Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep - The Turning Point (Video by Bl00dyBizkitz)

[Elfdemon_ 695]

Bl00dyBizkitz's new video is one of the most high quality and thought out KH videos I've seen. Although I don't agree with everything that he's stated in this video, I do agree with a lot of it. It didn't personally change any of my opinions, but it definitely challenged them. I'd love it for more of the KH fanbase to think of the series more critically, and videos like this can make them do just that.

 

If you have the time, please watch this video. It's great.

 

[KairiKeybasH 851]

49 Minutes of pointless ranting... how ironic.

 

He is just like the rest of the fandom. Well time to make a commentary on this guy.

Edited May 29, 2016 by MarieltheKeybasHGirl

[Elfdemon_ 695]

49 Minutes of pointless ranting... how ironic.

 

He is just like the rest of the fandom. Well time to make a commentary on this guy.

 

Well, I guess we have different opinions of what's pointless and what's not.

Also, what's ironic about this?

[KairiKeybasH 851]

No one does almost an hour of a topic in a video, without looking like ****.

 

Bad Voice Actors with Terra and Aqua? Uhh no. Ventus being more annoying then Sora? No,They are not annoying to begin with.

 

He just blindly says that KH1 is the best in the series and that the Side Games just made the story go like twirly-whirly.

[ShadowKeyblade 219]

No one does almost an hour of a topic in a video, without looking like ****.

 

Bad Voice Actors with Terra and Aqua? Uhh no. Ventus being more annoying then Sora? No,They are not annoying to begin with.

 

He just blindly says that KH1 is the best in the series and that the Side Games just made the story go like twirly-whirly.

Blindly? Hardly. He has quite a few good points in there, and is an experienced speedrunner, and does point out that KH1 isn't perfect either. His combat analysis is spot on for BBS (though when he says the other side games are the exact same way, I disagree), and he does make a fair few points with the story as well, even if I disagree on some of his ramblings about Sora no longer being special and that the convolusion has weakened the overall story (makes it more interesting to me).

 

And yeah, Terra and Aqua's voice acting can be shaky at times... didn't really notice it with Terra the first time, but noticed it immediately with Aqua. Ven really isn't that bad, tho

[Yuya Sakaki 5,212]

I watched this video just before and I absolutely loved it. Although the part where he says Sora inherited the Keyblade is a misconception and that he was legitimately chosen by the Keyblade actually supports his point that the KH story is convoluted that you have to dig through Nomura interviews to find facts. Other than that I pretty much agree with everything else.

 

And even though it's a lengthy video, it managed to keep me hooked so well that it didn't feel that long.

 

Peace!

Edited May 29, 2016 by Yuya Sakaki

[thatkingdomheartsguy 153]

No one does almost an hour of a topic in a video, without looking like ****.

 

Bad Voice Actors with Terra and Aqua? Uhh no. Ventus being more annoying then Sora? No,They are not annoying to begin with.

 

He just blindly says that KH1 is the best in the series and that the Side Games just made the story go like twirly-whirly.

 

Well firstly, you're judging the video by its length instead of content, so that's already a pretty bad start.

 

Secondly, the things you mention makes it pretty obvious that you didn't watch the whole thing, or you just skipped through it. Maybe try rewatching the whole video before making claims like that. He gave ample amounts of evidence as to why he thought KH1's story was good, and why the side games failed to follow the same formula. Honestly, saying something like "he blindly says" is just straight up wrong; that's not even up for debate.

 

And as for voice acting, it can be somewhat opinionated...but honestly, calling Aqua's voice actor "good" is absurd.

[Elfdemon_ 695]

calling Aqua's voice actor "good" is absurd.

 

Yeah. I actually love her voice to be honest. I think it fits the appearance of the character perfectly, but the acting on the other hand, is not that great most of the time.

[Oli 1,679]

100% agree on this and I hardly comment on this kind of topics, because you'll usually find many people that believe so seriously that KH is perfect to the point that they'll take any kind of constructive criticism as a personal attack.

 

The first time I finished BBS' story I was left like "ok that's it. I guess it was a good game?". Something was missing there but I didn't think to much about it. It was when I replayed it when I noticed that something really important was missing there. I thought it was because I was expecting something like KHI or KHII that I didn't get, so I blame the system limitations an moved on. But then, I played the PS3 port of the game, hoping that missing hole the game had (and still has) was filled. And guess what? It wasn't. After playing KHI and KHII on the PS3 port again I realized that the gameplay of BBS was plain boring. You see, after finishing KHI or KHII a think I liked to do was visiting a random world and taking out enemies, trying different things usually gameplay mechanics I never use (summons, for example). But trying this on BBS wasn't as fun as it used to be. The mirage arena missions were as boring and repetitive as Days' missions and it felt wrong. I don't know, I still play this game every once in a while becauses I love the story, but I can't say I love the gameplay as much as I love KHI or KHII.

 

and to be honest I love that TGJ half a second rant this guy goes on his video

[Setrex 1,031]

I don't particularly think Birth by Sleep is the greatest game ever made or anything, but I do feel a number of his points are nitpicking. He spends too much time rambling on certain points as well.

 

I never quite agree with anyone who tries to compare anything from Chain of Memories onwards to the original Kingdom Hearts. A lot of people seem to agree that the first KH is well grounded. Solid story, solid gameplay, and overall solid experience. It has an easy story because why make something you are unsure will even be a success complicated? Everything after the first KH is asking questions and setting up future games, sure there are contradictions along the way, but what can you do. Gameplay wise, I find Kingdom Hearts to have rather clunky controls and an awful camera compared to some of the later titles. That's just me though.

[thatkingdomheartsguy 153]

I don't particularly think Birth by Sleep is the greatest game ever made or anything, but I do feel a number of his points are nitpicking. He spends too much time rambling on certain points as well.

 

I never quite agree with anyone who tries to compare anything from Chain of Memories onwards to the original Kingdom Hearts. A lot of people seem to agree that the first KH is well grounded. Solid story, solid gameplay, and overall solid experience. It has an easy story because why make something you are unsure will even be a success complicated? Everything after the first KH is asking questions and setting up future games, sure there are contradictions along the way, but what can you do. Gameplay wise, I find Kingdom Hearts to have rather clunky controls and an awful camera compared to some of the later titles. That's just me though.

Interesting intepretation. Out of curiosity, which part of his points are nitpicky? I didn't have too much of a problem for the most part; they all seem logical and valid.

 

In regards to comparing the games, I never saw an issue with comparing to the original Kingdom Hearts. It had a genuinely good story, and is a perfect model for KH games to follow. That doesn't mean all the games need to be simple; as he said (or at least think he mentioned), the game can still have a complex story and still work well. It's just KH has become such a convoluted mess at this point, and really completely lost the Disney portion of the game.

 

Also gameplay wise, yeah KH1 had clunky controls and a pretty bad camera, but the 1.5 Remaster drastically improved those IMO. Aside from that though; it was the purest form of gameplay in KH, and obviously a lot of people liked it because then KH wouldn't be anywhere as popular as it is now.

[Soul_Seeker 753]

I haven't posted for a while, but I needed to for this. There is so much I agree on in this video and I firmly agree that BBS was far from a masterpiece, and claiming as such is a stretch. I remember having a huge problem with Aqua's voice acting when I first played. I got used to it, but every time she delivered a line that should be emotionally compelling, she honestly sounded so bored saying it. She honestly sounded like, "oh crap. welp whatever i'll save ven eventually"

 

While I don't agree with the entire video, I can safely say I agree with about 90%. I don't think anything was too nitpicky, and the video was very logical and fair.

[thatkingdomheartsguy 153]

Can I just mention how beautifully done the ending was? I thought the entire video was great, but the ending honestly just blew me away. The key point bl00dybizkitz mentioned regarding how others should view this video; not as a hate video on their favorite game, but as a way to challenge the way they think; that was perfect.

 

Big kudos to the guy; I don't normally watch him (I know he's a pretty popular speedrunner), but this video was honestly one of the best KH content videos I've ever seen.

[Headphone Jack 1,147]

he took the words right out of my mouth lol

 

excellent video all around. BBS felt like the point in the series where SE began to make KH games based off of a check list.

Trio of friends? Check.

Disney Worlds? Check.

Final Fantasy characters? Check. 

 

i'm also finding it annoying how Nomura feels compelled to explain every aspect of the series. Like the drive forms, for example. We really didn't need an explanation for that. It's a video game. Sometimes we can do things because it is a video game. Simple as that.

 

also obligatory: Lea getting a keyblade was garbage and was the final nail in the coffin for any value the Keyblade had left as a plot device.

[venxas24 544]

As someone who still really likes playing BBS once in a while I completely agree with this. A lot of this game is lacking. I enjoy the mindless grinding in this game and others like pokemon or ff so that is the feature I enjoy the most in this game. I haven't watched the cutscenes since my first playthrough so I caan't remember them enough to say that they were bland but no cutscenes really jump out to me as memorable.

tbh I'd say that the only thing that should be brought back from BBS is the retry button when you die so you don't have to skip a cutscene or make sure you change your items again before a fight.

[Exiblade7 1,917]

I respect everybody who has an opinion like or similar to his, but I honestly think that he is being way too critical on the kingdom hearts series. I understand his reasoning behind it all, but there are gameplay and story flaws in the kingdom hearts series, and in my opinion it think it's best to not think about it too much or you'll end up overthinking it. Yes, the KH series can be better then it is now, but that can't be helped. The only think we can do as fans is hope that kh3 will fix those gameplay and story flaws the games after KH2 came out had. They don't even have to fix all of the flaws because every game that has been made has flaws and I'm sure that kingdom hearts 3 will have flaws too despite it being one of the most hyped games of all time because of what I've said earlier . This is my opinion 

Edited May 31, 2016 by Zeldablade7

[thatkingdomheartsguy 153]

I respect everybody who has an opinion like or similar to his, but I honestly think that he is being way too critical on the kingdom hearts series. I understand his reasoning behind it all, but there are gameplay and story flaws in the kingdom hearts series, and in my opinion it think it's best to not think about it too much or you'll end up overthinking it. Yes, the KH series can be better then it is now, but that can't be helped. The only think we can do as fans is hope that kh3 will fix those gameplay and story flaws the games after KH2 came out had. They don't even have to fix all of the flaws because every game that has been made has flaws and I'm sure that kingdom hearts 3 will have flaws too despite it being one of the most hyped games of all time because of what I've said earlier . This is my opinion 

I definitely agree that we should have a bit of a more optimistic side in terms of KH3, but its also like bl00dybizkitz said in the video; so many fans are just expecting KH3 to solve every problem that these past games have created, and honestly, we shouldn't be expecting that since it probably won't even happen. 

 

I think the smartest thing we can do as fans is to critique these games that Square has released, in hopes that Square somehow manages to hear some of these criticism and do their best to fix it. I personally don't think sitting there and hoping Square will release a good game for KH3 will work, simply because the previous games they released all have similar problems. That being said, KH3 should be reasonably better than those because of the massive amount of production values put into it.

 

Anyways, my point is that we should always strive for the best of our gaming companies; even if we know there's no way KH3 will be perfect, our goal should be to convince Square to make the games as perfect as possible.

[Exiblade7 1,917]

I definitely agree that we should have a bit of a more optimistic side in terms of KH3, but its also like bl00dybizkitz said in the video; so many fans are just expecting KH3 to solve every problem that these past games have created, and honestly, we shouldn't be expecting that since it probably won't even happen. 

 

I think the smartest thing we can do as fans is to critique these games that Square has released, in hopes that Square somehow manages to hear some of these criticism and do their best to fix it. I personally don't think sitting there and hoping Square will release a good game for KH3 will work, simply because the previous games they released all have similar problems. That being said, KH3 should be reasonably better than those because of the massive amount of production values put into it.

 

Anyways, my point is that we should always strive for the best of our gaming companies; even if we know there's no way KH3 will be perfect, our goal should be to convince Square to make the games as perfect as possible.

ah, I see what you're trying to say, well, your idea is better then mine, and I mean a lot better and it makes more sense. 

[Dravoo 39]

I kinda felt the video was okay. He gave actual explanation to his beliefs rather than just the typical ranting of someone saying "this sux just cause".  I agreed with some of it and disagreed with other parts but a video of a thought opinion I can respect.

[Ezra Kinnell 1]

I don't personally agree with him, but he makes a lot of valid points.

 

The biggest problem I have with his video is that he says that Sora was ruined by the whole "Keyblade being handed down) thing. Sure, it's always been really cool to see that Sora was the one that the Keyblade chose in the end, but we find out in KH1 that Riku was supposed to be the wielder, not Sora. Back that up with the fact that Sora is only a valid candidate because his heart is merged with Ventus's, and you realize just how heroic and legendary Sora is.

 

Also, while the story might be convoluted, the story leading into KH3 is actually simple to sum up: Master Xehanort is gathering 'followers,' and when the time comes he will try to forge the x-blade. Sora needs to gather seven Keybladers to fight him and stop him from bringing about the Keyblade War.

 

Keep in mind though, I'm biased because Young MX is one of my favorite characters, and we wouldn't have him without this convoluted mess of a story.

[Dravoo 39]

The biggest problem I have with his video is that he says that Sora was ruined by the whole "Keyblade being handed down) thing. Sure, it's always been really cool to see that Sora was the one that the Keyblade chose in the end, but we find out in KH1 that Riku was supposed to be the wielder, not Sora. Back that up with the fact that Sora is only a valid candidate because his heart is merged with Ventus's, and you realize just how heroic and legendary Sora is.

Wasn't Riku's original ownership only a detail in Jimney's Journal after your first visit to Hollow Bastion? Seems like it was and if so then he likely wouldn't know given his statement about journals and interviews which I can understand and kinda agree with.

 

A story element, at least of detail, in a narrative like KH should be told I think. Lore digging is okay in any series but only for like background stuff. Or at least that's how I've always thought about it.

Edited June 3, 2016 by Dravoo

[Way2Dawn 80]

I don't personally agree with him, but he makes a lot of valid points.

 

The biggest problem I have with his video is that he says that Sora was ruined by the whole "Keyblade being handed down) thing. Sure, it's always been really cool to see that Sora was the one that the Keyblade chose in the end, but we find out in KH1 that Riku was supposed to be the wielder, not Sora. Back that up with the fact that Sora is only a valid candidate because his heart is merged with Ventus's, and you realize just how heroic and legendary Sora is.

 

Also, while the story might be convoluted, the story leading into KH3 is actually simple to sum up: Master Xehanort is gathering 'followers,' and when the time comes he will try to forge the x-blade. Sora needs to gather seven Keybladers to fight him and stop him from bringing about the Keyblade War.

 

Keep in mind though, I'm biased because Young MX is one of my favorite characters, and we wouldn't have him without this convoluted mess of a story.

These are two points I would have made if you didn't.  I feel like Nomura perfectly explains why he doesn't want Sora to be viewed as "The Chosen One" and instead a "Dull, ordinary boy", he wants Sora to feel down to Earth and wants the player to feel a connection to him.  Yes he's a hero, but hes still an average boy.  In this regard I find it hard to have a problem with there being more keyblade wielders than just Sora, especially since all the other wielders we've experienced seem much more extraordinary than Sora.

 

The second point is about story confusion.  Honestly, I've never had any problem understanding the story or have had any trouble explaining the story to someone who doesn't understand.  I've always thought it was funny that there is always so much complaining about how convoluted the story is.  Don't just assume its impossible to follow just because someone says so, because it isn't.  Just try and picture things in chronological order.  We have 7 games so far, but they dont all follow a straight timeline, so put them on the correct timeline.  Thats how I came to see the plot much more clearly.

 

As far as his other points on BBS, I understand his points but don't really agree with his overall view point.  I think, for a handheld game that came out nearly a decade ago, they did a phenomenal job.  We just cannot compare handheld gameplay to console, it just doesnt work.  Even KH1 and KH2 had its share of polishing that needed to be done for the HD Remakes.  I think people should view the game as it is, and not for its shortcomings.  Then again, I haven't had much of a problem with any game they've given us, Even Coded.  They all give us a unique gameplay experience which I think is great!  People rag on some series like Call of Duty because its basically the same game over and over again.  The changes they made for Kingdom Hearts over the years are great!  Who would want to sit and play the same game 7 times?  Not me.

 

But thats just my opinion.  I Respect his opinion on the matter and he did a great job with his video, but I think hes selling BBS a little short. 

[Dravoo 39]

The second point is about story confusion.  Honestly, I've never had any problem understanding the story or have had any trouble explaining the story to someone who doesn't understand.  I've always thought it was funny that there is always so much complaining about how convoluted the story is.  Don't just assume its impossible to follow just because someone says so, because it isn't. 

I'm sorry but this is a bit of a both ways kinda issue. Just because you understand it done just automatically assume it's easy to follow. It's no lie more that didn't have interest in finer details, reports or had communities and money to keep up with this story will be confused nor is it wrong that it's convoluted just because you understand said convoluted story.

[Way2Dawn 80]

I'm sorry but this is a bit of a both ways kinda issue. Just because you understand it done just automatically assume it's easy to follow. It's no lie more that didn't have interest in finer details, reports or had communities and money to keep up with this story will be confused nor is it wrong that it's convoluted just because you understand said convoluted story.

Not at all what I was saying.  I wasnt trying to imply that it is easy to follow, I understand it isnt, but they way people complain about the story they make it seem like its impossible to follow, that I could explain it to you for hours and your brain would fry.  Thats not the case either.  Ive talked to people who said they wont even TRY to understand the story because they HEARD it was too confusing.  Any game series that spreads over 7 (going on 8) games is going to have a lot of parts to follow.  You will notice after the couple of sentences you quoted, theres a couple more with a tip on how to understand it more clearly.  Try it, it works.  I fully believe that if someone makes an effort to understand the story and really thinks about it, it is easy to follow, but dont just toss it aside because it confuses someone else.