#exposal

Table of Contents --- Introduction --- [INTD] --- The setting --- [SETN] --- The Broken Movement --- [BRKMV] --- Dealing the hurt --- [DLHT] --- Dealing the hurt ~ Continued --- [DLHTC] --- The Abilities --- [ABLT] --- See the worlds --- [WRLD] --- Oh, it can't be hurting just yet. Here, take this. --- [MLTI] --- So does the multiplayer completely suck? --- [MLTSU] --- So how was the canon again? --- [CNON] --- Anguish, Pain, Sorrow, Anger... --- [LV01] --- The final page in the story is still flawed --- [FNLPG] --- Oh, but there is post-game fun --- [PSTGM] --- Then there's the post-game rape --- [PSTRP] --- The Conclusion --- [ENCLU]

--- The setting --- [SETN] As a prequel to the very first game it barely advances the plot at all, which is something people necessarily did NOT WANT, seeing all the fans who want Kingdom Hearts 3 on PlayStation 3. Instead, it clears up a few things, which is a good move for a series with plot twists that almost rival Metal Gear Solid's. It could be a bad move too, but hell, how much less sense Lingering Sentiment in Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, Sora's ability to wield two Keyblades simultaneously and Castle Oblivion's existence would make if it wasn't for this abomination explaining the origins. You play the game through with three different characters, two of which -Ventus and Aqua -play almost exactly the same except with Aqua you can for the first time enjoy decent breasts in a Kingdom Hearts game. Terra is a grown man who has been under the care of his Master, Eraqus since he was a child and his first world problems consists of him and channeling the power of darkness through rage. Bitches love his body. Ventus, -no, not Roxas, Ventus- is simply the kid who wants to see it all and really acts like a child for the first half of the game. You'll press Square button with this guy quite often. But the character I'm tacking onto the most is Aqua. The first playable female character in the entire series. She looks fine, but I just don't get the fans who commend her for being a strong, independent female lead. She simply cannot stop thinking about her friends and spends the majority of the game baby sitting Terra and Ventus, kind of. She also speaks as if she has no motivation to live her life, a really monotone, low toned female voice, but it probably comes with the dialogue she speaks. But I guess I'm just looking for reasons to poke fun at her. After all, mother figures are strong and in most cases independent too. So why am I saying how two characters play identically to each other? Because of the horrendously retarded gameplay that plagues you through the entire game. --- The Broken Movement --- [BRKMV] You see, this game involves evasive movements that allow you to space yourself properly and evade enemy assaults. Aqua, Terra and Ventus alike have one of these abilities on the ground and mid-air. Terra has a long slide that goes a nice amount of distance and it's got some recovery too, meaning reckless sliding could cause Terra a match. Aqua and Ventus have a completely abuseable Dodge Roll / Cartwheel that has endless invincibility when mashed, which can and must be used at all fucking times. Feel you're about to face a gimmicky move you haven't seen before? Mash Dodge Roll. Want to get in closer? Mash Dodge Roll. Want to make your moves safer? Mash Dodge Roll. Want to get away? Mash Dodge Roll. Want to reflect a projectile? Well why the fuck would you do that unless you're at low level? Want to- oh god damnit, do you see what I mean?! Trust me, I'll tear a new asshole from the level scaling of this game, but to keep on the topic of Dodge Rolls, HOW CAN YOU MAKE A SIMPLE CONCEPT OF EVASION WRONG? A well placed Dodge Roll is supposed to help keep the player alive in the game whereas a improperly used would be punisheable, but here it is blatantly spammable -and the game encourages you to do so-. Yeah, by mashing Square you basically plow through the entire game. It doesn't help how some enemies have extended active frames that can only be bypassed by the endless rolling, jesus fuck... spacing just became 100 % more brainless. --- Dealing the hurt --- [DLHT] So what happens when you DO get to deal damage? You can settle down for a few options, your reloadable special attacks that either suck or are superbly overpowered, an overpowered Limit Break with a bunch of projectiles known as Shotlock or a basic attack. Gameplay wise basic physical attacks -aside from physical guards- are some of the riskiest moves you will do in the game due to their lenghty start-ups and retardedly long recovery times -even after a successful block-. Aqua's and Ventus' first, close-range melee attacks are the only exceptions to this. See how I did not mention Terra at fucking all because of his helplessly slow attacks? He's basically a punching bag in this game or almost as good as Ventus and Aqua but the bottom of the barrel. And he doubts the darkness inside him too and fails in life because of it, talk about a worthless character and he is actually my favourite one from these three Keyblade wielders. At the beginning of the game Aqua says in a tutorial how you need to be able to control a crowd too. While this actually refers to Shotlocks, it is more fitting for two magic spells: Magnet and Zero Gravity. The only offensive spells you need outside bosses. The latter you can buy relatively soon after you begin your journey and until you get Magnet, Zero Gravity works as a primary crowd control too to keep enemies at bay. While not as damaging as Magnet, it does confuse monsters when you whack them a few times and has decent range too. Once you do get Magnet, Zero Gravity serves no purpose to you after it as Magnet is basically Zero Gravity, but it keeps everyone in one place, has a lasting absorbing effect and hell, in this game it even does damage over time. At low level just leaving the opponents spin in a circle is actually more effective than slashing the enemies while they are caught in the spell and with reload boosts and another Magnet in your deck grinding and scripted grouped Unversed fights barely require you to look at the screen. Game's broken. --- Dealing the hurt ~ Continued --- [DLHTC] Oh, but then come the bosses and you need to do something else. Ignite magic spell works ridiculously well for the bosses -save for the final ones-. What it does is create a flame aura that saps their health away slowly. If I remember right, you can buy this when you reach the supposed half-way of the game, Radiant Garden that is the fourth world you visit in the game. But as I said, that stuff won't work on final bosses. So how can you deal damage efficiently even then? You could be dealing more damage with say... Shotlocks. They use  a separate meter named "Focus" and you lock on to enemies to unleash a relentless series of painful attacks. The move has an irrelevant drawback to this: The more you have to look for the maximum amount of shots you can blast on your opponent, you use a lot more Focus meter, but basically you can negate it by NOT SHOOTING AT ALL. And it's one of the most powerful offensive methods in the game, combined with complete invincibility during the time of your attack animations. You can make this even more ridiculous with Damage Syphon ability that gives you free Focus from taking damage and combine it with life saving abilities that are Second Chance and Once More, anyone who has no mental problems and two hands can beat'em all, I mean good lord... Do you see how stupid this game is yet -and it's just the game mechanics alone-?! --- The Abilities --- [ABLT] Speaking of abilities, this game brought something new to the table and decided to let you combine your special attacks you place in your Command Deck for a new move and a bundled new ability, like Combo extending abilities or Special Attack Reload Boosts. (Yeah, you use special commands with Triangle button and they reload over time save for items, which in change are limited per match.) This is what I mean by the easily exploitable command system: Within the first three worlds of the game you can already get Second Chance, Once More and Leaf Bracer at relatively low level, not only contradicting the point of a potential low level run but making the game even more braindead than it already is. And in case you have no idea about what these abilities do, Second Chance lets you survive a single hit that would've killed you otherwise. Once More does the same thing, except when taking multiple hits and Leaf Bracer gives you complete invincibility during healing spells. Do tell me if it's not poor game designing when you can have crucial life saving abilities that help you for the remainder of the game with little effort within the first three hours of game time. I never exactly digged deep into all the abilities I could create and honestly a good majority of them do not even matter in the long run as you only need the aforementioned Damage Syphon, Second Chance, Once More, Leaf Bracer and any reload boosts as well strenght buffs. --- See the worlds --- [WRLD] So once you get past all the shit we've dealt with SO FAR -including Terra failing his Keyblade Master exam, where Aqua prevailed-, you get to explore Disney worlds. Really, really linear Disney worlds. I can sum up every Disney world for you right now. You arrive in the world, wondering what is going on. You align with different characters with each Keyblade bearer and run through colourful, single paths that have chests along the way every now and then. And then you have to beat some Unversed. Go to another place, watch a cutscene. You clear a mini-game or beat more Unversed or do both. You watch a cutscene and then you have to return some place you were at earlier for a boss fight. That's it. It's a boring clusterfuck with rewinds of the source material movies. Snooooore. And Disney Town serves as your one-shop stop for mini games you can play over and over again and involves more platforming than any other world in this god forsaken game. These worlds contribute little to nothing to the story itself (as usual) and the only trace of character development we see in our protagonists is them realising something about friendship, because even after being friends for their whole lives they still don't know half of what TRUE FRIENDSHIP is truly all about. Someone give them an anime to watch, my head hurts. --- Oh, it can't be hurting just yet. Here, take this. --- [MLTI] Oh, what is it you are trying to say? Something that doesn't put me in a negative mood? A non-canon world with a colisseum setting where you can fight a bunch of enemies that appear nowhere else? The world where Laguna Loire from Final Fantasy 8 was supposed to appear but didn't? Ooooh YESSSS. Combat! Racing! Board games! And you can play all that with your friends too?! THIS IS HEAVEN. Not only you can play all this shit with your friends, you can also play it on your own... while playing with friends. ... Oh... Umm... Does that mean the game... No... OH GOD FUCKING DAMNIT. What am I talking about? De-synch. Oh yeah, I so did not make that up. This only applies to the co-op combat sequences, but it is such a major flaw in the ass I could not have this thing pointed out at any point in this rant. You know how in Monster Hunter's multiplayer small, the same minion monsters appear in completely different spots in the same room with your friends and how you see them carve pure sand instead of monster corpses? Well, take that, slap it on bosses and flush it and you get Birth by Desynch. The following scenario is based on a true story. First, let's set this up. I was using Terra and I have two slots worth of Sonic Blade. Sonic Blade is a special melee attack that has your character slide on the ground in enemy's direction while holding the blade in the hands, inflicting damage. By pressing triangle button, you can do this up to seven times, with a finisher. This boss we were fighting -Iron Imprisoner the Second- could be locked with two Sonic Blades, with each strike delayed considerably every time. Yeah, it was basically an infinite. A friend of mine was using Ventus like any rational player would. So being evil bastards we were, I went for the Sonic Blade lock -which can be done on all incarnations of Iron Imprisoner- and my pal went whacking the boss while I was doing it. Okay, that's cool. Deal some extra damag- hold on, why isn't my Sonic Blade doing any damage anymore? And what the fuck is my friend Dodge Rolling for? Apparently the boss got out of it on Ventus' end. "How is it you are just sliding back and forth there", friend asked. The boss was still flinching in my Sonic Blade lock, while it was actually going for Ventus' head. So the game basically de-synched for both of us. Like... HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE. WAS THIS GAME EVEN TESTED? (On a side note, we both had PSP-3000 models, with BbS Data Install files.) GAH. EVEN IN NON-CANON THIS GAME FINDS A WAY TO PISS ME OFF. And get this, the whole non-canon Mirage Arena world is probably one of the better post-game content you have. At least Rumble Racing mini-game doesn't de-synch and you can fill any empty human slots with A.I. racers. (Six racers per race, not bad.) And the Command Board mini-game is nice as well with it's lucky dices and stuff (you can actually level up your commands in it), but as a single player experience it is a chore with the A.I. more or less cheating in the coding. But you HAVE to play it to unlock more content so there's no fun in playing it at all! * sigh * Thanks a lot for that, Square-Enix. You can even fight AGAINST your friends in this. Remember the Magnet spell I told you about? Welcome to lose, opponent. This game is aaawffuuuuullllll. --- So does the multiplayer completely suck? --- [MLTSU] This just goes on to show how Square-Enix has completely shot themselves in the ankle with this whole multiplayer Kingdom Hearts experience. Combat, the main course of Kingdom Hearts is close to unplayable, you have way better portable multiplayer racing game experiences available and the Command Board mini-game... well, it's just there. In the DS game, 358/2 Days you could play co-op missions with three friends of yours but since Nintendo DS has no RAM, playing with any more people than two is an absolute garbage festival with fried onions. Re: Coded did not even have direct multiplayer options, but there is ONE multiplayer aspect that I personally found fun and interesting in Birth by Sleep (YES, I AM ACTUALLY COMPLEMENTING THIS GAME NOW). D-Link. Acting as Summons of the game, you restore your health to maximum and you gain a different set of special moves. So what's the beef here? You meet up with people and trade your command decks so they can use your shit in single player and feel a connection to someone when they can help you even when out of reach. All in all it was a good idea. That's all there is to it. --- So how was the canon again? --- [CNON] So, to summarise the majority of the story here... It's still a fucking novel despite it being irrelevant overall. Gotta explain everything in detail now, eh? As Terra failed the Mark of Keyblade Mastery exam, his master and father figure Eraqus gives him a chance to redeem himself and he goes looking for Master Xehanort who has suddenly gone missing. Ventus wants to go with him, but obviously being treated like an insecure child Terra avoids the burden of looking after him while trying to look for redemption. Ven, being an ignorant kid just goes after him and Aqua -the only Keyblade Master from the three students- is sent after Ventus, who is after Terra... JUST LEAVE THE GUY ALONE, HE NEEDS SOME TIME FROM THE EXAM. Aqua does find Ven from the Sleeping Beauty world and like the parental talk to the blonde is going to help anything. Meanwhile Terra manages to locate Master Xehanort and the old man goes through the creation process of a boy in the mask that has been filling the worlds with evil creatures of darkness you must slay in multiple quantities known as the Unversed. Apparently Ventus was originally Master Xehanort's pupil, but dude was so scared to even hold a melee weapon in his hands, the old man had to separate his light from the darkness that was probably eating away at him. Makes a lot of sense, I know. This darkness is the boy in the mask - Vanitas. He plays an important role as far as Ventus' life and Xehanort's master plan goes. Xehanort asks Terra -who again, is an easily manipulatable person by him- to find Vanitas in Radiant Garden and bring an end to the Unversed slaughter. This does not happen though, and it is Aqua who fights him there... eventually. But before that the Keyblade Trio gets together for one more boss fight. Frame rate issues commence, hurray! Terra realises how Aqua had been keeping an eye on him all this time due to Master Eraqus' request. Guess what happens next? Oh yeah, bitter anger at the lack of trust. Oooh, what a twist in the plot! Nothing changes, even gameplay wise everything stays exactly the same! More Disney worlds. In the ever-popular Hercules world, the Olympus Colisseum you meet the only Final Fantasy character in this game and it's... Zack Fair from Final Fantasy 7? Wooooord. Square-Enix made him a child though. Shame. He's willing to take Aqua on a date. You have to admire the balls he's got in this though, every man should have that kind of courage when it comes to women. That reminds me, Zack was planning to assist Aqua in a fight against an Ice Colossal -no, not Ice Titan- and Hades simultaneously. This is one of the two sequences where you have two bosses to fight. In this one you have to take out both of them though and it's not as fun as it might seem. But two bosses and an A.I. partner sounds too good to be true, ain't that so? Obviously, right. As if you don't have enough RAM issues already, Aqua just respectfully declines Zack's help and takes on the Lord of the Dead by herself. It's because of the RAM issues that Aqua is such a strong female lead! Later she finds out that Master Eraqus has been killed by Terra's darkness. MY GOD. TERRA HAS JUST SANK TO THE LOWEST POINT POSSIBLE. Oh, never mind, Xehanort just tricked Terra into weakening his master and aims to take on Terra's body to live another 60 years or so. Meanwhile Ventus has his own conflicts with Vanitas and in order to have the most powerful weapon... x-Blade crafted, the two must fight. A really cheesy attempt in avoiding the fight, incoming! It all comes down to a rather humongous Keyblade Graveyard where we see Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix's secret ending replicated with the in-game engine of Birth by Sleep's. Ventus gets frozen, Braig (the origin of the "Xigbar" Nobody) trolls around a bit and Aqua beats him. Vanitas now merges and fights with Ventus so the all-mighty x-Blade gets forged. Aqua has to deal with 10f Sonic Blades that deal a massive amount of damage... During this Ventus fights Vanitas inside and Xehanort takes over Terra's body and we get the Lingering Sentiment that is in Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix. Woohoo, we get to play as that bad-ass motherfucker! (Rare footage of Muggy complementing the game.) And then shit just goes down. But to think the gameplay being this low in quality... Oh yeah. --- Anguish, Pain, Sorrow, Anger... --- [LV01] All these negative emotions and feelings... oh my god. The reason I even managed to experience all this bullshit in the first place was due to my masochist nature of trying to play a Kingdom Hearts game through at a low level. Critical Mode, the hardest difficulty setting in the entire game, plus it's exclusive experience-eliminating ability, Zero EXP equaled a LV1 playthrough. Do you have any idea what kind of SHIT I had to go through when I played through this game at Level 1? Anything I did inflicted one pixel worth of damage (except Shotlocks, Ignite and some other spells) and anything opponents did inflicted instant death / 1 HP on my ass. The instant deaths comes with the territory, but seriously, the damage formula is unforgiving and will have you fight a single boss battle FOREVEEEEERRRR. Seriously, stop reading this post for a few minutes and YouTube search one of the final boss battles played at LV1. It's a completely pointless self-torture! You MUST have all the life saving abilities mentioned earlier to stand a chance and even then it is just repeating the same steps in the battles over and over again. It is ridiculously boring to watch -hell, Birth by Sleep as a WHOLE is a boring watch gameplay wise- and even more boring to play through. The only reason you'd pay attention is because of any hit taking you down to 1 HP. Terranort against Aqua has his own bullshit, like his Shotlock projectiles somehow screwing up your blocks -this is the main source of damage at low level btw- and his second incarnation just takes about 20 minutes or so. And the Master Xehanort with Terra took me HALF_AN_HOUR TO CLEAR. I AM SO NOT KIDDING ABOUT THIS. THE DAMAGE FORMULA IS AWFUL AND BRAINLESS. ONE PIXEL AT A TIME WITH UNSAFE ATTACKS. At least in Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix there was genuine CHALLENGE in playing the game through LV1, since you still dealt a reasonable amount of damage but of course it was noticeably lower than normal. THIS... This isn't genuine challenge. Not in any way imaginable. I don't know what else to put in here, it fucking sucks and it fucking sucks and I learned how to play this god awful game because of this. Well... "learned". God, this game sucks. --- The final page in the story is still flawed --- [FNLPG] This is the part we should be actually paying attention. You beat the Xehanort in his new-found body, he creates a Heartless of himself and falls into the depths of darkness. Aqua is willing to sacrifice herself for the caged soul of Terra's, who is basically the main villain of this series now. That girl really doesn't think much, does she? Just because Xehanort sealed his heart away does not mean he is evil anymore. I guess you could say she desperately hoped for the best, but really, was there any point? Imagine if she did NOT save Xehanort, all the events in the rest of the series would have been rendered completely pointless! So she ends up in the Realm of Darkness all alone and fights a bunch of Heartless monsters. If you are one of those who imported the Final Mix version of the game (like me) you could actually play a 30-minute episode in the Realm of Darkness, followed by a Heartless boss that has no real connection to the plot whatsoever and serves there to simply give you a climax to an already dull portion of the game. (And before you ask, yes, Magnet works there too) Aqua then finds herself with Ansem the Wise who banished himself into the Realm of Darkness near the conclusion of Kingdom Hearts 2, a game that takes place 12 years after the events of Birth by Sleep. And if Aqua joins him on the beach, then that means Aqua has been dwelling in the darkness for 12 years with the same clothes all day every day with her dirty vagin- *plurts* *krhm* Uhm... excuse me for wandering off topic, but how is it that Aqua has not shown any signs of aging AT_ALL? 12 years is a reasonably long time for any human being, and unless darkness somehow keeps your skincare and other hormonial happening in check...wait, that's not even biologically possible... Aqua is a true Keyblade Master who passed the Mark of Mastery exam. And from what I saw with Terra, embracing / succumbing to the darkness means instant failure in the exam, meaning Aqua embraced the light in her that made her so much more, so the whole point of her being a Keyblade Master -at this point, mind  you- is COMPLETELY FRAUDULENT. Ventus becomes a part of the 4-year old Sora's heart which SUPPOSEDLY is the cause of Roxas' looks (which is bullshit) and the double Keyblades in Drive Forms in Kingdom Hearts 2. And speaking of that, Terra's armor lingers in the Keyblade Graveyard. You get to fight it in the Final Mix version which is one of the most well designed boss battles in the history of Kingdom Hearts series. And that's how things basically end. Everyone gets locked somewhere and you could basically play Kingdom Hearts 1 and onwards without even remembering these characters still exist in canon. This is where Kingdom Hearts 3D bumps in, but that is a story for another day. --- Oh, but there is post-game fun --- [PSTGM] Just when you think the game has shown you it's worst, post-game content is unlocked in the form of two optional bosses. At this point you could always finish the non-canon Mirage Arena which for the most part is laughable in itself in both single and multiplayer. But even the two optional bosses, Vanitas' Remnant and a hooded Unknown are complete jokes in this game. To give you a shitty metaphor, Vanitas' Remnant would be the grammatical pun you laugh at excessively and Unknown would be an offensive sexist joke you would hold a grudge over for a month. As if the game wasn't broken enough, you can easily abuse specific special attacks to beat the Remnant with ridiculous ease. Terra has Strike Raid Keyblade Boomerang through solid rocks Vanitas cannot run through, Aqua has homing land mines and the best of all... Ventus' Tornado spell which you can use to beat this guy WITHIN A MINUTE. This spell inflicts a single attack and keeps the enemy in it for a set period of time, while dealing damage. Seeing how Remnant only has one health bar, you only need two of those and a single melee attack to beat him. That's it. But Vanitas likes to be fraudulent and sometimes after taking a hit, he teleports behind you and buttrapes you. So what does this mean? It's not only brainless, but LUCKY BASED TOO. OOOH, THANKS FOR THAT, SQUARE-ENIX. LUCK ELEMENT IS TOTALLY WHAT THIS PIECE OF WYVERN DUMP NEEDED.

:An added note: Funnily enough, Remnant heals himself if you use healing spells, making healing items viable for this one particular battle. Talk about ditching a bitch and then taking her back in after realising how wonderful of a person she is!