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[Andyliini]

Kingdom Hearts seems to be an off series for me. I find the setting the most intriguing, and yet always when I play the games, I get frustrated. It took me three tries to actually beat Kingdom Hearts 1, and it took even more time to play the next game in the series, this strange interquel. I first tried to play it on PS2 via emulation, as the PS2 version was never released in Europe. I could barely reach the end of the tutorial at that time. Fast forward to 2018 when I completed my LP of Kingdom Hearts, I gave it another to. This time, I was able to beat the first world and two bosses, but got sidetracked in the next one. Fast forward to June 2020, I returned to that save and finally pushed myself to complete the game and the bonus quest at the end.

Still, the game frustrated me to no end. It could be the two-year hiatus between the tutorial and the game itself, but the game did not fo a good job of explaining the battle system. For the longest time, I was wondering why does my deck keep getting smaller, but it was because of using combos. Sleights was something completely unexplained, and it took me a long while to think of good way of using them. It's even more strange that some of the spellcards needed for the stronger sleights could be missed if you did not use certain cards in different worlds. Bosses hit hard for those unprepaired, so building your deck anew it very much needed in order to survive. Building a deck can take a long time if you are not into it.

Yes, everything about this game revolves around cards. You battle with cards, and generate rooms to the worlds you are exploring with cards. The story is all right, but nothing to write home about. The worlds, enemies and bosses you explore and fight are almost all recycled from the first part, and with this remake, even the music is the same. I lost my temper a few times during some of those bosses, as I just didn't understand what was going on. The music also starts from beginning every time you battle, so the beginning notes get tiresome very quickly. I have heard the game works a bit better on the GBA version, but I have not played it myself.

I can't really recommend this game, as it really takes some effort to get into it. I'll probably LP it some time in the future, but as of now, I'm glad it's done, and I don't have to return to it right away. Those figgin cards even came to my dreams a few times. And as far as I know, this is the only game in the series that features card-based combat.

 

[wa600]

For the longest time, I was wondering why does my deck keep getting smaller, but it was because of using combos.

I am 100% sure the game tells you this at the very beginning in a tutorial.

I played the game the first time on the 1.5 HD ReMix Collection. It felt a bit overwhelming, so I just stopped playing after half an hour. About a year later I came back and enjoyed the gameplay a lot. It took about 2 or 3 hours to groove into the game, but to me this gameplay of trying to counter the enemies cards and having to be fast was just fun.
I never did grind that much in that game and thought it was too easy, even on the hard difficulty. At least with Sora, you can easily build yourself a deck that will work on most bosses. And later, some sleights just destroy all the enemies. Riku was a lot harder because you could not edit your deck.. but it was fun trying to find strategies with a given deck.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

I'm not into games that require lots of preparation and equipping, so card-based games like this are not for me.
I dropped the GBA version very early, and I endured the HD version up to Atlantica before deciding to just watch the cutscenes on YT. The game isn't interesting, and going through all that tripe just to watch these cheesy cutscenes isn't worth the time. Especially in 2020, when all the interest I once had in KH has long since evaporated and everything Sora does looks, sounds, and feels incredibly stupid. I couldn't muster the energy to finish the game with Sora, let alone Riku, lol.

I also watched a speedrun and apparently there's an easy way to cheese bosses by spamming Fire combos (or Ice in selected cases, like Hades). You just have to spend an hour or so farming magic cards in the first worlds and then every boss is a cakewalk.