The GWJ JRPG Club 2018 - Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix

I'm in the Tarzan level. So far, so good. The charm of the game is once again seeping in and it seems to be picking up the pace. I only played this back when it first released in 2002, got through it, and never played it again.

One thing I do wish was available is a Fast Forward feature for some sections of the game, like in the recent HD re-releases of other classics in S-E's catalog.

Ok, how do I get the game to go forward, I spent half hour going into every door in the first town and I can't find a trigger to make story progress.

Fastmav347 wrote:

Ok, how do I get the game to go forward, I spent half hour going into every door in the first town and I can't find a trigger to make story progress.

Traverse town? What was the latest event you witnessed?

A sign of things to come, unfortunately. Progression is really obtuse at some points. When I was stuck in traverse town, I had to go back to the accessory shop before the next area opened up. Try that?

That's my one big criticism of the game, you often have to wander around talking to the same few NPCs multiple times before you can move on. It's not always clear where to go or what to do. Fortunately, that does clear up later (or maybe I just got used to it).

I played with a guide open on my phone, and I found that helped me enjoy the game a lot more.

A_Unicycle wrote:

A sign of things to come, unfortunately. Progression is really obtuse at some points. When I was stuck in traverse town, I had to go back to the accessory shop before the next area opened up. Try that?

I have just finished the first 3 worlds and this is probably my biggest complaint so far. A number of times already I have found myself wandering around the levels hoping to walk into the area that triggers the next cut scene. The first visit to Traverse town is probably the worst but both Wonderland and the jungle have a number of similar segments, even the Colosseum had me stuck when I first arrived.

So far my other complaints would be the difficulty spikes for the bosses (Wonderland and the Colosseum in particular) and basically anything involving jumping (I'm not a big platforming guy, add in a tricky camera and fairly loose controls and I have found myself frustrated a number of times).

On the plus side, I love the core gameplay, I find myself sitting down for a quick play and still going strong an hour or two later. The story and characters have been fun and light so, fitting nicely with the tone of the game.

Overall I am really enjoying it despite moments of frustration.

I just got to Traverse Town, and someone at someones heart, now I'm assuming I'm supposed to run into Donald and Goofy

I just did the first Colosseum cup (Phil's Cup), now I will be on my way through a worm hole. I forgot how little help this game gives when trying to figure things out.

Chimalli wrote:

I just did the first Colosseum cup (Phil's Cup), now I will be on my way through a worm hole. I forgot how little help this game gives when trying to figure things out.

I wonder... do latter games in the series get better at this? I wonder how much of it is a legacy of when the game was made.

Anyway, thanks least it has Donald Duck, as the ducks are by far the best Disney characters.

Fastmav347 wrote:

I just got to Traverse Town, and someone at someones heart, now I'm assuming I'm supposed to run into Donald and Goofy

Spoilering just in case.

Spoiler:

You need to make your way through district 2 and trigger a few near miss cutscenes with Donald and Goofy, then you go back to Cid at the accesory shop. That'll trigger the next story beat when you leave his shop.

steinkrug wrote:
Chimalli wrote:

I just did the first Colosseum cup (Phil's Cup), now I will be on my way through a worm hole. I forgot how little help this game gives when trying to figure things out.

I wonder... do latter games in the series get better at this? I wonder how much of it is a legacy of when the game was made.

Anyway, thanks least it has Donald Duck, as the ducks are by far the best Disney characters.

I’m probably looking back with rose tinted glasses but, I remember 2 to be mechanically much better, birth by sleep attempts to fix a lot of the plot holes, and the 3ds one I thought I beat it but nothing stands out other than the having heartless-like things on your team. I don’t recall any of the confusing directions on where to go, luckily the worlds aren’t that big maybe 5-6 zones each.

Chimalli wrote:

I’m probably looking back with rose tinted glasses but, I remember 2 to be mechanically much better, birth by sleep attempts to fix a lot of the plot holes, and the 3ds one I thought I beat it but nothing stands out other than the having heartless-like things on your team. I don’t recall any of the confusing directions on where to go, luckily the worlds aren’t that big maybe 5-6 zones each.

2 was a bit better mechanically, but not much so. What improvements it made in gameplay, it completely biffed from a narrative/storytelling standpoint.

Fastmav347 wrote:

I just got to Traverse Town, and someone at someones heart, now I'm assuming I'm supposed to run into Donald and Goofy

I believe Wembley has the right of it; just run around district 2 triggering little scenes and then head back to Cid in the Accessory Shop to move the story along.

How much of this game is frustratingly bad platforming? I am about 5 hours in and so far have seen way too much of their bad platforming.

Front-loaded in terms of annoying platforming (this game really doesn't give a good first impression). You've seen the worst of it by Jungle Book. Gets a lot more manageable with the "high jump" ability.

brokenclavicle wrote:
Chimalli wrote:

I’m probably looking back with rose tinted glasses but, I remember 2 to be mechanically much better, birth by sleep attempts to fix a lot of the plot holes, and the 3ds one I thought I beat it but nothing stands out other than the having heartless-like things on your team. I don’t recall any of the confusing directions on where to go, luckily the worlds aren’t that big maybe 5-6 zones each.

2 was a bit better mechanically, but not much so. What improvements it made in gameplay, it completely biffed from a narrative/storytelling standpoint.

Fastmav347 wrote:

I just got to Traverse Town, and someone at someones heart, now I'm assuming I'm supposed to run into Donald and Goofy

I believe Wembley has the right of it; just run around district 2 triggering little scenes and then head back to Cid in the Accessory Shop to move the story along.

Turns out I was right at the end of that terrible sequence, I saved in the shop, walked out and boom the story is moving along.

Fastmav347 wrote:

Turns out I was right at the end of that terrible sequence, I saved in the shop, walked out and boom the story is moving along.

Great! I hope to be finishing up the Tarzan section tonight or tomorrow, in between bursts of Monster Hunter World.

I just remembered to look for this thread, whoops! Between having had surgery on the 26th and relatives moving into my basement on the 29th, I have to find a new location for the PS4. But I’m so in, even if I have to marathon this on New Year’s Eve.

No success yet in my quest for a borrowed/dirt cheap PS3 (or PS4, for that matter). 1.5 is basically a remastered KH1 plus Chain of Memories, right? Would playing the originals count?

benign1 wrote:

No success yet in my quest for a borrowed/dirt cheap PS3 (or PS4, for that matter). 1.5 is basically a remastered KH1 plus Chain of Memories, right? Would playing the originals count?

Sure!

I have a decent amount of free time over the past week and really got stuck into this.
I’m currently in Hollow Bastion working through a series of boss fights, about level 45 with all the main worlds apart from Atlantica finished, the first 2 coliseum events done and a tiny bit of 100 acre woods.
I have very conflicted troughs:

- The gameplay continues to be great fun, particularly as the enemies are diverse with different approaches being well rewarded
- As a fan of Disney the settings and characters are hugely enjoyable, I love the effort put in with the different art, music and gameplay in different areas.
- So far the story is fairly pedestrian, bad guys are bad, good guys are full of honor and heart, the end.
- I can’t imagine playing without a guide open. A number of times I have found myself stuck only to discover I needed to backtrack to a specific area, cast a spell or talk to a specific person again with no real indication from the game itself. Add in the constantly spawning enemies and it’s a recipe for frustration.
- There are some serious difficulty spikes, I often go hours without coming close to dying, including multiple boss battles, then suddenly I’ll be 2 hit and it will all be over.

I’ve sunk 17ish hours into this over about 2 weeks, so I’m enjoying myself but can’t shake the feeling that this game is most enjoyable when it is a light, mainstream, romp filled with recognisable settings and characters but very often is an obtuse, dark souls light, experience that requires a quite a bit from the player (not that this is bad, just not what I was expecting)

I've made it to Tarzan world, still very conflicted about it. Anytime anything Disney is on screen its awesome. All the rest of the parts is a mess. Constantly spawning enemies infuriates me with amount of wandering required to play the game, feel like the levels are poorly laid out.

I recently bough the $99 collection(all KH games including KH3 when it releases) from psn on ps4 (best deal in my opinion). This may motivate me to play more.

Tips from someone who beat the original on ps2:
1. Don't be afraid to give in and use a guide. Some of the triggers are stupidly heard and sometimes don't make sense (walk into accessory shop twice in traverse town to continue?)
2. The platforming didn't age well, so get used to that floaty jump early on.
3. Save a lot... Standard jrpg reasoning
4. It honestly gets better. And KH3 looks to be really solid

I'm currently still pretty early in. Just finished wonderland

Unplugged the WiiU from the living room and switched in the PS4. Now I’m installing 4 months’ worth of system updates so I can get started without bothering the cousins!

I finished up KH Final Mix over the weekend. General thoughts are as follows.
Pros:

- As a fan of both Disney and Square I loved the setting and characters. Square did a great job bringing a unique feel to each world, in the world design, character design and the music.

- The combat system is excellent, particularly for this era. I’m playing Jade Empire for the CRPG club and it’s amazing to consider that game was released a number of years after KH, the difference in the combat is night and day. Both feature real-time, 3D, primarily melee combat systems but JE feels very clunky, like the team is feeling out how this new style of combat should work, KH on the other hand still holds up imo. Add in a good range on enemies, requiring some different approaches, and you get a fun system with just enough depth.

Cons:
- The game is constantly obtuse. Maybe I am to use to modern games with glowing arrows pointing the right direction and quest markers on maps, but I can’t imagine how long this would have take without a guide. My biggest frustration here is that these problems don’t occur during puzzles, it’s mundane things like finding the door/character/action to trigger the next cut scene.

- The platforming elements, of which there are many, are horrible. The camera is hard to position, your companions get in your way and jumping and movement just don’t feel tight. You unlock both a high jump and “fly” ability later in the game, my advice would be to skip any optional platforming, for that tricky to get to treasure check for example, then come back once you have these.

- Constantly respawning enemies only exacerbate the two problems above.

- While the setting is great, the story is very run of the mill.

- The gummi ship stuff was poorly implemented and completely forgettable. I like the idea of doing a different little sub-game to break things up, but both the ship construction side, and the actual flying/combat need a lot of work.

While it might not sounds like it, overall the combat and setting (and a good guide) where more than enough to get me through, and I really enjoyed the experience.

I’m very keen to get going on Chain Of Memories, which I have never played before any know nothing about apart from the combat adding in cards/decks.

That echoes a lot of my feelings after finishing 1.5. Very much agree with your opinion. Were you completely lost by the ending sequence too? I'm not sure if I didn't understand something or the story had some faults. Either way, my head was spinning after seeing everything unfold (and they say this is the easy game to follow!)

I've been holding off starting Chain of Memories, just waiting for more people to finish up the first game so I'm not playing alone. I'll go ahead and start it up later this week. Excited!

A_Unicycle wrote:

That echoes a lot of my feelings after finishing 1.5. Very much agree with your opinion. Were you completely lost by the ending sequence too? I'm not sure if I didn't understand something or the story had some faults. Either way, my head was spinning after seeing everything unfold (and they say this is the easy game to follow!)

Yes, the ending, and to a some extent everything from about half way through Hollow Bastion on, didn't really make a lot of sense to me story wise. Like you I'm not really sure if I missed something or if it was poorly told.

I feel like some of it might have been me tuning out the story some what and just focusing on the gameplay. I also think a lot of JRPGs (particularly from this era) have stories that don't really make a lot of sense when taken as a whole, often feeling more like a sequence of interesting events, rather than a complete, consistent narrative. Note, I'm not criticizing this style, just pointing out that it is different.

Congrats on finishing Cronox!

I played about an hour of Chain of Memories and...I did not grab me. Fumbled around a little bit before figuring out how to get back into a save room and turned it off.

I really like card games so I'm hoping I enjoy it with time, but it definitely wasn't a good pick being tired and grumpy. Regardless, keen to get through the story so I'm not giving up!

A_Unicycle wrote:

I played about an hour of Chain of Memories and...I did not grab me. Fumbled around a little bit before figuring out how to get back into a save room and turned it off.

I really like card games so I'm hoping I enjoy it with time

This sums up my initial experience too. I normally like card games, so I was keen for this, but impressions were not great. The flow of the combat just doesn't feel as good with the cards.

I have sunk about 5 hours in now and while I am still not sold on the actual combat, I am starting to get into the deck building side of things, and even build a custom deck of a particular boss battle in my last play session. Outside the combat the characters and settings remain fun, even if they are a rehash from the original, and the build your own dungeon crawl element has been fun for me, as somebody who loves a good mindless dungeon crawl.

How’s everyone coming along?

Waylaid by Absurd playing MLB 18 The Show.