Critical Mode Reveals The Bad Things About KHIII's Mechanics & Balance & Accentuates Them

[Scsigs 119]

Now, I did a similar post months back on Dream Drop Distance. Luckily, I have less complaints about Critical Mode in this game, but I still have complaints. Now, I don't wanna shit all over this game, since I think it's legitimately good, but I feel the need to list out most of the problems I've seen. I also think these complaints CAN be patched out & fixed if the devs care enough, which I hope they do.

The first thing I have to talk about is the combat. Now, the combat is really good in this game, much better than Birth By Sleep & Dream Drop Distance, where the physical combos mean jack all & they expect you to get passed that with flashy moves through the command deck system. On top of that, not only 1 ability is useful like in DDD, all of them are. But, unfortunately, CM kinda tips the scales away from magic. Magic builds in this mode aren't a viable option because they nerfed magic too much to compensate for everyone pointing out how OP it was in the lower difficulties. They were trying to hearken back to KHIIFM's CM in this game, but they overly cooked it with that. In that game, HP & MP were cut in half, not nerfed into being almost useless.

Second, the Heartless were either buffed too much for the fact that you fight them in huge mob fights, or your defense was nerfed too much. Now, I don't mind them buffing Heartless enemies, but they end up doing too much damage, especially early on. It got so bad for me at one point that I got hit by nothing, or that's what it looked like. I most likely got hit by a Heartless off-screen, but hell if I know. That was during the boss fight with the anime doll girl in Toy Box, by the way. I have video footage of this on my gaming channel if you need proof.

Third, Bosses were buffed too much in the early game. When you can die easily to the tutorial boss, this is a problem. Imagine if in KHIIFM when you fought that giant Nobody boss where the game teaches you about Reaction Commands & you were too low on base defense & the boss' attack was buffed too much at once, so you constantly died until you're forced to play the game defensively. That's the early game in this mode for this one. I was expecting KHIIFM, yet I got Devil May Cry 1, basically. Not impossible, but too stupid hard for early game. And I hate the fact that that game is too hard so early on. I don't care if the bosses DM more often, but I care about a fair challenge. I played KHIIFM on Critical Mode my first time through & I didn't have this problem, or the last one.

These last two things also accentuate how bad blocking is in the game. You guys might've seen the clips now making the rounds on Twitter on how different blocking is between this game & KHII. Basically, II gave you a healthy amount of invincibility frames for blocking, whereas III does not. It seems to give you only a second or 2 of "I" frames, but then cancels out quick, at least when you're on the ground, but I've seen clips where people were in the air. Even people in Japan are pointing this out. An example: 

So, this needs to be patched up to add more "I" frames, in my opinion.

Now, this mode in this game, I feel, was made for people to play after they played the game rather than as something that is something you can do on a first playthrough like KHIIFM. It's also a mode I don't recommend whatsoever for your first playthrough, unlike IIFM, or not without NG+. They fully expected you to take whatever advantages you can, which is fine after the game gets going, but if you need these things in the early game before you'd have them normally (including foods), that's bad early game design. NG+ is also a mode I have issues with in this game.

Now, NG+ was another thing I think was poorly handled in this game. Granted, DDD & BBS ~ A Fragmentary Passage didn't have good NG+ modes, but I assumed it was because DDD was their first foray into including a mode like that & AFP was a shorter game, so it was excusable, but there have been a few other recent games that SHOULD be the standard for NG+ modes. I expected them to take the most influence from Spider-Man (PS4), where the NG+ mode was what you'd expect & the new game difficulty was more challenging, but not frustrating, early on, even if you didn't play the game before. NG+ only brings over Keyblades (nerfed for your gaming pleasure), which is something I wanted, & selfies, which I don't care about. However, I think they should've also carried over levels, stats, & abilities, as well as foods & other perishable items. Also, not nerfed the Keyblades. Maybe just let you keep the Ultima Weapon & some of the optional Keyblades, but letting us keep all of them is great. BBS & DDD could use this patched into them, since you only get the Ultima Weapons from awful optional super bosses, leaving them to not matter much. KHIIFM & this game do it right where you find the synth recipe for it in a chest & get it when you get a certain number of synth items dumped into the Moogle Synth Shop BEFORE fighting the last regular boss. It was fun taking screenshots of the cutscenes with the beautifully-designed Ultima Weapon. I really wish they'd patch in this NG+ into the earlier games for this reason alone. Even if they don't give you your stats & other items, this'd be enough.

I hope that's not confusing or coming off as hypocritical, since the earlier games, at least the first 2 numbered ones, are more structurally-sound (well...maybe not KHI) than this game.

Now, one last thing that Critical Mode does in this game that other games are sorely lacking that's good is give you Aerial Recovery early on. Why this wasn't done for the other difficulties & why this didn't become an early standard in KHII with Scan, I have NO idea. This ability makes the first several hours MUCH more tolerable. Not having that ability at the start sucks. That's one of the saving graces of this mode. The devs tried to balance the early game by giving you more abilities at the jump than the other modes, which is great, but they didn't compensate with the game's balance around you. A balance patch could make all of these problems go away or become lesser problems & more minor annoyances. I just want the best for the series & I hope the devs take more advice to heart & update the game's balance in one of the next patches. Even for the lower difficulties, I think a balance patch could be great, since the game IS far too easy on lower difficulties as-is.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Scsigs