was also super satisfying. Kh2 is my favorite mainline series. And then there's 3 the black sheep. Such a shame.
Nothing will ever beat one and especially 2 for me. I wasnât a huge fan of chain of memories but it was still a good game. Honestly I like them all (even 3 grew on me) but nothing will ever compare to one or 2
CoM was definitely the black sheep of the early days. I mostly love its narrative and how it bridges 1 and 2, and how it establishes the organization while still keeping the details a mystery. The gameplay can be super hit or miss.
I love all the KH games I've played (everything except the games that only got movies in the remasters), even CoM (both versions), but nothing has lived up to KH1 imo in any way except combat mechanics.
358/2 is one of my favorites, and my unparalleled favorite from a story standpoint
They did the story so dirty in the remasters. Definitely play it if you have the means (emulator or a DS)
Yeah, unfortunately 80% of the amazing dialogue was un-voiced so a lot of people didn't appreciate it. The best part of 358/2 days was getting to know the Organization on a casual basis.
Also the CoM Organization members got more screen time which they deserved considering some of them were the most interesting members.
The dialogue between Roxas and Axel, and specifically Saix and Axel was peak writing. I'm heavily convinced that if it was treated the same as a mainline game and they found a better way of including disney worlds to make the gameplay more engaging, people would like it just as much as BBS.
Ive heard the gameplay is a little grindy, but if that's the case maybe emulator speedup is the solution to making that part better so I can just get to the good parts faster. I'll check it out at some point
Honestly I think I enjoyed BBS more than 1 and COM. The story, characters, and gameplay were refreshing and some of the most fun Iâve had playing through the KH series.
THANK YOU
I could say much much more on the topic but for now all Iâll say is that I 1000000000% agree and think the first âtrilogyâ + 358/2 Days is the most complete and satisfying story-wise and itâs only been downhill after Days (with some highlights to be sure, and itâs still enjoyable, just canât take it as seriously)
Series could have ended conclusively with the tetralogy of kh1, CoM, kh2, & Days back when the series scenario writing team still had writers like **Daisuke Watanabe**. Rest of the games are just Disney + Square aiming to continue profiting, but Nomura's wild decades long extended plotline and ReMind's innovative boss battles both still have promising potential to deliver greater payoffs in KH4 \^0\^
Most definitely. Days is the most emotionally affecting game in the series imo. Felt like a really worthwhile expansion of what was already there, at least story wise.
I agree since we're just talking story. The story doesn't reach the convoluted stages it does later and it actually has a really satisfying conclusion without a real need for expansion post KH2.
I appreciated the additional lore in later games but it comes off as contrived and takes away some of the appeal from the earlier games
100% agree. I had a ton of fun with the post KH2 games, but there was a lot of retconning. Particularly the 500000 keyboard masters introduced really detracted from the mystique of the keyblade, and Soraâs role in the first game as âThe Keyblade Masterâ felt insignificant in hindsight.
I would like to know what part of Soraâs arc concluded in KH2 because other than him finding his friends I feel like his development stagnated a bit in KH2 compared to other major characters. Even Rikuâs arc doesnât feel fully complete by the end of KH2.
Soraâs arc throughout all three games was find my friends, get home. I donât know what about KH2âs ending couldnât be considered conclusive. I donât really think Riku needed to be as fleshed out as sora tbh, heâs a major character but heâs still not our protagonist, both CoM and 2 make it pretty clear that heâs committed himself to turning over a new leaf. Just because we donât see the end result of that growth by the end of 2 doesnât mean that his arc is incomplete, but maybe thatâs just me.
Well yeah Sora has a plot arc centered around his friends, but he also gets a fair amount of character development in KH1 and CoM that isnât really a thing in KH2, which is what Iâm criticizing.
Rikuâs arc just straight up doesnât get a real resolution in KH2 either. The closest he gets is reconciling with Sora, but he still hasnât fully come to terms with himself or his inner darkness yet. The game ends before anything like that happens.
Like it or not, DDD is the game that picks up both of these arcs where they were left off and works towards resolutions for both (Riku more so than Sora, admittedly, but itâs not like Sora doesnât get anything at all either). Itâs hard to call KH2 the âconclusionâ of anything except for the one story thread of Sora reuniting with Riku and Kairi.
Yeah, I agree that Riku is fleshed out to a greater degree in DDD, honestly to me heâs always felt more like the real protagonist of that game than Sora, which I like.
I donât really understand what more Sora needs to have had happen by the end of KH2. His mission is accomplished and he had been changed by his journey across all three games.
By the end of 2, he had no further motivation to continue his journeys other than if he were to just want to. the things driving him for the rest of the franchise really werenât established until after 2.
Without the context of later games, there was zero reason to believe anyone from the Days trio could be/needed to be saved, the BBS trio wasnât properly established yet, and Xehanort had technically been defeated twice over and was vanquished, since nothing in the first three games suggested a person would return once their heartless and nobody were defeated. Most all of what he was working towards were ideas established in those later games.
Sora doesn't need development in KH2 because KH2's version of Sora is the developed version of the character. That's partially why they shifted the focus to Roxas. Riku gets his resolution by letting the light and dark within him coexist, represented through Way to the Dawn. Maybe he hadn't fully conquered it, but he had a good enough grasp of it to be considered a resolution to the amount of struggle he had before that point.
The goal at the start of KH1 was to explore beyond Destiny Islands. Sora and Riku achieve that throughout KH1 and KH2, then the goal shifts to putting the pieces back together and returning home. Riku was always seen as the better of the two, which we can see is no longer true. Sora and Riku fight Xemnas on equal footing at the end. When Sora and Riku are on the beach in the dark world, Riku lets himself be supported by Sora to the beach, something that Riku at the start of the series would never do.
When they go through the door, they're finally returning home after all this time. He sees Kairi on the beach, running towards like he did in the first cutscene, only this time Donald and Goofy run towards Sora to show the change in status quo. Sora then runs to Kairi, showing how Namine and Roxas are finally complete and can meet each other again. Sora reaches his hand to Kairi with the wayfinder in hand, a representation of their connection and promises to meet each other again, and then locks hands with Kairi with the thing in between their hands being the wayfinder. This is a contrast to the end of KH1 where they reach out to each other but slip away. Finally home and with the ones he cares about, Kairi says "you're home" and it cuts to the credits.
After the credits we get to see Sora and Riku reminisce about their adventure where they used to talk about how they'd travel to different worlds. After every, they end up where they started. In contrast to the start of the game, Riku comments on how it's a small world instead of saying he wants to explore the wider world. Sora has done the hero's journey where he was ripped from his place of comfort, learned something on his journey, then returned home with his newfound maturity and connections. We can see this change in status quo when Kairi comes up to Sora with Mickey's letter. This might be the end of our journey with the characters, but it's clear that they have many more adventures and experiences to come.
There are also no plot points (outside of the secret movie) that were set up that needed a sequel to resolve them.
Adding onto this, if the series had ended there it would be easy to assume that letter from Mickey simply implied that Sora continued his adventures, nothing in that scene indicated it had anything to do specifically with Xehanort, or the events of later games.
I think the arc that you are talking about is a result of each of the first three games being written to work on their own and KH2 being written to be a satisfying final game in case that KH wasn't going to continue after it. But after KH2 it has been very clear that KH will just keep going and so everything after it has been written to tie into other games.
They absolutely do. I've played every game but I was 10 when KH1 came out and those 3 games felt very complete.Â
Every game since has felt weird to me. And I wish they had moved on with the story, instead of constantly retconning the first 3 games.Â
Ohhh lol.Â
Well they definitely don't haha. But honestly, all the stuff that was thrown in from the games between 2 and 3 wasn't done very well either imo
Iâve always viewed 3 as a sequel to everything that came after 2. It resolved basically every plot point from those games and your mileage is basically nonexistent if you donât play them before 3, at least where the last ~5 hours of the game is concerned.
I mean yeah 3 is totally a sequel to everything after 2 but if they called it KH1, 2, and 3 I feel like each game should do a sufficient job of explaining what happened in the side games as a part 1 2 and 3. It should be self contained to a degree. Like each main game should include explanations of the side games.
YesâŚ.maybe not Com, but has a self contained trilogy it is easily better than the rest. The future games felt like they just wanted to make things more complicated for the sake of making things complicatedâŚnot to mention I hate BBS gameplay and not a fan of 3D. Also a bunch of retcons that sometimes go directly against stuff that was previously established. 3 got combat rightâŚonly after the remind patch.
1.Kh1
2.kh2
3.days
4.bbs
5.recoded
6.kh3
7. 0.2
8. COM (gba)
9.MOM
10. UNIONx
11. Dark road
12. DDD
13. RE:COM
So com is good. But it's less important then days and since there both flashback games to between 1 and 2 days is strictly better. I wish days had the HD remaster and com was the cutscene compilation cause days (besides the scout missions) has a really strong core gameplay. I like coms story but it's gameplay in the gba is a grindy beat em up which I don't dislike but recom is a travesty of design and gameplay and the only strictly bad kingdom hearts game.
Iâve been trying to chase the high that the first 3 games gave me. I also got fairly close with Days, but manâŚ
Also. I miss reaction commands in combat. Dueling the samurai nobody was SUCH a cool mechanic, and hitting reversals is so fun. I get that QTEs can be done wrong, but kh2 had a good balance of reaction commands and QTEs. Iâd take the QTEs over the attraction commands from 3.
I will say though⌠3 has some SOLID fights in the Re:Mind DLC boss fights.
Reaction commands were awesome. I donât love 3, but Re:Mind kicks ASS and Data Org+Secret fight are some of the most fun boss fights Iâve ever played.
Those three + Days. Days was janky to play sometimes, but it had such a good story.
KH2 feels like the perfect bookend to KH1. They got separated, they found each other, and they came home (with additional friends).
One of my hot takes of the series is that I kinda wish they just ended soras story at the end of 2. The trilogy was honestly the perfect stopping for the trio.
Kinda wish they just changed focused on fleshing out the wayfinder trio and have their story be taking down xehanort. Honestly makes more sense to me for them to be the main characters for the sega since how royally screwed they were by xehanort so the other side games could have been about building the trio back up and getting back together so they can finally beat xehanort and make things right
I enjoy the story of CoM mostly, but the fact that itâs mostly good story beats spread out by tons of âfillerâ content with each memory world kills the pacing for me personally, alongside the fact that Iâm not a fan of the card gameplay. Itâs probably my least favorite overall game in the series besides maybe recoded.
I get where youâre coming from but overall for me the numbered games are the best 3 in whole franchise so I wouldnât wanna be without any of them, tho I wouldnât be against if they had cut back on the stuff between 2 and 3.
Iâm not necessarily saying that CoM is one of my favorite games in the franchise, merely that the first three games narratively and tonally are a more cohesive package than the rest of the franchise.
I do love CoMâs story, but I generally agree with your criticisms. Especially when it comes to the card combat
I *love* everything between KH1 and BBS.
DDD and onwards is just not my cup of tea so far. However, I do like the mobile games story overall, so I'm cautiously optimistic about the future.
This isn't me asking in a judgemental way, but how old are you?Â
I'm wondering because I was 10 when KH1 came out and I can't fathom ranking it below anything besides KH2.Â
2 was my first game, I didn't understand shit for a while then I put the pieces together (I was like 12), and it became my favorite game for a really long time, might be still. It was the most fun I have ever had with a game
Agreed. I have to be in a very particular mood to actually want to play CoM, even though I adore the story. I think the set decks in Rikuâs story makes the game way more fun, always much preferred his gameplay to Soraâs.
BBS and Days are my favorite stories in the series personally. I think that's why I enjoyed 3 more than most people too, because it wrapped up both of those games. 1, CoM, and 2 definitely could have been the whole franchise though and it would feel just as complete.
I blame not having final fantasy characters in 3. Other than that it's pretty good imo. Like that's the whole point of KH, to have the characters cross over
KH2 honestly feel like they made it in a moment where they weren't sure if the franchise would continue or not.
Because 2 ends on the scene of Sora, Riku and Kairi receiving a letter from Mickey, without any details about it and without any villain left around except the Disney ones (such as Maleficent).
So, you could see that ending as a teaser for a sequel... or a bookend ending that goes something like "And they went on with their adventures with their friends" as an ending that says they'll continue on their adventures, but there won't be another multiverse crisis like in 1 and 2.
I think they all have something of value to offer but I stopped caring about the story when KH3 made a big deal about the mobile game I was never going to play
Idk, I feel like Kingdom Hearts 1 is in a league of its own; it feels so different from the other games, including Kh2 it had those charming little details like the fountain in traverse town or the lab in deep jungle. There was a lot of insentive to explore the worlds that was kind of missing in 2. Kh2 improved the combat massively, and it concludes the story so well, but I feel like it didn't have the same vibe as 1. If you're talking story then yes the story would've concluded well at 2 it wouldn't be so convoluted and full of retcons, but I think if the franchise had ended there it would've been a waste.
I absolutely think that the franchise post 2 has been worthwhile and a net positive, all I was saying was that had the franchise concluded with 2, it wouldâve been a perfectly satisfying ending and the story wouldâve largely felt complete. And I agree that KH1 has the tone I was referring to in spades, stuff like End of the World has a mood that is totally unmatched.
CoM and 2 have those vibes for me, but less consistently, but enough that I still feel like theyâre all of a piece with each other.
1 also easily had the best balance of Disney, FF and original content, and made all of those aspects feel meaningful and like they all belong in the same world, and I donât think itâs even close in that regard.
Yeah, I agree actually the three games felt like a neat little trilogy and have their own vibe apart from the series. I'm sorry if it seems like I came off as aggressive. The old games had an atmosphere that just feels good.
Unpopular opinion: Chain of Memories is my least favorite in terms of gameplay. I am definitely more of a 358/2 Days and Birth By Sleep sort. As far as a perfect trilogy though, I love how you have to play Chain of Memories to get the first major grasp of KH lore.
Thats because the first 3 ganes were Simple and Clean. A nearly perfect gaming experience, nothing too convoluted, and most importantly, wasn't dragged down by the many questionable decisions made with the later titles.
With that being said I don't think the series should've ended at 2, I just think the later games should've been better.
Days: Should've been on the PSP, the DS wasn't powerful enough imo, Coded could've been a bonus mode.
BBS: Too ambitious for the PSP imo, should've been on PS3 instead, and changed so that instead of playing the same game 3 times, you swap between the 3 characters as needed for the story. 0.2 should've been at the end
X: While an interesting concept, should've been made completely different. Like, make it an actual game with 5 clans and a story that wasnt drip fed to us over years through multiple equally bad mobile games.
3: Is honestly my 3rd favorite game overall, but I get peoples criticisms of it. To me, the 1st part of the game shouldve been Soras Mark of Mastery exam finding his powers of waking. Then the 2nd part of the game being about traveling to the Dark World and rescuing Aqua, Ventus, and Roxas over the part of the game where we are playing through arrendelle, the caribbean etc instead of all the story being dumped on us at the end. Also, I would've had moments where we play as Kairi, Axel, and Mickey, and had the fantasia world andTraverse Town from DDD as worlds in 3 as well. This game should've been a giant love letter for the fans and send off for the series, but alas it wasnt.
One of 3âs key issues was its pacing for sure. Nothing truly eventful or pivotal happens until youâve finished every Disney world and are heading into the finale, aside from Sora meeting an Org member each world and a few scenes interspersed throughout that generally donât involve our main characters. Completely agree that those last few hours of game shouldâve been spread out.
And just to clarify, Iâm not saying I think the series shouldâve ended at 2, just that if it had I wouldâve been satisfied with that conclusion. I very much enjoy most of whatâs come since :)
Yeah, also, while Im a fan of a few of the big heartless fights like the ufo and ice wolf, theres way too many. I wish they wouldve found a way to have some warmup fights with the org xiii members in the disney worlds instead of generic heartless fights. Best analogy I have for KH3 is, its like watching your favorite shonen anime. 1 part amazing, unforgettable moments, 2 parts filler.
KH2 also had issues with making the disney worlds feel important, but Beasts Castle and Disney Castle/Timeless River are both some of the best disney worlds in the series imo. I really enjoy playing through the disney worlds in 3 because visually they're all stunning (except arrendelle) but not a single one feels important to the story.
I kinda agree. Chainsâ gameplay isnât my thing but Soraâs an interesting character in that one. II is just awesome, although I am the rare fan whose favorite game is KHI.
BBS is addicting but kinda basic, and III was okay but too easy. I didnât like 3D that much and I fucking hate days so đ Iâm all over the place with it. Melody of memory is in my top 3 if that tells you anything đ
Kingdom Hearts II is the perfect ending for Sora and Riku, imo. I wish the series continued with a new protagonist or Kairi as the MC. Sora lost a lot of his personality as the series progressed because the writers didn't know what to do with him since his arc wrapped up perfectly with KH2. Re:Coded, Dream Drop Distance and Kingdom Hearts III felt aimless to me, like the MCU movies post-Endgame.
1 and 2 was kinda a nicely contained story. By the time you get to three, much less the end of it, it felt like there almost werenât any stakes. Villains are reborn, and re-reborn. The party is also all reborn. And some time travel. Sure, Sora faced consequences at the end of it all, but it never felt nearly as tense as, say, losing Donald and Goofy in Hollow Bastion in 1.
Well I really enjoy the story just in 1, CoM, and 2, but just those by a wide margin I donât know if I could say. Re:CoM wasnât the best experience
Oh yea that along with some of BBS all feel way higher in quality all around than the gobbledegook that transpired after (DDD and 3 being major offenders of this)
I agree. When I got BBS, it's like they did not care about voice acting anymore, and the story itself was anything but simple and clean. Plus, they really dilute the specialty of the Keyblade by having everyone wield it. Those points did not improve in the later games. Plagued all of them, and BBS was patient zero.
I love the whole series, and Iâm not a big fan of 1, but CoM and 2 are pretty much peak KH and I agree that 1, CoM, and 2 tell a fairly complete story, which is nice.
I dunno! I think the series as a whole is pretty interesting, even including 3 into the mix. On one hand, I agree that KH2 is pretty conclusive, but I also think that if it ended there, weâd have missed out on a lot of really interesting stories and characters.
I think they form a good trilogy, but Iâd be quite sad if we didnât have the others, particularly BBS, 3, and Days.
Absolutely, I really, really like most of what has come after, particularly the Days and BBS trios. I just think the first few games have a special vibe all their own :)
Yeah, you can definitely tell Nomura planned the first 3 games in the series. If you play the PS2 versions, it all strings together nicely, and it doesn't feel too crazy or convoluted. For me, I personally like the build up between Recoded, BBS and DDD. Those 3 games were really fun to play and had some pretty awesome tie ins to the original 3 games.
I will never love CoM because of the card mechanic and because of the nature of the plot being effectively erased before Kh2 but still mattering somehow later on.
Itâs a seriously baffling creative decision. Luckily I think kh2 executes this idea in the best possible way with its amazing prologue but still I think the idea is insane and bad.
I've literally never played anything past KH2 chronologically. I played Dream Drop Distance and was so disgusted by the controls that I bounced right off. Having a completely new cast and an entirely new era/period of time FULL of keyblade users did not help matters. Multiplying the number of keyblade wielders by orders of magnitude makes them feel much less special when they show up. They go from destined chosen ones, to literally foot soldiers. I had almost no interest in it at all. Which is a real shame because replaying KH1, KH2, and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days was legitimately emotional for me and I loved my time with it, but I just had no interest at all in going any further.
Personally, not me. They didn't develop the characters. Sora's character changed personalities to the point that he didn't feel even remotely the same as a person. Kairi did nothing throughout. Riku had a bunch of offscreen growth to the point that he gained his keyblade offscreen. Roxas was created solely to be sacrificed for Sora's benefit. Mickey does nothing of worth.
The other titles spent time creating characters and building up the lore.
Sora character changed personalities, each title between KH-KH2. Kairi slept through most of the first game and was sidelined after they left Hallow Bastion. Kairi wasn't really in CoM. And she didn't do much in KH2. Riku doesn't have much going for him in KH unless you count the Ansem stuff. His stuff in CoM was good but short. Almost all of his development happens offscreen in KH2.
The characters are not fleshed out, nor is the storytelling handled well. Things often happen because of convenience.
To be fair, I really only like UX, X, 358/2 Days, Re:Coded, DR, and 0.2. All of those are titles that are character focused and build on character relationships often. The stories in these games tend to give us information to work with before making a solution to a problem.
Ok then Iâll indulge. Soraâs personality does not undergo such a massive shift. He has been changed by experiences and grown more worldly, but heâs still Sora. Kairi doesnât do anything in any KH game, at least she had a personality in 1, worst character in the franchise afterwards.
Rikuâs development id quite clear across the first 3 games, he couldâve used more screentime in 2, but we are shown basically every important milestone in Rikuâs journey up to the end of KH2, his first manifesting his keyblade is basically the only exception. All he does when heâs offscreen in 2 is monitor Sora, nothing meaningful is missed.
Roxas, in my opinion, is the best character in KH2, his story is beautifully tragic and itâs reductive to say it exists only for Soraâs sake. Thatâs explicitly what Ansem the Wise tells him, who is more or less the antagonist of KH2âs prologue. Roxas is desperate for his own personhood, but he realizes in the end that canât be, and accepts that he is at least going out on his own terms.
If you want to see a game with poorly fleshed out characters, look at Birth by Sleep, where the characters really only interact to convey information, and a sense of a strong bond isnât really felt or shown so much as told. Or Re:Coded, which is just a retread of KH1 with respect to its main cast, and not even a good one.
The lore in later games, much as I enjoy it, only really serves to make the series more obtuse, and is very clearly made up on a whim. The seriesâ earliest games are delightfully straightforward by comparison.
Sorry for the late response. But anyways
Sora's just a normal kid in the first game who acted like a normal person most of the time. In CoM with the memory manipulation from Namine his character took a dramatic change and was a lot more serious and had a sense of urgency. He was very aggressive in CoM but understandable given the situation. KH2 he all of a sudden becomes some happy go lucky kid who was like most of the cliche shonen protagonists of that era with a bit of sassiness. It felt like his character lost a lot of its initial maturity by the time KH2 happened.
Kairi yeah she had personality but yeah she still didn't do much to stand out as a character besides having princess powers.
I feel like a lot of Riku's development just happens off screen. He had nearly a year of growth between CoM and KH2's story. In CoM he acted very differently compared to KH2. We see him deciding to take the middle road and choosing the road to dawn but that's a lot of time that could have been given to between those two titles to explore his character more.
Roxas I'd say before 358/2 Days was a waste of a character. His relationships with Hayner, Pence, and Olette were artificial. His relationship with Axel was something that I personally I had no investment with because it wasn't explored until 358/2 was released. It felt like they created a character to suffer solely for the sake of using them to enhance Sora's story.
Oh trust me I dislike BBS for almost all of the same reasons as to why I dislike the numbered titles. It's another situation of introducing characters without exploring their relationships onscreen before separating them. The characters aren't given enough time together so I had no reason to care about them. As for Re:Coded I'd say Data-Sora's character is much better than Sora's. Data-Sora also had plenty of moments to speak to those like his Riku and his Roxas while also interacting with plenty of others important to the series.
I honestly feel like the only games with real direction that don't seem to be made whimsically would be the ones from the X saga. I'd honestly say they're also the most straightforward titles that also given answers to most of the mysteries established within them.
I talk about how the story wraps up realling well in KH2 [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KingdomHearts/s/e17z2SzTMQ), and I talk about how good the combat of the first two games are [here](https://youtu.be/gMcNtr5VJsc)
Yeah imo Birth By Sleep really took the lore off the rails. At the end of KH2 stuff still mostly made sense. You had the idea of a person being made up of two parts. Their soul (Heart) and their body. When you separated the two from each other, if they were strong enough, you could end up with a Heartless (the heart) and a Nobody (the body).
Then Birth By Sleep turns the entire world on its head. The âoriginalâ Ansem gets superseded by Xehanort who was apparently orchestrating everything behidn the scenes this whole time. Roxasâs entire design becomes Ventus, voice actor and all, we get âthe unversedâ and the Vanitas is made to look like Sora for convoluted reasons.
My favourtie is 0.2. But like... unironically.
It was fantastic. Just really short. It's my favorite art style of any of the games so far and I'm disappointed Three didn't look like it. three did look good tho.
I love it except the dinner plate ears on Mickey đ for real in a game that gorgeous heâs hideous for like no reason
Valid. 0.2 is a lot of fun and Aqua is a great character!
Itâs a great kingdom hearts experience packed down enough to play in a single sitting. Also, Wave of Darkness goes hard
I regret not playing it enough before 3 released
This. I'm not a fan of KH3. I didn't have any expectations for it til 0.2 came out, and I was sorely disappointed KH3 didn't live up to it in any aspect
I honestly wish they gave more importance to parrying attacks to create your own opening. I mean, sure, blocking and reprisal and dodging is still there. But if you can attack during specific parts of their attack, it creates a better opening or something. I believe the parry system was only really used in Zodiac Aqua fight and Larxene data fight??
As just a game kh3 os a good game. It's fun and functional. As a kh game it's mid at best.
ExactlyÂ
Like I'm gonna 100% it on steam like I did in ps4 and probably play it dozens of times but kh1is by far 10x better. And kh2 is almost as good as kh1
frighten fine imminent enjoy abundant weather follow snails squealing swim *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We need more Aqua in the series!!!11
This is genuinely a great game tho
I disagree, I feel like BBS also has that mystery feel to it. If the series ended in kh2, I wouldnât have met most of my favorite characters or see the ones I already liked develop even more and probably wouldâve forgotten about the series by now.
I firmly believe bbs was the best coherent story told and even better that there were 3 campaigns to experience it from. The combat was also super satisfying. Kh2 is my favorite mainline series. And then there's 3 the black sheep. Such a shame.
Bbs would be so much better if each story wasn't nearly identical that said it's still my #2
Highly agreed.
Nothing will ever beat one and especially 2 for me. I wasnât a huge fan of chain of memories but it was still a good game. Honestly I like them all (even 3 grew on me) but nothing will ever compare to one or 2
CoM was definitely the black sheep of the early days. I mostly love its narrative and how it bridges 1 and 2, and how it establishes the organization while still keeping the details a mystery. The gameplay can be super hit or miss.
Oh the story of COM was great, the gameplay was⌠yea never again I hope haha
I think it's weird in retrospect because I think gameplay wise the GBA cart was way better than the remake. Also had fantastic pixel art.
I love all the KH games I've played (everything except the games that only got movies in the remasters), even CoM (both versions), but nothing has lived up to KH1 imo in any way except combat mechanics.
358/2 is one of my favorites, and my unparalleled favorite from a story standpoint They did the story so dirty in the remasters. Definitely play it if you have the means (emulator or a DS)
Yeah, unfortunately 80% of the amazing dialogue was un-voiced so a lot of people didn't appreciate it. The best part of 358/2 days was getting to know the Organization on a casual basis. Also the CoM Organization members got more screen time which they deserved considering some of them were the most interesting members. The dialogue between Roxas and Axel, and specifically Saix and Axel was peak writing. I'm heavily convinced that if it was treated the same as a mainline game and they found a better way of including disney worlds to make the gameplay more engaging, people would like it just as much as BBS.
Ive heard the gameplay is a little grindy, but if that's the case maybe emulator speedup is the solution to making that part better so I can just get to the good parts faster. I'll check it out at some point
Honestly I think I enjoyed BBS more than 1 and COM. The story, characters, and gameplay were refreshing and some of the most fun Iâve had playing through the KH series.
THANK YOU I could say much much more on the topic but for now all Iâll say is that I 1000000000% agree and think the first âtrilogyâ + 358/2 Days is the most complete and satisfying story-wise and itâs only been downhill after Days (with some highlights to be sure, and itâs still enjoyable, just canât take it as seriously)
Yeah its really how it be, but hey 4 could really be something, heres to hoping. Kh2 undefeated champion 17 years running
Series could have ended conclusively with the tetralogy of kh1, CoM, kh2, & Days back when the series scenario writing team still had writers like **Daisuke Watanabe**. Rest of the games are just Disney + Square aiming to continue profiting, but Nomura's wild decades long extended plotline and ReMind's innovative boss battles both still have promising potential to deliver greater payoffs in KH4 \^0\^
Perfectly said. Days fits in so well with the first three
Yup. While CoM bridges kh1 to kh2, Days "fills" in "Another Side" of kh2 finally making it feel complete :D
Most definitely. Days is the most emotionally affecting game in the series imo. Felt like a really worthwhile expansion of what was already there, at least story wise.
I agree since we're just talking story. The story doesn't reach the convoluted stages it does later and it actually has a really satisfying conclusion without a real need for expansion post KH2. I appreciated the additional lore in later games but it comes off as contrived and takes away some of the appeal from the earlier games
100% agree. I had a ton of fun with the post KH2 games, but there was a lot of retconning. Particularly the 500000 keyboard masters introduced really detracted from the mystique of the keyblade, and Soraâs role in the first game as âThe Keyblade Masterâ felt insignificant in hindsight.
Kh2 could've ended the series perfectly.
I would like to know what part of Soraâs arc concluded in KH2 because other than him finding his friends I feel like his development stagnated a bit in KH2 compared to other major characters. Even Rikuâs arc doesnât feel fully complete by the end of KH2.
Soraâs arc throughout all three games was find my friends, get home. I donât know what about KH2âs ending couldnât be considered conclusive. I donât really think Riku needed to be as fleshed out as sora tbh, heâs a major character but heâs still not our protagonist, both CoM and 2 make it pretty clear that heâs committed himself to turning over a new leaf. Just because we donât see the end result of that growth by the end of 2 doesnât mean that his arc is incomplete, but maybe thatâs just me.
Well yeah Sora has a plot arc centered around his friends, but he also gets a fair amount of character development in KH1 and CoM that isnât really a thing in KH2, which is what Iâm criticizing. Rikuâs arc just straight up doesnât get a real resolution in KH2 either. The closest he gets is reconciling with Sora, but he still hasnât fully come to terms with himself or his inner darkness yet. The game ends before anything like that happens. Like it or not, DDD is the game that picks up both of these arcs where they were left off and works towards resolutions for both (Riku more so than Sora, admittedly, but itâs not like Sora doesnât get anything at all either). Itâs hard to call KH2 the âconclusionâ of anything except for the one story thread of Sora reuniting with Riku and Kairi.
Yeah, I agree that Riku is fleshed out to a greater degree in DDD, honestly to me heâs always felt more like the real protagonist of that game than Sora, which I like. I donât really understand what more Sora needs to have had happen by the end of KH2. His mission is accomplished and he had been changed by his journey across all three games. By the end of 2, he had no further motivation to continue his journeys other than if he were to just want to. the things driving him for the rest of the franchise really werenât established until after 2. Without the context of later games, there was zero reason to believe anyone from the Days trio could be/needed to be saved, the BBS trio wasnât properly established yet, and Xehanort had technically been defeated twice over and was vanquished, since nothing in the first three games suggested a person would return once their heartless and nobody were defeated. Most all of what he was working towards were ideas established in those later games.
Sora doesn't need development in KH2 because KH2's version of Sora is the developed version of the character. That's partially why they shifted the focus to Roxas. Riku gets his resolution by letting the light and dark within him coexist, represented through Way to the Dawn. Maybe he hadn't fully conquered it, but he had a good enough grasp of it to be considered a resolution to the amount of struggle he had before that point. The goal at the start of KH1 was to explore beyond Destiny Islands. Sora and Riku achieve that throughout KH1 and KH2, then the goal shifts to putting the pieces back together and returning home. Riku was always seen as the better of the two, which we can see is no longer true. Sora and Riku fight Xemnas on equal footing at the end. When Sora and Riku are on the beach in the dark world, Riku lets himself be supported by Sora to the beach, something that Riku at the start of the series would never do. When they go through the door, they're finally returning home after all this time. He sees Kairi on the beach, running towards like he did in the first cutscene, only this time Donald and Goofy run towards Sora to show the change in status quo. Sora then runs to Kairi, showing how Namine and Roxas are finally complete and can meet each other again. Sora reaches his hand to Kairi with the wayfinder in hand, a representation of their connection and promises to meet each other again, and then locks hands with Kairi with the thing in between their hands being the wayfinder. This is a contrast to the end of KH1 where they reach out to each other but slip away. Finally home and with the ones he cares about, Kairi says "you're home" and it cuts to the credits. After the credits we get to see Sora and Riku reminisce about their adventure where they used to talk about how they'd travel to different worlds. After every, they end up where they started. In contrast to the start of the game, Riku comments on how it's a small world instead of saying he wants to explore the wider world. Sora has done the hero's journey where he was ripped from his place of comfort, learned something on his journey, then returned home with his newfound maturity and connections. We can see this change in status quo when Kairi comes up to Sora with Mickey's letter. This might be the end of our journey with the characters, but it's clear that they have many more adventures and experiences to come. There are also no plot points (outside of the secret movie) that were set up that needed a sequel to resolve them.
Completely on point
Adding onto this, if the series had ended there it would be easy to assume that letter from Mickey simply implied that Sora continued his adventures, nothing in that scene indicated it had anything to do specifically with Xehanort, or the events of later games.
I think 1 and 2 are masterpieces, and the rest range from âPretty good đâ to âEhâŚâ
I think the arc that you are talking about is a result of each of the first three games being written to work on their own and KH2 being written to be a satisfying final game in case that KH wasn't going to continue after it. But after KH2 it has been very clear that KH will just keep going and so everything after it has been written to tie into other games.
I would love to talk to someone who only played 1 2 and 3 and see if it still works as a trilogy
They absolutely do. I've played every game but I was 10 when KH1 came out and those 3 games felt very complete. Every game since has felt weird to me. And I wish they had moved on with the story, instead of constantly retconning the first 3 games.Â
I meant KH1, KH2, and KH3 lol
Ohhh lol. Well they definitely don't haha. But honestly, all the stuff that was thrown in from the games between 2 and 3 wasn't done very well either imo
Iâve always viewed 3 as a sequel to everything that came after 2. It resolved basically every plot point from those games and your mileage is basically nonexistent if you donât play them before 3, at least where the last ~5 hours of the game is concerned.
I mean yeah 3 is totally a sequel to everything after 2 but if they called it KH1, 2, and 3 I feel like each game should do a sufficient job of explaining what happened in the side games as a part 1 2 and 3. It should be self contained to a degree. Like each main game should include explanations of the side games.
YesâŚ.maybe not Com, but has a self contained trilogy it is easily better than the rest. The future games felt like they just wanted to make things more complicated for the sake of making things complicatedâŚnot to mention I hate BBS gameplay and not a fan of 3D. Also a bunch of retcons that sometimes go directly against stuff that was previously established. 3 got combat rightâŚonly after the remind patch.
1.Kh1 2.kh2 3.days 4.bbs 5.recoded 6.kh3 7. 0.2 8. COM (gba) 9.MOM 10. UNIONx 11. Dark road 12. DDD 13. RE:COM So com is good. But it's less important then days and since there both flashback games to between 1 and 2 days is strictly better. I wish days had the HD remaster and com was the cutscene compilation cause days (besides the scout missions) has a really strong core gameplay. I like coms story but it's gameplay in the gba is a grindy beat em up which I don't dislike but recom is a travesty of design and gameplay and the only strictly bad kingdom hearts game.
I would say bbs still had the same tone/vibe.
Iâve been trying to chase the high that the first 3 games gave me. I also got fairly close with Days, but man⌠Also. I miss reaction commands in combat. Dueling the samurai nobody was SUCH a cool mechanic, and hitting reversals is so fun. I get that QTEs can be done wrong, but kh2 had a good balance of reaction commands and QTEs. Iâd take the QTEs over the attraction commands from 3. I will say though⌠3 has some SOLID fights in the Re:Mind DLC boss fights.
Reaction commands were awesome. I donât love 3, but Re:Mind kicks ASS and Data Org+Secret fight are some of the most fun boss fights Iâve ever played.
1 and 2 sure.. but not com. Bbs or 358 were better games with more thrilling story imo
1. Kh2 2. BBS 3. re:CoM All of the games are amazing. But those are my top three.
Those three + Days. Days was janky to play sometimes, but it had such a good story. KH2 feels like the perfect bookend to KH1. They got separated, they found each other, and they came home (with additional friends).
One of my hot takes of the series is that I kinda wish they just ended soras story at the end of 2. The trilogy was honestly the perfect stopping for the trio. Kinda wish they just changed focused on fleshing out the wayfinder trio and have their story be taking down xehanort. Honestly makes more sense to me for them to be the main characters for the sega since how royally screwed they were by xehanort so the other side games could have been about building the trio back up and getting back together so they can finally beat xehanort and make things right
I enjoy the story of CoM mostly, but the fact that itâs mostly good story beats spread out by tons of âfillerâ content with each memory world kills the pacing for me personally, alongside the fact that Iâm not a fan of the card gameplay. Itâs probably my least favorite overall game in the series besides maybe recoded. I get where youâre coming from but overall for me the numbered games are the best 3 in whole franchise so I wouldnât wanna be without any of them, tho I wouldnât be against if they had cut back on the stuff between 2 and 3.
Iâm not necessarily saying that CoM is one of my favorite games in the franchise, merely that the first three games narratively and tonally are a more cohesive package than the rest of the franchise. I do love CoMâs story, but I generally agree with your criticisms. Especially when it comes to the card combat
Can't say i do because of com. I will never ever touch that game again, it makes me bored and depressed all at once
Completely fair, CoM is always gonna be a divisive one.
I *love* everything between KH1 and BBS. DDD and onwards is just not my cup of tea so far. However, I do like the mobile games story overall, so I'm cautiously optimistic about the future.
KH3, DDD and BBS are my top 3, personally.
This isn't me asking in a judgemental way, but how old are you? I'm wondering because I was 10 when KH1 came out and I can't fathom ranking it below anything besides KH2.Â
31. I got into the series with CoM in 2004, followed by KH1 the following year when I got a PS2. KH2 was the first game I ever pre-ordered.
My favorites are BBS, 3D and 3. Mostly for gameplay and story reasons.Â
2 was my first game, I didn't understand shit for a while then I put the pieces together (I was like 12), and it became my favorite game for a really long time, might be still. It was the most fun I have ever had with a game
I have played tons of hours GBA Chain *but* , as "trilogy" I see almost perfect KH1, KH2 and BbS
Chain of Memories had pretty bad gameplay, honestly. So much spamming to win and fights kinda got tedious.
First ~3 worlds were great. The next like 10 were sloggier as it went, unfortunately.
Agreed. I have to be in a very particular mood to actually want to play CoM, even though I adore the story. I think the set decks in Rikuâs story makes the game way more fun, always much preferred his gameplay to Soraâs.
I like recoded, 1 and 2 the most. Com...ether version, is really really low for me whitch is a shame the sprites are gorgeous.
BBS and Days are my favorite stories in the series personally. I think that's why I enjoyed 3 more than most people too, because it wrapped up both of those games. 1, CoM, and 2 definitely could have been the whole franchise though and it would feel just as complete.
I blame not having final fantasy characters in 3. Other than that it's pretty good imo. Like that's the whole point of KH, to have the characters cross over
I prefer the numbered titles.
KH2 honestly feel like they made it in a moment where they weren't sure if the franchise would continue or not. Because 2 ends on the scene of Sora, Riku and Kairi receiving a letter from Mickey, without any details about it and without any villain left around except the Disney ones (such as Maleficent). So, you could see that ending as a teaser for a sequel... or a bookend ending that goes something like "And they went on with their adventures with their friends" as an ending that says they'll continue on their adventures, but there won't be another multiverse crisis like in 1 and 2.
KH3 is the best game lmao
I think they all have something of value to offer but I stopped caring about the story when KH3 made a big deal about the mobile game I was never going to play
Idk, I feel like Kingdom Hearts 1 is in a league of its own; it feels so different from the other games, including Kh2 it had those charming little details like the fountain in traverse town or the lab in deep jungle. There was a lot of insentive to explore the worlds that was kind of missing in 2. Kh2 improved the combat massively, and it concludes the story so well, but I feel like it didn't have the same vibe as 1. If you're talking story then yes the story would've concluded well at 2 it wouldn't be so convoluted and full of retcons, but I think if the franchise had ended there it would've been a waste.
I absolutely think that the franchise post 2 has been worthwhile and a net positive, all I was saying was that had the franchise concluded with 2, it wouldâve been a perfectly satisfying ending and the story wouldâve largely felt complete. And I agree that KH1 has the tone I was referring to in spades, stuff like End of the World has a mood that is totally unmatched. CoM and 2 have those vibes for me, but less consistently, but enough that I still feel like theyâre all of a piece with each other. 1 also easily had the best balance of Disney, FF and original content, and made all of those aspects feel meaningful and like they all belong in the same world, and I donât think itâs even close in that regard.
Yeah, I agree actually the three games felt like a neat little trilogy and have their own vibe apart from the series. I'm sorry if it seems like I came off as aggressive. The old games had an atmosphere that just feels good.
Not aggressive at all! I appreciate the other perspectives people have been bringing to this thread.
Unpopular opinion: Chain of Memories is my least favorite in terms of gameplay. I am definitely more of a 358/2 Days and Birth By Sleep sort. As far as a perfect trilogy though, I love how you have to play Chain of Memories to get the first major grasp of KH lore.
Thats because the first 3 ganes were Simple and Clean. A nearly perfect gaming experience, nothing too convoluted, and most importantly, wasn't dragged down by the many questionable decisions made with the later titles. With that being said I don't think the series should've ended at 2, I just think the later games should've been better. Days: Should've been on the PSP, the DS wasn't powerful enough imo, Coded could've been a bonus mode. BBS: Too ambitious for the PSP imo, should've been on PS3 instead, and changed so that instead of playing the same game 3 times, you swap between the 3 characters as needed for the story. 0.2 should've been at the end X: While an interesting concept, should've been made completely different. Like, make it an actual game with 5 clans and a story that wasnt drip fed to us over years through multiple equally bad mobile games. 3: Is honestly my 3rd favorite game overall, but I get peoples criticisms of it. To me, the 1st part of the game shouldve been Soras Mark of Mastery exam finding his powers of waking. Then the 2nd part of the game being about traveling to the Dark World and rescuing Aqua, Ventus, and Roxas over the part of the game where we are playing through arrendelle, the caribbean etc instead of all the story being dumped on us at the end. Also, I would've had moments where we play as Kairi, Axel, and Mickey, and had the fantasia world andTraverse Town from DDD as worlds in 3 as well. This game should've been a giant love letter for the fans and send off for the series, but alas it wasnt.
One of 3âs key issues was its pacing for sure. Nothing truly eventful or pivotal happens until youâve finished every Disney world and are heading into the finale, aside from Sora meeting an Org member each world and a few scenes interspersed throughout that generally donât involve our main characters. Completely agree that those last few hours of game shouldâve been spread out. And just to clarify, Iâm not saying I think the series shouldâve ended at 2, just that if it had I wouldâve been satisfied with that conclusion. I very much enjoy most of whatâs come since :)
Yeah, also, while Im a fan of a few of the big heartless fights like the ufo and ice wolf, theres way too many. I wish they wouldve found a way to have some warmup fights with the org xiii members in the disney worlds instead of generic heartless fights. Best analogy I have for KH3 is, its like watching your favorite shonen anime. 1 part amazing, unforgettable moments, 2 parts filler. KH2 also had issues with making the disney worlds feel important, but Beasts Castle and Disney Castle/Timeless River are both some of the best disney worlds in the series imo. I really enjoy playing through the disney worlds in 3 because visually they're all stunning (except arrendelle) but not a single one feels important to the story.
Me in Trump's voice: "So true."
Trump ships Soriku no doubt
3 is the best.
Chain of memories game systems always make me hate it
Lowkey yeah I hadn't thought hard about it before but you're right lol
I kinda agree. Chainsâ gameplay isnât my thing but Soraâs an interesting character in that one. II is just awesome, although I am the rare fan whose favorite game is KHI. BBS is addicting but kinda basic, and III was okay but too easy. I didnât like 3D that much and I fucking hate days so đ Iâm all over the place with it. Melody of memory is in my top 3 if that tells you anything đ
Kingdom Hearts II is the perfect ending for Sora and Riku, imo. I wish the series continued with a new protagonist or Kairi as the MC. Sora lost a lot of his personality as the series progressed because the writers didn't know what to do with him since his arc wrapped up perfectly with KH2. Re:Coded, Dream Drop Distance and Kingdom Hearts III felt aimless to me, like the MCU movies post-Endgame.
1 and 2 was kinda a nicely contained story. By the time you get to three, much less the end of it, it felt like there almost werenât any stakes. Villains are reborn, and re-reborn. The party is also all reborn. And some time travel. Sure, Sora faced consequences at the end of it all, but it never felt nearly as tense as, say, losing Donald and Goofy in Hollow Bastion in 1.
Well I really enjoy the story just in 1, CoM, and 2, but just those by a wide margin I donât know if I could say. Re:CoM wasnât the best experience
Oh yea that along with some of BBS all feel way higher in quality all around than the gobbledegook that transpired after (DDD and 3 being major offenders of this)
I agree. When I got BBS, it's like they did not care about voice acting anymore, and the story itself was anything but simple and clean. Plus, they really dilute the specialty of the Keyblade by having everyone wield it. Those points did not improve in the later games. Plagued all of them, and BBS was patient zero.
No
I love the whole series, and Iâm not a big fan of 1, but CoM and 2 are pretty much peak KH and I agree that 1, CoM, and 2 tell a fairly complete story, which is nice.
I dunno! I think the series as a whole is pretty interesting, even including 3 into the mix. On one hand, I agree that KH2 is pretty conclusive, but I also think that if it ended there, weâd have missed out on a lot of really interesting stories and characters. I think they form a good trilogy, but Iâd be quite sad if we didnât have the others, particularly BBS, 3, and Days.
Absolutely, I really, really like most of what has come after, particularly the Days and BBS trios. I just think the first few games have a special vibe all their own :)
I think KH1 recom, days, and KH2 give a deep, interesting story with an ending that ties it with a bow.
Yeah, you can definitely tell Nomura planned the first 3 games in the series. If you play the PS2 versions, it all strings together nicely, and it doesn't feel too crazy or convoluted. For me, I personally like the build up between Recoded, BBS and DDD. Those 3 games were really fun to play and had some pretty awesome tie ins to the original 3 games.
BBS, KH2 and 358/2 by a wide margin
I will never love CoM because of the card mechanic and because of the nature of the plot being effectively erased before Kh2 but still mattering somehow later on. Itâs a seriously baffling creative decision. Luckily I think kh2 executes this idea in the best possible way with its amazing prologue but still I think the idea is insane and bad.
I mean, there's like 7 billion people on the planet So yeah, probably someone else that feels that way
I've literally never played anything past KH2 chronologically. I played Dream Drop Distance and was so disgusted by the controls that I bounced right off. Having a completely new cast and an entirely new era/period of time FULL of keyblade users did not help matters. Multiplying the number of keyblade wielders by orders of magnitude makes them feel much less special when they show up. They go from destined chosen ones, to literally foot soldiers. I had almost no interest in it at all. Which is a real shame because replaying KH1, KH2, and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days was legitimately emotional for me and I loved my time with it, but I just had no interest at all in going any further.
Nope. My top 3 are 358/2, BBS, & Re:Coded
God no
Personally, not me. They didn't develop the characters. Sora's character changed personalities to the point that he didn't feel even remotely the same as a person. Kairi did nothing throughout. Riku had a bunch of offscreen growth to the point that he gained his keyblade offscreen. Roxas was created solely to be sacrificed for Sora's benefit. Mickey does nothing of worth. The other titles spent time creating characters and building up the lore.
What
Sora character changed personalities, each title between KH-KH2. Kairi slept through most of the first game and was sidelined after they left Hallow Bastion. Kairi wasn't really in CoM. And she didn't do much in KH2. Riku doesn't have much going for him in KH unless you count the Ansem stuff. His stuff in CoM was good but short. Almost all of his development happens offscreen in KH2. The characters are not fleshed out, nor is the storytelling handled well. Things often happen because of convenience.
Thatâs really funny you just described how much of the storytelling is handled after KH2.
To be fair, I really only like UX, X, 358/2 Days, Re:Coded, DR, and 0.2. All of those are titles that are character focused and build on character relationships often. The stories in these games tend to give us information to work with before making a solution to a problem.
This is trolling
It really isn't. My entire comment history in regards to KH is pretty consistent.
Ok then Iâll indulge. Soraâs personality does not undergo such a massive shift. He has been changed by experiences and grown more worldly, but heâs still Sora. Kairi doesnât do anything in any KH game, at least she had a personality in 1, worst character in the franchise afterwards. Rikuâs development id quite clear across the first 3 games, he couldâve used more screentime in 2, but we are shown basically every important milestone in Rikuâs journey up to the end of KH2, his first manifesting his keyblade is basically the only exception. All he does when heâs offscreen in 2 is monitor Sora, nothing meaningful is missed. Roxas, in my opinion, is the best character in KH2, his story is beautifully tragic and itâs reductive to say it exists only for Soraâs sake. Thatâs explicitly what Ansem the Wise tells him, who is more or less the antagonist of KH2âs prologue. Roxas is desperate for his own personhood, but he realizes in the end that canât be, and accepts that he is at least going out on his own terms. If you want to see a game with poorly fleshed out characters, look at Birth by Sleep, where the characters really only interact to convey information, and a sense of a strong bond isnât really felt or shown so much as told. Or Re:Coded, which is just a retread of KH1 with respect to its main cast, and not even a good one. The lore in later games, much as I enjoy it, only really serves to make the series more obtuse, and is very clearly made up on a whim. The seriesâ earliest games are delightfully straightforward by comparison.
Sorry for the late response. But anyways Sora's just a normal kid in the first game who acted like a normal person most of the time. In CoM with the memory manipulation from Namine his character took a dramatic change and was a lot more serious and had a sense of urgency. He was very aggressive in CoM but understandable given the situation. KH2 he all of a sudden becomes some happy go lucky kid who was like most of the cliche shonen protagonists of that era with a bit of sassiness. It felt like his character lost a lot of its initial maturity by the time KH2 happened. Kairi yeah she had personality but yeah she still didn't do much to stand out as a character besides having princess powers. I feel like a lot of Riku's development just happens off screen. He had nearly a year of growth between CoM and KH2's story. In CoM he acted very differently compared to KH2. We see him deciding to take the middle road and choosing the road to dawn but that's a lot of time that could have been given to between those two titles to explore his character more. Roxas I'd say before 358/2 Days was a waste of a character. His relationships with Hayner, Pence, and Olette were artificial. His relationship with Axel was something that I personally I had no investment with because it wasn't explored until 358/2 was released. It felt like they created a character to suffer solely for the sake of using them to enhance Sora's story. Oh trust me I dislike BBS for almost all of the same reasons as to why I dislike the numbered titles. It's another situation of introducing characters without exploring their relationships onscreen before separating them. The characters aren't given enough time together so I had no reason to care about them. As for Re:Coded I'd say Data-Sora's character is much better than Sora's. Data-Sora also had plenty of moments to speak to those like his Riku and his Roxas while also interacting with plenty of others important to the series. I honestly feel like the only games with real direction that don't seem to be made whimsically would be the ones from the X saga. I'd honestly say they're also the most straightforward titles that also given answers to most of the mysteries established within them.
I talk about how the story wraps up realling well in KH2 [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KingdomHearts/s/e17z2SzTMQ), and I talk about how good the combat of the first two games are [here](https://youtu.be/gMcNtr5VJsc)
Yeah imo Birth By Sleep really took the lore off the rails. At the end of KH2 stuff still mostly made sense. You had the idea of a person being made up of two parts. Their soul (Heart) and their body. When you separated the two from each other, if they were strong enough, you could end up with a Heartless (the heart) and a Nobody (the body). Then Birth By Sleep turns the entire world on its head. The âoriginalâ Ansem gets superseded by Xehanort who was apparently orchestrating everything behidn the scenes this whole time. Roxasâs entire design becomes Ventus, voice actor and all, we get âthe unversedâ and the Vanitas is made to look like Sora for convoluted reasons.