Post by Gilvan Blight on May 9, 2006 8:00:35 GMT -5
We were going to start playing Kingdom Hearts 2 last night when I remembered that we had picked up the Game Boy Advance Kingdom Hearts around Xmas and that it was supposed to bridge the story between the two, so we decided to finish that one first.
Note: I am writing this before finishing the game, usually I will finish them first, but I felt the need to write this due to a huge misrepresentation of this game. I will edit or add to this later if need be.
Quickly: pretty good game thus far, amazing sound and graphics but NOT a card battle game!!!
Summary: this game bridges the gap between KHI and KHII. You play as Sora with his friends Donald and Goofy. It starts right where the first game left off. Running through the hills you meet a mysterious stranger in a evil looking treachcoat/hoddie thingy and he sends you to a Castle. The Castle of Oblivion is a magic place where all power comes in the form of cards. Your friends are turned to cards and you are sent on a quest to find Riku and The King in the castle. The story, as the title suggests, revolves around memories and is very cryptic (thus far) with things like, you will find what you want only when you loose something you can't. The battle system is advertised as a card battle system, but it is definitely more of a button masher requiring a high degree of dexterity. You have a set of cards, but you use one with every A button hit and you fly through 19 cards in about 15 seconds while doing a series of attacks. You can use the L and R buttons to cycle through your deck but most times you just keep hitting A till out of cards and then you hold A to refresh your deck. There is a combo system as well, where you can stack three cards to pull off a combo.
The Good: The graphics are damn good for a GBA game. There is a full 3d intro that is very impressive. The in game music is also the best I have heard on the GBA. Listening to the GBA version of Halloweentown on surround sound speakers should have been a bad thing and it definitely wasn't. The controls are simple enough, as they should be for a GBA game. The story thus far is excellent and really sucks you in. Deck building is pretty fun. It's an interesting deck system, even if the execution of playing the cards sucks, building the right deck is fun. The leveling system is unique and appropriate to the game. You can get the usual HP increase, or you can increase you Deck value, allowing more rare or big cards, or you can learn a Slight, these are special combos you get for stacking cards in a certain way (though it's near impossible to stack cards correctly while in battle).
The Bad: the game is made up of moving from one room to the next, and these rooms are small and pretty quickly navigated. This led to an evil, one more room feel to the game, that kept me up a bit later then it should have. I can see this one being addictive. The stupid text sound. Why do console style rpgs have to have some dumb sound every time a letter appears on screen for text. I hate that and you can't turn it off.
The Ugly: how the hell can you call this a card game? I bought this for Pandora actually, and she loves console rpgs and some card games. If I had known this was going to be a run, jump and dodge button masher I may have skipped it. What was supposed to be a game for her will most likely have to be played by me. Sure there are card elements, but the timing and ability to play the card you want when you want is sorely lacking when you are way too busy running around in real time battles with up to 8 enemies at once.
Overall: it's got great music and graphics, the story is great thus far, cool characters, it's Kingdom hearts, it should be all good. The problem is that this advertises itself as a card battle game. It is not, it's an action button masher with some odd card system in the background. This wouldn't be a bad thing if I knew what I was getting when I bought it. I suggest a rent on this one to see if you like the system. If you can tolerate the mashing then pick it up, it looks great otherwise.
Note: I am writing this before finishing the game, usually I will finish them first, but I felt the need to write this due to a huge misrepresentation of this game. I will edit or add to this later if need be.
Quickly: pretty good game thus far, amazing sound and graphics but NOT a card battle game!!!
Summary: this game bridges the gap between KHI and KHII. You play as Sora with his friends Donald and Goofy. It starts right where the first game left off. Running through the hills you meet a mysterious stranger in a evil looking treachcoat/hoddie thingy and he sends you to a Castle. The Castle of Oblivion is a magic place where all power comes in the form of cards. Your friends are turned to cards and you are sent on a quest to find Riku and The King in the castle. The story, as the title suggests, revolves around memories and is very cryptic (thus far) with things like, you will find what you want only when you loose something you can't. The battle system is advertised as a card battle system, but it is definitely more of a button masher requiring a high degree of dexterity. You have a set of cards, but you use one with every A button hit and you fly through 19 cards in about 15 seconds while doing a series of attacks. You can use the L and R buttons to cycle through your deck but most times you just keep hitting A till out of cards and then you hold A to refresh your deck. There is a combo system as well, where you can stack three cards to pull off a combo.
The Good: The graphics are damn good for a GBA game. There is a full 3d intro that is very impressive. The in game music is also the best I have heard on the GBA. Listening to the GBA version of Halloweentown on surround sound speakers should have been a bad thing and it definitely wasn't. The controls are simple enough, as they should be for a GBA game. The story thus far is excellent and really sucks you in. Deck building is pretty fun. It's an interesting deck system, even if the execution of playing the cards sucks, building the right deck is fun. The leveling system is unique and appropriate to the game. You can get the usual HP increase, or you can increase you Deck value, allowing more rare or big cards, or you can learn a Slight, these are special combos you get for stacking cards in a certain way (though it's near impossible to stack cards correctly while in battle).
The Bad: the game is made up of moving from one room to the next, and these rooms are small and pretty quickly navigated. This led to an evil, one more room feel to the game, that kept me up a bit later then it should have. I can see this one being addictive. The stupid text sound. Why do console style rpgs have to have some dumb sound every time a letter appears on screen for text. I hate that and you can't turn it off.
The Ugly: how the hell can you call this a card game? I bought this for Pandora actually, and she loves console rpgs and some card games. If I had known this was going to be a run, jump and dodge button masher I may have skipped it. What was supposed to be a game for her will most likely have to be played by me. Sure there are card elements, but the timing and ability to play the card you want when you want is sorely lacking when you are way too busy running around in real time battles with up to 8 enemies at once.
Overall: it's got great music and graphics, the story is great thus far, cool characters, it's Kingdom hearts, it should be all good. The problem is that this advertises itself as a card battle game. It is not, it's an action button masher with some odd card system in the background. This wouldn't be a bad thing if I knew what I was getting when I bought it. I suggest a rent on this one to see if you like the system. If you can tolerate the mashing then pick it up, it looks great otherwise.