In your opinion, which KH game has the best gameplay so far?

[Caity 3,946]

BBS.  It has my favourite style of gameplay

[Nick Sideris 1,551]

I will have to say BBS ....

[AaySquare 445]

I chose Kingdom Hearts II but Kingdom Hearts 3D game play is good also but the only thing I hated in it was the drop gauge especially when it can become empty in a middle of a fight.

[joku760 72]

Chain of Memories! said no one ever.

[MisguidedBliss 35]

I terms of gameplay, I'd say BBS. I had an absolute blast with the commands.

[Abriane Enairba 0]

bbs since i cant say ddd because i havent played that one, kinda funny chain of memories has only one vote

[Fullmetal-Keyblade-Wielder 1]

358. I freaking love the game. That's why I ship Roxas and Xion. ;w;

[ZOBLIVION 13]

Honestly.. I really like CoM. Well, It's combat system at least. Gotta pick that one.

[Philip Ellwell 5,487]

I'm going to have to go with classic KH: the keyblades were good, the system balanced...

the AI on Donald and Goofy sucked, but I usually shoved them out of the way anyhow. 

[Hero of Light XIV 2,381]

Oh yes, hahahahahha, let's put Re:Coded last because everybody hated it so much, that's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO funny, hahahahahhahhahahaha- Okay, seriously guys. LET. IT. GO.

 

Anyway, I'm stuck between Kingdom Hearts II, Birth by Sleep, and Dream Drop Distance. II really boosted the standard gameplay formula and introduced a power-up state, Birth by Sleep introduced the command deck formula that made things quick and easy to access like the card-based system and further explored the power-up system, and Dream Drop Distance used what was good, the command deck system, added new moves, had the most diversity between characters by allowing one to use summons and the other to use D-Link/Command Change, or whatever it was called. Oh yeah, and need I mention Flowmotion!? All seem to follow each other's footsteps in newer and spectacular ways, but to pick which one of them was better is a tough one.

 

They all offer a great deal of variety, excitement, and control that I love to see in these games that it's hard to pick. They also all have some level of sacrifice of some form of convenience for the sake of another type of convenience. Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix had even MORE new moves than Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, allowing you to cram in more ways to stagger or finish off then enemy. In this game, you could potentially have every single ability equipped. The only drawbacks to this is that it takes a LOT of AP farming to get to that point, and once you have access to all of those abilities, it's often a lottery to use the ability that you most want/need to use at that moment. Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep solves that problem by keeping the basic combo style combat while turning all of the extra abilities into deck commands, what would have been considered sleights in Chain of Memories. With a fair maximum limit of up to nine spaces to use up on the command menu, you can fit in a fair amount of abilities of several different calibers. The quick and easy access of these abilities, that can be strategically equipped and replaced at any time before battles, allow for battles that give much more control to the player. Unfortunately, it sort of has the opposite problem that Kingdom Hearts II suffers from. Despite the thousands of new moves, variety, and easy access to the moves you want to rely on the most, the ultimate draw-back to this system is that you can never have full access to all of your moves. You can switch between them between battles as much as you like, but for those who want the power of a full arsenal in their hands, you'll be forced to pick and choose, which can be a real bummer when you have such a limited number of slots and the more powerful moves take up more slots. The addition of other means of attack however slightly make up for this shortcoming. Dream Drop Distance more or less sticks closer to Birth by Sleep's style of gameplay, opting for command decks rather than standard combat, as well as adding the gameplay styles of the Dream Eaters and Flowmotion. With the same gameplay however, comes the same problem. The space is to limited to fit in everything you want. In the end, you may have the perfect personal deck that you always had to leave out that one deck command that you wanted to put in the most, all because Kingdom Hearts apparently can't count up to 10 when it comes to how many slots you can have! But it's a small sacrifice for a newer variety of moves, although it almost feels slightly smaller than Birth by Sleep's catalog, or even Re:Coded's (don't worry, I'll give a short riff for that game too). But it's sort of made up for by the variety offered by Flowmotion and the Dream Eaters. The Dream Eaters allow for different alternatives of gameplay, depending on who you play as. For Sora, the Dream Eaters work like the Summons and Limits from Kingdom Hearts II, allowing Sora and the Dream Eater to work together as a team to punish the enemy in spectacular, flashy, and often goofy ways. For Riku, the Dream Eaters work like the D-Links and Command Styles from Birth by Sleep, allowing Riku to combine with the Dream Eater to fight as one, with a changed moveset and combat style, allowing for even flashier ways to fight off and finish an enemy. Flowmotion also allows both characters to use their environment to their fullest, using the stage itself as a weapon, rather than the stage being a cage where they're forced to fight. The different means of maneuvering and attacking allow for some interesting variety in battles, but in my opinion, they stopped to early and could have done a whole lot more (I WILL get to use Flowmotion to run along, up, down, and all around the walls of buildings freely someday, I WILL!!!).

 

As for Re:Coded, what can I say? Same basic style as Birth by Sleep, only it gets even more nerfed with the inclusion of data memory or some BS like that, which even further limits what kind of commands you can use, whether you have enough slots or not! You could have gotten the maximum number of 9 slots for your command menu, but might never get to use the abilities you want, because they take up way too much memory space and the stupid CPU won't let you! Never in all of my life have I ever been so ticked off at how single-minded a computer works. I get that the point of this game is to make everything seem like a computer, I get that, and I even adore that at times, but for God's sake, did we have to include the faults and limitations of a computer as well, especially when there's already enough limitations in a DS game to deal with in the first place!? There must be a bunch of new abilities that I'll never know about, because the damn CPU won't let me equip what I consider to be a safe and fair deck into battle! So if I'm supposed to care about new abilities such as charged fire-balls or spinning the Keyblade via the chain, I'll never have the chance to care because I'll never have the incentive to waste my time collecting all of them. Once you suck it up and get past it however, the game is about as decent as any of the other titles, although it is slightly less tolerable than Chain of Memories, in my opinion.

 

But when you get down to it, there is one basic struggle that you have to consider when choosing the gameplay style to work with: Freedom and completeness VS convenience and accessibility. It's a hard choice to make, as both offer control in some areas but limit you in others. Personally, I would like to see a crossing between the two, allowing me to have ALL of the power at my fingertips, but still have the control to pick the ability I want to use at the right time. I love both systems so much, that having to chose between them is really difficult, especially since I'm already a pretty indecisive individual.

 

As much as I love the control, convenience, and accessibility of Birth by Sleep and 3D's gameplay, I guess I'm going to have to go with Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix's gameplay, as it allows me the possibility of having an entire arsenal at my disposal, rather than having to pick some of my favorite abilities. I still love the other one to death though, I would still just like to see the best taken from both styles, rather than being forced to choose between one strength or the other.

[xemnasbane 71]

I think I had the most fun playing Dream Drop Distance, mostly for the Flowmotion. KHII is in a very close second though

[kingdomhearts13 91]

KH 2. The drive forms and limits were awesome. Also, you aren't restricted as you are with the command deck(limited number of commands and waiting for them to reload). KH 3D is my second choice because flowmotion is just awesome. Being able to use your surroundings is genius. That's why I'm really excited for KH 3. Based on trailers so far, it looks like there is something similar to flowmotion and the KH 2 battle system, so I'm eager to see that.

Edited January 10, 2014 by kingdomhearts13

[Sorual 607]

the dual wielding in kh 2 took it for me.

[RoxasXIIIK 93]

Mine is a tie between KHBBSFM and KH2FM. I like both equally.

[Kingdomhe 1,362]

I feel like we had this question before? 

Kingdom Hearts II! 

 

My favorite. Get to play Roxas in the beginning and Sora after being asleep for a year. 

 

Still haven't gotten Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix, so haven't played Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix

 

and i thought it was just me.

[Fruitninja21 14]

For me it's a tie between 2 and 3D. I loved both of them and glad that they came out the way they did. I can't wait for 3