[Utada Hikaru] The 50th Thread of Utada Hikaru - First Love -15th Anniversary Edition- released 2014

[orangeakira]

^I agree. I don't know what it is, but I have 0 tolerance for hand held games. I just have no attention span, every other minute I find myself putting the game down and doing something else to take a breather. It has the same effect on me as reading while in a moving car. I think I only got through BBS because I'm such a hard core KH fan. lol I own a PSP and only have about 3 games for it. But the remasters are definitely worth it because it's not just higher graphics, it's Final Mix! New heartless, a new secret boss, new keyblades, new abilities, new cutscenes, the old heartless are recolored, for example the Trickmaster boss in Wonderland is now pink and green instead of black and red, and the guard armor boss in Traverse town is now Yellow, White, Red, and Blue instead of Purple. There's also trophies for all the games like all the other PS3 games. You can actually get silver and gold trophies just for watching the 358/2 Days cut scenes. haha Trust me I wouldn't have shelled out $40 if it was just for higher graphics. $40 isn't bad for 2 games and 3-hours worth of cinematic cut scenes for the third.

[mi|kshake]

We're on year four of hiatus right?

Whoooa, it actually doesn't feel that long! I think I'm just used to her being away.

[hayasaki]

Sakura Nagashi was released two years ago; it doesn't even feel like an old song to me LOL

[taskinillusion]

We have a Kingdom Hearts thread, too, guys FYI.

But yes, you need to play "Dream Drop Distance." It was really well done and is kind of like "KH3" in a sense. Y'all are missing out on so much stuff by not playing handhelds! :O

Honestly though, I don't see Hikki coming back anytime soon. Will be interesting to see if she makes an appearance to do KH3 though.

[orangeakira]

^I've tried keeping the Kingdom Hearts thread alive, but no one ever seems interested, there's more kingdom hearts talk in this thread than in the official thread.

EDIT: wow I just realized that Letters and the theme for Destiny Island sound really similar.

[NintendoHTF1242]

I stopped with Kingdom Hearts when Square did the whole "we're gonna release a game for every single video game system ever created in order for you to understand the story" but it's awesome they have those "Final Mixes". Goddamn it I wish I owned a PS3.

[orangeakira]

Originally Posted by NintendoHTF1242

I stopped with Kingdom Hearts when Square did the whole "we're gonna release a game for every single video game system ever created in order for you to understand the story" but it's awesome they have those "Final Mixes". Goddamn it I wish I owned a PS3.

It's not as bad as you think. You can play KH1, 2, and ReCom on the ps2. You can play DDD, recoded, and 358/2 days on a 3ds, and BBS on a PSP. So many acronyms lol. You (I'm assuming) own a ps2 which is how you can play the first three games, you just need a 3DS cause if you saw my post earlier you can use a free emulator to play Birth By Sleep on your phone or even on your computer if you're really strapped for cash. Just try and save up a bit of money and buy a PS3. Then you can play all the games (besides DDD) on the same system, and you'll be able to play all the final mixes too! You can get a 60GB PS3 for about $200, or about 3 Blu-Ray edition Ayumi Hamasaki Concerts. lol

[Tom Punks]

^ Seriously, lol, what a shortsighted business plan that was.

...I want to say they shot themselves in the foot, but lbr KH3 will still sell 90000000300000000000 copies sooo

[Tom Punks]

^ I mean, sure, it may not be as bad now with emulators and backwards-compatible systems but it's still downright ridiculous. A series with such a complex, flat out convoluted storyline should NEVER have been split across several different systems - especially not from two different companies. Especially when you consider how many of the spinoffs are really just filler content yet STILL absolutely necessary to even hope to understand the convoluted plot. I could never play them. I tried to play the spinoffs and I couldn't get into the plot - either because I hadn't played the other games in a couple of years or because I hadn't played the other necessary spinoffs - and it completely ruined the experience. I'll never buy another KH spinoff. I probably won't even get KH3 in large part due to how much they butchered storyline availability to anyone less than an absolute KH devotee. I'm sure the gameplay will be amazing and everything will be as magical and wonderful as the other main games but I feel like half the point of trying to play it is gone when I have absolutely 0 idea what's going on in the story anymore lol

...And this is coming from someone with all the systems necessary to play the entire series LOL so it's not /just/ the console issue for me but in large part just WTF were they thinking making the story so overwrought?

[ILoveGeniuses]

As far as KH goes we'll see. The ONLY reason there is a PS3 in my home is cause it belongs to my roommate. Not me. So does the XB360 & Wii. My consoles are mostly old ones like NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis & PS. Like I said I'm a retro gamer. I prefer the old games. I find em much more enjoyable and far more replayable than a very large majority of anything today. TBH, I've only ever played KH1&2 a couple times and not long enough to finish em. I used to sit around and watch my brother play.

Btw about Hikki, I think she may do the song for KH3. She's already done the theme song for each Evangelion movie and there's still the final 4th one left to come out next year.

[tenshi no hane]

KH3 is going to be released for PS4, right? You might as well skip PS3 and go straight for the PS4. Unless it's not backward compatible (I don't know).

Originally Posted by hayasaki

Sakura Nagashi was released two years ago; it doesn't even feel like an old song to me LOL

Two years already!? It still feels new to me, too

[emi♡]

lulz the only KH that really exists is the first one so gg.

[orangeakira]

^7 games is not bad compared to the final fantasy series. And they're all related. It's not like you're playing some side game with different characters doing their own thing. Everything leads back to the main storyline.

[Tom Punks]

^ But the Final Fantasy series, for the most part, is entirely separate stories, which means YOU DON'T NEED TO SPEND $239052305920 buying all the separate consoles and playing through the watered-down filler spin-offs just to even HOPE to understand the next main entry to the series. You need one console, one game, and you get the story for that installment.

In fact, I highly doubt anyone would gripe about KH having so many side games if they all had separate stories that didn't relate to the main storyline. But instead, they gave us 7 games over at least 3-5 different consoles that all have watered-down, filler game play but are all absolutely integral to understanding the storyline. You can't play one game without playing all of them. It's the fact that everything leads back to the main storyline that makes it such a mess and why so many people have given up on the series. So the argument that "everything leads back to the main storyline so Final Fantasy is somehow worse in the spin-off/side game department" makes 0 sense to me personally.

[orangeakira]

tl;dr version if you don't feel like reading below: I agree with you.

Originally Posted by Tom Punks

^ But the Final Fantasy series, for the most part, is entirely separate stories, which means YOU DON'T NEED TO SPEND $239052305920 buying all the separate consoles and playing through the watered-down filler spin-offs just to even HOPE to understand the next main entry to the series. You need one console, one game, and you get the story for that installment.

In fact, I highly doubt anyone would gripe about KH having so many side games if they all had separate stories that didn't relate to the main storyline. But instead, they gave us 7 games over at least 3-5 different consoles that all have watered-down, filler game play but are all absolutely integral to understanding the storyline. You can't play one game without playing all of them. It's the fact that everything leads back to the main storyline that makes it such a mess and why so many people have given up on the series. So the argument that "everything leads back to the main storyline so Final Fantasy is somehow worse in the spin-off/side game department" makes 0 sense to me personally.

I really hate arguing. My parents did enough of it in my life time to make me never want to confront anyone ever again. So I tried to make this sound as not rude as possible.

Sounds like you're taking this very personally. I'm guessing you're really upset about Kingdom Hearts? I mean you put a lot of effort to prove your point.

I understand how frustrating it is. You're preaching to the chorus here. I went out of my way to buy a PSP just to play one game only to find out I could have not wasted the money and just played it on my phone for free. I got a PSP right when BBS came out in 2010, and to this day I only bought two other games for it (Crisis core, and God of war ghost of sparta). I bought the 3 games at once and beat them all in a few months and as of now, the PSP has been collecting dust in my room for years.

I was even more pissed off when I found out that Birth By Sleep was originally meant for the PS2, but they decided to try it out on a hand held device. For conveniences sake it would have been so much better, and probably sold a lot more if it was still with the ps2 (or at the very least they gave you the option to buy it for psp or ps2)

But you know the past is in the past. What's done is done. Trust me if I had the chance I would have slapped Square Enix in the face and demanded that everything gets a PS2 only release. As I've said, you can now spend $80 and play ALL but one of the games on the same two disks for the same console. The games are kinda old now (The first came out 12 years ago) and it doesn't entirely make up for making me spend all this money but it could have been worse. At least they're trying to make up for it. They could have just done nothing at all.

As for the story-line. (I'm still kinda trying to figure it out myself. lol) I know I don't have any say in this since I'm a really hard KH fan. My opinion doesn't really matter. It's like trying to prove why Ayumi Hamasaki is the best singer in the world and telling someone you're her number 1 fan. But I gotta agree that its a mess. It's like they had all these wonderful ideas and did too many of them at once. The transition from the first to the second game is a fucking mess. They introduced too many new characters and storylines and places at once. I didn't play ReCom before I played KH2 and I was so lost it's not even funny. Then to make matters worse they add another side storyline to tie into the main storyline that takes place during the first side storyline. (358/2 Days paralleling ReCom)

EDIT:^That's really the only super difficult part to understand. BBS takes place 10 years before the first game and sets up the events. So that's pretty straight forward. Coded isn't important since it was originally a cellphone game. It's not really related to the main storyline. You don't need to play it or worry about it. Then there's DDD. After the events of KH2 Sora and Riku try to take on the challenge of becoming Keyblade Masters because they realize that apparently no one dies in the Kingdom Hearts series. Master Xehanort (From BBS) was split into two beings. The really powerful Heartless (ansem) you beat at the end of the first game, and the really powerful Nobody (xemnas) you beat at the end of the second game. When you defeat both parts of someone, they come back to life as their original human self so in DDD Riku and Sora are training and try to take on the keyblade challenge and become keyblade masters and getting ready to take on Master Xehanort in KH3.

[ahtka-chan]

You guys could do like me, play the main entries of the series and read on wikipedia about the other games. I ain't got no time, money or patience to spend on all those spin offs :/

[Zahara]

Originally Posted by ahtka-chan

You guys could do like me, play the main entries of the series and read on wikipedia about the other games. I ain't got no time, money or patience to spend on all those spin offs :/

That's pretty much what I plan on doing. I'm pretty up to date when it comes to the side games though, and I totally get why they had it on different hand held systems. Props for Square-Enix for doing that.

[Tom Punks]

^ lmao, right, I've tried to do that a couple times before but my eyes just turn inside out because it's sooo dry to read... +_+

[Tom Punks]

^ Eeep... I didn't mean to come off that strongly in my post, sorry. I was taken aback by the Final Fantasy comparison and probably got carried away. But nah, I'm not really upset about the mess the series turned into so much as I find it totally ridiculous, lmao. I wanted to like DDD so bad but I didn't "get" it and the whole "drop" mechanic gimmick thing got old reeeally quick. The only side story that looked worth playing was BBS and of course I can't play it legally since it's not in the PS Store...

sighs.

[orangeakira]

^Legally. hehe

I gotta say BBS is definitely my favorite game next to KH1 and 2. If I had to suggest to a friend to play any of the side games I'd go with that one. I don't even really consider it a spin off or side game cause it was originally going to be a major PS2 release. (I mean have you seen the intro video? They put too much effort into it for it to be an irrelevant game) It's too related to the main story line to not play. You definitely need to either play it or watch the cutscenes on youtube before attempting KH3.