Side Quest: Kingdom Hearts, Sora got Goku'd (Psynical, Kalixin, Violentpainter)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam to side Quest where we are gonna do a deep dive about Kingdom Hearts. The good, the bad. [00:00:38] Speaker B: Don't you mean the good, the bad and the worst meaning Kingdom Hearts three don't. [00:00:44] Speaker A: We're. We're getting ahead of ourselves here. But the. The. The subtitle for this episode is going to be called Sora Got Goku. [00:00:53] Speaker B: Sure did. [00:00:53] Speaker C: Can't wait for four. [00:00:55] Speaker A: I can't wait for SWORD to just start flying without needing to have any, any, any powers or anything just because he. He can believe. I wonder. Oh, doesn't he get like metroided like every single time too? [00:01:06] Speaker C: Metroided? [00:01:08] Speaker A: Yeah, where like you. You start the game with zero powers and you know, even if you have like a history, like you'll sometimes they'll even do it where like, they'll show you like all the powers and you'll have all the powers and then point in the game comes and then all those powers get taken away from you and then you have to get them back like piece by piece. Oh yeah, yeah. [00:01:26] Speaker B: He always restarts in some way. [00:01:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I think in Kingdom Hearts they don't do it like, they don't show you all the powers first. Like it's very gradual. It just starts from nothing and then. [00:01:37] Speaker C: You eventually surpass it later in the game. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:01:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Like, I think Kingdom Hearts 1 is probably a good place to start. I think Cal and I have talked about before how, you know, compared to some of the other titles in the. In the franchise, like, it's a lot clunkier than I. You know, even in like in 60 frames per second on like a PS4, like back then or even now on the PC because you can get it on Steam now, which took for fucking forever. And it just. It just feels a lot more clunky than some of the other titles. And I think that was. Wait, is my fucking Roomba going off right now? [00:02:20] Speaker C: Roomba talks to you? [00:02:21] Speaker A: Stop asking me for help. What was I fucking saying? [00:02:25] Speaker B: Oh yeah, Kingdom Hearts 1. Clunky. [00:02:27] Speaker A: Yeah, Kingdom Hearts 1 was pretty clunky, so comparatively. But yeah, I think it was still like a really great foundation. I think, you know, two does what most games aren't trying to do nowadays, which is basically just build upon it. But starting with Kingdom Hearts 1, I like to think about some of the moments that like, that I really enjoyed. We don't have to necessarily be like chronological about it. Like, I don't give a. Yeah, but I think something that sticks out to me was like going to Merlin's Castle the first Time. Yeah, because you had to, like, use the fire door to get in. And I didn't know what the. Like, I was a dumb kid. Like, I had no clue what anything was. Like, what's context? And it was like, this. This door is cool. It's. What is this fire symbol door, dude. Like, I wonder if I'll find out one day. It took me way too long as a kid to figure out what the fuck that was. And I was stuck for a long time because of it. I was, like, overpowered. [00:03:23] Speaker B: The Trinity symbols is what, like, confused me. I was. I kept seeing them, like, how do I deal with these? And I. It took me a long time to realize, like, how to work them, or maybe it was to get the ability to work them. It's been so long since I played it. But, yeah, there was just going to all the different worlds and seeing everything for the first time. And it's. It was, you know, linear, but it felt very fun to explore what they gave you to explore. So it never felt like the railroad. Never felt like it wasn't scenic or, like, fun. Yeah. I will say what you said about movement, though. Yeah, it didn't age well. It's the clunkiness, I believe comes from. It's almost too tight. Like, you tell it to do something and it, like, does it so fast in such a jerky motion that it's like all the games after that are much more floaty with how things work. And there's, like, more forgiveness about getting onto a ledge or barely missing something or be like, correct yourself in the air. You jump, and you jump a very fixed, specific distance in a specific way. On Kingdom Hearts one, I noticed compared to two. [00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And it makes me think about, like. Like the way that it was designed. It was probably designed, like, to where it made you finish the animations for each attack before you could do the next one. Yeah, that's. I think that's what ended up happening. And that, because. And two, you can literally restart flipping your two keyblades around while you're floating in the air and you don't really know what the fuck. Like, that's. There's a charm to that. But you. At some points, like, if you looked at it and try to analyze it, you don't really know what the going on. Like, what Sora is doing. He's just, like, floating and the blades are spinning, like. [00:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah, two is good for button mashing and something required some level strategy. But there was definitely a lot more, like, definitely way more comboing and just Nonsensical. Check out this power creep into this power creep into this power creep. As opposed to. I think one was more methodical. Just simpler system really. I think is why. [00:05:46] Speaker A: Oh my God. Is Kingdom Hearts 1 the Dark Souls of Kingdom Hearts? [00:05:54] Speaker B: No, because the dark souls of Kingdom Hearts is three. Because it's the Dark Ages. Oh, we're not there yet. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Sorry. Not there yet. [00:06:00] Speaker C: And the hardest to get through. [00:06:06] Speaker B: Yes, sir. [00:06:10] Speaker A: We'Re not there yet. So I guess we can just stick with like 1 and 2 and just flip flop between them. [00:06:19] Speaker C: How do you want to get to two? It's such a. Yeah, it's just such. [00:06:22] Speaker A: A good game, dude. Just compare like, let's. Let's maybe. Maybe we can try to glean some sort of like, summary of a story for Kingdom Hearts one to the best of our ability. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I got this. Hold on. I got this. [00:06:38] Speaker A: Okay, I'll let you take the floor. [00:06:40] Speaker B: Light. Darkness. Light. Darkness. Dark. Night. Darkness. Riku Kairi. Darkness. Light. [00:06:46] Speaker A: There we go. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Oh, that's true, goofy. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Oh, you almost forgot. Kingdom Hearts is light. What? [00:06:53] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:06:56] Speaker B: I mean, I don't know. The story in that is just very much. A boy's world is destroyed. He's destined in some way. Don't know why, because we haven't played the chronological nightmare that has the rest of the games. But yeah, whisked away to unknown world, wants to get his old world back, old friends back, and you know, say, what was his meeting new friends along the way, new allies, gaining new powers. Just almost like kind of a coming to age story where he just wants. He wants to go back to his island. That. I think that's pretty. In simplest terms, that's what it is. Outside of all the darkness, light, darkness, light, whatever. It's just good versus bad for the most part. [00:07:44] Speaker A: Yeah. It sounds to me like a classic case of like, the grass is always greener. [00:07:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:51] Speaker A: And I think everyone there was always like, man, I wonder what other worlds are. And they always use the word worlds. Like other worlds are like. And it's just like, whoa. Yeah, I wish I was in a different dimension too. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Kid, you're nine. Titus, get back to throwing your stick. You stop talking about this. What do. What do you mean? What's my greatest fear? [00:08:17] Speaker A: What did they straight up ask you? [00:08:20] Speaker B: Yes. When you're very beginning, like one of. [00:08:24] Speaker A: Them'S like getting old and it's like, Jesus Christ. [00:08:29] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and also depending on your answer, sometimes they would give you like. They dismiss what you would say. You'd say, getting old or like getting old. That's not scary. It's like, oh, yeah, you're right. My fears are unfounded. Thank you. [00:08:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Way. Way to deny my. You're not letting me live my truth dog. It's a pretty old. [00:08:49] Speaker B: Apparently that had some way of determining how hard the game was going to be too. Like, you had. Like, you could figure it out by looking up a guide, but depending on your answers, determine, like, how certain things would happen in the game. Or scaling. Like what? Like sword, shield or magic wand. You picked and got rid of. [00:09:12] Speaker A: True. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Which really. That game was really the merrier fight of our childhood, pretty much. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Because, like, you could have like high magic and high attack, but you would have low defense, so you would just get your shit wrecked. You're a glass cannon. [00:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I always took. I think I took magic most of the time. And I threw out the shield. I know I was a brute. [00:09:42] Speaker A: So I always got the attack and the defense because, like, I was always just swinging. I hardly ever use magic except when. When I play play it more recently, I use a lot of magic. But back then I didn't use a lot of magic at all. I was just like swinging. [00:09:57] Speaker B: I was always 50, 50. Until I realized how broken magic was as an adult. Like, reflect in the second game is right. It's just game breaking especially. [00:10:07] Speaker A: I think there's a. There's the fight with the Ice Titan that you get, and you have to use block. And before then, I only rolled, so I didn't really know how to time like a block or anything like that. So for the longest time, I never knew how to be the Ice Titan because you have to. There's like one specific attack that you have to. That he does that you have to block specifically. And it's like this huge attack where he like slams his fist into you or something like that. And. But it leaves him wide open to like a whole bunch of shit. So it's. It's nice to do that, but if you don't, then you get your shit wrecked. So those are the fights that make like Kill Kingdom Hearts. Interesting though, is like, all the secret battles, all the. I think the Coliseum is fair to say it's like, really fun. I think. Yeah, you. [00:10:55] Speaker B: You'd go back to a planet and go like, what is this new door? Or what's this new cutscene or npc. Why is this guy staring out at the horizon? Who is he? Oh, it's Sephiroth. And I'm dead now. Okay. [00:11:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, who the is that? And those Are, you know, some of the toughest bosses that you can, like, even at level 99. I mean, it's definitely a lot easier at level 99, but, like, at the same time, facing that boss just requires a large amount of dedication to, like, the movement and, like, being able to dodge everything and learning his attacks, like, directly. It was one of the first, like, real challenges that you're kind of, like, given in that way where it's. It's more of a provocative, like, kind of battle where, you know, you're encouraged to go after him, but if you get too close, he's just gonna fuck you up. So you have to time it, like, so specifically. The thing from fucking Zelda. It's one of the only other things that I can think of before games like Kingdom Hearts that had more provocative combat, where there's an equal amount of risk, basically. Or in Sephiroth's case, you are definitely at a greater risk, which is. It's pretty uncommon unless you play the game on, like, the hardest difficulty. That's kind of how I look at that. But I think some of my favorite levels in Kingdom Hearts 1, I'll go ahead and start there. I'll probably say, like, especially as a kid, I think the main reason I bought Kingdom Hearts one was to play the Nightmare Before Christmas level. Yeah. I always. I always wanted to, like, interact with Jack Skellington in some way or, like, just be part of that world. Because I love that, like, outfit was awesome, dude. Yeah. The costume changes. Yeah. So cool. Like, especially, like, Donald as a mummy. Oh, yeah. And all their portraits look, like, hard. Except for Sora, because he's, like, smiling still. But, like, Donald and Gooby look twisted. Twisted. [00:13:02] Speaker B: I liked all the worlds. I think Neverland didn't really stick with me. I wasn't a big fan of the flying around and stuff like that too much. But I really. I really just like the beginning. Just all the stained glass art of all the princesses. That was really cool. [00:13:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:17] Speaker B: Right into Destiny island, which is this, like, quaint little island where it's just peaceful and you're just sparring with your friends and then Traverse town. The music like that. Oh, I love. I still play that just randomly, just to, like, calm myself down or just have a peaceful time. I love Traverse Town. The look of it. I mean, all the Disney worlds were great. Like, don't get me wrong, but just, like, the very first few unique places were amazing. It's. And very creative. So good. And coming back to the Coliseum for new fights every few worlds just oh, man, it was. It was good times. [00:13:57] Speaker A: Best way to grind as well. Yeah, like, you lost out on a lot of money, but you would level up quick and that was worth it. But the only other thing that really sucks about that is that if you had spent that time, like, if you. If you only did the Coliseum for what you needed to, and then you spent the rest of that time, like, basically grinding in other worlds for, like, resources and, like, crafting items and shit, you would get the Ultima Sword so early. But the. Because you have to, like, level up to face a lot of the challenges, it's just easier to do that until, like, level 80 and then go grind for fucking crafting items to build the Ultima Sword. And I'm going to read the first to admit right now, I still haven't done that. Like, personally, I've been meaning to. That's. I. I've been re. I was replaying it for, like, a while back. Now that I think about it. I feel like it was like March when I was replaying one and I was trying to. I want. I really wanted to, like, 100 everything. I got to, like, Hollow Bastion a little bit after that, and I think I'm, like, right before the end of the game, actually. But now I'm trying to get the Ultima Sword now, and it's. It's so difficult for me to, like, have to figure out, like, which monsters have this. And it's only if they spawn in this arrangement. And like. Like, you have to look up a guide if you actually want that. But I know. I know a friend that blew through it and. And was able to get that, like, pretty easily. And I remember seeing it and I was just like, damn. It's like, this is straight up the best sword in the game. Like, God damn. [00:15:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I went all out in two to get everything in one. I just. And I was. When I was younger, when I first played one, I just played to play like any kid would. Got through with it, done with it, and onto two and played two a lot more. I don't remember. I've never been. Once I beat a game, I don't usually see a point of going back and getting all the best equipment when, like, the best equipment's harder to get just because you have to grind it, even though you already beat all the challenges in the game without it. I've always thought that was kind of weird. [00:16:08] Speaker A: Two. [00:16:09] Speaker B: Especially two Remix. Oh, man. I went hard. I went for every achievement. I went back out everything because there was a Lot of post end game stuff that you kind of needed. All the best of the best. Like you needed the like Silver Final Four. I can't remember what it's called. [00:16:24] Speaker A: I know what you're talking. [00:16:25] Speaker B: Then you needed Master Form, I think it was called. You needed that. You needed the two best keyblades because like the hidden fights of the organization 13 members, like their upgraded versions, they were not. They weren't around. Like you needed to know your stuff and come in prepped and lingering. Will, you don't have Ultima. That guy spanks you. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Yeah, dude, man. I've only fought that guy like a couple of times because my friend had him on his like save file on like an emulator and I couldn't. I could hardly touch that fool. I reached the. The mysterious guy like in. In Kingdom Hearts one in Hollow Bastion. I still haven't been. I'm like, I'm gonna. I'm just gonna come back when I'm stronger. Like I just have to go grind and get the sword and all that. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I beat all the hardest fights, but it took a very long time for sure. [00:17:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Two. This time when I get to two, I. I haven't fought a lot of those bosses. Like all of the organization 13 members that you get to fight into. I never. Except for the ones that were in like the base game. I didn't get to fight those other ones. So that's what I'm pretty excited for because I'm definitely gonna get like Master form like as soon as possible. Especially like I remember like doing near like the end of the game and back when I was a kid, of course, but like the end of the game where you, you would be like right at the boss and then you would have trouble with some of these other bosses and then just going back and instead of just like leveling up your forms which would give you like different powers, like one would give you like magic boosts, one would give you like attack boost, one would give you speed boost. But Master was like the best of all worlds. So. Yeah, so much so that you would like get. You would start floating and like your movement was greatly increased. [00:18:22] Speaker B: You like ascended. Literally, like just became a God, essentially. [00:18:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it's literally just like a short form God mode almost. Except I mean you can still die. And then there's also that one extra form where like it was like once every eight times or so. Once every four times, I think. [00:18:37] Speaker B: Like the Darkness form. [00:18:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And you're just like, yeah, you. You can do a lot of damage, but you take a lot of damage. [00:18:46] Speaker B: So yeah, you're all in their face and it's not as floaty, it's just. It's much more dangerous. But I just remember you'd have to like, you could essentially be super, super powered for the first bit of the fight between forms and magic and everything. Once you ran out of resources, you're like either gotta use items or rely your allies to heal you and stuff or get your drive back up. There was resource management in that game and like you have to juggle your forms on long fights. Like lingering will is like a solid like, I think it's like a seven or eight minute fight. So yeah, you're. You're not just being a God the whole time. So that's. That's something I loved about that game. And some of the bigger fights, you could just use an attraction to kill everything every time. What game was that that you could do that in? [00:19:31] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I just did. Not feel challenged. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Nope. [00:19:36] Speaker C: And the story felt we. [00:19:38] Speaker A: Are you talking about Kingdom Hearts 2 right now? [00:19:40] Speaker C: Actually, no. [00:19:42] Speaker B: I mean 3. Is that what I was talking about too. [00:19:44] Speaker A: Wait. [00:19:45] Speaker C: Yeah, I think so. [00:19:46] Speaker A: Guys. [00:19:46] Speaker B: Terrible game, by the way. [00:19:48] Speaker A: Guys, we'll. We'll have our fun. We'll have our fun. [00:19:52] Speaker C: All right. [00:19:52] Speaker B: Oh yeah. We're not there yet. [00:19:54] Speaker C: We're not there yet. We're not there yet. I loved all the forms. They were really cool. All the keyblades looked awesome. I loved using different keyblades. [00:20:03] Speaker A: Okay, what was a shortcoming of two? What would you say was a shortcoming. [00:20:12] Speaker C: Overshadowed one and three? Let those games have some of the spotlight. Damn it. [00:20:18] Speaker A: A little selfish for the spotlight, right? [00:20:20] Speaker C: Yeah, selfish. [00:20:22] Speaker A: Did you guys enjoy all of the gummy ship missions? [00:20:26] Speaker B: Oh, dude, Gummy ship is so freaking cool. And that is the one good thing about Kingdom Hearts 3. But yeah, like built two built on that so well. I loved just having a big wall, just a one by like 50 wall of blocks that just is all guns in the front. I can't see the front of the ship. All I know is there's a ton of lasers going out and beating the shit out of everything in front of me. It was so cool, so fun. [00:20:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I loved stacking guns on top of each other. As many as you could. I wish they didn't have a limit. Like I don't think there was. I don't think there was a limit in one. Wasn't there a limit in two or three or something like that? [00:21:05] Speaker C: I don't remember. [00:21:05] Speaker B: It was pretty generous because There was ways to upgrade. Like, they're like secrets you can get to make your gummy ship, like, bigger and stuff. [00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's true. Yeah. I feel like the max for me then was like, six guns. So, like, you could have any six type of guns, you know, like, you have six heavy guns, six medium guns. But I would usually mix range with. With like, power. Like, the closer that you got to me, like, the more damage I would be doing. So I'd start with light, and that would travel the farthest the medium would travel, you know, medium range. And then by the time the heavies would be around, like, you're probably either already dead, but if you're not, then you're gonna be like, it's just inevitable. But I. I liked. I like the gummy ship aspect of just, like, using it just, like, as a player, just because it's the closest thing to me that. That, like Star Fox was. And that's kind of not even a fair comparison because, like, Star Fox, I feel like, is just way more cinematic and way more engrossing. But it was the closest thing that you had, especially after the N64 era. Like, we didn't get too many of those games. [00:22:15] Speaker B: Flaw problem. I'm gonna say it and you're gonna immediately all agree and go like, oh, yeah, I forgot about that because you buried it. Atlantica. [00:22:30] Speaker C: No. [00:22:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I would say, yeah, I didn't like that. It does take a lot of time too. [00:22:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I remember it a lot of time because it was so long. [00:22:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like all of our voices going down. [00:22:48] Speaker C: This is the time to bring the energy down. [00:22:50] Speaker A: Atlantica. [00:22:51] Speaker C: Atlantica. [00:22:52] Speaker B: Music. And I had to go back there. I remember reading a comment on. I think it was like Reddit or something, and someone said, like, the devs were like, basically with us because people complained about water combat in the first game. So, like, all right, you don't have to do combat. [00:23:09] Speaker A: The second. [00:23:12] Speaker B: Musicals. Awful. [00:23:16] Speaker A: Which. Which, you know, is crazy because, like, if you think about it, they kind of had the. The swimming combat already down. It just wasn't considered swimming. I think it was considered flying. I think they should have made it more like that. And. And they do to a certain extent, but it's definitely not as fluid. And it. I. I feel like that's the reason why the. The. The Atlantis in the first game is. Is kind of looked down upon for its combat. [00:23:45] Speaker B: It's. [00:23:45] Speaker A: It is, you know, the same thing with the rest of the game. Every attack, every swinging has to finish before you can hit the next one. So they could have easily fixed that. So that I agree is what I'm saying is that they probably were just fucking with you. But that's just how I'm. [00:24:06] Speaker C: I love the. I was gonna say beast companion, but that was back. Back in one. Just a side note, I love Beast as a companion. [00:24:14] Speaker A: Wasn't he in too? I thought he was. I'm pretty sure he was in two. [00:24:20] Speaker C: He probably is. I forget when. [00:24:22] Speaker B: Which one. [00:24:24] Speaker A: Beast in Kingdom Hearts 2. Was that a thing? [00:24:28] Speaker B: I forget. [00:24:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So he plays a major role in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2 as an ally to Sword and his friends. [00:24:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:24:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:35] Speaker B: You fight the Blade. The guy with like, all the wind blades. I can't. I mean, I can't remember the name. I know they all have X's in organization 13. Yeah, the. The. You are about to leave the. The world and you go out to the bridge and you fight the guy that has all kinds of wind blades and stuff like that. [00:24:53] Speaker A: I can't remember their names either. Dude. I know they all have an ex. [00:24:57] Speaker B: But I mean, there's Zarya, there's. Oh, Zaldin name. Zeha Nor. I mean, they just. I mean. [00:25:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:25:11] Speaker B: Just hard. [00:25:12] Speaker A: It follows a theme. Okay. Okay. [00:25:15] Speaker B: Well, I liked how all their names were anagrams with an X added in of their base names. That was kind of cool. Birth by Sleep. [00:25:30] Speaker A: See. Oh, and. And that's something that I'll. I'll go ahead and admit right now too. I. I feel like I touched Birth by Sleep, but I never finished it by any means. I feel like maybe I got like. Like three hours, maybe into Birth by Sleep. But I did Watch all of.350. 8 1/2 days, I think is what it was. I don't know. And whenever I like sparked that game up, I was like, damn. There's no way that this whole game is just something that you watch. But apparently it was pretty different on the original release. So that's. I think that's why I was like, insanely surprised about it. [00:26:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's something all of us are probably gonna have to like when we're talking about each game. We probably haven't played every single game all the way through. And a lot of us only had access to it after it was remade and whatnot. Like, I'm pretty sure we already talked enough about Kingdom Hearts. Like, one, I mean two. I think most people just agree it's the best. It's well done. You can't find a lot of flaws in it, the forms were cool. The transformations. The story was getting more complex, but was still like, manageable. Yeah, everybody has two halves basically. And this organization is one half and they're going for Kingdom Hearts. It's still. You still wrap your head around it. [00:26:58] Speaker A: Even. [00:26:58] Speaker B: Even as a kid, I wasn't confused. [00:27:00] Speaker A: What is Kingdom Hearts? [00:27:03] Speaker B: It's like a moon or something. World that ever was super cool world. [00:27:10] Speaker A: Love. [00:27:10] Speaker B: The aesthetic makes no sense, but. Because it never was there. But it's cool. [00:27:15] Speaker A: Yeah. It's like the land Before Time. A time before time. Yeah. [00:27:20] Speaker C: So vague phrases. [00:27:23] Speaker B: Anything else to say about Kingdom Hearts 2? [00:27:27] Speaker A: I think. I think playing that final battle with Riku was cool. I think that was a really good like, story beat that. That really solidified like that for me was like, yes, like we're beating the. Out of. I was gonna say Salem. Handsome. [00:27:48] Speaker C: Handsome. [00:27:50] Speaker A: Handsome. Handsome. [00:27:52] Speaker B: Yeah. There was a lot of moments I was just yelling at my screen, like, like emotional, like happy and like really. [00:27:57] Speaker A: Into what not so especially like whenever one of them gets like knocked down and you. And you just start playing as Riku and you're like, like. And then you play as riku for like 10 seconds. And the weirdest part is, is that like, if you. If you. Man, they. I don't know why they didn't do this, but like, they fleshed him out. They gave him a completely different moveset and you just. You can only use it for those like 20 or 30 seconds. And it's. It's kind of crazy to me. Like, you could have easily integrated a co op mode into Kingdom Hearts and it would have been like one of the top 10 games of all time. [00:28:33] Speaker B: Like, for real. [00:28:35] Speaker A: I'm so serious. Like, you had. What the fuck. Square has, I think, has always been known for like making some weird decisions. But I think like, the reason why Kingdom Hearts is just so memorable to a lot of people is because there's a lot of. A lot of weird decisions that were made in that game from the story, from the mechanics, and like, even down to just like mixing Final Fantasy characters, characters with Disney characters. Like, no one thought of that except for some guy in an elevator one day. [00:29:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that. That lived with like, they're. It was Square and Disney. They had. They each had one office somewhere that they shared. And then they. Two executives just pass it on to each other. And then we just have this weird thing now. [00:29:16] Speaker C: It's so weird. [00:29:17] Speaker A: It's. It's delightfully weird. Yeah, it's. But it's also okay now. And I'll say this too. It's like, I love Kingdom Hearts. Painter is the only one that has ever seen me, like, actually play Kingdom Hearts. And that's because I feel like if. If you're like, playing Kingdom Hearts and then like, someone like, walks in. Like, someone that you like. Someone that's like, not your close friend, right? Yeah. And they walk in and. And so is like, Riku. [00:29:44] Speaker C: You see Donald Duck and Goofy walking around. [00:29:47] Speaker A: It's just like, what the fuck are you doing? It's like, it was like the first time I tried showing my. My sister's friends when I was a kid. Like, my Pokemon cards. They're like, what the are these Pokemon cards, dude? Like, they're like, trying to act cool and. But it's like at the same time, it's like when you look back at it and you watch it and you're just like, what the fuck? [00:30:07] Speaker B: Well, it's just like you're watching anime and it's like all action and fighting and cool. And then the one scene comes up where the girl's like, oh, yeah. And her like, like fan service tits are out. And then your mom walks and it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. [00:30:22] Speaker C: Yeah, it's not what I'm watching. [00:30:24] Speaker B: It's just this part watching for the plot. [00:30:27] Speaker A: Mom, I swear that represents you. Are you Sora? Do you relate to Sora? Are your feet big like his? [00:30:37] Speaker B: Dude, that's an art thing. Yeah. The shoe size in those games was nuts. They toned it down two. A little bit and worn three. But one. What the hell? [00:30:48] Speaker A: Okay, but isn't Sora the only one with, like, huge feet? Doesn't. Doesn't like, Riku and Kairi have, like, more normal size? [00:30:55] Speaker B: No, they're big too. Not as big, but they're big. [00:30:59] Speaker A: I mean, I feel like, okay. I feel like Sora is wearing, like, Goofy's shoes when he's, like, walking around. Like, they're like, big. They're like Pac man shoes. They're big fucking Pac man shoes. Except they're yellow. [00:31:14] Speaker C: So the only time we see Sora's feet is in the preview for four. [00:31:19] Speaker A: What? That's right. [00:31:22] Speaker C: I just looked it up. I did look up Sora's feet. Now it's in my search history. [00:31:26] Speaker B: It's like, you have to set your computer on fire now. I don't know, man. [00:31:29] Speaker C: That's true. [00:31:30] Speaker B: Kind of cooked. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Yeah. That's so crazy. [00:31:34] Speaker C: It's over for me. [00:31:37] Speaker A: What did you guys think of the preview? 4. 4. I guess it's like a Teaser more than anything. [00:31:43] Speaker B: I thought it was cool, looked cool, but I'm just so out of. I don't know if someone. If everyone starts playing it and they're like, oh my God, they fixed all the issues from three and the story made sense. I can't even say that straight. Just like, maybe I'll. [00:32:02] Speaker A: I don't know. Good. [00:32:04] Speaker B: Maybe I'll. I'll just like plow my head into three and figure it out and finish it. But I don't know. I'm so far removed from Kingdom Hearts at this point. That was. That was like seven year. The amount of time it took to even get three and how disappointed I was. That was seven years ago and I'm still pissed. [00:32:25] Speaker A: I was gonna say, I wonder like, if Kingdom Hearts 3 had come out like two years after Kingdom Hearts 2, would it still be a good game? [00:32:34] Speaker C: Oh no. [00:32:35] Speaker B: I think they needed a lot of the in betweens to fix this. Well, did they though? Did they really? I don't think they did. I think they actually over complicated without all those games. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I think if they just. I'm pretty sure they lost money on that franchise because of all those side games. Yeah. [00:32:50] Speaker B: If they were just released like a year or two after, just like they did one and two, yeah, I think it would have been way better. [00:32:58] Speaker A: They. [00:32:59] Speaker B: They kind of shot themselves. They. They wrote themselves into a weird ass corner with all the in between games that were all hit or miss and. [00:33:08] Speaker A: And on different systems, on completely different systems for different companies, you know, like, what the fuck is Chain of Memories, dude? Yeah, that's like that has to be one of the worst games I've ever played. I'm sorry, I never played it. It's. I like that was. I got like. Like more than halfway through it and then I remember talking to one of my friends about it and they were like, oh yeah, you can just watch all the scenes on YouTube. [00:33:36] Speaker B: Are you talking about Chain of Memories or re. Chain of Memories. [00:33:39] Speaker A: I'm talking about the one that came with the remix for like on the all in one. [00:33:43] Speaker B: So. So apparently I never played the original and I kind of wish I got to because apparently it was actually good because it was like a card game for like the handheld. It was actually like, you know, it was good on what it came out for and I still can't believe that because like the. [00:34:04] Speaker A: The cards are so frustrating and limiting and it completely like, I understand like what they were trying to do with it. Like it kind of. It makes Kingdom Hearts a game where you think a little bit more. But I think that's the kind of thing that just like you're not going to be able to branch out into something like that. And that's such a different system too, especially for the time. And like I'll be it like innovative, I guess, in a way, like for the time, but I don't know. Like. And this is completely coming from someone that didn't play the original. And I also wish I got to because maybe I'll have different feelings about it. But if it's anything like what I played in Retain of Memories, then that it's not. [00:34:48] Speaker B: It's literally more of a strategy card game. It's way, way different. It makes sense. They tried to make it work in a action like RPG thing where it's like more real time and it just did not translate well. And apparently the story was cool too. You like battled through this awesome castle where you're slowly losing your memories. It just. It all sounds awesome to me and I was so excited to play it. But I started playing re Chain of Memories and I was like, wow, this is. I. I was so hyped because I heard so many good things about the original Chain of Memories and it's apparently just nothing like it. It's really bad. [00:35:29] Speaker A: For those who don't know, the. The basic gameplay loop in Chain of Memories is that you're. You're Sora. You play as Sora just like in One. So it's basically modeled after One. The remake is a rechain of Memories and you have this combat system which is drastically different than what was in One or in any of the other games really, which I find to be needlessly complicated. And it kind of just detracts from like the. The overall movement and the action that you're supposed to get from playing Kingdom Hearts. I think it slows it down by a ton. And I don't even think that it's because like whether you're good with numbers or bad with numbers or bad at card games and things like that, I just feel like it slows down the experiment experience like to such a degree that like it's. It's a slog to get through. And every single fight is like, it's. It's not even fun. It's a chore. Like, oh my God, now I have to. And they also teach you like how to like build your deck to make it where you don't. Where it's not as slow, but in the end, like you're never going to be any faster than what you were in one like at the absolute best scenario where you're just able to slam a the entire time. Um cause you can make it that way. But I don't think I didn't find it to be like any sort of a satisfying experience and I really tried cause I was like I really wanted to beat it. [00:36:53] Speaker B: So to add to that Birth by Sleep you hadn't played that much which I think might be part of it. Birth by Sleep also had like a deck builder sort of thing for your abilities and whatnot. But it was so fluid and it worked perfectly in combat. It was one of the best. It was such a good combat system. I loved how they did Birth by Sleep and it was different than 2 and 1. And I feel like they kind of tried to style re Chain of Memory Memories after that because it was the closest to a card game. Like it's super loose comparison. But yeah, I, I, I really think you should play Birth by Sleep because you'll see that system done a hundred percent right. [00:37:39] Speaker A: Okay. I mean definitely like something that I want to do. I not I didn't stop for like any particular reason. I think I just like ended up doing something else. But I didn't hate birthplace sleep. I just didn't get through it. Um, I'll definitely revisit it. I just, I want to beat the shit out of one. I want to beat the out of two and then I probably am never gonna be Chain of Memories. It's just, it's just too much. And then I do want to play Birth by Sleep because I want to do get like the full context of whatever's talking like everyone's talking about like story wise because I always did kind of feel left out. I also don't blame myself. Yeah because because of the way that it was spread out so the story I mean through like different consoles and stuff. So I, I don't feel that bad about it. But at the same time I feel like if you're going to be modernizing a game and you're going to be rereleasing it, you should have found a way to make it more fluid. And I think they missed their opportunity with Retain of Memories especially you know like because it's in 3D and especially like it was after like way after Kingdom Hearts one is whenever they did the remake. I don't know like I, I think anyone, everyone should try it. Everyone should definitely try it. I'm not going to say not to play it but just if you want to be critical about it you'll Okay. I did kind of lose my Train of Thought. [00:39:05] Speaker C: That sounds like a title of a Kingdom Hearts game. [00:39:11] Speaker A: Trains in Kingdom Hearts. [00:39:12] Speaker C: Train of Thought. [00:39:14] Speaker A: The Train of Memories. [00:39:16] Speaker C: The Train of Memories. [00:39:18] Speaker B: You said you were, you weren't. You didn't stop playing for any reason. You just got busy with other stuff. [00:39:22] Speaker A: And you would rev. [00:39:23] Speaker B: Revisit chain of memories 3D space. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So basically I just, I just feel like with so much time having moved ahead for China, like since the original game of Chain of Memories, between the remake and especially having to convert it into a 3D, you know, game, which I'm sure wasn't easy, you know, like, I, I do give them credit for that, but at the same time, when you have a budget like you do for, for Kingdom Arts and, and, and I'll take being ignorant on like how much was spent creating the remake. It's. I feel like you still should have had the design down or at least refined to a point where like every other player would be able to enjoy it. Especially because it's. This isn't. You don't want to create such a niche game like that in a series that does so many things for your fans, in my opinion. Another example of that would probably be like the Metal Gear. Like there was like a PSP game like Peace. Peace Walker, I think. I'm not talking about it because I didn't even play it, but I know that it was supposed to be like, supposedly like drastically different. So I don't really have like an opinion on it, but I do know that and I would be curious if you, if anyone wants to share their comments, audience or us about like how that game went for them or anything like that. But you know, when you have such an experienced team and everyone in that team knows what Kingdom Hearts feels like, I just don't see how it would be that difficult to translate it. But I didn't play Birth by Sleep. I, I, I got like, I feel like three quarters of the way through Chain of Memories, you see how that number is going up. But yeah, I don't know anything else by about like Birth by Sleep though. [00:41:03] Speaker C: Never played it. [00:41:05] Speaker B: I just feel left out. [00:41:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:09] Speaker B: I, I have a special place, my heart for it because I like the characters. I like that it was way before Kingdom Hearts and gave us like lore essentially like a grounding point for it that still was kind of making sense. And the Keyblade armor was really cool. Just the way Keyblade wars worked, like all the lore behind that. It was just a really good, it was fun to deep dive into all the information. And I really. I mean, xehanort eventually becoming 13 of himself. That's. The time traveling stuff pisses me off. But just if. If they could have just kept it streamlined and just one timeline, I think Kingdom Hearts could have been so much cooler and easier to understand. Because what's so bad about a big bad Getting an organization together out of, like, halves of, like, the bad halves of people and stuff like that, and everybody having two halves to themselves, to their soul. Like, what was so difficult to understand about that and having this Kingdom Hearts being some obscure thing everybody's chasing, almost like a philosopher's stone. Was that really such a bad storyline now? Why do we have to start time traveling and then having, like, different versions of what a nobody is? And. Yeah, whatever. I just. Either way, Back to Earth by Sleep. Really cool foundation, really cool lore, awesome battle system. And as one of my favorite genres for movies and stuff are anthologies where the story. It shows you bits of all the different stories and how they overlap through the whole movie. And it all kind of comes to a head at the end where you see how it all ties together for the finale. I love that. I think it takes a lot of planning to do stuff like that. And that that game is that because each character you play, you see how their journey is influencing the other character's journey and what might have happened in the world before your character got there because of another character getting there. So, yeah, it's really, really good. And yeah, each character had, like, its own boss fight and like it was own mini story. The worlds were cool. But, yeah, that's pretty much all I got to say about Birth by Sleep. But I definitely feel like I. I'm obviously the one that played the whole thing, so that's all I got to say about that. [00:43:43] Speaker A: I mean, sounds like you recommend it. [00:43:46] Speaker B: It's. I would say. I mean, Kingdom Hearts 2 is my favorite for sure. And Birth by Sleeping is very, very much by far the closest second out of all the different Kingdom Hearts games, which I think we've talked about most of them. We talked about one, Chain of Memories two and Birth by Sleep. Anybody play Coded? [00:44:10] Speaker A: No. No. [00:44:12] Speaker B: Okay. That was a mobile phone game. [00:44:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Did they hide, like, essential lore behind that, too? [00:44:26] Speaker B: So that was. [00:44:29] Speaker A: I think I remember hearing something about that. [00:44:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Let me remember here. There. Coded was a code. Was an actual game, like a. Like a whatchamacallit. Was a multiplayer, a mass multiplayer. It was an actual game. Everything's like a digital world sort of thing for Kingdom Hearts. I never played it. I watched all the cut scenes for it, though. [00:44:54] Speaker A: Not the one, but the cheap. [00:44:55] Speaker B: It was a very puzzle heavy game. Yeah, it was their puzzle game which. Have you noticed every Kingdom Hearts game has its own thing, kind of chain of memories. Is their card game coded? Is their puzzle game like that? But no, Kingdom Hearts Mobile. I think it was just called Kingdom Hearts Mobile. That was their mobile game where they had the essential lore, which is like the Keyblade War. Like the beginning. Beginning of the Keyblades is where that was hidden behind. [00:45:24] Speaker A: Hmm. [00:45:25] Speaker B: I think it was mobile. Oh, Kingdom Hearts. Union Cross. That's what it was called. [00:45:32] Speaker A: Union Cross. That rings a bell. [00:45:35] Speaker B: I played it. Cool game, but holy monetization and lack of support. I quit playing very quickly. I didn't spend any money on it. But man, I looked up all the lore for it. Because between that and Birth by Sleep. What a cool foundation for a game. Too bad they bastardized it. Kingdom Hearts 3. [00:45:56] Speaker A: Did someone say Kingdom Hearts 3? [00:45:58] Speaker B: No, no, we don't talk about that. I think that's like all of the games. There's like one or two more mobile 358 over two. I never got to play. And that was. [00:46:08] Speaker A: What was that 2.5 thing? Or 2.8? [00:46:14] Speaker B: 2.8 was what was part of Birth by Sleep. [00:46:21] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:46:22] Speaker B: And it was also more backstory with like a movie as well. Like the movie was. Oh, God, what was the movie? The movie was way before Birth by Sleep, I believe. Like almost like Union Cross time. It was way back before then, though. [00:46:43] Speaker A: Well, I think we've. We've yapped on long enough. And I think that we have some critical thoughts about Kingdom Hearts 3 and. [00:46:59] Speaker B: How it debuffed the whole series. [00:47:01] Speaker A: Yes. And how Sora got Goku. [00:47:05] Speaker C: Sorry, Cocoon. [00:47:07] Speaker A: So I'll. I'll. I'll try to fill some gaps here. Does anyone want to go first? [00:47:14] Speaker B: Actually, we missed a game. [00:47:16] Speaker A: Oh, which game was that? [00:47:18] Speaker B: Dream Drop Distance. [00:47:20] Speaker C: Dream Drop Distance. [00:47:24] Speaker B: That was on. That was remade on the 1.5, 2.5 re releases. I heard it was fine. It was a little jarring because they kept forcing you to go between Riku and Sora at very random times. But it was the first game where you can fully play Riku through a whole campaign, essentially. I was heavily burnt out by playing all the prior ones, though, and fully completing two. So I don't think I gave Dream Drop Distance enough of a try. But I heard it was fine. But yeah, I never played it. I don't remember what it's about either. [00:48:07] Speaker A: Well, there you go. [00:48:10] Speaker C: That pretty much covers it. Dream Drop. [00:48:14] Speaker B: Now, Kingdom Hearts 3. We're supposed to be the experts on these. Why'd we do a whole episode? [00:48:19] Speaker C: Yeah, that's interesting. We ain't played these. I ain't played all the. I don't know, these extras. [00:48:25] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:48:27] Speaker C: Got me. Chain of Memory. [00:48:29] Speaker A: We were learning every day. [00:48:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I learned a lot about these in between games today. [00:48:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I learned a lot about Kingdom Hearts today thanks to Cal. You're, like, the biggest Kingdom Hearts fan I know, Cal. [00:48:43] Speaker B: Not anymore. Three to rip that out of me, but. Yeah. Well, I'll let you guys start on three or whatever, because I'm. I don't want to go on a tirade for 30 minutes. [00:48:54] Speaker A: Okay, let's do this. Okay. Because I just happen to understand, like, the. The order in which people quit. So I. I say that, like, Painter should go first. I'll go second, and then you can go third, Cal. [00:49:09] Speaker C: All right. So I played up to Traverse Town. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's like. That's so early, dude. [00:49:16] Speaker C: That's, like, the start of the game I play. Oh. And it was a sludge. And I only got to Travestown recently when I gave it another try, because I was like, you know, I didn't give this game a fair chance when I quit for, like, two or three months after playing through Olympus. No, I only got halfway through Olympus before I, like, quit for those few months. And then I fought the Rock Titans. I learned about all the, like, zipline sort of thing and, like, where you just look up at some point and then you can drag yourself there. But, God, I don't know. It gave me too many powers too soon. [00:49:54] Speaker A: I had. [00:49:55] Speaker C: I already had so much overpowered stuff. I had the Disney rides and the cameras on. The Rock Titan was kind of cool with the roller coasters. That thing looked pretty sweet. And that was a, like, really cool fight. I like the way they introduce worlds with the. The log, the animated logos, and put a lot of work into it. But, like, I don't like Sora's personality. And I don't know if I just, like, haven't seen Sora in this seven, SO or ten years since I played Kingdom Hearts. But he seemed different to me. He seemed. He seemed like Goku, because also, he has this. This power inside of him. [00:50:38] Speaker B: This. [00:50:39] Speaker C: This innate power only he has. And he's a lovable idiot. Bonk him on the head. He's so silly. Doesn't understand what's going on, but he's so Important. Like this is Goku. [00:50:52] Speaker A: Now, do you remember what that was called? Like the. The power that, like, only Sora has that he's like the. The SpaceX Machina. It has something to do with like, controlling the light, I'm pretty sure. [00:51:05] Speaker C: Wait, yeah, he. He and Roxas, you know, I don't remember. It was something like, God, he can control both sides of his heart, like at the same time or something. [00:51:24] Speaker A: That's badass. So like. So like he has two wolves inside of him. [00:51:29] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. So all I can do is. Is speculate on what the fuck was going on. [00:51:36] Speaker B: You did not just say he has two man. [00:51:40] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:51:41] Speaker A: Just said that one has a structured settlement and the other needs cash now. So. Okay, so I think, you know, that's. I think that's a fair assessment. You know, the game frustrated you so bad. It seemed to have this incredible effect to just repel you from. From everything. You were. You were seemingly overwhelmed by all of the combat options, it seems. Yeah, sounds good on paper. [00:52:13] Speaker C: You know, like, it gave me a lot. It gave me a lot to work with and it wasn't challenging this and it just was boring. I just like, I could kill everything easy and like, I was not interested in the story. And they were looking for somebody and like darkness in the hearts and Riku is walking with Mickey through this dark cave and they go back to the beach and I'm just like, I don't care. Where are you going with this? You know, I don't feel like there is any sort of stakes or like any sort of goal. What are they doing? [00:52:54] Speaker A: That's a good point. I mean, like, I feel like, to be fair, it's a little early. [00:53:00] Speaker C: It is. I quit so early. [00:53:02] Speaker A: But that being said, do you. An assumption like that, in my opinion just happens to be correct. Like, there's no, like. [00:53:11] Speaker C: Oh, no, you just keep. [00:53:13] Speaker A: And I'll let you finish before I go on my thing, but okay. [00:53:17] Speaker C: I played one. I played one gummy ship level. I did not like the fights. The Galaga, I think style fights. [00:53:23] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:53:25] Speaker C: I thought it was lame and I was bored and it felt really slow. I wanted it to be over the one I played. I wanted to be done. And I don't know. [00:53:36] Speaker B: That's. [00:53:38] Speaker C: That's really the extent of my experience. You could like, take a selfie with this, like, phone. Like, I don't care, man. [00:53:45] Speaker A: And the. In the loading screens, they had like, like pictures. Instagram. Yeah. And they had like, hashtag, like hashtag Kingdom Hearts and like hashtag Riku. Hashtag on the beach. [00:53:56] Speaker C: Like, yeah, that felt pandery, dude. [00:54:00] Speaker A: No, I. I definitely felt. I was, like. I was. Okay. When. What age was I when I was. I think I was, like, 24 or 23 when I got that game. Yeah. And then I was, like, looking at the loading screens, and I was just like, I think I'm getting too old for this. [00:54:17] Speaker B: I'm actively getting more annoyed hearing you guys talking about this game. [00:54:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:54:23] Speaker C: I didn't have a good time. That's. That's as far as I got. Yeah. After that gummy ship level, it's Traverse town. We fight one more thing in the middle of the town, and then the thing goes away, and everyone's like, all right, we can come back outside and continue what we were doing. [00:54:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:41] Speaker C: So I don't know. [00:54:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, if a game frustrates you like that, I mean, I guess it begs the question, like, how. How long will you try a game for before you will actually just be fed up with it? Yeah. Or is it. Is it a varying degree depending on, like, the lack of interest that it's drawing from you? [00:55:03] Speaker C: I wish it was frustrating. It was just boring. [00:55:06] Speaker A: Oh. See, and that's. That's actually a really good point because, like, when you love something, you know, you have a. To love something is. Is effortless, but in. In its own way, it does take more effort to. To kind of do that. I don't know if I can make sense of that in a way, but like I was saying, but to hate something is more inherent to. To define things that you disagree with. So if you hated it, you know, that would still signify that, like, you still have some sort of strong passion for it in a way. And that you. Whether it's like, you know, this game had so much potential or, you know, something like that. [00:55:45] Speaker C: I felt nothing. [00:55:47] Speaker A: Indifference has to be the killer of anything that, you know, indifference is, like, the art's worst enemy, you know? [00:55:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:54] Speaker A: Because if someone loves your art or hates your art, they're still showing a strong amount of emotion and they're reacting to your art in a. In a strong way. But when someone's indifferent, it literally, it's as if to. I think. I think to an artist or as an artist, I would. I would see it as, like, I wasn't able to make a single difference in your life from. I. I changed nothing about your perspective. I. I didn't reach you in any sort of emotional level. You know, there's. That has to be Like a, an insane insult coming from you, Painter. You're throwing so much shade at Squaresoft by saying that you're just completely indifferent. [00:56:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I would, I would love to hate your game, but I'm sorry, is boring. [00:56:39] Speaker B: Well, I, I just want to say really quick that's like when people say I couldn't care less, I say I could care less, but I'm choosing not to care less because I, I, I hate it that much. Like I'm putting effort in it. [00:56:55] Speaker A: Yeah, spite. Yeah, spite. I just. Spite. Soda, Spence. Shut the wait. [00:57:07] Speaker C: That's dumb. [00:57:08] Speaker B: I could care less, but I'm not even gonna bother to do so. That's what Painter said. While cynical's dying here. [00:57:14] Speaker A: Holy. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna recount to the best of my ability, my, my experience. So like I said, I bought the hundred dollar version of this game at like a GameStop. They had like a 7 o' clock release, you know, so like it wasn't like too late or anything like that. It was freezing cold in Colorado. But I remember I was standing out there and there was just so many. It was a good amount of people for the small shop is what I'll say. I feel like it was almost like 100, 100 people, basically. Like, it's, it's, it's a lot of people, but it doesn't seem overwhelming until like you're in line, lots of people in costumes, you know, everyone's stoked about it. I'm stoked about it because I'm like, holy shit. This, this is like one of those games that's like, it was a fable. Like it's, it's, you know, it's legendary only in its anticipation, you know, just similar to how like Silksong recently was kind of like that for a lot of people. You know, this is a game that we never thought we would ever see. So obviously, like, we were all stoked about it. Pick up the hundred dollar version. It comes with this like, pen. It came with like a flag. I think the flag was just because I got it at GameStop. But it had Sora and Woody and Donald, I think. Or maybe. No, I think it was just Sora and Woody and they were just like chilling, like, like facing towards the camera, arms crossed, like back to back. Like I think something like that. Or you know, it looks badass, you know, But I remember getting home, it's like a big fucking, you know, update that you have to install into your PS4. I got a PS4 Pro almost. Besides God of War, I got a PS4 Pro specifically for this game. And I pop it in, I get it on. I start going through the first level, I'm like, okay. Like, damn. Like, dang, these, these characters look good. This, this environment, I feel like, you know, it looks refined and, and like I kept running around, I was like, damn. I think I'm getting a little lost. Like, this place is pretty big. This is in Mount Olympus, by the way, before the boss. I'm like, okay. You know, I'll admit, I think in the beginning it was. I felt like it was pretty fast paced, but there was a lot of room. I think it also had to do with like the music and, and all that. It just, it just kind of kept that pace. You were also able to glide, I think already by that time, which was strange to me because usually you don't unlock glide until at least like halfway through the game. So it felt kind of like the new Pokemon do for most people nowadays where you can just do anything from the beginning. And I beat the first level. I was like, okay. Like, that Titan sequence is pretty cool. Doing the ride, like the one time, like the roller coaster. I'll agree with you painters, like, it was probably like one of the highlights of that level. Yeah. Ironically, even though, you know, we're talking about a turret sequence, still pretty good, like in its presentation. So it looked spectacular. Right, Right. Because I, I try to be careful about things like that too because it's like the difference between fighting the Rock Giant in this game and the difference between fighting the Rock Giant In Kingdom Hearts 2, I'm pretty sure is what I'm thinking about, or I think it's one or two, it's very different, so definitely easier. Is it fun? If you don't mind turret sections and you're just looking to interact with, you know, Olympus, then it's a really. I still think it's a pretty good way to introduce the game. You get to like a couple of levels down and you start to learn more about the story and like you kind of figure out that like, yeah, they're kind of like looking for someone. I think it's Kyrie. If someone's lost and they're. They're looking for them. And so you start going to all these different worlds. You meet up with the guy at the Wizard's Tower and he's like, you, you have this special power and it's like really? And, and they're like, you, you have to learn how to unlock this power and, and control it. Because if you don't it will kill you. And it's. And Sora's like, what? And then Donald's like, huh? And then fucking. They. They started traveling from. From world to world. And the problem with, like, the loop of this game is that everything else between them then. And then the. The rest of that intro that I just explained is literally if. If you. If you made a burger and you started with a bun, cheese, meat, and then another bun, that was literally all you got for every single. And like, I like cheeseburgers, right? But like, at the same time, imagine eating 10 cheeseburgers in a row and expecting one of them to have ketchup on it. You know, like something different. Something to give like an air of like. Like originality or, you know, something challenging or something intriguing. Something like something that makes you think. Something to be emotionally tied to. But what ends up happening is that you go into this world, main character of that world is like, oh, I have a problem. Will you help me? Sora and Goofy and Donald are like, fuck it. Why not? And then you, like, go in, fix the problem, and then at the end of that level, an organization, 13 member will come out, start talking shit, and then they leave. And then. And. And you do that 10 times. And by the time. The fifth time that it happens to you. I mean, I feel like I'm going fucking crazy here. And it doesn't make sense to me, like, how you can Repeat this story 10 times and then still call it, you know, call it good, you know, like, what part of this story is supposed to be intriguing? Never even fucking mind the fact that, like, there are no goddamn Final Fantasy characters in here at all. The only characters that are outside of Disney that exist in this game are the ones that only exist in Kingdom Hearts, like, as unilaterally like the right word to say, like, in. In this very condensed spot, you know, in. In Kingdom Hearts, just as that if it existed in Final Fantasy, it was not in this game, which. [01:03:24] Speaker C: There's really no Cloud Zero. [01:03:27] Speaker A: There's no. They don't have a Sephiroth. They don't have a Cloud. You don't. The. I think there is a Coliseum, but you don't fight anyone. Like, you don't see Leon, you don't see Yuffie, you don't see Aerith, you don't see anybody. It's as if they don't even mention them. And whenever, like, they were central parts of, like, the other games and like, leading up to this conclusion is because everyone in Kingdom Hearts, like those other Final Fantasy characters are Literally sitting there during the first two games, and they're like, what the fuck am I doing here? Like, that's, like, their whole story. And. And when you don't have that kind of investment, it's just like, you know, this is a person that's lost in a, you know, deep space with these worlds that seem to just change so drastically with different physics and different, you know, characteristics for how society works and things like that. Like, it doesn't make sense that you could go through all of this and still be, like, naive like Sora is, or be stupid like Sora is. Like, it doesn't. It's. They ruin his character by making him so naive and stupid that it's, like, it. It completely undermines the story completely. Especially on top of the fact that, like, you know, I. I can stand a good, like, exchange between, like, a villain and, like, a. Like a hero or, like, the other heroes, even, like, a side character. I can only think of one instance in that game where there was some sort of dialogue that actually made me react, and it was. Whenever you beat the spoiler alert, you beat the Toy Story level. One of the guys walks out. He's like, you fucking suck. And then Sora's, like, starting to walk up with his keyblade, and Woody puts his hand and, like, kind of, like, pushes Sora back a little bit, and he's like. And he's like, hold on. Like, he's like, let me ask you something. He's like, nobody's ever loved you before, have they? Oh, my God. I can't remember anything after that because I was just laughing so hard. What he just said to this guy. [01:05:47] Speaker B: He's like. He's like. When he walks up, he's like, hold up. I got this. [01:05:52] Speaker A: No, you. [01:05:54] Speaker B: No, you. Deputy. [01:05:58] Speaker A: He. Dude, it's so. It was just so crazy, like, because I'm pretty sure they got the original voice actor to do that. And it just sounded so. It sounded good. And it was just also just completely unexpected. Like, you would never think of Woody saying that. [01:06:13] Speaker C: Yeah, like, oh, my God, Woody. [01:06:16] Speaker A: It's. It's so, like, like, profound to me. Like, there's. There's a. There's a meme going around where, like, Woody is, like, in a, like, a tough, like, rap song. It's like, what is it called? Like, horrorcore rap, basically. And so the joke is basically just, like, his friends are, like, asking him for, like, forgiveness, and Woody's just like, I'll kill you. He's like, what? Calm down, Woody. Where are your friends? Shut up, Buzz. I'll kill you. [01:06:47] Speaker C: Yeah, you sent me that. [01:06:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I fucking love that video. It's so stupid. [01:06:52] Speaker B: I wanted to add some of what you said. Tom Hanks does not voice Woody in that game, actually. [01:06:58] Speaker A: Okay, that's disappointing. [01:06:59] Speaker B: Tom Hanks brother, I don't know what his name is, but basically Tom Hanks only voices Woody in the main Toy stories. Any side projects, toys, games, anything. He lets his brother do it. So his brother has like a reliable job with income and gets gigs because they have like the same exact voice. [01:07:19] Speaker A: That's actually fucking cool. What. What's his brother's name? [01:07:24] Speaker B: I. I mean, Jim Hanks. They. [01:07:30] Speaker A: Jim Hanks. [01:07:31] Speaker B: But yeah, I learned that recently about Tom Hanks that he does that. I could never tell because. Yeah, it's. I think it's very similar. Spot on. [01:07:41] Speaker A: That's actually really cool. I didn't know that w. Tom Hanks. So. Yeah, dude, like the. The story is just so profoundly stupid to me and it's. It's pointless. Like, you don't. You don't feel like a sense of progression when you beat these levels at all. And so I think it takes away a lot of what made the original, like the one and two. I'm gonna say I struggle to even call them the now. Isn't that weird? It makes. It makes them just seem so well written, so like cohesive in comparison. So I remember, like, I think I. I'm trying to remember like what the. What the order of the worlds that I was playing were, but I'll try to throw some positives in there. I think that the Monsters World or Monsters Inc. World was really pretty looking. And I thought like, the. The cutscene sequences are actually really cool. I don't think the gameplay was that good because I can hardly remember it. But the. I did think that like, whatever story. I remember liking the story. I couldn't tell you what the fucking story is, but like, I remember liking it. I think it's just because I like Monsters Inc. A lot. But I also didn't care for some of the other levels. And I like those movies too. I think the most egregious thing that. And I think this was covered a lot like around Whenever Kingdom Hearts 3, like originally released was that the. There's a section in this game where you go into Frozen and it's like the closest thing to like some sort of progression that you feel in the game. But it comes after the longest trudge of a level that you have ever played. If you haven't seen Frozen and You play that game, Congrats, you have now seen Frozen, because they make you watch the whole fucking thing, basically. And I think the other weird thing about these is that, like, these worlds is that the stories that take place within them. Like, I think with there was a Rapunzel. I forgot what the fucking name is. But it's. It's a Rapunzel world. And you are definitely like. So a lot of the games will make the point that you're not supposed to be in this world due to, like, fucking with the law of, you know, the butterfly effect or whatever, the fuck, you know. You don't want to affect these worlds in a way to where it's detrimental and it loses its way. But you are still very deeply involved in what happens in these worlds in the older games. I feel like in these games, especially with, like, the rapunzel level and 1,000% with, like, the Frozen level, you are in, you are a bystander. You're literally just, like, watching these people play the movie. And then you're like, all right, let's go. And it's like, now we have to fight this gigantic thing. And I'm just gonna stand here while you guys sort that out. Like, all right. [01:10:47] Speaker B: A lot of times it's like the main characters talking, not, you know, the main character of the game. Main characters of the movie talking and soaring are just in the background. And Donald's just going like, yeah, yeah, do that goofy. Just like, gor. [01:11:00] Speaker A: That's bad. [01:11:00] Speaker B: Sora is like, huh? [01:11:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Literally, he's like, what's going on? Aren't I supposed to be learning about light or something? [01:11:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Sora is perpetually confused by everything and just has, like, the deer in the headlights look until he just realizes, oh, wait, that's bad. I'm angry. That's pretty much Sore's entire personality is dumb to upset that it's happening and how are we going to fix it? But giving no real concrete way to do it. [01:11:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to say, like. Like, he's one David hater away from being Snake, but I don't think David Hater or Snake is dumb. Like, I love them. [01:11:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:46] Speaker A: I just think that, like, if you put that into context, you kind of see, like, the. The Their just performed differently. Like, every time Snake. Every time you talk about a new subject with Snake, he always has to repeat the subject itself. So the first example that you get in the Snake Eater, metal gear solid 3 snake eater was whenever you're talking to an old friend that you used to train with. And she's just like, remember your cqc. And he's like, cqc? As if he didn't do like years of training, like beforehand. He's like, what the fuck is cqc? He's like. And then like, he has this like, flashback. He's like, oh, that's how CQC works. And it's like, okay, you know, it's. It's. It's since the first game since. Well, since the first Metal Gear Solid game. One of the most famous examples is probably the fact that he's just like Psycho Mantis and like. Because it's just like a weird string of words to put together. But it's, it's just hilarious that like, anytime a new subject is brought upon, it is discussed with you. Like, so blatantly I would put it that, like, it's. It's campy in a way. Like. [01:12:59] Speaker C: Yeah, so I brought. I brought that up to my friend and he had said that's actually a translation thing because in the Japanese language, that is something that you do. You. You say back what was said to you. [01:13:14] Speaker A: Oh, okay. So like, like basic conversational, like, skills. [01:13:20] Speaker C: Just. I'm not sure why. I guess for like confirmation or like. But yeah, it is a translation issue. And then so it, it gets translated to English and it just sounds really weird when you repeat back just like a keyword of some new information that you just got. [01:13:38] Speaker A: Metal Gear. Yeah. Metal Gear. Yeah. See, I always. I love that so much. [01:13:44] Speaker C: It's so good. [01:13:46] Speaker A: Oh, David Hayter is a treasure. [01:13:48] Speaker C: But translations can give us these treasures. [01:13:52] Speaker A: I didn't know that at all neither. That's cool. I mean, at least there's like some sort of rhyme or reason behind it. But I, I do. I do kind of wish that it was still just like zany writing. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to think that it's just like. And there's an error of that still. Like, there's many things about it exact. There's, you know, so many classic like action movie tropes and, and things like that. But back to Kingdom Hearts. Sora being the complete opposite of a well developed character at this point, you. You basically. I got to. I think it was right after Toy Story is whenever I stopped because I remember the. The, the next level. I couldn't tell you what the next level was, but I remember that I wasn't looking forward to it. And even though that I could see, see like some of the other levels that I wanted to see down the line, I was like, I can't fucking do this anymore. And I actually went and just, like, sold the game as soon as I could because I was like, I don't want to hold on to this. Like, I just can't. I can't, like, sit here staring at it. And the box that they give you for the deluxe version takes up, like, three or four DVD slots. Like, it's fucking wide. It's. It's a lot. And it looks cool, you know, when you like it, like, the first 10 minutes, but then you just realize this is taking up so much space. And, I don't know, I was severely disappointed by it. I'm willing to give it another chance because so many people just say that they love it, but the. The attractions take up too much time in combat. It makes it too easy. You're sitting back the whole time, and you're just. You're not involved in these fights more than half the time. And more than half the time, you can literally just press a button and you do so much damage with these attractions that, like, you don't have to know what's going on. And I think that that takes away the entire experience of, like, wanting to enjoy the combat in the game. Why add something like, with summons in the previous games, they gave you, like, special powers and special perks to be able to, you know, do more damage or withstand more damage. I think of, like, Tinkerbell and fighting the. The fucking. The flying death guy at the clock tower, like, things like that. That gives you, like, a really good edge, but it's not overpowering. It's. It's. It's not balanced, but it's. It's fun, you know, and that's. That's kind of the. The point is that I feel that the tractions have, like, a good intention behind them. Like they're supposed to, you know, reminisce, help you reminisce about, like, your time at Disney World or Disneyland or, you know, make you think of your childhood and things like that. But I think it just takes up so much time that you are taking completely out of the experience, and you no longer become invested in combat as a whole because of it. [01:16:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say the boat attraction. I remember. [01:16:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember that vehemently. [01:16:44] Speaker B: Every time I would use it, everything would die. I'd look for the biggest group of enemies and use it, and everything would die. And I would fight a boss and I would use it, and it would instantaneously pretty much bring him to, like, half health or her or whatever. And I just remember in the Previous games, I was like, okay, first I was going to this fight. I have to use my drive. I have to go to Master form because obviously I already had it's best thing. After Master Form, I think this will be the best summon to use. And then once that's on cooldown, then I'll start using all my magic. And by the time I'm done with my magic, my drive should be high enough to where I can use that again. And I'll probably have to bring a potion in the middle of this while I'm waiting for my summon to come back. Oh wait, my magic's back. I'll use this. Really? It was cool. It was great. And yes, there was reaction commands. You hit triangle, but you had to actually react. You couldn't just go into the battle and just click it. [01:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:36] Speaker B: Or press it. You actually had to hope it comes up at the right time or like set it up or when it happens, if you don't do it, you just kind of miss out on some damage. Some fights was much more essential. But yeah, it's just I in three, I was so burnt out by combat or lack thereof. Combat. Right, right. And like without the attractions, I mean, yes, I could fight without them, but then it just felt like a way worse Kingdom Hearts too. [01:18:10] Speaker A: Right. [01:18:10] Speaker B: So I don't know. They put all this time and effort and visuals and money into the attractions being pretty and so crazy that everything else kind of sucked. [01:18:20] Speaker A: And you know what? That's. That brings up a good point that I want to talk about real quick. I want to reiterate that I purchased the PS4 Pro for this because I wanted to be able to experience it in its highest fidelity. That game, I don't think ever got more than 45 frames a second on the PS4 Pro, which pissed me off so fucking much because we weren't going to get a PC port or I believed that for the rest of my life. We were never going to see a PC port of this game. And we were stuck with this shit shitty experience that they decided to roll out. Even on performance mode, it sucks. Like it's, it's. I, I, Especially after you gave us one and two remastered in 60 frames per second. How the fuck would you be able to justify giving that sort of experience on a PS4 Pro to get like that kind of frame rate? How was it not optimized enough? You had a decade to work on it. [01:19:21] Speaker B: Yeah, like when I first used those attractions and stuff and it felt a little laggy, I thought it was kind of Powerful. I was like, oh yeah, it's like slowing down if it's like a massive big hit and whatnot. By like the 10th time. Like, oh no, it's just really optimized poorly. And I wish there was was faster. This damn cutscene would be over already, please. [01:19:42] Speaker A: Right, right. And the cutscenes in the game, they switch between like pre rendered and while in engine, I think they're, I'll try to give them a positive for that. It does look good whenever they do transition between those. But the rest of the game is just so optimized poorly that it doesn't matter how good the game looks. It's, it's really just detracting from the entire experience because you decide. And this was a huge problem back around this time too, especially with a lot of games. But a lot of games and studios were valuing the fidelity aspect of like the visuals or the sound and everything like that. Not, not to be like, you know, combative against it. I think you should always reach for, you know, better if you can, but at the same time when it comes at the cost of the actual experience of the gameplay, it doesn't make sense that you would make a game around that. And so I just don't understand where the miscommunication must have come in. If, if, if you're taking, you know, how, how are play testers not reacting to this either? Like, how are play testers not saying, okay, like I was in combat for this amount of time, I spent this amount of time using an attraction because I could, because it was the easiest thing to do. Because the more fun thing to do is to hack and slash the, you know, the classic way. But even then, like I think they had made it just so fluid and almost to a fault to where like you can go through the whole thing literally just tap A and just get through the fight. At least like with two and one, especially one, you did have to think your way through those fights and you had to be pretty conscious about it. The, the closest thing to that in, in three is that you go to the nearest cluster of enemies and you blow them up with your fucking boat. Like, that's it. [01:21:36] Speaker B: I just want to say bro said press A when he bought a PS4. [01:21:42] Speaker A: Oh yeah, that's right. [01:21:43] Speaker B: To hit triangle in. [01:21:46] Speaker A: And you know what? That's PlayStation's fucking fault. You know, that's not mine. You know, if you had kept up that level of quality and you like, and you made more games worth buying a PS5 over, I probably would be saying still saying things like X. So what is that called in marketing relevancy. So you might want to figure that out. You know what I'm saying? [01:22:12] Speaker C: How about some Instagram loading screens? That's relevant. [01:22:18] Speaker A: Who was that game for? I don't know. That's my who. Like, I know you wanted like, Frozen fans to get in on this shit. Fine, give me a shitty frozen level if you need to draw in that many fans. But why with. Why with Instagram? Why with like all these weird terms that you're, like, coming up with and like, they use some of the. More like, it looks so dated now when you look at those loading screens. Because some of that was like lingo from back then. [01:22:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:50] Speaker A: And I just hate whenever people like put include that in their games. Things I don't know. Like, to me it's like the opposite of like. Like a. Like a 2010s charm. You know what I mean? Like, it's. It's just like detracting, you know? Yeah, it's because, like, at least with the 80s, like, you'd be like, oh, 80s. And you know exactly what you're thinking about. You're thinking about like, vibrant, you know, pink, purple, you know, grid lines, you know, all that that you think about when you think about like hair bands and things and that it all has like this very specific central charm to it. And the same thing was, you know, with. With 1 and 2, they. They each have their own charm. Like, I would recommend one if you are looking for a more difficult experience, frankly, because it's. It's because of the way that the gameplay works. You have to adapt a bit differently than you would on like Two Twos a better game, in my opinion. And it's way better and more fluid in its combat. There. There is. There's a. There's a. A little bit of a chunk where, you know, you. You can turn off your brain a little bit, but what draws you back in are the environments and the story. Because some of the other modes that they included too. Like, I, I'm. I'm remembering a. A section in two where you. Hollow Bastion, specifically, you get a skateboard. You get a skateboard and some other parts too. But the. That was. That was like, like a unique kind of thing, a way to get around and they didn't have to do that, you know, so it kind of gives Hollow Bastion and Two, like a different kind of, you know, vibe experience. You know, do you want to escape through it or do you want to fight through it? So there aren't Nearly as many choices like that in, in Kingdom Hearts 3 too. You're literally just going through this thing and then you get talk shit to you fight a boss that they conjure and then you run and then you go to the next place because everything's fine now. So like, it's not even interesting from like an outlying perspective. So I, I, I don't, I don't get it. I also just don't get like why it's praised because I know that the three of us are outliers with these opinions. So if you like Kingdom Hearts, give us an entire dissertation as to why you think it's good or why we're wrong or why whatever I want to hear from you. But with that, I'm going to let Cal speak. [01:25:11] Speaker B: One thing, I think the thing is that a lot of people, it's not so much praise per se, what I see. It's that they'll say it's a good game, but not as good as two. Or, or it's, it's okay. It gets too much hate things like that. [01:25:37] Speaker A: Maybe I'm just so sensitive to like the praise of it because like, it just boggles my mind to, to have gone through that as much as I did and to be so dissatisfied and for others, not other people that claim to be fans, you know, that, that seem to enjoy it and I just, I don't get it. I don't get it. [01:25:58] Speaker B: Well, I think I have a different take. I actually love Kingdom Hearts 3, so. No, no. [01:26:09] Speaker A: So let me, let me just say your address real quick. I'm just kidding. [01:26:14] Speaker B: It dox me. So, you know, everything that Cynical and Painter said, obviously I agree with, hit the nail on the head repeatedly. Doesn't really leave me with like too much. I guess I will say give your. [01:26:32] Speaker A: Own version of it. Just give your own version. [01:26:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I got, I got very far in the game. I got nearly near the end. I'll just say that much. I went through all the worlds this off went back. I, I did a lot. I'll just put that way. I bought the deluxe sets where you get like the little like keychain, the art book, everything. I think it was like 200 bucks, something like that. Oh, like the online pre digital order. I can't remember what it was. [01:27:03] Speaker A: Didn't that come with a statue of Sora too? [01:27:06] Speaker B: If I remember correctly, I got it on my shelf somewhere collecting dust like it should. I have always been a massive fanboy for Kingdom Hearts. Axel's my boy. I used to stream on Twitch. I Had my buddy made a custom art of Axel wearing, like, a band T shirt of band. I like trivium. And that was, like, one of my background things for, like, I was super into Kingdom Hearts. I've, like, thought about getting a tattoo throughout my life, and I've always kind of thought about integrating a keyblade into it somehow. Not anymore. [01:27:40] Speaker A: I wanted shadow heart thing. I. I actually. [01:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah, now. Now it would be something more D D related with, like, the DND dice and a sword, like that kind of a generic thing. I. I have some ideas for getting a tattoo eventually, but I just haven't ever pulled the trigger either way. Yeah, it's. I put a lot of time and effort into it. A lot of waiting. I went back and I replayed every game I could except Dream Drop, because I was just burnt out by then. I watched all the lore videos, all the deep dives. I really tried my best to grasp every bit of lore and what the was going on. I even played the mobile game for a bit, just to get more lore out of it. I thought the movie where they went into, like, way back when, I thought that was a really cool, cinematic sheesh. Birth by sleep. I went through all of it, man, and Kingdom Hearts 3 came out. I'm like, let's go. I got this. Like, I'm so excited. It's going to be a culmination of everything they've learned throughout all the games, because, right, they did a card game, they did a puzzle game, they did a 3D platform, they did a more heavy hack and slash, like, floaty game, you know, I think you guys can figure out which one I'm talking about, respectively, per game. You know, they did a mobile game, they did the355,358 over two, which allows you to have a bunch of different allies all through organization. 13. I was like, man, they've. They've probably learned so much. They know everything that worked in all the games. They know everything that didn't work all the games. Like, they are gonna knock it out of the park, and there's no way they're not gonna do it. Start playing three and Sora's an idiot immediately. There's all kinds of weird side things going on. Zehanort has turned this story into a clusterfuck of time travel and paradoxes, which makes no sense. And if you want to do mental gymnastics to make it make sense, go for it. But my thing is, if you write yourself into a corner so bad where you need time travel to write yourself out, like they did in Kingdom Hearts. You the story. And you are basically using a crutch like, of time travel to write yourself out of that corner jumping the shark, so to say. Yeah, it's. It's so obvious why they had to do it. And it definitely. There's no way it was their intention. And I believe even the writer, the creator, Greenhouse, that can't even like, tell you the story. Like, remember there was like some sort of thread about that where like, he literally said, like, you know, it's. We're just trying to write as we go. [01:30:38] Speaker A: I mean, true. And like, I appreciate the candidness in that because I know it's hard to write a story story. You know, it's not. It's definitely not easy. And especially whenever it spans across so many games. Like, it can't be easy to write a story as convoluted as this. But I. I definitely agree with you. I think. I think they were just trying to jump the shark and I think three was the wrong time to do it. I don't think you needed to to involve time travel at all. You already had so many interesting aspects about the way that you travel between these worlds and the characters in them and their relationship with Sora and the Final Fantasy Fantasy characters like Hades and Cloud acting as a mercenary, you know, which is canonically true in the. In the Final Fantasy game. Working for Hades is just like, it's so good. And you weren't able to implement any of that interesting. Any of the interesting aspects of any of these games, like from a story level into three. And it's just so disappointing. [01:31:33] Speaker C: Yeah. One of King in March's strengths is crossover. And it didn't. There's no Final Fantasy characters, really. [01:31:43] Speaker B: Yeah. There was no crossovers. I. Beyond Disney, man. That was another thing I noticed. Like, I. I was just waiting and waiting for them to come up. I thought it was gonna be one of those cool hero moments where, like, you see an anime all the time where your. Your back against the wall, you're gonna lose and all of a sudden, like sing. There's like some sort of like, cling and there's like some light blinding and then you see, you know, like Cloud or something blocking a strike to save sore. I was waiting for something epic, some sort of moment, and it just never happened. Instead, I got. This is a movie you didn't care about. How about you watch it and sometimes hit triangle? Would you like that? You want to do that? Well, you're going to repeatedly in every world. And I just. I just Couldn't. I couldn't believe that's what the game loop was. And I can't believe how watered down everything felt. Like I said, like there was like a cool rotation, like a dance to combat in the last games and in three, it just wasn't there. It felt really stale. If you didn't use attractions, it just was like, yeah, he did use attractions. It was like, ooh, I killed everything. Yeah, I don't know, it just. I didn't hit any of the marks I wanted in Combat. It didn't. It missed them all completely in Story. And I, I had to watch. I just watched cutscenes for the rest of it to figure out what happened because I was so burnt and bored and tired and I just. I just didn't give a anymore. And when I watched, even when I watched the finale and the cutscenes and everything, I didn't even feel spoiled because I just didn't care that much. I like, I just didn't care about the story and how they did the resolution. It was supposed to be the last game, right? And just to be another, you know, hey, some More is going on. Hahaha. It's like, oh great, fantastic. I'll see you in 10 years when you make another bastardized version of this franchise, right? [01:33:57] Speaker A: And, and, and what is it? It's. We're going on six years now. Six years now since the, since the release of Kingdom Hearts 3. And now we're approaching 4. And I, I gotta say, if they're going into 4 with the same kind of mindset, the same kind of methods of production, or the same kind of intentions even, because to me, like three just feels like a, like advertisement. It's a, it's just a big gigantic fucking advertisement that you. I paid a hundred dollars for, you know, so like, if it goes in anywhere towards that direction, I don't see, like, I mean, like I was wrong with three, right? Like, so people seem to like the game at least generally. Or you know, they, they regard it, you know, as, you know, not as good as two, but still a good game. I completely disagree, but if, if I'm wrong about that, then I would love to be actually. But I think it's going to take bringing back those Final Fantasy characters into the mix and stop fighting over fucking rights and Disney, stop being like so protective over your IPs that any mention of any other character outside of these IPs could pose a threat to the way that you make your money. Like it's, it's, it's ruining Everything. It's seeped into our games now and. And it's the most annoying thing in the fucking world to have to deal with. So I'm not personally hyped at all for four. I'm probably, at some point in my life gonna play it. For me to think that I have anything to expect beyond the same thing, possibly even. Even worse than three. I. I have no reason to be invested in it anymore. So I just don't. I don't see myself playing it. Even if it looks good, Even if it looks like the games now pretty much look like the cutscenes looked in the Kingdom Hearts one, which, when you're a kid, that's what you always wanted. And now that it's gotten there, the story's bad and the combat is too simple and nothing about it is drawing your attention anymore. And that, to me, is just sad to think that I've lost this thing that I used to be so passionate about. [01:36:12] Speaker B: You know, it's the visuals and the name that draws your attention, and then there's nothing to keep your attention. [01:36:18] Speaker A: Exactly. Because none of the original elements are there anymore. [01:36:21] Speaker B: And I know you can say, like, maybe some of the original writers aren't there anymore or it just got lost in all the things going on. It's been 20 years. Like, I kind of get to a point, but there's not many excuses to make that make me happy. I was just, like, really quickly. I can't remember all the things I hate about the. I've talked so much about this game so many years in a row in that whole franchise. I don't even care about four at all, like, in the slightest. But I'm just gonna go through, like, a quick, like, list of, like, generally what people think. I'm just gonna kind of jump in on it. [01:37:02] Speaker A: Some of the bad things. [01:37:04] Speaker B: The Keyblade Graveyard. Cool area. I wish I could have explored it, but no. And you can kind of do it like the mobile game Birth by Sleep. Like that. But it's like that was one of the biggest things finales I looked forward to. And it was really bland. The Keyblade transformations and took so much out of combat. Just like the attractions did. I thought. I thought they were lame. I would have rather just had more keyblades, more summons and stuff like that. I thought the transformations were pretty stupid and trivialized a lot of stuff. [01:37:42] Speaker A: I can't even remember them. Yeah. [01:37:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Like there's like a Winnie the Pooh hammers. I don't know. It just wasn't great. Like what else? Like, I didn't feel like any of the twists in the game, like, got me like, Diz from Kingdom Hearts 2. That was a cool twist. Like, there was a lot of cool in Kingdom Hearts 2 that just had me glued to the screen like I was waiting for the next. Next twist, next reveal. Who's gonna be the next bad guy? I fight. Who's gonna be the next person Unhood like, takes their hood off and I get to see their new cool weapon and everything. I was always looking forward to something. What else is bad? Sora is an idiot. Like I said, I just can't stand it. [01:38:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely frustrating. [01:38:42] Speaker B: Maps were too big. [01:38:44] Speaker A: Do you think they were too big? Yeah. [01:38:46] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, they were like. Some of them were like, frozen. I. Everybody's talks about frozen, but, man, frozen. Just frozen. Toy Story everybody talks good about. And Toy Story. Yeah, Toy Story was good. [01:38:56] Speaker A: I actually did enjoy the Toy Story. [01:38:57] Speaker B: Level, but, yeah, that was fine. I think there was, like. There's some, like, weird cooking system. I don't remember interacting with it much. I don't remember if it was good or bad. I can't existed. [01:39:13] Speaker A: Oh, you know what? I did, like, okay, there's a bit of a discourse about, like, the way that gummy ships worked in three that I think is worth talking about. So personally, I was extremely surprised whenever I got into a gummy ship the first time, especially being that it was in 3D space. It was. I thought it was a move. I thought it was a step forward, personally, going into those spaces. But looking back now, I think something that could have made it better was being able to travel from planet to planet in that space, because I think you still had to go on, like, a trail. I might be wrong, and I'm okay with being wrong, but I'm pretty sure that you had to, like, go like. Like In Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, you just, like, kind of gallaghered your way through or Star Fox your way through the. The levels like that. But the 3D space that you get in in 3 I thought was very interesting. I felt like that could have been. That could have been a point of the game where you could have made a whole. It could have been more in depth, I think. Like, I think if you would have had more of an incentive to stick around and really mess with, like, the gummy ships and the parts and everything like that, at least in my experience, then I think it would have been a much better experience there. That was probably one of my favorite parts about it. And the thing that I. I think I look forward to the most except for the fact that it's another one of those things that it's been a problem in all the games, but there are times where like you just have to do things that you don't want to do. I. E like Atlantica and 2. It's not that you don't want to do them in three, but it's just that like if you're trying to get through the story and you're just trying to move forward, then these feel like it brings the game to a halt. And I think that does terribly for the pacing. I don't think you're getting like too much more out of it. I think it should have just been something extra that you can do to like go explore like around space and to gather resources to create new gummy ship builds. So that way when you go travel to the next world, you're bet that you're that much more prepared. Maybe you get like new guns or you find a secret and you get like a special gun or like, you know, something like that. You know, I didn't really get that feeling from that. And there might have been special guns. I mean, maybe I just didn't find them. Like I'm okay with being wrong on that, but like that just happened to be how it turned out for me. And that has a lot of potential. And I. And I am curious. That's one of the only reasons why I would check out for is I'm curious as to how that's going to work for if that gets fleshed out more. That's. That's I'd say like one of the bigger positives of that game. [01:41:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, okay, positives. It looked good. I don't know if I liked Sora's design too much, but enemies looked really cool. I think the worlds in general, kind of like they looked good even they were too big. The gummy ship open world fighting thing, like that was like I was like a little off put effers that by it at first, but I, when I got used to it, it was actually really cool. [01:42:18] Speaker A: What would you say is the most visually striking world? [01:42:21] Speaker B: Oh man. Yeah. God, it's been so long. It's like hard for me to like remember. [01:42:27] Speaker A: I think I'm stuck between like. Because Toy Story was really cool because you started off in Andy's room and then you went outside and that was. [01:42:35] Speaker B: All kind of like one level toy store too. Like I. I feel like Toy Story was probably one of the more diverse ones that did look really nice. [01:42:45] Speaker A: And I also. [01:42:45] Speaker B: I do. I will say I liked. Was it Olympus? Yeah, Olympus. You actually got to explore Olympus. [01:42:52] Speaker A: Yes, that is cool. Like it. [01:42:54] Speaker B: And it looked good too. [01:42:56] Speaker A: It was just too big. [01:42:58] Speaker B: Yeah. But I remember, like, riding the rails, like in Olympus. [01:43:03] Speaker A: Like. [01:43:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I like. [01:43:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:43:06] Speaker B: I mean, it looks good. Like, I, It. It looked great. And I do remember, really, that was one of the earlier worlds. I remember looking like, hell yeah. They expanded on this and at that point I didn't feel like I was really playing a movie either. So it started off kind of strong, I guess. [01:43:24] Speaker A: I think. So. I. I think like, it was. I was led to believe that it was going to be a lot better than it was. Go ahead, Painter. Sorry. [01:43:30] Speaker C: No, no. Yeah, I'm. I'm glad I got the peak of the experience, but even that wasn't enough for me to keep going. Yikes. [01:43:41] Speaker A: I mean, yeah. What can you do? [01:43:43] Speaker B: We can affirm that for you. [01:43:46] Speaker A: So as a conclusion, I think I. Even though that. I think that like, Kingdom Hearts 3 went in a terrible direction and I'm frankly not very hopeful for four. I still love like one and two. I don't like chain of memories or reaching of memories, but I think it still stands out to me as a very interesting idea. And even though I don't think the extent of that idea can be explored, whether it's through like, licensing issues or whatever the fuck they want to say about it, if we ever had like a true return to form, I think that would be very, very fucking cool. Because that was one of those things that brought people together. It's. It's kind of like whenever Jay Z and Linkin park did an album together and it was like one of the first big moments in music history where rap and rock were like, yeah, and, you know, this was kind of the same thing, like moviegoers, like fans of Disney and then like video game, you know, gamers, you know, they. They were kind of united on a single front where like, dude, Kingdom Hearts was fucking cool. And I feel like now were going to be kind of disconnected because of that, because now half of us are. I don't know what the fucking range is on that. I'm totally speaking out of my ass there. But like, there's. There has to be some more of us that think that this game sucks. [01:45:08] Speaker B: And. [01:45:10] Speaker A: You know, I'm just struggling to even conjure, like, in any facet a way to. To make this game interesting without like, removing attractions and without integrating final fantasy characters and without just like, redoing the whole story, basically rebooting it. If we had. If we got one again rebooted with Unreal 5 with updated combat and. And all that, I would. My pants. I would buy that game instantly. It'd be like Oblivion Remastered, but for Kingdom Hearts 1, that would be so dope. [01:45:51] Speaker B: I think when they did the remixing for everything, they did really good by 1 and 2 and birth by Sleep and all those because they were close to the original game, just upscaled and some things were like slightly tweaked and I think there wasn't really anything bad about them. [01:46:09] Speaker A: So much more memories. [01:46:10] Speaker B: They should. Chain of memories. They should just kept it like. Like the original card game. I wish I could have actually played 358 over two. And I wish that, you know, some of the installments that, you know, I coded and everything. I wish I could just play those in their original forms just on the PS4. I don't think it would have been too difficult. I mean, why would you remake a game completely and ruin it instead of just like making as close this it was prior. I just don't understand. But I feel like with all of that, like when they re release that massive collection, that's when they should have done small tweaks to fix continuity, fix canon. You have to change some parts of a game. Just do it. Get us like that was supposed to get us ready for three. That was supposed to be the thing that allowed us to experience the whole entirety of Kingdom Hearts and get new backstories, new lore, all this new cool stuff. And all in one disc or two disc, whatever it was. And they should have just fixed it right there. Just rewrote what they had to and fix whatever game systems they had to. And then from there released three and use everything they learned. And it just feels like they took a little lazy way out on a lot of shit on that remastering. And then they learned hardly anything from three and were still experimenting, which they saw in so many games. When they experiment and get away from The Kingdom Hearts 2 formula, it does not work. So yeah, I hope. [01:48:01] Speaker C: I think with four, I think the story is just. It's. It's done. You can't. Like, they just need to ditch it and do something that doesn't make sense. And the game itself needs to be fun if they're gonna make four. I think they just need something simple and clean. [01:48:22] Speaker A: Oh, God damn it. Oh. Oh, okay. Well, I'm gonna end it on that. Yeah. [01:48:29] Speaker B: I'm not saying shit after that. [01:48:31] Speaker A: I'm not following that. Thank you for joining us on the side quest through Kingdom Hearts. And if there's more content that we should be trying to deep dive into, please leave you know, a comment on like our YouTube video or anywhere that we can see your comments, post it and we'll try to take a look at it. But thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. You'll be able to find this on YouTube. We'll probably have a section on our podcast just for side quests like this. You can find us on TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, anywhere that you can listen to a podcast. And we hope that you will join us on the next episode. See you later. [01:49:09] Speaker B: Critical Debuff side quest side quest.