Press Start to Continue: Kingdom Hearts
“Giving
up already? C'mon, Sora, I thought you were stronger than that.”
Kingdom Hearts is one of those games that is either going to be awesome or rubbish. For the most part it rox my sox (Despite owning all the games I have only played the first one and CoM) but one point in the first game is just so horribly done I wanted to give up on the entire series completely. I won’t tell you my judgement now since that’s the entire point of the review but I will say this; the level in question fucking sucks. So let’s look at whether the Atlantica level of Kingdom Hearts made me give up or not shall we?
Now I love the idea of Kingdom Hearts; Final Fantasy crossed with classic Disney? Where do I sign up? Mulan is one my favourite animated movies and I love Final Fantasy VI (let’s just ignore that the first game only had Mushu as a late summon and no characters from VI) so when I heard that Fa Mulan and Terra Branford could be rubbing shoulders I was all foaming at the mouth in excitement, hell that’s why I own all the games despite not having played much of them; I got all of them at the same time as I picked up my PS2 last year. I also love the combat style of both the games I have played; the controls of the first one were a bit clunky but I can live with them if the later titles improve on that. The story is fantastic even if it’s kinda hard to follow and I hear it gets worse on that aspect as it goes along but that’s not the point right now.
So the Atlantica level then. It sucks hardcore. I seriously hate it SO much I would rather marathon The Last Airbender than play it again. First of all the level takes place underwater and that is always a stupid level idea but instead of just screwing with the physics engine they decided to turn Sora into a merman and change up the controls so you were swimming around. This would be fine if the controls weren’t so broken that it can make crossing a room into an arduous struggle. It doesn’t help that the enemies and Sora now have an entire new plain to work with and my attacks tend to be just slightly too low or too high to hit them but they seem to hit me just fine so I’m there swinging this big key around hitting nothing and then this jellyfish heartless comes up behind me and decides to take me up the ass like some kind of twisted hentai and I can do nothing except yield to its forceful entry. For some reason I could never get the hang of what button was up and what was down so when I go a chance to go on the offensive I was like “OK I’m coming up to get you” *sinks down to the floor* “FUCK!” All this isn’t helped by the level consisting of almost entirely identical corridors that are cramped and difficult to move the camera around in so you can’t even see them coming till it’s far too late and of course after a fight its entirely too easy to go back out the door you came in by. Oh and the part that I hate the most is the instrumental chorus of Under the Sea that plays on loop and. Will. Not. SHUT! UP! Oh and the boss is dumb; I know most bosses in the game can be beat by the ‘stand back and let Donald and Goofy wail on them’ tactic but here it is almost the only way to win thanks to the control system. The only weak spot is her head and that is where she fires huge beams of pure concentrated fuck you. So just keep going round her in circles until like an hour later you manage to beat her and by that point you just want to get the fuck out of dodge and nuke the place from orbit.
Did I continue? Yeah I did but only because I had sunk so much time in it I was damn well going to finish the thing! Luckily that is the only bit that is at such a low standard; the rest of the game is rough around the edges but given what it was that is only to be expected and forgiven. Really I have nothing more to say here that I haven’t said already so for now I’m Silica and don’t go doing anything I wouldn’t.
Kingdom Hearts is one of those games that is either going to be awesome or rubbish. For the most part it rox my sox (Despite owning all the games I have only played the first one and CoM) but one point in the first game is just so horribly done I wanted to give up on the entire series completely. I won’t tell you my judgement now since that’s the entire point of the review but I will say this; the level in question fucking sucks. So let’s look at whether the Atlantica level of Kingdom Hearts made me give up or not shall we?
Now I love the idea of Kingdom Hearts; Final Fantasy crossed with classic Disney? Where do I sign up? Mulan is one my favourite animated movies and I love Final Fantasy VI (let’s just ignore that the first game only had Mushu as a late summon and no characters from VI) so when I heard that Fa Mulan and Terra Branford could be rubbing shoulders I was all foaming at the mouth in excitement, hell that’s why I own all the games despite not having played much of them; I got all of them at the same time as I picked up my PS2 last year. I also love the combat style of both the games I have played; the controls of the first one were a bit clunky but I can live with them if the later titles improve on that. The story is fantastic even if it’s kinda hard to follow and I hear it gets worse on that aspect as it goes along but that’s not the point right now.
So the Atlantica level then. It sucks hardcore. I seriously hate it SO much I would rather marathon The Last Airbender than play it again. First of all the level takes place underwater and that is always a stupid level idea but instead of just screwing with the physics engine they decided to turn Sora into a merman and change up the controls so you were swimming around. This would be fine if the controls weren’t so broken that it can make crossing a room into an arduous struggle. It doesn’t help that the enemies and Sora now have an entire new plain to work with and my attacks tend to be just slightly too low or too high to hit them but they seem to hit me just fine so I’m there swinging this big key around hitting nothing and then this jellyfish heartless comes up behind me and decides to take me up the ass like some kind of twisted hentai and I can do nothing except yield to its forceful entry. For some reason I could never get the hang of what button was up and what was down so when I go a chance to go on the offensive I was like “OK I’m coming up to get you” *sinks down to the floor* “FUCK!” All this isn’t helped by the level consisting of almost entirely identical corridors that are cramped and difficult to move the camera around in so you can’t even see them coming till it’s far too late and of course after a fight its entirely too easy to go back out the door you came in by. Oh and the part that I hate the most is the instrumental chorus of Under the Sea that plays on loop and. Will. Not. SHUT! UP! Oh and the boss is dumb; I know most bosses in the game can be beat by the ‘stand back and let Donald and Goofy wail on them’ tactic but here it is almost the only way to win thanks to the control system. The only weak spot is her head and that is where she fires huge beams of pure concentrated fuck you. So just keep going round her in circles until like an hour later you manage to beat her and by that point you just want to get the fuck out of dodge and nuke the place from orbit.
Did I continue? Yeah I did but only because I had sunk so much time in it I was damn well going to finish the thing! Luckily that is the only bit that is at such a low standard; the rest of the game is rough around the edges but given what it was that is only to be expected and forgiven. Really I have nothing more to say here that I haven’t said already so for now I’m Silica and don’t go doing anything I wouldn’t.