Confusion and Play Order

[RemieGino14 24]

Honestly I started DDD HD version and I hated everything, music, gameplay, graphics, the slow combat like a KH 1 downgrade, the "mini-game" right off the bat is dizzying, annoying and unnecessary. Also this game is supposed to be what happens before KH 3, yet Sora and Riku are kids for some reason and going to Traverse Town, and what's up with the manga kid with the headphones.

 I know this post is a few weeks old, but I thought I could throw down some input if you're still around reading.

 

First, your quote about "The Manga Kid with the Headphones" killed me. I liked the description. (As many before me have mention, the kid is Neku from "The World Ends With You" It was available on the DS, and also has its Solo remake on iOS Apple Store.)

 

Second, I know how you feel, we're about the same age, so I started Kingdom Hearts around the same time you did, as a sales clerk from EB games suggested to me to try it out since it is a "Softsquare/Square-Enix + Disney Cross Over"

 

I'll quote my short story that I did in my Introduction in this forums:

 

[short story about me and Kingdom Hearts]

 

I first played Kingdom Hearts back in 2002 when it first got released. I believe I was in 6th or 7th grade (Went to EB Games which is now known as Gamestop to pick up my copy) I played all the way till Alice and Wonderland world then dropped the game cause I was so confused about everything. 4 years later in my Junior Year in high school, went on a Hawaii trip with my high school band and someone brought their PS2 with new copy of Kingdom Hearts 2 and I thought to myself, "Wow the game made it all the way to have a sequel. Cool." Graduated high school and fast forward to 2009, my 2nd year in College. I heard about Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, and my mature self then said, "I think its finally time to dig into this Kingdom Hearts story and see what I've been missing out on." What triggered me to get more interested in Kingdom Hearts was that I saw one of my friends playing Kingdom Hearts 2 and was going against Sephiroth battle at level 27, and it peeped my interests since I am a Final Fantasy Fan. So I borrow my friends PS2 and his copy of Kingdom Hearts and played through it till the end. Only then I realized what I missed out on back when I was in middle school but you know, we were all young and naive at that point.

 

[short story ended]

 

I can understand how confused you are about the plot, trust me I'm still on the same boat. Difference is It hasn't given me a negative effect, but more towards a positive effect. I can see your side on why it's negative because you're wanting to understand plot and what this game's "Story" is trying to tell you, yet they've released so many games on many different consoles, you've lost interest and it boggled down your interests in the series as a whole (Correct me if I'm wrong, just trying to see if that's what I'm understanding from your first post.) 

 

I'm not trying to say nor dictate how you should approach this series, after 13+ years of you being away from the first two major titles on the PS2, but here's my input on why I decided to stick around.

 

One of the few reasons I can appreciate Kingdom Heart's Lore is because its a "clusterjam" (My own term I use when the story is completely jumbled everywhere and you're trying to piece them in places on a story board for it to make sense you.) To me, this series is like a gigantic story book in which chapters have been swap around, I.E Chapter (Insert No.) is on the first 50 pages instead of somewhere in the middle of the book. (Not sure if you watch anime, but you can take "The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi as a great example. An anime where the episodes are numbered, but the story is not in chronological order by episode number, if that makes sense.) Another reason I appreciate this series is because the fact it is a crossover. Replaying Kingdom Hearts 1 on the PS2 back in 2009 made me appreciate the series even more than when I first played it back when I was in middle school. The fact that it has many of my favorite Disney Movies interacting with this (At the time) Squaresoft character that I have no idea who this kid is, yet he is also interacting with familiar faces from the Final Fantasy world. Eventually as time pass, other titles came out that I unfortunately had to skip because at the time, I didn't have the systems to play them on. It was more motivating for me to just watch it on youtube since I had the mentality that "I'm never gonna play these games, might as well spoil it for myself and watch gameplay/story videos so I can at least have a grasp on the story."

 

I guess what I'm trying to say or at least figure out is: what is it, the first time around, that got you so interested in the series in the first place? (I mean we can all agree that when the first game came out, the opening CG movie was amazing, but confusing as hell. The fact that Sora was falling, and you start the game on some Disney Pillar of a title, what wouldn't confuse you enough?)

 

From here I would think I can get a better understanding where you're coming from, because the fact I once had the mentality you did, it all changed when I saw it for myself. Most of my friends talked about Kingdom Hearts and I was trying to figure out why is this such a relevant topic back then. I did my research then decided to play the game that had recently came out (Birth By Sleep) and a lot of content came pouring to me from that game, to the point where I needed to replay 1 and 2 and a lot of things started to piece together for me.

 

I know you and I are different people, but this is my perspective on how I'm tackling this series, in hopes to give you a better perspective or to shift your view on how to approach this "clusterjam" series. For the record, I am not a hardcore Kingdom Hearts fan, more of just a casual, but with everything I just mentioned, I can for sure say that Kingdom Hearts 2.8 rekindled the fire for my love of this series.

 

In terms of your topic, many say it's not advisable to play Birth By Sleep first, I can agree, but if you have an idea or remember how 1 and 2 played out, I personally don't think its a bad idea to play Birth By Sleep when 1.5/2.5 come out. I only say this because when I jumped into Birth By Sleep, I vaguely remembered the story in 1 and 2, but with that, made me wanna play 1 and 2 again and gave me a better outlook on the story, and I played Birth By Sleep after not touching 1 and 2 for over 9 years. 

 

It is though, your own personal preference on how you want to approach the collectors edition, but this is just my two cents, and I hope it helped in some way or some form and lighten your "negative" outlook towards this series.

 

- RemieGino14 - 

Edited February 22, 2017 by RemieGino14