#also its nice not having to dodge to keep up a fucking damage modifier.

[where-is-caithe]

I love SotO if only because I can now play rev with a greatsword without having the annoying old guys constantly talking in my head <3

[ranger-report]

Thoughts On: HEXEN II

After developing two fantastic games utilizing the id tech 1 engine -- also known as the DOOM engine -- Raven Software found themselves once again at the forefront of technological advancement when their neighbors id Software released a little game called Quake. Using a brand new, fully 3D rendered engine, Quake revolutionized first person shooters and PC gaming graphics. After the successes of Heretic and Hexen, Raven was deep in the throes of developing a third game in their dark fantasy series, this one titled Hecatomb. Sadly, this game never came to pass, as John Romero (who’d had heavily helped develop the previous two games) left id Software to found his own company, abandoning Hecatomb in the process. At this point, Activision Publishing acquired Raven and the rights to distribute future games they developed. Activision told Raven that they wanted to see the Heretic and Hexen games split into two separate franchises as both games were different in gameplay styles. So rather than a final third game to wrap up a trilogy, ideas from Hecatomb were then split between Hexen II and Heretic II. While this yielded mixed results, we’ll look first at Hexen II, a game that was highly anticipated upon release, and whose legacy is an uneven yield.

The story this time around is that the third and final Serpent Rider, Eidolon, has taken over the word of Thyrion. Separated into four lands, Thyrion is infested with Eidolon’s minions, and it’s up to one of four warriors to take him down: the Crusader, Assassin, Necromancer, and Paladin. What’s neat about this premise is that each of the warriors comes from one of the four lands --  Blackmarsh, Mazaera, Thysis, and Septimus, respectively. And each land has a different cultural theme -- Medieval European, Mesoamerican, Ancient Egyptian, and Greco-Roman, also respectively. Also very interesting about this setup is that each land is being ruled by one of the Four Fucking Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- Famine, Death, Pestilence, and War also also respectively. Off the jump there is a lot going on here, a lot more detail than the previous two games about the worlds and what is happening. This works to the game’s credit in attempting to set up a distinct world for this entry in the game series, but somehow, it falls a little flat. In previous games the player encounters a variety of monsters and enemies that all carry over from hub to hub, level to level, giving the player a chance to learn their attacks and be aware of how to defend themselves. There’s also overarching aesthetics that maintain a steady, immersive feel to the worlds presented. Hexen II’s decision to split the hubs into unique lands works against it, as each land as its own unique enemies and aesthetic and architecture. Just as the player has a chance to get used to enemy tactics and tricks (thanks to some stellar AI work), those strategies are abandoned as the next world is loaded up with new enemies and new look, throwing the player off and breaking the immersion. As much as I tried to get into it, what it ends up feeling like is the standard issue Water World, Fire World, Sand World, etc of old NES platformers. This is not to say that the worlds aren’t good looking, however -- Raven modified the shit out of id tech 2′s textures and polygonal aspects, crafting a still-gorgeous game which takes full advantage of the technology.

Progression here is also slightly different from the previous Hexen, but is a very welcome course change. Each character class has different skills and abilities, and as you play through the game, you’ll gain experience and level up. Returning from the previous game are the fact that each class has their own four weapons, using 1) no mana ammo 2) blue mana 3) green mana and 4) both mana. As usual, the fourth weapons need to be assembled from pieces in order to be used, but what overpowered destruction they bring. My favorite class is Crusader, whose skills and weapons focus on defensive measures, but his ultimate weapon is the Light bringer. It fires a steady stream of what can basically be called pure light, burning through any enemy in a matter of seconds, and the drain on Mana is negligible. It’s possible to reach the max level of 12 through the game, and each character receives a new passive ability at levels 3 and 6. It’s always nice to notice that you’ve gained a level during the adventure, but it usually happens well after the fact. I had a difficult time hearing the audio cue to let me know that I’d leveled up and now had extra health, or new ability. I had to go into the revamped inventory screen, which now shows key quest items as well as the current items in your pocket.

In fact, Hexen II’s biggest immediate suffering is that there seems to be a lack of feedback. There’s little in the way of gratifying sound or feel whenever your attacks land, which is doubly frustrating when most attacks are ranged and as far away from the very deadly monsters. Up close and personal melee attacks seem to have a weird range, sometimes being able to hit at different distances, but it’s hard to know exactly how and when that’s going to happen. The inventory system is fine, objects work they way they’re supposed to. Most of the problems come from the early usage of id tech 2. Quake is not a game designed around interactivity, despite Hexen II being the exact opposite. id tech 2 takes away the Action button, so you walk into panels or switches to operate them, no button mashing required. There’s also no minimap, so navigating become a trying issue. But projectiles in this game don’t seem to have an impact; there’s no oomph to it, similarly to Quake’s monster who rarely stagger when hit. This is a problem because multiple times will occur when you’re firing rapidly at damage-sponge enemies, wondering if you’ve hit them enough to count, counting each shot, watching your steadily diminishing mana fall away, waiting hoping praying that this isn’t another time where you’re going to be forced to use the melee weapon, and then they are suddenly dead and you didn’t know they were close to death. It’s not as frustrating in the early levels, where you’re Level 1 and Everything Hurts and Everything Takes A Lot To Kill. But by Level 9, there are bigger, badder, more horrifying enemies who soak up so much damage that it feels like a Thoroughly Epic Duel every single time. This, perhaps, is meant to make up for the fact that -- unlike Hexen which sent waves of hordes of squads of monsters at the player at once -- Hexen II lobbies much fewer enemies at a time. In fact, I’m hard pressed to remember any time I fought more than five at a time, and even that is a generous number. But since each of the enemies are so much more resilient, anything more than three becomes an exercise in dodging and weaving and running for cover in order to get in a few shots and quaff a drink from a healing elixir, because these fuckers hit, hit hard, and hurt harder. Especially the Four Horsemen, who are so intense and difficult that I was convinced for a moment that the game was building up to a boss run near the end that would have been insurmountable. Fortunately, thank fuck, there wasn’t. And yet, while the increased difficulty of the enemies comes with the bonus of impressive AI (most notable in the Were-Jaguar warriors, who leap and roll and attack like real human opponents), it also comes with the downside of empty stretches of pathfinding. Where in Hexen enemies would respawn with abandon in an effort to wear down the player, Hexen II seemingly keeps a limit on the number of enemies involved on a map. Once they’re dead, they’re dead, which then makes wandering around afterwards an exercise in frustrated boredom searching for clues and hints to the puzzles.

Speaking of which, while feedback and aesthetics are weak points, if there’s anything that the game truly bounces players out of the game, it’s the puzzles. Blackmarsh is host to one of the most infamous puzzle glitches in the series, possibly in all RPG gaming, the solution to which is based on how your character enters a particular courtyard. Depending on which turn the player takes, this will then spawn a clue in one of three locations based on your entry point, along with the necessary quest item in one of three locations after gathering the clue. However, the clue itself can be accidentally destroyed. It can also be missed entirely, and if you don’t find the clue you can’t go directly to the quest item location knowing the solution -- it can only be solved in the order of clue, location, item. So if you somehow miss or even destroy the clue itself -- and Hexen II is rife with destructible items holding hidden mana and health so chances are you’re breaking a lot of shit -- you’re out of luck. I discovered this far, far too late, and had to start the whole game over because I didn’t have a recent enough save file that I could utilize to go back to. Thankfully, this was fairly early on in the game, but it serves as a brutal low point that comes back to haunt the player in the Egyptian levels, where a maddeningly opaque puzzle involving time travel and astrology nearly drove me to a walkthrough and early onset baldness. Elsewhere, puzzles are item-based rather than key-based like in Hexen, which revolve around gathering items, transporting them to a location, and then receiving either a new item or a key. Sometimes these items need to be altered or transmutated; the game is questionably vague about what is necessary sometimes. Fortunately, despite the veiled hints, most fetch quests are simple enough to solve. But the lack of enemies giving way to empty hallways and corridors makes those fetch quests empty and tedious, moreso than they ought to be.

Hexen II isn’t a bad game by any means. It’s very much a product of 1997. New technology, advancements in PC gaming, experimentation with new control schemes and movements, a lot of games at the time featured both innovation and frustration in equal measure. Hexen II is a solid game at its core, with great direction from the returning team, a great soundtrack, fantastic graphics and sound design, and RPG progression. But all of these upgrades come at the cost of a more simplistic version of Hexen that is somehow trying to have the straightforward run-n-gun gameplay of Heretic and the brutal dungeon crawl of Hexen. Puzzles suffer, shooting mechanics suffer, and immersion suffers. What it ends up being is Hexen Lite, not as good as the original, but fine on its own. Would I go back and play it? Sure, at some point I’d love to, but it didn’t draw me in the same way that Hexen did, not even as much as Heretic. But it’s a Quake engine game (which I’m a sucker for) and a 1997 game (which I’m a sucker for, goddammit), and despite its flaws it represents a moment in gaming which I can’t help but be nostalgic for. Your mileage may vary, but be advised that there are other, bigger, bolder versions of this experience that Hexen II has inspired, and while this may have inspired quite a few, it hasn’t aged as well as its predecessors.

Next up: we close off the Thoughts On series of Heretic/Hexen games with Heretic II. And if Hexen II was a different experience in order to differentiate itself as a unique series, Heretic II goes above and beyond to set itself apart....for better and for worse.

[hellyeahheroes]

Building Laura Kinney in D&D

And once again I try to build a teen superhero in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. Previously we have built Cassandra Cain as a frontline martial arts fighter and Static as an electricity-based wizard from DC and Nico Minoru as a staff-wielding Sorcerer from Marvel. So it’s time we add a front-line Marvel character to the group. And I think I have a good candidate

If you need music to get into the mood, take your pick

Let us start with the goals for this build. First, we need to ensure Laura is Best One There Is at slashing and stabbing people. Our second goal is to ensure she can take the damage as well as she can dish and can heal. Finally, we need to reflect on her sense

For Abilities I will be using Standard Point Array - 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8 -, if you would rather roll or use point-buy, treat this as a guideline what to prioritize. Our most important stat will be Constitution, as she can get pulverized and keep going. Second is Dexterity, Laura can dodge machinegun fire after all. Then Wisdom for sharp senses and to help saving throws against Trigger Scent. Intelligence will follow, Laura has a vast array of skills, most of them she was taught. Charisma next, she is aloof and keeps for herself but was still good enough to fool professional agents even at a young age. We will dump strength - while Laura has shown she is stronger than an average person, we just don’t need it. Your stats should be STR 8 DEX 14 CON 15 INT 12 WIS 13 CHA 10

Let us pick her Race a.k.a. “Just Call it Species already, WotC”. I was always somewhat confused why Tulok the Barbarian, whose videos inspired this series, always pick non-human races for mutants. I mean isn’t the entire point of X-Men how they try to claim mutants are still regular people? But then I’ve made three of these builds myself and it was always “Variant Human” and it becomes monotonous. So I guess Magneto was right, mutants are Homo Sapiens Superior and that means non-human race

Tulok built Wolverine as a Dwarf but a) Laura isn’t this short (watch me go for a lonw-hanging fruit) and b) as evil-looking Tony Stark above explains, Sarah Kinney is Laura’s mother, meaning she is more like Logan’s daughter than a clone. And since there is no half-dwarf race, well go with something else. Say, which species in fantasy is all about how fucking superior they are 24/7? And has ears that kinda look like that weird thing on Wolverine mask?

Half-Elf grants you +2 to Dexterity and +1 to TWO separate Ability Scores. Pick Constitution and Wisdom. It also grants you a number of bonuses like Darkvision, allowing you to see in dim light up to 60 feet as if it was a bright light and in darkness as if it was a dim light, except without being able to see colors. You cannot be put to sleep by magic and have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, useful against trigger scent. You can use Common and Elvish language and one additional, pick whatever is campaign relevant. You also get two skills of your choice, I would suggest Perception and Athletics, the latter of which helps us somewhat mitigate low strength as it is the only STR-based skill, meaning if DM asks you for a Strength check you can probably talk them into making Athletics check instead.

EDIT: So, I was checking on dndbeyond and I realized I made a mistaken assumption that  Half-Elves get +2 DEX like Elves...and they do not. It’s baffling really. I guess we have to make Laura an Elf then. You get  +2 to Dexterity, proficiency with Perception and bonuses I didn’t cross out above. An Arenei Wood Elf variant also gets +1 to Wisdom, gets to pick one extra Proficiency, pick Athletics, gains +5 to walking speed and can hide even when only lightly obscured.

For the Background, there is no trained assassin so we will get the next best thing - Spy. It let us choose two more proficiencies, Stealth and Acrobatics will it be, and makes Laura proficient with Forgery and Disguise kits. You also get a minor feature that makes it harder for people to remember you in a crowd or walking in and out of a conversation as long as you didn’t draw attention to yourself.

For the class, we will start with Rogue. You gain proficiency with four more skills, pick Deception, Sleight of Hand, Intimidation and either Insight or Investigation. You also get proficiency with Thieve’s Tools, light armor (which is the most armor Laura ever gets and we will stick to it), simple weapons, hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords, Dexterity and Intelligence saving throws and Thieves’ Cant, secret language of the criminal underground. You then get to pick expertise with two skills you know, gaining Expertise with them that doubles your proficiency bonus to them. I’d go for Acrobatics and Perception.

Finally, you learn Sneak Attack that allows you to deal additional 1d6 damage on successful hits if you had an advantage on an attack roll against the target or if an ally that is not incapacitated is within 5 feet from the target and nothing grants you disadvantage on the attack roll. Sneak Attack only works with ranged or finesse (meaning they use Dexterity modifier for attack and damage rolls) weapon, so in our case it will be Shortswords - pick up two shortswords that deal 1d6 damage.

If you need an explanation how attacks work, here.

Alternative: If you’re willing to stray away from core Laura experience, use daggers instead. They deal only 1d4 damage but can also be thrown, carry a bunch of them with you to use some of Laura’s abilities at range.

How two-weapon fighting in D&D works is that you can attack with one weapon and take your bonus action to make an attack with an offhand weapon but it does not add damage from your ability score to damage. Let us fix that with our first level of Fighter. It gives you a fighting style and we will choose Two-Weapon Fighting. From now on you can add your Dexterity to attacks made by your offhand weapon.

You also get Second Wind, allowing you to heal 1d10 + your fighter level of damage as a bonus action once per short or long rest. This is minor healing, for now, it has to do.

Second Level Fighter gets Action Surge, allowing you to once per long or short rest to take an extra action during your turn, meaning in a pinch you can make three attacks in a single turn.

Back to Rogue, second level gives us Cunning Action. It allows you to take a bonus action on your turn to take Dash, Disengage or Hide actions.

Third Level Rogue increases Sneak Attack to 2d6 and gets to choose a Rogue Archetype. Assassin gives you an ability to, well, Assassinate - you have an advantage on attack rolls against opponents who haven’t yet take a turn in combat, and every hit against them counts as a critical hit. How it works is that on critical hit you roll an extra dice of damage for every dice you would roll, meaning on normal strike you will roll 2d6 and on a critical hit with Sneak Attack you also double Sneak Attack damage, already rolling 6d6 on a single hit.

If it’s so good to hit as an Assassin then let us make sure we will. On 4th Level Rogue gets an Ability Score Improvement or let us take a feat but...why not both? Elven Accuracy gives you +1 to Dexterity and from now on whenever you have an advantage on attack rolls using Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma, you can once reroll one of the dice. So if you don’t score a critical hit, you lose nothing rerolling lower of the results and if you didn’t hit at all you can reroll either.

5th Level Rogue upgrades Sneak Attack to 3d6 and gets Uncanny Dodge, allowing you to halve damage from an attack against you as long as you see the enemy dealing it.

All these damage dice doubled on a crit is nice, so how about we now try to increase our chances to actually get it? 3rd Level Fighter can pick Martial Archetype. Champion’s Improved Critical lets you now have a critical hit if you roll 19 or 20 on an attack roll, instead of just 20. This means you now have a 10% chance for Critical Hit.

BTW, I do find it funny Laura has a feature named similiar to the codename of one of her NXM teammates and her archetype shares a name with a Marvel team she was never in. 

4th Level Fighter gets their Ability Score Improvement, but we will take a feat again. Durable lets you increase Constitution by 1 and whenever you take a Short Rest and decide to roll Hit Dice to regain Hit Points, you add to result of each roll double the amount of your Constitution modifier.  Remember that increasing your Constitution bonus gives you extra hit point retroactively for every level you already have.

5th Level Fighter gains an Extra Attack, meaning you now attack twice during each attack action. Meaning you can attack three times with your bonus action or five times by also taking Action Surge.

6th Level Fighter gets another Ability Score Improvement and we will actually take it. You can spend two points one for Dexterity and one for Constitution

7th Level Champion becomes a Remarkable Athlete, allowing you to add your Proficiency Bonus to every Strength, Dexterity and Constitution check that doesn’t get it already, letting us sidestep low Strength modifier completely. It also lets you increase your jump distance by your Strength modifier, but Laura’s, as we just pointed out, has a negative one.

8th Level Fighter is another Ability Score Improvement, or rather, a new Feat. Tough gives you extra 2 hit points for every level you take and retroactively for every you had already taken. Right now it means 26 extra Hit Points and more to come.

9th level Fighter gets Indomitable, letting you once per long rest reroll one failed saving throw, but you have to use the new roll, even if its worse than the original.

10th Level Champion gets to pick another Fighting Style. Tunnel Fighter allows you to enter defensive stance as a bonus action and until your next turn make opportunity attacks without using your reaction and you can use your reaction to make an attack against a creature that moves five feet within your reach. Meaning you can now jump into the horde of enemies and they decide this isn’t worth it and try to move past you to your teammates, they get cut.

Alternative: If you play with a DM that does allow Unearthed Arcana (so you cannot do it in Adventurer’s League), you can replace Tough with Blade Master, which gives you +1 to attack and damage rolls with a Shortsword and gives you an advantage on all opportunity attack rolls. It makes you deadlier to many opponents with Tunnel Fighter, but more vulnerable.

11th Level Fighter gets a third Extra Attack, increasing your total number of attacks in a single action to three and to freaking seven with Action Surge and offhand weapon.

12th Level Fighter is an Ability Score Improvement time, round up your Dexterity for better attack, damage, AC and Initiative.

13th Level Fighter gets to use Indomitable twice between long rests.

14th Level Fighter is our last Ability Score Improvement, Round up your Constitution.

And we will wrap things up with 15th Level Fighter and a Champion feature, Superior Critical, which now lets us crit on 18, 19 or 20, increasing a chance of critical hit on an attack to 15%.

And so we have Laura as an Assassin Rogue 5/Champion Fighter 15. Let’s see how viable this build is

First of all you have an insane amount of Hit Points. Between Fighter’s d10 hit die, maximalized Constitution and Tough you should have on average somewhere around 260 Hit Points and with Durable and Second Wind you even have means to heal yourself from any wounds. Second, you have the means to deliver a ton of damage with your Sneak Attack, Assassinate feature, Elven Acurracy, multiple attacks and improved critical hits. You have 15% chance to crit on any attack, 39% with Elven Accuracy on Advantage. If you attack with Advantage (Elven Accuracy included) you have 77% chance to crit at least once with just your three base attacks, 95% with Action Surge and 97% if you also use your bonus action. Finally, you’re skilled in multiple things, many of which are related to stealth, giving you further opportunities to surprise enemies, and your physical abilities.

On the downside, Laura has rather low AC without magic items, Dual Wielder feat could slightly improve it but we do not have access to it. Laura is also dealing piercing or slashing damage, to which many of higher-level enemies have resistance or outright immunity. We also lack in mobility, meaning some of the advantages of this build will go to waste if enemies simply don’t stand close enough to one another, even with dash as a bonus action. You’re also a bit of one-trick pony, I wouldn’t recommend this to a player that gets bored with doing the same thing each round. Finally, you know what 97% chance to crit is not? 100%. There will be times when you will roll these 21 d20s and not get a single crit, just starring at the dice in sheer humilation and wondering if that thing hates you or what.

But at the end of the day, you’re still one damn badass, that will be hard to put down. Sneak up on your enemies, get close to as many as you can, disregard the damage dealt to yourself and unleash hell. Just remember this is team effort and one of the best ways to get that sweet, sweet advantage is to have a partner flank your opponnent. So don’t be an edgelord and work as a part of the team

[metalempire]

Kingdom Hearts 3: A Review

This one is gonna be long as shit probably but since I finally finished the game on standard, proud and critical mode, and with DLC on the way I’m going to try and review the basegame for KH3 and see how it stacks up. Most of this under readmore for the sake of ur dashboards.

So I want to clarify a handful of details, KH2, its final mix especially, is my favourite game in the series. The gameplay is almost fucking perfect for an action game and is accessible to so many skill levels and did all of its difficulty modes quite well (though proud has not aged well compared to critical). Not only this but Sora’s moveset and animations, their speed and frames and iframes after actions and also interaction with abilities is almost perfect (I have eternal issues with how guard’s timing works compared to KH1′s guard it’s just slightly more delayed by enough to throw me off) and I have played KH1, CoM, BBS, DDD, Re:Coded and 0.2 so I have enough experience with the games overall.  Also as for story, KH1 was the only game that did it well, CoM is fine, and KH2 is a bit like that but still decent. After that point story has been going downhill thanks to Nomura’s writing dying a fiery death so KH3′s awful story pacing, fairly disappointing execution and dumping of things all at the end don’t bother me as much since it was doomed from the start considering it has to conclude stuff set up by BBS and DDD which were stories that don’t hold up well anyway. Plus at this point I just accept that the story of KH isn’t going to be good anymore. No I don’t play the gacha game, I keep up with the cutscenes time to time to stay in loop and that story is just long winded and cryptic. Gameplay is what I care about since that’s what makes a video game a game, funnily enough. (Though I think KH3 has a bad habit of making cutscenes either too long or stacking too many on top of each other) Also I want to state I am completely neutral on attraction flow. I neither like nor dislike them all that much. They serve a purpose and they can be ignored too. They’re more or less a matter of personal preference and I don’t feel strongly about them. Aside from the choo choo train no one can slander the train. 

Positives 

I think KH3 competes with KH1 for second most fun gameplay in the series. They took alot of things and rebalanced them and brought them all together in a way that I liked, shotlocks, flowmotion, counters, forms, magic, summons, grand magic and even a little bit of reaction commands and limits. Aside from the combos which are a given of course, as well as being able to cancel into magic and other actions being fairly competently done, though guard has some oddities to it where it doesn’t always work and it might be down to the game’s buffering system. More on that later. The keyblade transformations stand out as a real strength to the game, with a wide variety of movesets for each playstyle (my favourite is the Happy Gear and its’ transformations) and they make both horde and boss fights dynamic and fun, not to mention their interactions with guarding, dodging and magic and how they change it up as well as little bonus abilities forms give you. I do like that they brought back all sorts of enemies, Heartless, Nobodies and Unversed, with only Nightmares not returning. The variety is appreciated. On a mechanical note, I am very fond of being able to store a keyblade transformation by switching to another Keyblade, and I like being able to equip and shift between three of them. This is the first game where keyblades feel incredibly distinct from one another, and also the only game where Kingdom Key is viable from start to finish. This was something Re:Coded played with and I’m really glad to see the direction they took it in KH3. The addition of up to five party members is also appreciated, having everyone fighting at once in the larger battles KH3 has overall brings a nice sense of scale to it. Wallrunning and massive areas allow for some big levels to traverse and honestly thats’s mostly a strength since it adds greatly to immersion. There are boss fights in KH3, namely those in the Keyblade Graveyard that function perfectly for the game’s overall combat pacing, and they also amplify the strengths of the game on Critical mode.I like the little detail of magic now doing little status effects too now.The gummi ship is a nice blend of KH1 and KH2, and the open world flying around is a fun aspect that makes it feel like a real journey through the stars.The world’s are a usually of great quality, with Olympus being the best tutorial level/first level in the whole series, and the Caribbean providing a really enjoyable open ocean exploration style, Monstropolis getting the linear level style right properly, Kingdom of Corona building itself character wise very well to endear you to Rapunzel’s journey with its’ interactivity and Toy Box throwing a few decent challenges and very well put together mech combat. Also, graphically KH3 is one of the most impressive games I’ve ever seen, flexing on all the films, the older games, and real life itself, making the presentation fit the artstyle and rendering to a degree that’s frighteningly good. Game looks wonderful. The music is also good but that’s true of every game, Yoko just be like that, though 3 has some great compositions and remixes of its’ own to stand on. 

Negatives

One thing to preface this with is that a strength to KH2 is your options, how balanced they all are, what they all do, how they can interact with each other (such as how magic can be integrated into combos and do their own or using different buttons to change a combo altogether, or how certain moves fulfil different functions in a fight) is all very well structured and seamless. In KH3 your basic combo game doesn’t have as many modifiers to how it works outside of formchanges and even then it doesn’t quite feel as complete. Not only that but your options end up doing the same thing alot of the time, heavy damage that leads into strong AOE. The core design of the game is built around huge hordes of enemies, and that tends to mean its too easy to get hit out of nowhere or annoyed to death or sniped out of nowhere on critical, so you need to use magic and then grand magic to clear or links and attraction flow if you’re on critical to thin out hordes. While in boss fights this changes the game feels a bit too focused on large fights and has movesets less focused around smaller groups and suffers for it. Tying into this, animations are grander and longer, leaving you open to interruption. The camera in this game is also awful, and one of the worst, either not zooming in enough or too far out, or on more mobile enemies (or teleporting ones, looking at you Goatnort) it fails to keep best track of them and angle properly and you can get blindsided too easily or put in a vision style that makes depth perception for projectile blocking too iffy for my tastes.KH cameras are always a bit off but this one needs work. Base Sora’s animations tend to be very hard to work with compared to KH2′s, he’s alot slower, has more delays, less invincibility frames, attacks don’t follow together and follow up nearly as quickly, item usage is overall a slower process which can fuck you over on critical, guarding still has a delay to it, leaf bracer can be rendered useless due to cure having no iframes during the ending portion of the animation and on critical you can just wind up needing to heal again if you get hit trying to use leaf bracer to slip through an attack. There’s also a very odd way the game handles Sora’s hitstun, where he can’t do anything out of it unless he uses aerial recovery which has a rather narrow iframe window and a bit of lag on actions that can be performed out of it that means you cant do anything in some lategame boss fights once hit half the time since no button input does anything especially if you’re hit in the air. The game is far too unclear on when you can and can’t act out of a hit or a block. Also, while I like being able to retaliate once its’ unlocked after aerial recovery, the animation for the attack has a set direction and often ends up missing more mobile bosses and lacks control. The game’s overall balancing is a bit of a mess as well, with grand magic and magic being far too strong on all modes except critical, and links being too strong on critical since there is far too much of a reliance on AOE overall in the combat. As for difficulty, it has a strange Fire Emblem Awakening parallel, where standard is too easy, proud is the true normal mode but not a hard mode, and critical is a bit too hard at times though not all the time. I’d say critical eases up for a bit though it favours cheap shots and delivers its true delights right at the end, it’s weird and I’ll talk more about it later but it starts out unfairly hard with the tutorial boss two shotting you in seconds. There’s a real lack of postgame content overall, with the battlegates being alright but not grand, and only one superboss in Dark Inferno who is alright all things considered but isn’t a Sephiroth really. Speaking of which, no Final Fantasy characters in the series that’s supposed to be it crossing over with Disney. What the fuck. Also I will say that while the worlds are huge and long now, there’s still not that many of them, and while quality over quantity is a factor, quantity is nice too, and making Twilight Town that small and short feels like a kick in the dick to KH2 fans who love that place, me included. Ultima weapon is a pain to get, all the minigames in KH3 are either bad, terrible, awful, or dull and not worth playing, and you need to do some of the worst ones to get it though thankfully it’s not really all that necessary to have unless you want a trump card for critical mode which you’re better off using new game + to get from an easier save file anyway. The cooking minigames are also very odd with their timing and the controls are a bit unresponsive or too sensitive at times and discourages you from cooking. Look at what they did to 100 Acre Woods, it makes me sob salty tears at how small and gutted it is. In general enemies have difficulties telegraphing their attacks in both audio and visual style and you get cheap shotted alot. There is a particular Unversed enemy in Monstropolis I’m sure we’re all familiar with by now who is guilty of that sin the most. And finally, the game’s biggest sin of all: Armoured Xehanort (who I call Goatnort). This fight is a travesty. Teleporting, unclear telegraphs, unclear hitstun, random super armour, long combos that cannot be interrupted, wonky interactions with dodges, guards and reprisals that makes him get free hits on you sometimes even when successfully executing a block or dodge. He has a lack of clear telegraphs, acts at speeds that give KH2FM superbosses a run for their money despite you being slower than that game was, leading to things Sora’s animations aren’t equipped to deal with, as well as shifting the fight constantly to underwater combat and then forced aerial combat with very confusing controls interactions and pair that with AOE magic attacks with magnet powers, lock on wind magic with warping properties to ensure he lands his hit, alot of teleporting out of the camera’s range and warp strike sucker punches that really stretch the human reaction time when paired with the shit camera and you just get an unpleasant boss fight that while proud and standard can mitigate to just being annoying as all hell, on critical its a nightmare fight and you cant even observe the fight and learn it well either due to how much shit is going on, the camera being against you, unclear mechanical aspects, speed above what you can reliably output as base Sora who you are stuck as for most of the fight. It boils down to a spammy clusterfuck with too much going on, with so few openings to do anything, and bad interaction with Sora’s options and the animations tied to them with alot of damage that feels forced on you half the time. The Final Xehanort phase with the X-Blade is much better though.

Critical Mode

Since it didn’t launch with the game was added later as a free update and everyone made a big deal out of it and it’s exclusion seeming odd I might as well talk about it. Firstly, KH2FM has the best critical mode and is the only game to do it right really. It halves your hp and reduces the amount of mp you gain during level ups and increases to it, so you have enough to work with but never too much, enemies do the same damage as proud mode, but you do more damage than even standard mode, and you start with 50AP and a lot lategame abilities so strengthen Sora’s kit. This results in the best hard mode for the game, since fights never drag on too much and deaths are usually quick. It encourages and rewards you to use all your options and play both smart and aggressive to win. KH3 takes a somewhat similar approach. You start out with 50 AP and wide variety of boosting abilities mostly from endgame territory as well as unique critical mode ones that modify reprisals to reward proper dodge timing which is wonderful and even one to disable Attraction flow for those who hate it to build up transformations quicker. However Critical mode nerfs alot of things. Magic can’t be used as much and successive casts one after another especially rapid shots get a huge damage nerf so you have to use it sparingly making grand magic harder to get and magic de-incentivised outside of enemy weaknesses. There’s also wonky issues with damage scaling in relation to battle level and your level and all situation commands take much longer to build up to, even with the aforementioned boost to formchange buildup speed it still takes awhile and since base Sora is very hit or miss in fights this can be a very awkward change to work with. Enemy damage is also scaled very high and this could be one of the hardest critical modes earlygame, though DDD still holds the crown for hardest if we’re being honest. KH3 critical starts you out by Darkside two shotting you and most of the earlygame even regular Heartless kill you in two or three hits. Unless you use cooking to buff yourself you will die in two or three hits most of the time and some bosses can one shot you. The Gigas enemies in Toy Box are hard to deal with since magic is so nerfed and the Supreme Smasher boss can and will outright one shot you with all of its’ attacks if you don’t use a Gigas yourself. Even KH2FM critical wasn’t this unforgiving at times. The Kh3 critical mode experience boils down to a few things; most heartless bosses being easy as usual for KH3, getting randomly sniped in horde fights, boss fights that take awhile and usually 2 shot you, the mode and its’ particular challenge coming together masterfully for the Keyblade Graveyard fights to create a proper tense challenge that’s still fun, the Armours Xehanort fight being so frustrating it makes you want to launch your PS4 at Nomura, and Final Xehanort being a good but brutal fight that exposes a bit of flaws of KH3 but also plays to its’ strengths as well, unlike Goatnort who exposes all the flaws and needs to calm down. Overall I didn’t enjoy it as much as KH2FM critical mode but it was better than DDD and BBSFM critical mode. Definitely felt like it was trying too hard to be hard at times, did get me to actually use cooking though. Rage Form is king. 

Summary

Overall, Kingdom Hearts 3 is a well put together package blending together alot of the features from across the series into a very coherent combat system that oozes variety at its’ core, but is let down a bit by functional application reducing that variety to the same overall function. It’s a game with a bit of balancing issues, and ideally needs some overall core enemy fight redesigning, maybe a few more worlds and boss fights, and alot of tweaking to base Sora’s playstyle, requiring snappier animations, quicker flow between them, changes to hitstun interaction and options and iframe changes to be more fair on the player in critical mode. There’s alot to the combat overall that needs a little tweaking, and while it isn’t KH2 levels of good, it has alot of potential and is very fun to play, bringing together alot of what makes these games fun in general and pulling it off decently well. There’s alot to enjoy here, and the craft is up scratch, even if it is a bit wonky and rough around the edges on the more finer and precise aspects, it’s still up there with some of the best Kingdom Hearts games. I’m looking forward to the DLC and any future updates, and I’m hoping some more balance tweaking and a few changes might be all this game needs to be its’ best. It’s a good game through and through, and while some may find it disappointing, I’ve accepted that the series more or less peaked with KH2FM and I’m glad to see Osaka team have finally found a groove that fits them that they’ve clearly put some work into making as high a quality as they were able, considering the no doubt rocky development the game went through with all the business of engine shifts and other things going on in the company at the time. I know giving a numerical rating can devalue the qualitative aspects of a review but the quantitative is also nice to have so overall, I’d say that Kingdom Hearts 3 is a solid 8/10. KH3 competes with KH1 as second favourite in the series and even with all its’ flaws it’s a game I really do enjoy playing and putting time into.Story is still a fuckin train wreck tho lol. Good job the stupidity of it makes me laugh more than anything. Xemnas is still a better waifu than Ansem tho. MickeyRiku best ship.