kingdom hearts re:coded: my pain is your pain
So I've been playing Re:coded intermittently over the past month or so and finally beat it tonight. I was pretty much playing it just 'cause, since it only contributes marginally to the whole Kingdom Hearts story, but the gameplay was lots of fun (except for the Unexpected Gameplay Changes that popped up all over the places, reminding me why I don't play platformers anymore). I really like the Command Deck system, and it makes me really excited to play Birth By Sleep (which I'll probably start... next weekend maybe? Whenever I can temporarily take custody of my roommate's PSP). Although I know there's going to be a bit of Damn You Muscle Memory involved because when I play BBS I'm going to want to be using L1 to cycle through commands instead of the directional buttons. Still excited though. But this is about Re:coded, not Birth By Sleep.
I'll admit that I wasn't really paying attention to most of the story except for the end because that was the part that was actually relevant to the overarching story. All I really got out of the rest of the story was GLITCH IN THE MATRIX and PAIN AND SUFFERING IS GOOD, the latter of which made me think of one of Rikku's battle quotes from FFX-2 "My pain is your pain." Because you know, that's pretty much what everything in Castle Oblivion boiled down to. But yeah, most of the story was nothing special. Although Data Sora kind of seemed like a cocky bastard at times. It made me laugh.
The gameplay, however, was great. Like I said, I really love the command system because it allows you to use awesome moves without having to worry about MP or gauge consumption, plus you have tons of freedom as to what commands you want to use. I also liked the Stat Matrix, mainly because it reminded me of the Sphere Grid and I love the Sphere Grid. That gives you a lot of customization options too, just in what path you take and stuff like that. And it was interesting that you had complete control over things like difficulty, prize drops, etc., although I didn't play around with those at all. Whenever I get around to doing a lot of the postgame stuff, I might play around with those just to make things interesting. I imagine a challenge gamer would have a field day with those cheat functions, though.
However, one thing that I didn't like was all of the Unexpected Gameplay Changes, especially anything that had to do with platforming. Most of the normal blox-related platforming I could handle, if with a little trial and error, but some of the platforming was just mean for someone who just isn't that good at platforming (I've played a few platformers in the past, and with practice I've gotten halfway decent at them, but ever since I switched to playing mainly RPGs I just don't have the skills for them anymore). I think the worst offenders were the side-scrolling segment to escape from Riku's Data and the challenge to reach Pete and Maleficent at the end of Castle Oblivion. For the former I eventually beat it by just turning off the sound and listening to Two Steps From Hell music instead, just because I was sick of the HURRY SORA HURRY SORA music (and everything can be improved by Two Steps From Hell). For the latter I just ended up turning the sound off altogether because my headphones had mysteriously broken and I didn't want to drive my roommate crazy with it being all HEY SORA YOU'RE AT LOW HEALTH FOREVER BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO INCOMPETENT TO LAND ON SOLID SURFACES. The rail shooter segment in Wonderland against Trickmaster gave me a hard time for a while, mainly because I sucked at dodging, and the turn-based battles (especially against Cloud) in Olympus Coliseum gave me trouble until I realized that License abilities could be stacked, and then there was no problem. But as annoying as the gameplay changes could be sometimes, it was an interesting change of pace as opposed to just straight-up action RPG the whole time.
Anyway, Re:coded was a lot of fun to play, and whenever I get around to it I'm most certainly going to check out some of the optional post-game stuff. Plus the fact that you can redo worlds essentially makes it like a New Game Plus, so I'll probably just replay the worlds if I ever want to play the game again, since it's not a game I'll be replaying for the story. And then if I want to challenge myself I can screw around with the difficulty levels, since this time around I played on Standard for the whole time.
And before I go to bed for the night, here's my list o' thoughts:
Favorite character (story): Meh, I dunno... I always like Mickey so I suppose I could say him, although some of Sora's cheesy and/or surprisingly snarky dialogue amused me greatly.
Favorite character (gameplay): Well, Sora's my only choice, so yeah. I liked him with this combat system, though. I also did a playthrough of the first Kingdom Hearts game recently (which I was going to make an entry about and never did) and while playing that I totally found myself wishing that I could use a command deck, since in the first game I have Sora doing pretty much straight attacking the whole time, with a Gravity spell thrown in every once in a while.
Favorite location: I've always loved Hollow Bastion, especially the original Kingdom Hearts Hollow Bastion, so probably there. Except it was annoying that your commands and keyblade were missing throughout, although I did like bossing Donald and Goofy around all the time.
Favorite method of totally annihilating enemies: Pretty much any command. For the last two or so sections of the game I had a deck of Chain Rave, Stun Impact, Pulse Tracer, Exo Spark, and Triple Burst (well, and Curaga, but you can't kill anything with that), all of which were great for killing things. I also had Mega Flare for my finisher ever since I got it in... Hollow Bastion I think? I can't remember. Anyway, that was a great finisher because it blew up everything, no strings attached.
Character with the best lines: Sora had some pretty hilarious lines throughout. It kind of seemed like he took a level in snark and/or smarmy bastardness at times. Cloud also gets special mention only because they referenced the "there ain't no gettin' off this train that we're on" line from FFVII.
Favorite music: Well, almost all of the music was recycled from previous games, so I got to hear some of my favorites like "Roxas" (and can I say that it felt weird finally getting to fight him? Especially when he was all "You're finished!" and used his Limit Break and I was like HEY YOU CAN'T USE THAT AGAINST ME, THAT'S HOW I KILL THINGS IN 358/2 DAYS), "Riku", "Namine", and plus a lot of others that I really don't feel like listing. One of these days I have to do a favorite video game music post because I have so much of it.
Level I completed the game: Level 43, which is pretty good I guess. Except for stupid things, there wasn't too much of a challenge (especially in regards to actual combat), so I feel like I was at an about-right level. I never really had to level grind.
And now, even though I have a second playthrough of Final Fantasy IV that I really should finish, and I really want to do a replay of Final Fantasy VII, I think I'm going to be playing a lot of games I haven't played before. I'll be borrowing my roommate's PSP to play Birth By Sleep (and Crisis Core at some point as well), while for Playstation games I'm thinking Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Cross, and Final Fantasy Tactics. FFIX is at the top of my list right now for Playstation games, since once I play that I'll have played at least some of all the Final Fantasy games up through X (not counting spinoffs, the only one of which I've played is X-2). And of course, in the midst of all my planned gaming adventures my roommate and I are still plowing our way through Lost, having just started the third season. (And there's always me getting an education. That's always important.)
I'll admit that I wasn't really paying attention to most of the story except for the end because that was the part that was actually relevant to the overarching story. All I really got out of the rest of the story was GLITCH IN THE MATRIX and PAIN AND SUFFERING IS GOOD, the latter of which made me think of one of Rikku's battle quotes from FFX-2 "My pain is your pain." Because you know, that's pretty much what everything in Castle Oblivion boiled down to. But yeah, most of the story was nothing special. Although Data Sora kind of seemed like a cocky bastard at times. It made me laugh.
The gameplay, however, was great. Like I said, I really love the command system because it allows you to use awesome moves without having to worry about MP or gauge consumption, plus you have tons of freedom as to what commands you want to use. I also liked the Stat Matrix, mainly because it reminded me of the Sphere Grid and I love the Sphere Grid. That gives you a lot of customization options too, just in what path you take and stuff like that. And it was interesting that you had complete control over things like difficulty, prize drops, etc., although I didn't play around with those at all. Whenever I get around to doing a lot of the postgame stuff, I might play around with those just to make things interesting. I imagine a challenge gamer would have a field day with those cheat functions, though.
However, one thing that I didn't like was all of the Unexpected Gameplay Changes, especially anything that had to do with platforming. Most of the normal blox-related platforming I could handle, if with a little trial and error, but some of the platforming was just mean for someone who just isn't that good at platforming (I've played a few platformers in the past, and with practice I've gotten halfway decent at them, but ever since I switched to playing mainly RPGs I just don't have the skills for them anymore). I think the worst offenders were the side-scrolling segment to escape from Riku's Data and the challenge to reach Pete and Maleficent at the end of Castle Oblivion. For the former I eventually beat it by just turning off the sound and listening to Two Steps From Hell music instead, just because I was sick of the HURRY SORA HURRY SORA music (and everything can be improved by Two Steps From Hell). For the latter I just ended up turning the sound off altogether because my headphones had mysteriously broken and I didn't want to drive my roommate crazy with it being all HEY SORA YOU'RE AT LOW HEALTH FOREVER BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO INCOMPETENT TO LAND ON SOLID SURFACES. The rail shooter segment in Wonderland against Trickmaster gave me a hard time for a while, mainly because I sucked at dodging, and the turn-based battles (especially against Cloud) in Olympus Coliseum gave me trouble until I realized that License abilities could be stacked, and then there was no problem. But as annoying as the gameplay changes could be sometimes, it was an interesting change of pace as opposed to just straight-up action RPG the whole time.
Anyway, Re:coded was a lot of fun to play, and whenever I get around to it I'm most certainly going to check out some of the optional post-game stuff. Plus the fact that you can redo worlds essentially makes it like a New Game Plus, so I'll probably just replay the worlds if I ever want to play the game again, since it's not a game I'll be replaying for the story. And then if I want to challenge myself I can screw around with the difficulty levels, since this time around I played on Standard for the whole time.
And before I go to bed for the night, here's my list o' thoughts:
Favorite character (story): Meh, I dunno... I always like Mickey so I suppose I could say him, although some of Sora's cheesy and/or surprisingly snarky dialogue amused me greatly.
Favorite character (gameplay): Well, Sora's my only choice, so yeah. I liked him with this combat system, though. I also did a playthrough of the first Kingdom Hearts game recently (which I was going to make an entry about and never did) and while playing that I totally found myself wishing that I could use a command deck, since in the first game I have Sora doing pretty much straight attacking the whole time, with a Gravity spell thrown in every once in a while.
Favorite location: I've always loved Hollow Bastion, especially the original Kingdom Hearts Hollow Bastion, so probably there. Except it was annoying that your commands and keyblade were missing throughout, although I did like bossing Donald and Goofy around all the time.
Favorite method of totally annihilating enemies: Pretty much any command. For the last two or so sections of the game I had a deck of Chain Rave, Stun Impact, Pulse Tracer, Exo Spark, and Triple Burst (well, and Curaga, but you can't kill anything with that), all of which were great for killing things. I also had Mega Flare for my finisher ever since I got it in... Hollow Bastion I think? I can't remember. Anyway, that was a great finisher because it blew up everything, no strings attached.
Character with the best lines: Sora had some pretty hilarious lines throughout. It kind of seemed like he took a level in snark and/or smarmy bastardness at times. Cloud also gets special mention only because they referenced the "there ain't no gettin' off this train that we're on" line from FFVII.
Favorite music: Well, almost all of the music was recycled from previous games, so I got to hear some of my favorites like "Roxas" (and can I say that it felt weird finally getting to fight him? Especially when he was all "You're finished!" and used his Limit Break and I was like HEY YOU CAN'T USE THAT AGAINST ME, THAT'S HOW I KILL THINGS IN 358/2 DAYS), "Riku", "Namine", and plus a lot of others that I really don't feel like listing. One of these days I have to do a favorite video game music post because I have so much of it.
Level I completed the game: Level 43, which is pretty good I guess. Except for stupid things, there wasn't too much of a challenge (especially in regards to actual combat), so I feel like I was at an about-right level. I never really had to level grind.
And now, even though I have a second playthrough of Final Fantasy IV that I really should finish, and I really want to do a replay of Final Fantasy VII, I think I'm going to be playing a lot of games I haven't played before. I'll be borrowing my roommate's PSP to play Birth By Sleep (and Crisis Core at some point as well), while for Playstation games I'm thinking Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Cross, and Final Fantasy Tactics. FFIX is at the top of my list right now for Playstation games, since once I play that I'll have played at least some of all the Final Fantasy games up through X (not counting spinoffs, the only one of which I've played is X-2). And of course, in the midst of all my planned gaming adventures my roommate and I are still plowing our way through Lost, having just started the third season. (And there's always me getting an education. That's always important.)