What Could Be in Critical Mode, NG+, & A Final Mix DLC Patch

[Scsigs 119]

So, we're almost 2 weeks out from KHIII's international release. Hope everyone had fun. Just so you know, there are going to be very minor spoilers when getting to the "Final Mix" patch ideas, but everything else is gameplay stuff & the gameplay of this game is either shown in the trailers, or is based on stuff from the past games, so it's nothing people reading this shouldn't already be familiar with.

Critical Mode:

So, for this & the NG+, I feel Osaka Team REALLY need to take special care here. In the past, I feel they've really dropped the ball in one way or another with Critical Mode. Dream Drop Distance has this mode be bullshit hard rather than challenging, but fun, hard. I've already made an entire thread, which I'll link below, that you should read if you want my thoughts after replaying the game on that mode. Short of it is, the enemies with their randomized attack patterns & lack of flinching (which are made worse in that mode) on top of how the game limits you to make itself artificially hard. And not a "Fun" hard at that like KHIIFM, especially since the game used Flowmotion so much & the command deck system is used once again, but nerfed from BBS so it's not as fun. Also, Balloon made the game horribly unbalanced as well, but it's damn-near essential for Critical Mode. 0.2 got better, but I'd say where it falters is taking away Combo Master & limiting Once More & Second Chance, which the game was not designed for limiting you in those ways as Bizkit047 has noted.

For Critical Mode in this game, I think this game could use the following to make it fun hard/challenging:

* Taking double damage.
* Dealing 25-50% (I say that because IIFM had 25, while 0.2 had 50).
* EXP gains are nerfed.
* The Secret Video is unlocked for free.
* Enemies are more aggressive.
* The Attraction flow Situation Commands are nerfed or show up less often.

 

NG+:

Like the last one, I feel Osaka Team dropped the ball every time thus far. In DDD & 0.2, the NG+ modes felt like afterthoughts. Maybe I've been spoiled by Spider-Man & FFXV, but it SHOULD be more than "get this minor element in your new save file from the beginning."
Here's what SHOULD be in NG+, in my opinion.

* Keep ALL perishable items & Munny, as well as buyable weapons.
* Keep synthesis items, achievements, & recipes.
* Keep the optional unlock Keyblades (Ratatouille & Ultima Weapon) & other synth unlocks, as well as other general unlocks.
* Keep your levels.
* Keep your Gummi Ship stuff & levels.
* Have the chests that contain important items either stay opened in NG+, or have them contain random bigger items.

That's about it. Let me know if there's anything else that should be kept in NG+.

 

Final mix:

Balancing: I don't know about you guys but in playing this on Proud, I didn't have much of a bad time...until I did for a second. In fact, I would say this is probably the most easy KH game since Chain of Memories, but maybe also Birth By Sleep in terms of the gameplay. Makes sense, since these are the same people who made the remake of COM & BBS. The gameplay CAN use some tweaks to make it more balanced is what I'm saying here.

In terms of what could be added, I think an option to toggle situation commands on & off would be great, which is something I think a lot of people were hoping or expecting to be a thing. I say this because, at points, I accidentally clicked on the wrong situation command when I meant to click on another one. Some of them are also not good to use most of the time & are more or less clutter a lot of the time. Plus, some of them are controlled by the game's RNG. On top of that, I felt like there was aa sliding scale of difficulty with the majority of the enemies, particularly the Heartless & Unversed. Some of the enemies were just awful, like the snails with legs in Monster's Inc, while others were easy. Then there's the final bosses. They were fun, but the only ones who gave me trouble were the ones that were slightly improperly balanced, like Larxene & Xigbar, but the rest were pretty easy. Granted, I had the Ultima Weapon, which made them a bit easier, but when watching Bizkit047's blind playthrough of the JP version on Twitch, if you knew what you were doing, everything is significantly easier, even when taking on 3 bosses at once, especially if you knew who to target first to get out of the way to make the rest of the fights easier, especially since the fights are slowed down versions of their KHIIFM fights without reaction commands, thus limiting the combat potential off each boss, especially since they had to program the fights to balance 3 of them at once, which I think could use some tweaks to reach its full potential. One thing they COULD do is possibly team attacks for both the bosses & the main party like Sora has with Donald & Goofy. Here's an example. Luxord does his attack from II when he uses his cards to hide from you in one of them while Larxene & Marluxia do NOTHING of worth. Granted, they were fighting my teammates, but they didn't do much. Plus, I was fully expecting team attacks with everyone.

In terms of what COULD be changed, I think adding in a map system into the Disney worlds would be good. You have the mini-map, but a map system you could bring up could be useful. These Disney worlds are HUGE, so a better look at the map would be good. Also, if there were points on the mini-map to indicate where the chests are, since a lot of the locations are SO obtuse & a lot of the chests blend in with the environments (to the point where the video guides I found for them revealed how much so), so it would help.

Story: On a story side, a few story things NEED proper set-ups in this game, because some got mentions, & nothing else, then others didn't get anything at all on explanations.

Spoiler

1. A cutscene with terra's body on how they found it. They said that when Xemas & Ansem died & were recompleted, Xehanort reformed as his old self & Terra's body reformed somewhere & they used it for Terranort's heart to bring him to the present as a vessel. I'd just like a scene showing it as it's being explained, or maybe afterwards.

2. What happened to the Lingering Will? We NEED a cutscene explaining what happened after Terra challenged Xehanort in his body to a fight in the Keyblade Graveyard because he challenges him, he starts to fight him, they go offscreen, then you eventually fight him as Sora a bit later & it's not explained what happened to him in the interim. I think a cutscene showing their fight & Terra trying to retake his body would be great, then they could foreshadow the Guardian being his spirit a bit by having it creep out of the ground as Xehanort reveals it didn't work, which would make Sora's help mean a LOT more.

3. Axel & Kairi's training. We don't get much more than scenes with them talking. Showing their training under Merlin would be nice. Mickey & Riku's too, but at least we get to see more with them & even play as Riku a few times.

4. An establishing of Xehanort talking with the Organization. We don't see Xehanort AT ALL until the last world. Having some cutscenes with him talking before that would really help, since he's not really an entity outside of his other selves, whom WE know aren't the real enemies of the game.

5. Alterations to a few cutscenes. The first being when Sora snaps Xion out of her fighting mode. If you have the Ultima Weapon, it completely blocks Sora's face as he's talking to her & shedding a tear. The second is one towards the end. There's a cutscene, I think, in Scala AD Caelum where Sora holds the Keyblade. If you have the Ultima Weapon on, the top of it clips through Donald's hand. I've been informed by a friend who played the game that other Keyblades do the same thing, so altering these cutscenes to compensate for these Keyblades would be good.

6. Alter the cutscene before the end credits so Mickey isn't perpetually smiling. His eyes & voice acting are fine, but his mouth doesn't move from a default "smile" emoting. And it's creepy and off.

I'm sure there are more I wanted to list, but I can't remember. List them if you have any others & I'll put them here if they were the ones I was thinking of.

Additions that SHOULD be added in Final Mix:

Spoiler

1. Radiant Garden. In the post game, this should be a place you go to. You can have it be near Twilight Town on the space map. Have us meet the FF crew from the previous games & let us have the final match with Sephiroth. We NEED that.

2. Add in the Underworld Tournaments again. Let us have those tournaments to face off against Heartless, Hades, Hercules, Zeus, & the FF crew. Or maybe put it on Olympus with a cool opening cutscene to establish it. Also let us fight the other KH characters. Even in groups of 3. I'd LOVE to be able to fight the other 2 teams of 3 with Sora, Donald, & Goofy.

3. Let us toggle on & off items to automatically refill in our items on the characters like in KHIIFM. I didn't like how that wasn't in there.

General:

Just wanna say, but in a future patch, they should try to optimize the different modes, since the frame pacing in both are bad. I'm all for an unlocked framerate, since it runs better than FFXV depending on the device, but also I don't think they optimized it for the Xbox One X, since it somehow runs worse on there than the PS4 in 1080p mode. It's a problem it shares with FFXV, since they didn't optimize the enhancement patch well on Xbox One X either. You need to match the settings to the console, since the Xbox One X is different than the PS4 Pro & has more powerful hardware.

 

Links:

https://kingdomhearts.fandom.com/wiki/Difficulty_Level