Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Analysis | Regressing Standards

[@EdgardoJCruz-dk5kv]

The thing with the Simple & Clean and Sanctuary reuse during this period of Kingdom Hearts is because the singer Utada Hikaru, stepped back from public projects and her father's control on which ones she did limited others from hiring or asking for song requests. Not to mention the the rising costs to do so. It was not much later after going over personal development, getting away from such controlling influences did she return to do music for the KH series and other media again. So it's not like they did not want to have any new lyrical openings, but rather Square Enix just couldn't at the time.

[@Sormarxas15]

I would only edit to replace “she” with “they” as Utada is nonbinary and has been openly so for a few years now.

[@DickJohnson96]

@Sormarxas15 nah I dont think I will

[@kingdomchains]

@@Sormarxas15 they use both pronouns btw

[@holleighgram]

Also, Utada has been open about the fact tha that "Sanctuary/ Passion" is a boutique Sora and Rikus reunion and has nothing to do with Roxas. If anything, the English lyrics would indicate it being more from Rikus perspective-- specifically as he he was the one watching over Sora as he slept.

[@adamtaurusragnathebloodedg8407]

I guess getting new songs was complicated and dirty

[@TheAzulmagia]

Okay, I can kind of reconcile Aqua knowing about the paopu fruit, but it requires a lot of inferences. Xehanort himself is from Destiny Islands and is friends with Eraqus. Chances are that Eraqus and Xehanort have chatted about their home worlds. And Aqua, having studied under and lived with Eraqus for some time, enough to be his star pupil, has probably been made privy to some tales from his youth. So that's at least something of a believable way for her to know about that. Still, I will confess that BBS, more often than not, does that annoying thing that prequels do where they basically turn to the camera and go "Remember that thing from the original!?" while shaking you profusely.

[@aroccoification]

That or paopu fruit just aren't exclusive to destiny island. There isn't necessarily any reason to think it's native to destiny island especially since until 3 no other form of food had even been mentioned besides the list needed for the raft in kh1 or sea salt ice cream

[@rexstrife2066]

Came here to say the exact same thing lol. Xehanort passing that story onto Eraqus at some point makes plenty of sense. Was that the plan from the get go? Ehhhhh…

[@ganondorfzant]

A note on Sleeping Beauty, the Fairies, Flora included, do cast a spell on the castle to put everyone to sleep after Aurora is pricked on the spinning wheel. The spell is made to fade when Aurora awakens. The sleep is implied to be some form of stasis, as Maleficent mockingly explains to Philip that he will be a feeble old man when she frees him - while Aurora will not have aged a day. The Castle should be filled with guests for the engagement, but they would all be under the sleeping spell.

[@Tetramorre]

Neat, thanks!

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Genie Jafar: *Not in the game to be the worst fight* Literally every boss: “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

[@Tetramorre]

Extremely true

[@TheAzulmagia]

@@Tetramorre On the topic of bosses, the Magic Mirror's hallway attack has one face smiling like his other move where he summons clones. So if you attack that one, the attack ends quicker.

[@FrancisL4D]

Kh1? Com? Or Kh2?

[@TheAzulmagia]

@@FrancisL4D Don't forget Re:Coded.

[@FrancisL4D]

@@TheAzulmagia Genie jafar was a boss in recoded? Dam i forgot

[@Dragon_Lair]

Fun fact about Disney Town. Whomever you play as last there has the other two mentioned in the award ceremony and a unique ice cream for each is presented. If you replay the game the game remembers that you beat it so every character can see the ceremony.

[@Cri_Jackal]

The keyblade inheritance thing has a perfectly good explanation... once you line out each individual thing we're shown. Really should've been one of the things they fully clarified in KH3. Firstly, the ritual itself, with the speech. Pointless. And I mean it's pointless as in it's merely ceremonial, a traditional element passed down culturally, but isn't actually necessary as proven by: Kairi and Aqua. The throughline between Riku and Terra's, and Kairi and Aqua's moments where keyblade wielding is passed down: someone touching the handle of someone's keyblade at the same time as them, and said wielder allowing them to do so. Intending to pass down the ability isn't even necessary, you just have to consent to them touching your keyblade's handle while you hold it. Now what does this actually do? 1. Let's you pick up any keyblade without it immediately returning to its owner, they can still just summon it back, though. 2. Guarantees that you will eventually get your own keyblade, created from your heart seemingly, with you as it's intended owner. Riku really was the "chosen one" in KH1, the Kingdom Key was supposed to be HIS keyblade, it has his color scheme, and has the image of someone destined to be his future friend as it's keychain. If Riku had actually gotten the keyblade when he was supposed to, then Mickey acquiring the Kingdom Key D would've tied them together as counterparts, with Riku playing Sora's role during the events of KH1 and thus facilitating that friendship, making the keychain make intrinsic sense. Everything initially presented in regards to the Kingdom Key's loyalty switching between Sora and Riku still applies, Riku was the proper intended owner and he thus had higher authority when he called it back, Sora was only ever able to wield it because the keyblade deemed him as the second best choice when it's master faltered, and it then permanently decided to make Sora it's official wielder after Sora confronts Riku and demonstrates his inner strength of heart. Merely housing the heart of a keyblade wielder doesn't make you able to wield one, as vaugely clarified by Nomura, you have to obtain that ability separately, at which point it becomes possible to summon that wielder's keyblade. So if we have this straight, Sora could've started dual wielding at any point after Riku 2? Neat. Though Roxas's creation soon after does canonically complicate the ownership of those two available keyblades, Xion adding even more bureaucracy, until everything gets consolidated by the start of KH2. This also explains where the actual fuck Kairi's keyblade came from. Riku is surrounded by darkness, and a friend reaches out to him? His keyblade appears. Kairi surrounded by heartless (darkness), and a friend reaches out to them? Her keyblade appears. In both situations, it's initially in the hands of said friend. Their keyblades were generated right them and there when they were put in danger by the darkness, "extracted" from them if you will. Kairi, however, doesn't have to wait upwards of 14 hours for her delivery boy to give her the goods. ...Wait hold the fuck.. this means... Namine could've asked Sora to give him his keyblade during CoM, and she would've just, been able to use it? Huh.

[@AL-nv4gk]

Why are fans insistent of their needing to be a singular explanation for such things too it's infuriating their can be multiple reasons for one thing

[@michaellane4054]

The fact that you need a guide in this game is so true! Now I know that Second Chance and Once More exist in this game! I can finally beat the secret bosses with Terra now! I just always thought I was bad at Kingdom Hearts because I could only beat them with Aqua and Ven, but now I know that I am actually very good at the game! Thank you!

[@bubbasbigblast8563]

I can't help but notice, the Mysterious Figure fight is designed awfully similar to how Gacha games break a previous meta by making ever more broken units, and the game released before the first major Gacha games came out. So, Birth By Sleep was kind of a trail blazer with mechanics, in pretty much the worst way possible! Neat!

[@aroccoification]

What a ridiculous reach that is. I'm sorry you didn't like the game but this game is absolutely nothing like a gacha game KH1 had bosses that took away the majority of your skillsets and replaced it with flight that doesn't somehow make it a progenitor to gacha games. What you're thinking of is how new mmo dungeons would release and break the meta as well as making dungeons where you can't use all your resources. And people actually really like that about dungeons/bosses in MMO games. Gacha games just use that model to be predatory That's where gacha games got that idea mmos dude and that was before KH1 and especially has absolutely nothing to do with birth by sleep

[@eliastew9636]

Dude I’m really impressed by your turnaround. An almost 3 hour video in 3 months is crazy. Can’t wait to watch!

[@RadinV1]

Honestly I think the whole "the keyblade of heart is the only one that can unlock Kingdom Hearts, but oh the X-Blade also does the same except better apparently?" boils down the problem of retcons in this game perfectly. It's like they made sure to remind you of the lore in KH1 to reassure the audience that it's still leading up to that story, and then they laid out the lore of the X-Blade which is the mcguffin in this game and completely different from previous lore, but they didn't explain how these two relate to each other at all. Retcons are fine, but the writer has to explain how even with the new information, the old lore and events make sense, but this game makes no effort at that. This applies to the thing about Xemnas intentionally not using a keyblade as well. It's impossible to make it make sense unless you just accept that this game wasn't written yet and move on. It's a bit messy at best, and immersion breaking at worst for me.

[@lauraroberts3520]

“X-Blade does is better” makes you wish he also designed it better lol 😂

[@RadinV1]

@@lauraroberts3520 Yeah that thing is ugly as hell lol

[@PataHikari]

I mean X-Blade was described as having been shattered in ancient times into light and darkness, and the seven lights that made it up are the Princess of Light. So the reason the X-Blade can do everything the Keyblade of Hearts can do is because said Keyblade is literally half the X-Blade. So it's not really a retcon so much an expansion of it's lore

[@RadinV1]

@@PataHikari Well first, I'd argue expansions of the lore can be retcons, but that's not a bad thing necessarily, and the explanation you're giving right now makes perfect sense to me BUT, the X-Blade being split into 7 and 13 was only introduced in DDD, in BBS it just required an equal clash of light and dark and had no relation at all to the princesses. So I guess DDD wasn't all bad after all and explained something lol

[@historian252]

Remember what Xehanort himself felt was the way to reforge the keyblade was a heart of light vs a heart of darkness mostly because he felt it would be more expedient to his mission. But when it turned out to not be strong enough, he decides to go through the route the legendary spoke of.

[@TheAzulmagia]

To be honest, while you're kinda positive on the story, I find it a bit awkward. I feel like the BBS Trio is the least believable set of friends in the series, which is surprising after Days built up Roxas' friend group so well. The fallout in Radiant Garden in particular is weird, where you have Aqua accusing Terra of doing something different from what Eraqus asked him to do (it isn't), accuses him of doing nothing but bad things (despite only having Maleficent as a frame of reference for anything bad in one of the three worlds she's visited), Terra getting angry that Aqua is "spying" on him (as if Eraqus doesn't need to be briefed on Terra's progress in what is explicitly a remedial exam), and Ven accusing Aqua of being awful/letting being a Keyblade Master go to her head because she's... obeying Eraqus' orders. That's not even getting into things like Ven never telling anyone about Vanitas breaking into Radiant Garden or Terra's awkward character arc where we're told he has a lust for power but never see it. Xehanort and other villains continually come to Terra and tell him "Hey, use darkness" and his response is just "Uh, no thanks." the whole story. And then he just snaps to being the Giga Darkness of all Darknesses at the end of the game. Maybe it would've been a bit derivative of Riku (not like BBS seems to be afraid of that, given all of the KH1 parallels), but I think it could've been neat if Terra's character arc was about a personal failing of his in trying to take an easy road to power in pursuit of his goal to become a Keyblade Master only to realize he was fooled later on. As it is, he just tries to be a good boy who dindu nuffin' and bad stuff just keeps happening to him. I also don't like Terranort's little Ansem, Seeker of Darkness speech about how "all worlds begin in darkness". That speech makes sense for an amnesiac Xehanort to give when he's studying the heart with fresh eyes and comes to the conclusion that darkness is its natural state. It makes significantly LESS sense for someone like Master Xehanort to say that speech when he realizes that all worlds and hearts come from a source of light initially, the very thing he literally *just summoned moments ago,* especially when his motivation is to recreate the universe so that The First Light isn't lost this time by people fighting over it. Also, small nitpick, but there should've been more unique D-Links with each character. Terra in particular could've had Hades and Xehanort as D-Links that tied into his plot!

[@historian252]

Remember what Xehanort said to Eraqus during the flashback. He said "Every heart emerges from darkness into a realm of light". It also ties into Xehanort's personality and what he feels about people in general. He feels people and the worlds' themselves fragmented without Kingdom Hearts to be nothing but darkness made manifest.

[@aerrae5608]

Remember that Riku's darkness arose form wanting to protect his friends and wanting the power to do so. It's more blatant with him of course, but Terra is the first person to do this.

[@laststrike4411]

For Aqua/Radiant Garden: I get how this can feel kinda jarring, and the Maleficent thing has no good explanation, but there was actually some setup for this. You see, Aqua shares a good bit of Eraqus's black-and-white view of light and darkness. You even see her breaking into Cinderella's home to kill off her stepfamily after catching a whiff of their darkness. Yes, WE know that they're bad news and bad people, but Aqua doesn't. She couldn't have, having seen them for all of two seconds. She made a judgement call on whether these people needed to live or die based entirely off a vibe check and got LUCKY that their actions lined up. Radiant Garden basically exists to highlight the flaws of such thinking. The response to the idea/suspicion of Terra falling to darkness is accurate, but the actual reason for indulging such thoughts is itself pretty weak. For Terra/Radiant Garden: One of the easier things to explain. Yes, Terra is angry about being spied on. Aqua was never necessary as an overseer when Eraqus has connections to Yen Sid. Adding Aqua to the mix is less giving Terra a supervisor and more giving him a tard wrangler. Moreover, she could have just been forthright from the start when they met up in the Castle of Dreams, but she didn't. It's the double-whammy of insult and betrayal that sets him off, I'd say. For Ven: What Ven's saying is that Aqua is supposed to be their friend first and a Keyblade Master second. I think you meant to say the Land of Departure with your other thing, and I'd agree. For Terra's character arc: You're missing the point here. People are constantly telling Terra about this list for power that he doesn't have because that's just how they think Darkness users are. They're supposed to be power hungry and cruel and self-absorbed, and Terra never becomes any of those things despite his immense darkness. The thing driving him is approval, not power. His arc is more about letting go of that need to move forward in his life as well as letting go of the naivete that came from his sheltered life. The tragedy in Terra's story comes both from the fact that people (including his own friends/family) get him wrong because of his darkness, which pushes him to the only person apparently willing to accept him, Xehanort. It makes him sympathetic, and also makes Ven more endearing since he never lost faith in his friend (despite arguably having the most reason to). As for the darkness thing...I don't know what to tell you, man. Terra's steadily been using more and more darkness in his repertoire from Radiant Garden onwards. His goal from the middlepoint onwards is literally to learn how to channel his darkness too. Ludonarrative harmony can be a bit hard to achieve with a Command deck game, but it seemed pretty clear to me.

[@lauraroberts3520]

I can’t wait for you to do Dream Drop Distance. I love the story analysis you did. Kingdom Hearts does need that now again. Thank you for that. I just wish Mr Nomura personally would stop forcibly making connections between characters throughout the story’s history. He needs to learn subtlety and stop being blunt as a brick. Also stop ignoring what he’s put down or forgetting, consistency is important in story telling.

[@jd7507]

At least they pulled the camera back with that one, lol.

[@wolffster25]

I’m going to add this comment as I watch the video so far this is great. Edit 1: The “everyone in the castle being asleep” is a part of the original Sleeping Beauty movie. Basically when the curse happens the fairies put everyone asleep until Aurora wakes up via Prince Charming. I believe this was also part of the original fairy tale as well although I’m not sure which one as Sleeping Beauty has many different interpretations I’m gonna guess the French interpretation because it was common source of inspiration for multiple Disney movies. Please correct me if I’m wrong about that. Edit 2: OMG “Once More” what a pain I remember getting to Zach and dying because of that one move he has you know the one. I remember telling my friend to make sure to get that ability ASAP because of how needed it was. To this day I refer to these three abilities as “The Holy Trinity Of Defense” for KH Second Chance, Once More (it get renamed in 3), and Leaf Bracer if you have these your survival in any KH game shoots up dramatically. Edit 3: 1:24:25 yeah that attack I’m getting serious Malenia/Waterfowl Dance vibes. I know it’s an attack based Omnislash but the way it moves how destructive it is well we now know who designed the hitboxes for the Malenia fight.

[@boyishdude1234]

If I'm not mistaken, can't you use a well-timed Shotlock that's long enough to survive Zach's DM without Once More?

[@Tetramorre]

Yeah I say that in the video

[@Sukiiashi]

I don’t usually comment on videos ever and I know it’s months since this release so I may be shouting to the void but I just watched all of your KH series and felt really compelled to comment. First of I just wanna say all your critiques are super well grounded and I found myself understanding everything you bring up. KH has a huge nostalgia factor for me so I definitely view it with rose colored spectacles albeit with a more cynical feeling because of KH3. Birth by sleep is my favorite out of all the games so I felt especially skeptical going into this. Watching made me realize I really just went along with a lot that was said and not seeing the glaring flaws of a game I spent so many hours loving. Aside from the point but I wanted to point one thing that stood out to me. The part about Xemnas potentially being able to use a keyblade. The understanding I have is that when Xehanort took over Terra’s body he had amnesia which then carried over to Ansem and Xemnas respectively. So while the amnesia Xehanort was made of Terra and Xehanort respectively, he did not retain the knowledge of keyblade wielding. This is further explored by the motivations behind Ansem SOD and Xemnas. Ansem embodies the ideas that Xehanort had with the fascination of hearts, kingdom hearts and darkness. You specifically mention the idea that nobodies retain their memories from when they were somebodies being important narratively and it is, but from the perspective of Xemnas he would only have the memories pertaining specifically to amnesia Xehanort. Establishing this then it means Xemnas is Terra’s side of amnesia Xehanort where he’s more wanting to find that piece of him that was lost by having a heart again. Xemnas also refers to Aqua as old friend, albeit in a retcon cutscene BUT it does recontexualize our understanding behind his motivations being more closely veered towards Terra. I definitely do think it is a bit contrived that two keyblade weilders inhibiting a body WOULDNT be able to have one, I just wanted to bring up that perspective! Seeing as you also highly analyze your work I thought I’d bring it up as food for thought for someone who enjoys dissecting these games as much as I do! I appreciate your takes on a series that’s beloved by so many. I can’t wait to watch more of your videos! I’m personally excited for KH3 cause that’s where it started losing its magic for me as a whole but I’ll continue playing these games until I can’t anymore 😂 Thank you so much for your content!!!

[@TrinSpin]

Haven't watched yet, just wanted to say thanks for the now 13.5h of analysis/entertainment, and merry Christmas. Despite never having played a KH game, I've enjoyed all of your videos on its various games. also, 5:40 based

[@alsaiduq4363]

My god. What a wonderful gift. Your analysis are harsh but i always like to hear people talk about kingdom hearts and your content is some of the best. Looking foward to see your take on the tragedy named dream drop distance.

[@shizuwolf]

I have an idea on how Aqua might’ve heard about the powpu fruit. They live on a world for training Keyblade wielders, right? Maybe they have a library containing books written by previous wielders where they document their travels. She might’ve stumbled upon the the information while looking through one of these books

[@wam-pm7ml]

1:22:10 always a flash bang to the brain when i have a video playing next to me and the Furi sound track starts playing

[@pascalsimioli6777]

As somone who tried to get into video editing for KZbin and spent multiple months on a 15 minutes video I am flabbergasted at the correlation between your subscribers count and length of the videos. Needless to say they're not just long, but also extremely well edited.

[@JasonP-d4i]

So your saying you suck

[@Acecard-jl2py]

I just finished one of your videos and you uploaded this? Well done!

[@donthebandruid3625]

I don't know if anyone would see this but I always thought that Maleficent being defeated in BBS is the reason why she couldn't transform in KH1 without Ansem's help. She was too tired from Sora beating her to transform, and she was already nerfed from taking a sword to the heart that was supposed to kill her originally. I believe her expression of elation at being powered up is more like "Yes, this is the power I was seeking!" and not "What is this new power I've been gifted?". Sorry for the long read.

[@pamelamason530]

I wonder if this could also explain why she doesn’t really…do much after KH1 (apart from being a plot device). She had a lot going on between being defeated by Sora and time traveling to/from the age of fairytales.

[@kaizercone2018]

I'm sorry what? KH1 is literally 10 years after BBS. 10 years after her fight against Ventus and Aqua. I get that she was dealt a mortal wound to the Heart and all but the idea that she wasn't able to heal from it after that long of a time period especially since she has Regen is just insane and sounds like an excuse for a relatively big plot hole.

[@justabulbasaurlover.4711]

I woke up to this. I'm boutta play Kingdom Hearts 2 while I watch this in the background

[@zaqareemalcolm]

The really crazy part is the official timeline in the game's shared report from the main menu shows the order of the worlds do not always match being ordered by ascending battle level. This isn't new (and it happens again in DDD), but it is at its most potentially confusing here because of having _three_ narratives all more focused on how much they interact/don't interact with each other. Canonically, Terra goes to Dwarf Woodlands before Castle of Dreams. Other things it implied was Aqua presumably fucking around in the Lanes Between looking for Ven or something as there's a giant ass gap while those two did their worlds, and Terra also somehow manages to complete all three worlds by the time Aqua lands in Castle of Dreams lol

[@theshogun6413]

Criminally under subbed, I am really enjoying this series and love your content man, keep it up!

[@ZellyTheFangirl]

I've always been painfully aware of how messy the continuity is between characters and orders of events, but rather than think too hard about it (as you have so gratefully done for us) I've always just handwaved it as thinking time works differently from world to world, like how a day has a different number of hours in it from planet to planet. xD

[@DeadxBreadx]

Just stafted binging these. Great work. Enjoying the series a lot.

[@kidgoku1984]

This is one of the most insightful reviews I've ever seen. 2 and a half hours seem long but the intense research you put into it more than justifies the length.

[@tobiaswalker7562]

I'm not arguing with your time/event assessment at about 29:00. The continuity is explained in another side game...Dream Drop Distance. Joshua and Riku, talking about Worlds, Dreams and how every world spins on it's own axis. Your argument is still just as valid, because to come to that answer, you have to go through, All 3 runs of this game, Kingdom Hearts, 2, Chain, and 358. To start another argument, this actually does validate putting ALL of the dark seeker saga on 2 or 3 disks.

[@Xpwnxage]

This is a phenomenal video. I don't even really play KH anymore (I'm hopeful for KH4), but I love watching retrospectives/challenge runs. This is probably the best channel for KH videos.

[@TheAzulmagia]

I'm not really sure why Terra's story is listed as the first story to play. It seems like it'd be more interesting to go Ven, Terra, and then Aqua. If you do things that way, you learn alongside Ven who/what Vanitas while being unsure of what has happened to Terra. Terra's story then comes along and has Xehanort reveal Vanitas' nature to Terra prior to Radiant Garden, before we see how the Lingering Will thing concluded. Then finally, Aqua closes the story out by destroying the incomplete X-Blade, which then leads into the following two episodes.

[@Tetramorre]

Honestly, I could see it being because of the fact that you can’t really tell Ven is still alive in Terra’s version of the ending. Not sure though, Nomura also confirmed in an interview that the listed order in the game is the intended experience

[@wholockedholmes5600]

This! It never made sense to me that Terra first was the "intented" play pattern. Ven is our Sora stand-in, is the best vessle for the audience being introduced to new characters. and starts off the stories of most disney world, Terra comes in the middle, and Aqua almost always finishes off the world storylines and the main non-disney storyline. It would be sense to play them in that pattern. Hell, most of the plot reveals are most satisfying in the pattern as well. (Personal theory: Nomura really loves star wars and Terra is very anakin inspired, so he wanted people to play him first.)

[@taputrainer8463]

For my first playthrough I did Ven first especially after playing KH2 I’d want to know the story behind why Roxas looks the way he does, I’m sure most new players would feel the same way. Also playing bbs my first time led to a lot of intrigue over Terra’s motivations during Ven’s story. I felt like they should’ve considered that when deciding the order but my guess is that players already knew about the lingering will from final mix and KZbin videos (for Americans before the collections came out). I started kh after the collections came out so after playing Kh2 and not unlocking LW because I was a casual new player I was most interested in Ven’s story at first

[@nightwish1453]

@@Tetramorre old comment but when you look at it ven's route hardly you gives much context to anything until the final parts. where as Terra gives a bunch of information that does spoil a lot

[@ShadeDemon2141]

I appreciated the analysis of the armor and damage formula so much. I had the exact same problem where in deep space I just had to grind for a while so I started doing damage again, now I finally know why. I wonder how the game would feel if the damage formula was just changed to KH2's instead.

[@TommasoFirmini]

I love finding new channels with a bunch of videos on topics or games or such that im interested in, but equally despair at seeing the time gap between videos on an unfinished series 😂 For real though, I've been loving these kingdom hearts videos the last few days man, cant wait to see more from you!

[@aquack9919]

Good video. Your thoughts on boss design was on point. Interested to see your thoughts on 3D.

[@crayon3863]

Been waiting for more kingdom hearts :) Glad to see you upload!

[@greyrifterrellik5837]

I'm entirely certain that the keyblade of hearts appearing with only 6 of 7 isn't a true plothole, but rather the keyblade is *incomplete.* Hell, as someone else pointed out to me you can even see *in the design itself* that it's incomplete; the teeth on the key portion are in a heart shape *with a piece missing.*

[@BabyArms]

2:25:58 "I'd rather that point remain a mystery." Oh, I don't doubt that you do, Nomura. "It's possible that he intentionally wasn't using one." Okay? Was he or was he not, and why?

[@foreverinfinity4028]

I started watching and listeneing to every video in this series in a row and I finally made it here Im glad I found your videos

[@XxesusKerosene]

In the braig fight you can actually block his bullets, not only reflecting the attack but also hastening the fight.

[@ReginoGuendolinoXIII]

Oh wow! Whenever I played this game and got to Deep space I've always wondered what was up with my damage output. Wild!

[@DuskoftheTwilight]

1:06:00 I know you're probably not expecting an answer, but I think the reason the chip damage protection only exists when you have EXP 0 equipped is that if you're not doing a level 1 playthrough, they're expecting you to go level up to get higher stats if you're facing that kind of wall. They didn't really design the game with a level 1 playthrough in mind, but were aware that people wanted to do that as a challenge run, so they implemented some fallback mechanics for that challenge specifically, since "just level up for more stats" isn't an option there.

[@BlueKunai]

Another great breakdown in this series. I had similar closing thoughts to you when I got the platinum trophy for this game in the lead up to Kingdom Hearts IIIs release. Playing through it regularly is a draining experience. Completing everything for all three characters on Critical mode is soul destoryingly tedious.

[@darkscoutergamer6168]

True indeed but maybe that’s also why alot of people like the game 💙👀 but definitely was worse with Terra compared with aqua and ventus

[@youknowthatoneguy123]

You can block the first person shots from Braig as Terra. Its the best way to stop him from using that attack while simultaneously dealing damage. I just did a playthrough and that was the only way i could get passed it while mainting my sanity 😅

[@Tetramorre]

That’s a good catch, certainly makes that boss better, wish i had tried that lol

[@PixelHeroViish]

Yeah, I think they might've done that as a reference to KH2 where you can block Xigbar's first-person shots too, it's just that there you had a Reaction Command to know to end it

[@vladgabrielsandu9174]

The king is back baby!! Finally, been waiting on this for aaaageeeeez

[@tbenigma4817]

Xehanort was from the destiny Islands and wasnt always a douche. I'd say he probably talked about it to eraquis at some point who then talked about it to aqua.

[@vitrincreates]

Was about to say this lmao xehanort grew up there.

[@MovieGroove]

Got yourself a sub good sir. Marvelous work.

[@lucasramey6427]

The confusion from "the keyblade chooses it's wielder" comes from when it talks about that it refers specifically to the kingdom key (or the light key, the dark key which chose mickey is the same way) meanwhile a keyblade simply refers to the tool that was modeled in mass after the original x-blade so if someone refers to "the keyblade" they mean the kingdom key and if they simply say "keyblade" they mean the weapon

[@stupidslugo]

Merry Christmas mang. Thanks for all the comfy content.

[@naverdadendada]

Hey, I'm watching the video and really enjoying it. I wanted to talk about one thing related to the continuity issues in the beginning of the game: My guess is that they've probably noticed them, but that other constraints down the pipeline made them unable to make changes to it. For example, those initial cutscenes of the characters leaving might have already been made when they were designing the levels with the character orders in mind and so changing it would have a huge project cost. It might still just be an oversight on their part as you mentioned, but there's a lot of crazy complications on the other side when making games

[@Kate_Hanami]

my interpretation always was that "Sora is the Keyblade's chosen one" simple, everyone else had their bequeath to them or trained by a master to use one, and Sora was the only one that the Keyblade chosen and was not given to

[@kamikaze5528]

Sora, is not the "Keyblade's chosen one," that is a mistranslation, tho. He's called the "Hero of the Keyblade" in the original. it's a lot more ambiguous than the idea that the Keyblade chooses the wielder.

[@Kate_Hanami]

@@kamikaze5528 he is the "keyblade's chosen one" in the sense he was the only one the keyblade choose and not bequeath to you can imagine Sora won the Keyblade lottery and everyone else got theirs by other means

[@darkscoutergamer6168]

@@Kate_Hanami you think it could be something we get a answer for in the future games?💙👀 it’s kinda interesting

[@Kate_Hanami]

@@darkscoutergamer6168 I'm going off the official cannon and say stuff about verum rex The original idea of verum rex was the the very tip of FFXV, but maybe his way into kingdom hearts 3 The false king came from a distance past and he was tainted by the darkness, even with his, once noble intentions, the darkness was leading him astray The false king was meant to purge the darkness instead of absorbing it,he learn to channel it and thus was unable to die,but he lost the right of the kingdom because of the darkness Instead he embraced it and gather followers with the pretence of ruling it, but at the very end, he wanted to absorb all the darkness from the world so he could be killed by the real king and eliminated the darkness within him and all the world Sounds a lot like a certain master with a black hoodie we know

[@darkscoutergamer6168]

@@Kate_Hanami where was this all from? And I can guess who you mean ofc haha 💙 this seems so interesting to me now 👀

[@matthewsmith-rw3pn]

I have for years now, thought i understood KH, didnt play every title but i devoured countless reviews, explanations etc, yet now i find sooooo many plot points and generally questionable decisions (math...... all the math). Thank you for getting me interested into KH again if only so i can see all of this stuff first hand. Great videos mate 👍

[@monsterhunterayame4941]

2:25:50 The reason Xemnas was unable to use Terra's keyblade is actually explained (with some inference) in a cool twist in KH3. That said, I know this series will go to that game at some point, so talking about it too much in this video's comments is just begging for spoilers. Not to mention that it still feels contrived because of how many years were between this game and KH3 explaining that. Just wanted to note that there actually was an explanation, even if it was retconned in later on.

[@aidanklobuchar1798]

Even worse, Zero EXP didn't have the modifiers in the initial PSP release. You were doing 1 damage and you were going to like it. You had to rely on shotlocks, reflected attacks, and attacks like Ignite and Zero Gravity. It was a miserable experience.

[@joshuabradford8206]

Braigs attacks at the beginning of the fight can be blocked back at him so you don't have to dodge them all the time. It's a little inconsistent but it's much better than trying to dodge them all. Also the magic mirror hallway thing, there's one that looks a little bit different. One of them is smiling and if you hit that one it will stop the hallway of mirrors from attacking you.

[@baptizedatheist3168]

I found the vanitas warp and dive move super easy to predict.. i knew after a certain amount of hits in my combo he would freeze and that was enough time to know to dodge out of the way before he dives

[@amozuilucimox2509]

2:25:37 firstly, I just came across your channel a few days ago. Nice bits of refreshment in terms of picking apart a game one loves, pointing out it's mistakes, but still loving it with the mistakes as opposed to loving something blindly just because of the name (this holds true not to just games but to real life) In any case, you mention the keyblade switching ownership between sora and riku, of which I have a theory. Riku wasn't meant to be able to wield a keyblade yet, because his heart didn't deem himself worthy enough of being able to create one just yet. However, in the case of the Kingdom Key and Kingdom Key D, I can't help but think that these two keyblades operate differently. As opposed to those that are created by the heart of the wielder, these already have a heart within them, only allowing those that meets it's criteria for wielding it to manifest it. I can only infer that it takes after the rules of Thor's hammer, as not everyone can wield it, let alone pick it up, as the hammer chooses who can and cannot. With that in mind, the reason Sora being able to wield the Kingdom Key to this day and no one else can is probably because of this element of the keyblade having a mind of it's own rather than just being something that anyone can form with their heart. I could definitely be wrong though, feel free to pick apart this argument 😂

[@Caddieboy360]

This series convinced me to play KH, when I had long written it off as 'not for me' Since the start, I have played as much of KH1 as I could stomach Finished KH2 twice. And I even tried CoM which is probably my favorite purely for doing something new (I know KH1 really did a new thing, but coming to it this late it no longer feels boundary pushing) and succeeding pretty well for a first take on the deck builder/action blend. Looking forward to the next one, glad I finally got the chance to watch this one. Thanks for all this work. The end results are fantastic.

[@Tetramorre]

Glad you’re enjoying this series and the one it’s based on, means a lot to hear it’s making people into new fans.

[@tcpnick6895]

To think I was once going to play this on critical mode one day. Tbh I probably would've given up out of frustration anyway but this analysis saved me the time so thanks.

[@Tetramorre]

Yeah you’re not missing out on much

[@zaqareemalcolm]

1:05:50 because this was only patched into newer versions of the HD releases (and imo the only way this could've ever happened is if this was genuinely the first time in the interim the dev team has ever heard of anyone using Zero EXP to stay at LVL1 for entire playthroughs) Zero EXP did not modify the damage floor at all in the original PSP or the PS3 versions, meaning beating BBS at LVL1 in those versions devolved to whittling bosses away with chip damage from Ignite/Mine/Surge

[@michaeltrianta863]

If I remember correctly, you can block Braig's bullets back at him when he's in his sniper mode to get him to come down. You only have to reflect 2 bullets back before he comes back if my memory serves me right.

[@wadeyhyena1657]

Took me around 50 tries to beat Vanitas as Aqua. So, I understand your pain when it comes to Terranort.

[@Kate_Hanami]

I was going to say I had this theory about time dilation and how some worlds may be in a different time frame but then you said that thing about the Disney Town which every character completes that world last will have a different ice cream made for them, on my playthrough I got a crunchy chocolate for Terra

[@insperrr.a]

This video was great. As a maths student you doing the maths on once more got me rolling .

[@skybluenerd219]

Speaking as an enjoyer of BBS as a whole, I actually had no idea how fucced the stats were handled in this game. Kinda explained how unbalanced the later half of each campaign feels. lol Huge thanks for showing that, and good work on research as always

[@gindokusei4712]

I haven’t finished the video yet but from what I can tell so far (I hour in) all the issues stemming from the combat only seem to be a big issue on the highest difficulty. Playing on normal I didn’t run into half of these combat issues/irritations 😭

[@sirensoulegaming4158]

Precisely, I played the game on normal, proud and critical and sure, the game is brutal on critical, but I kinda thought that was the point of it? Since it's balanced around people playing normal difficulty first and foremost.

[@fangsss]

you have the best kingdom hearts analysis videos on youtube

[@Cri_Jackal]

As for Mansex not using a keyblade, 2 options. A. He could, but chose not to, good reason for doing so: would've immediately made the Organization turn against him. "Hey why the hell do you have a keyblade? Were you the one that took our hearts in the first place? What exactly are you planning with all of us if you could've done the heavy lifting the whole time?" The 13 Norts retcon later on makes this make sense, he needed to have what Org members he could stick around so he could turn them into Norts once the artificial Kingdom Hearts was completed, can't do that if they have good reason to mistrust you. B. He can't, because those who have fallen to darkness completely can't wield a keyblade. Again, something given a lot more clarification in later games, in this case Fucking KHUX, but still. Xehanort became a heartless, that's as consumed by darkness as you can get, ability to wield a keyblade goes kaput, and your nobody doesn't get a free pass on that. Roxas's heartless got that princess magic hax to turn him back into a human, keyblade privileges are back on, he could've also been using Ventus's keyblade the whole time, but him getting dual wielding by the end of Days disproves that. Option B is probably what was originally intended before the post KH2 plotline kicked into gear.

[@tripple-a6031]

I disagree with your Once More rant. I unlocked it somewhere around the middle of the game for all 3 characters on 2 different playthroughs just by trying out different item and command combinations. I think this should be the case for most players unless for whatever reason you don't fuse a lot. I do however agree that 100% all commands and abilities is kinda insane without a guide.

[@BabyArms]

"Video games are what math would look like if it went to a masquerade ball." Been listening to this series again lately while editing and doing other work. Finding new appreciation for a bunch of lines. Number one on that list is a toss up between this one and probably the bit from the ice cream metaphor in the 358/2 Days video about stuff from your past blending into your being and becoming inextricable.

[@darkscoutergamer6168]

Definitely a interesting video love it 💙and while I do disagree on some things and we should respect the gameplay for the games for the period and consoles it came out,I can see and respect the argument for trying them out now for sure,this game really at first I was gonna dislike it but after playing for hours I got so invested in the story(and the future games explaining things for BBS with more context with the “plot holes” though I don’t think there are that many anyway lol) and the gameplay was definitely different so I’m a sucker for new ideas,has a lot of issues but you can probably see why many love the game to this day,I’m a new KH fan so obviously my opinion could change in the future and il be open about it but regardless it’s nice to see a different opinion always and hopefully your next video goes well and you find your conclusion for this series,may your heart be your guiding key 😎🙏🏻

[@PixelHeroViish]

I really like how you dove into the silly little math behind it all, I wasn't even aware the damage calculation formula was this broken The reason for that being, after having struggled and HATED this game because of its faults, I eventually found out you can get certain Commands way early (Ars Solum in Castle of Dreams, anyone?) which is insanely helpful by itself but then ALSO getting a ton of EXP by comparison when getting certain things that makes the terrible mechanics more bearable. Of course, that just means I'm sugarcoating grinding but well 💀 at least getting Raging Storm early and using the Left stick wiggle exploit is fun Oh yay! I get to nerd out a bit, when talking about some of the problems with bosses and specifically dying when trying to parry one of Zack's moves you mentioned that parries are entirely gone. Believe it or not (I sure didn't) they're actually STILL THERE but so inconsistent and bad as well as not needed that I can't even blame you for not noticing. Specifically you can parry the Vanitas Superboss' Darkness clone things and make them disappear and I have no idea why. Wanna know how I found out? I got pissed at the boss when fighting him as Terra and was randomly mashing buttons and one of these clones JUST SO HAPPENED to run right into the swing and dissolve 😭💀 So for as goofy as it is, parries are still there but SO bad, they might as well not be there at all lmao, which probably would've improved the game Oh here's another funny thing, despite how similar the Dark Troll (I think that's his name) from KH2 and Red Eyes look, they're shockingly NOT the same boss. I can see why you'd think that, but yeah, it's super odd

[@terraventusaqua123]

27:30 I’m not sure if you bring it up later in the video, but the difficulty of the worlds in Terra mess with the order of events in the timeline. One would infer from the difficulty of the worlds that Terra visit Castle of Dreams before Dwarf Woodlands, but the issue is that Terra visits Dwarf Woodlands first. This change in order means that it makes SLIGHTLY more sense that Ventus made it to Castle of Dreams first, because Terra was just leaving Dwarf Woodlands by that point. This is confirmed in the game in the Records option at the Start Menu. Once you complete a campaign, that character’s timeline of events fills in chronological order. Also, Deep Space is the only world where Aqua got there before someone else- Ventus in this case. 39:00 You are correct. The Good Fairies casting a sleep spell on the denizens of the kingdom was a minor detail in the source film. In the film, they did to stall for time for Philip to defeat Maleficent and wake Aurora. As for the timeline in general, my headcanon was that each of them were traveling without proper direction in the Lanes Between and that’s why they keep passing each other by throughout the campaign of the worlds. 2:25:30 My headcanon is that Sora wasn’t yet acknowledged by the keyblade until the Foyer scene in Hollow Bastion. The keyblade was about to choose Riku right before he gave into the darkness and then “pivoted” to Sora because it recognized Ventus’s heart. And then during the “My friends are my power” moment, the keyblade chose Sora in his own right over Riku who was an inheritor who had yet to prove himself worthy in his own right.

[@ElickFlash]

As a person who wants to design a Hearts Like game, this has been a great series giving a detailed break down of the mechanics and makes it easier to understand aspects of the combat system I enjoy and finally putting to words the issues that I've struggle to in the past. Also I see you also have the Balloon Party Massive Collab Album as well. Good times... MLP Show was kind of mid after season 2, but the Music scene on the fan side was just Kino.

[@Tetramorre]

Balloon party still has some of the best dubstep I’ve ever heard

[@ElickFlash]

@@Tetramorre Arrivederci, Rejected, and Breaking Bonds are still some of my favorites from No Feeble Cheering, but some good wubstep indeed

[@grimms-vi1874]

The initial explanation in The Osaka Issue section has me wondering if they shouldn't just let Final Fantasy vs XIII happen so they can stop trying to make everything into that while chasing their white whale.

[@bergsterama126]

The keyblades of light and darkness in 1 strike me as “emergency keyblades.” Reality was collapsing, being in the worst state it’s been in so far in the entire series. I would not be surprised if they decide to dedicate some character in some game to set this up as a contingency plan, should Nomura want to flesh out this part of the lore. That’s pretty much the best he could do at this point. It takes a bit of further stretching like this to explain how we get 3 Kingdom Keys by the end of 3, and admittedly, I can’t see Kairi’s keyblade’s origin ever making sense. 😅

[@topaz987]

1:37:56 You're supposed to look left and right for the smiling face and then attack that for some nice damage.

[@starscorpia4005]

The riku and sora keyblade thing i always interpreted as In kh1, sora was using his own keyblade, and when riku took it it was him actually stealing sora's (don't question HOW he does that) BUT sometime during kh com, 358/2, and 3 he was deemed worthy enough and that's why in 2 specifically he is given his actual keyblade (probably when he accepted the darkness and turned into ansem, ironically however that also stopped him from using a keyblade so...riku's keyblade is being very picky)

[@fridaylambda3494]

I would like to add that the Order of visits for Disney Town is actually weirder than it appears. For some reason, the world's ending changes depending upon what order you play Terra, Aqua, and Ventus. Thus, in the intended path, Aqua is the last one to arrive because she was your last route. However, if you end your routes with Ventus or Terra, you get a slightly altered ending with different ice creams for each. Rocky Road Ice Cream for Terra and Double Crunch Ice Cream for Ventus. I have no idea why they decided this was the only world to change depending upon which one is last played, but it is. As for the rest of the timeline, there's a fully included timeline order. Some parts of it make sense, but other parts are due to the battle levels orders being off. I think the idea was that each character would need to visit at different times and act in a sort of stasis while the others are busy in each world. It's not perfect, but I assume the reason why there's such huge gaps is to avoid having to make the timeline be so tight and linear that they need to account for no crossover between character stories. If each character visits the worlds, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd then by that virtue Terra and Aqua can't meet up until Radiant Garden and the same applies for Ventus and Aqua too. In that regard, they'd be three completely separate stories that don't interconnect in any meaningful ways. As for the Keyblade increase, it was inevitable tbh. Anytime that there's something unique or special it will inevitably result in a scenario where the writer will need to create an evil counterpart. Or they'll purposefully create a huge amount of them to help create a war. It's impossible to avoid since having something so powerful and special requires something of equal value. You could create anything similar to a key blade but not be a key blade and it will have the same value, which then leads to the question of why not just make it a key blade? Having there be only one key blade or one per realm is far too limiting and prevents growth for new plot ideas or room to grow. It's one of the reasons I can't blame BBS's story for having so many retcons because KH1 and KH2's plots are so limited in what routes you could take it was either this or just rehash Malificient's KH1 plot. That's not a very great way to keep the series going even though it's fair to argue that it should have ended with KH2 which was the perfect cap to wrap it up.

[@ShyLo05]

I just played this for the first time - I didn’t actually mind leveling up. It felt easier than previous games.

[@bamboozled4912]

2:30:00 I always thought that the keyblade was incomplete/Broken. You can see at the tip of the Blade (2:29:49) should be a heart but its not fully complete. There is still missing a piece. Its kinda similar to the BBS X-Blade.

[@SquashyMcSquash]

The game flat out says this after the first hollow bastion visit in kh1. Leon states that the keyblade of heart must have been incomplete because of kairi's heart being stuck inside sora

[@kamikaze5528]

Well, Kairi IS not just some random kid. She's a Princess of Heart. Sora, on the other hand is not the "Keyblade chosen one," that is a mistranslation. As you put it, there is a language barrier there.

[@theccarbiter]

whats a better translation then

[@kamikaze5528]

@@theccarbiter In japanese he's called the "Hero of the keyblade." It implies that he's important, but not the single most important person. Nor that the keyblade is unique.

[@theccarbiter]

@@kamikaze5528 it does sound slightly more vague but it’s still heavily implying he’s the only one by saying he’s *the* hero of *the* keyblade

[@kamikaze5528]

​@@theccarbiter Not really. Japanese doesn't have definite articles. A blind idiot translation would be something like "He's hero from keyblade." Of course that makes almost no sense in English.

[@theccarbiter]

@@kamikaze5528 I get what you’re saying and yes it seems more vague but it’s still heavily implied by literally everything else in the game

[@IiI_Gogeta_IiI]

so having to do with the theme songs in kingdom hearts, each game actually represents Soras relationship with Kairi and the stage its at, And if you listen to the songs again knowing that you can see the connection

[@charlessegale6493]

This game is one I have a soft spot for. I ended up playing it while I was in college. To be more precise, I was playing an English patch of the Japanese Final Mix version on the PSP...mere weeks before the announcements for the I.5 and II.5 HD Collections went live (that was some really funny timing on my part XD)! All it did was replace the Japanese text for Final Mix with its English equivalent except for the Journal entries for Aqua and Ven (Terra's were just fine for some reason, maybe they only had time to patch his since his was first on the list?). The voices, as in all OG Final Mix releases, used the English dub except for the Secret Episode where the three or so scenes with Aqua were dubbed by her original Japanese voice actress. This game is...a mixed bag, but one that I have mostly positive feelings toward. For a little while, it was actually my favorite in the series, but time and replays made me push it back into the number 2 spot tied with Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix's version of Critical Mode (both, for the record, fall short of the comfort food that is Kingdom Hearts I: Final Mix). Funnily enough, your "Death of 1000 Cuts" analogy that you used for Birth by Sleep is best how I describe vanilla Kingdom Hearts II. Final Mix does a lot to mitigate those cuts, thankfully, but that game is still a beautiful mess. Birth by Sleep suffers from similar problems. The game's difficulty is weirdly skewed toward how well you know the Command Melding and Command Board systems. On my first playthrough for all three characters in Proud, I had limited to no understanding of the latter and no information on the former until Aqua's paper-thin defense during her first world forced me to look up a guide. From there and all subsequent playthroughs - all on Critical - the game went from being too obtuse and hard to being disgustingly easy to break. Considering that the game's mechanics are similar in concept to the Card Deck system in Chain of Memories, I'm not surprised that the same ups and downs are here as well in a modified form. All the mandatory bosses that were super hard to beat on my first playthrough for each character became total cakewalks. I can count the number I died to those bosses on one hand. The *SUPERBOSSES* in this game, on the other hand...well, you already went into detail why those sucked, so I won't repeat what you said here. I will note that due to the damage calculations you discussed, Armor of the Master and No Heart were actually significantly *WORSE* than in the II.5 Re:MIX Collection. OG Final Mix on PSP, you were literally doing chip damage to Xehanort's *KEYBLADE!* This was partly because the OG Final Mix had multiplayer which was removed from II.5 for due to time constraints. Needless to say, you have the removal of multiplayer of all things to make No Heart in particular a better fight. Oddly enough, despite this game being so flat, I still loved exploring the worlds here more than I did vanilla Kingdom Hearts II. Final Mix at least added the Cavern of Rememberance (which, funnily enough, was actually designed by Osaka team in '07), but Birth by Sleep strangely has terrain that makes platforming more enjoyable (the out if the way sections of Disney Town in particular come to mind) and the chests that you could theoretically come back for after make for great Metroidvania moments...if you didn't have Sliding Dash to cheese your way past those jumps/obstacles, just like in most Metroidvanias. I managed to nab Superglide for Ven before getting the base form of Glide on all subsequent playthroughs because of this. Of course, when it comes to exploration and meaningful rewards, nothing will ever beat the first Kingdom Hearts game. In terms of the characters' arcs, I thought Terra's and Ven's were great. Terra in particular resonated with me. I was in a bit of a depressive rut, one that would last for over a decade that I have only recently started recovering from due to having a better job and being in a healthier state of mind. Terra's main, the thesis of his character, was one of failure. Failure to achieve his goals. Failure to win the approval of his superiors and loved ones. Failure to protect the ones that matter. As someone in his early 20's when playing this game for the first time in 2012 who felt like no matter what I did, I was always felt like I was making the wrong decisions and had so much self-loathing...his story hit me especially hard. Actually, failure is very much the crux of this particular game. Terra's failures are front and center. Ven's failure in stopping Vanitas and the incomplete proto X-Blade in time forces him into a coma that lasts for a little over a decade. Aqua's failures are more subtle in comparison; while she is the overall hero for this title and 0.2, her failure to save both of her friends would leave the worlds open to Ansem, Xemas and Maleficent's machinations. More personally, her inability to move past her failures and desires for everything to end and fade into the Darkness will have consequences for her later on in the series, coalescing into the Anti-Aqua fight near the end of Kingdom Hearts III. So all in all, while this game is not perfect and has a LOT of faults, there's still a lot to love about this title. It's still one of my favorites even after all these years. I once even beat every Superboss as all three characters on the PS3 version of II.5; yes, even as Terra! In fact, I beat all of them as Terra *FIRST* before beating them as Ven and Aqua. Boy howdy was that difficult, *ESPECIALLY* against Vanitas' Lingering Sentiment/Will and Young Master Trollenort/Mysterious Figure (Fun Fact: as Ven, you can cheese the former with just *TWO* uses of Tornado). I know you were hard on this one, but I know that you were hard because you care. I appreciate everything you said about this game, good and bad, and I will certainly look forward to your thoughts on the games to come. Keep up the good work, dude!

[@Tetramorre]

Thanks for mentioning that about the interesting platforming and exploration in the disney worlds, especially disney town. Somehow I forgot to mention it and I fully agree. Edit: and also thanks for a wonderful comment. If more people shared your attitude toward the things you love, the internet would be a much nicer place lol

[@joshtheryuk]

The platforming might be an improvement over KH2, but the psychics are terrible. Jumps are so floaty and lack any momentum that platforming is a pain in the ass. At least in KH2 after you unlocked a few movement abilities Sora was smooth as butter.

[@charlessegale6493]

@joshtheryuk I agree that the physics could absolutely use some work. I'm not the biggest fan of how floaty the characters are, either. However, I personally really wasn't bothered too much by the controls. Part of it might just be because I played a lot of Kingdom Hearts I. A lot of people did not gel with the platforming in general and the platform controls in particular. Playing that game alongside having grown up in an era where not every game with platforming - *ESPECIALLY* in a 3D space - had the same level of polish as Mario or Crash made it easier for me to play games like Birth by Sleep. Maybe I'm just used to jank, but I wasn't really bothered by the controls when platforming in this game. I think people tend to forget that this game came out during the twilight years of the PSP. The mere fact that we got a game that runs this smoothly on a portable system from the 2000's is a miracle. Games at the beginning of that system's life cycle looked and played like they were only a step above PS1 games. As the years went on, we started seeing games that looked and played more on par with PS2 games. Games like Crisis Core, the Dissidia games and Birth by Sleep might as well have been on the PS2 and could have been if they released 5 or 6 years earlier. These games pushed the system to its limit. With that in mind, I think we're lucky the game was able to even run at all. Still, having this game on a collection that has Kingdom Hearts II doesn't exactly help this game. The only thing I'll say is that *NO GAME* has had as smooth controls as Kingdom Hearts II. Birth by Sleep is hardly the only game to suffer from this.

[@joshtheryuk]

@@charlessegale6493 The platforming in KH1 felt much better than BBS tho. Or at least i never had much trouble with it.

[@charlessegale6493]

@joshtheryuk That's fair. I'll always advocate that Kingdom Hearts I had better platforming controls than most people give it credit for. I wasn't really bothered by Birth by Sleep's controls personally, but as I said earlier, I also dealt with far worse than that before. I still have nightmares about Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace on the PS1. But again, that's just me.

[@8bitmagic]

Hooray, can't wait to watch this!

[@flyableheart]

I beat this game on the highest difficulty without once more and second chance. My entire strategy for the instakill bosses (Eraqus, Zack, Xenahort and the different Terra/Terranorts) was dodge roll spam until I had the barrier move that had armor and no recovery on it. Btw, dodge roll spam doesn't work against Vanitas because sometimes he could catch your dodge roll recovery with a move and then hit you AGAIN with a second hit that killed you. Also, I believe the best of these with the least end recovery - Barrier Surge - was exclusive to Aqua, while Terra could only equip the worst one, I think it was lightning surge. Mines and whatever shotlocks that gave me big, sweeping attacks with invul were also my best friend.

[@jasonmurdoc9533]

I wish simple and clean non remix should just have been the theme song for the franchise when I hear it I get in a whole mood

[@Exigentable]

Love your videos. Well done.

[@bashdeasy]

the money part is so real. For a kid who only had kh 1 and 2 at first and was in the hospital by the time bbs came out, clinging to the gaming magazine i begged my parents to buy me and studying the two pages bbs feature rigorously

[@OzomaLp]

In terms of the World visit inconsistency. We know (from future games of course) that time works different in any world. Therefor depending on how fast the characters actually find the worlds and how much time dileration is inside those worlds, something like 50 seconds can mean a lot actually. My personal opinion how the storys go is like this. First Terra goes to Enchanted Dominion stealing Auroras Heart. From then there is a time gap in the world since Ven does not have to be their immediately. Then Terra and Ven come at the same time to Dwarfen Woodlands. I wouldn't consider Dwarfen Woodland for the third Terra world since it makes more sense this way and battle level is hardly a reason to say it has to be this order. They almost met when Snowwhite runs into the Woods. Terra travels back into the castle and gets caught in the Mirror which is another dimension if you will and this takes more time then it seems. In the meantime Ven already goes to Castle of Dreams makes his first visit. Snowwhite is also at a point of time where a time gap can happen. After escaping the Mirror Terra follows Ven and comes to Castle of Dreams. Then Aqua shows up. She meets Terra and finishes the story which happens directly afterwards. Ven is now going to enchanted Dominion while Aqua finishes Castle of Dreams. They met in enchanted Dominion afterwards and lastly Aqua goes to Dwarfen Woodland where Snowwhite is already in the coffin. This way the continuity would work and the only problems are the time of first Arrival but like I said it may depends on how fast the characters find the world and how much time dileration is inside of the worlds.

[@kevintyson1947]

Thank you so much for calling out Nomura's BS in regard to the retcons!! I swear its a sin to bring up amy contradictions in the kh community. It always bugged the hell out of me that Xemnas can use a keyblade but chooses not to. That makes no sense in thr context of 358 days or even in kh3 when ya know...XEMNAS IS ACTUALLY PARTICIPATING IN A KEYBLADE WAR. It also doesn't make sense why Ansem seeker of darkness cant weild one OR why the keyblade didn't initially choose Riku in kh1 in with context from newer games. If Master Xehanort, who's been shown to use darkness like crazy during the entirety of BBS could still use his keyblade of LIGHT, then why the hell did Riku's keyblade chose Sora over him on destiny islands just because Riku showed just a tiny bit of darkness?? Good vid man. The only thing i do want to correct is that Riku's Way To Dawn keyblade is actually a keyblade of light too.

[@laststrike4411]

1) Xemnas is valid. People have their own justifications and workable answers, but it's still the fans doing legwork for Nomura's new direction. 2) Why would a HEARTLESS be able to wield a Keyblade? In case you forgot, that's what Ansem SOD is. He's not just some Dark-aligned dude. 3) There's a difference between using Darkness and succumbing to it. Riku consistently did the latter in KH1. Besides that, the Kingdom Key is special.

[@Yurikon3]

The problem of KH's retcons is that they are just hollow continuations. It doesn't matter how much they make sense or follow logically if there really isn't much reason to care. In case of KH3 people remember Woody telling YX to flip off, Vanitas being yeeted and Donald one-shotting main-villain even if those aren't the most relevant to main plot. The rest is just whatever. KH tries too much to be some serious continuing series when it could just embrace the moon-logic and leave fans to ponder plot holes which do not really matter.

[@pascalsimioli6777]

I don't think I fully understand where you stand on recons but I would argue that 1) the absence of evidence IS evidence of absence (ie: if characters cry after someone's death and act like death is irreversible in their world it doesn't make sense to then use time travel as if it's a normal occurrence in their universe) 2) kingdom hearts is a cautionary tale on what happens when retcons become an addiction: nomura and/or the writing team don't care at all to carefully craft a detailed and nuanced story because whatever they say can and will be changed in the next iteration and this includes characters and their stories, plot points, mechanics of the world and much much more. In conclusion the hatred of retcons is justified in my opinion if only to keep writers focused on actually writing a good story instead of giving birth to their personal fan fic because someone took away their toy called Versus XIII and now everyone has to pay for it.

[@laststrike4411]

...Time travel WASN'T treated like a regular occurrence though?

[@seanlewis163]

In terms of the keyblade picking it's master vs the bequeathing, they aren't really meant to be mutually exclusive I don't think. You can receive training and if your heart is worthy a keyblade will choose you and manifest, and be marked for one by a master or directly inherit one. As far as people having made them.... as unclear as that is I looked at it, and still will till we get more information, that the person's heart dictates what shape the keyblade takes, like Lea having a keyblade so similar to his chakrams. As for Sora and Riku and who the Kingdome key chose... In that case I think it truly was meant for Riku. It even matched his color palette. But Sora became the better option to it so it chose Sora over who it originally manifested for. So Riku had to manifest another because he was still marked for one. So souleater manifested as an intermediary to way to dawn. There's still more we don't know because in 3 way to dawn broke and then Riku and mickey made new keys. Which just blow my whole house down 😂 as for xehanort not using his keyblade as xemnas. I wanna write that off one of two ways terraxhenort had amnesia and lost the ability to use the keyblade. He did get it back and use it to turn himself and everyone into heartless and nobodies, but also it could be because both his and terra heart where in conflict so neither of their keys could manifest with the nobody.

[@ExperienceDesignLab]

Fantastic video - best I've seen discussing BBS. It really lays out most of my issues with it. What I apreciate most is the general atmosphere. Especially if you like the classic Disney movies, it feels great to traverse and discover them in this game. Many wonderful details, I also like how often you fight against DIsney characters in this one. But yes, many story elements kinda ruin the mythology for me and the gameplay is just not fun, sad to say. It also really uncovers some issues with Nomura's directing. People think he micromanages every aspect of the game, but he's definitely very hands off in this one. The scenarios are weaker and don't seem to be developed out in collaboration with other writers in the team. The intro is plain bad. Trying to contrast the friendship between Aqua/Terra/Ven with KH1 Sora/Riku/Kairi or KH2 Roxas/Twilight Town Crew is astonishing. He says he visited Osaka to play against the Superbosses and lost, which he liked - without any deeper analysis on the gameplay or implications. It's very shallow and I mean of course it is - he was directing FF in Tokyo too, where he was actually based. At this point, KH was about 2 things: 1. fixing mass criticisms of the game (like making a button masher more engaging because nobody knew how deep KH2 was, which is arguably a big design flaw); 2. experimenting with publishing outlets (including mobile, PSP, DS, later cloud platforms, etc.) which 100% was a business direction from Square and KH's hardcore fanbase was a good audience to try things out with. BBS succeeded in both. It was well received. For most people, it's probably much more fun to play than KH2, since it gives more options and is designed against the need for technical skill. The issues arise really only if you're looking deeper into it, so I apreciate you for doing just that. Regarding the writing, I'm personally very disappointed here. KH had an impact on me and it feels actually lessened by the writing in BBS. DDD is worse. But KH3 really destroyed KH as a story for me. So I'm really looking forward to your thoughts about these 2 games.

[@jwilsthem.c3780]

Aqua could feel that Kairi was a Princess of Heart or at least I believe that's what was being implied She says it directly which made her cast the spell They can feel a great presence of Darkness in these games even remark that Darkness has a smell So I wouldn't say these characters are unable to feel an intense light unlike others like being a Princess Of Heart

[@DrtyTetsigen]

Been binging through this series and i have been enjoying them! This is the first video where i had a slight resistance to your take on the damage output issues with 1 being the floor. While annoying yes, I feel like playing through the game on the hardest difficulty and B-lining through the story will leave you underleveled everytime. Just one thing i had an issue with. Now the super bosses in these games can be actually unfair. People tell me you have to learn patterns and take advantage of openings and my counter is to show them a casual player trying to fight the one in this game or the Anti-Aqua in KH 2.8. Ive done speedruns and maxed out every game. However i havent beat either of them. The Anti-Aqua fight, in my opinion, is just as bad if not worse than the one you fight here.

[@Tetramorre]

to your first point, I would agree, except it only happens that way because they reduced the amount of exp you gain for no reason (or just because kh2 did it, but without a proper damage floor it’s a problem where it wasn’t in kh2), also this is the only game in the series where this happens lol, which should imply that there’s a balancing/exp/grinding issue when compared with the rest of the series. The problem isn’t being underleveled, because this was also possible to happen in kh2, but that the game grinds to a hault if you’re even just a couple levels behind the expectation the devs had. It speaks of a development team that lacked experience… which is indeed the case Glad you’re enjoying!

[@DrtyTetsigen]

@@Tetramorre I understand what you're saying and it's not that I disagree, I just think that someone on a more casual playthrough might gain those levels exploring and looking for chests. I do think the Osaka team greatly diminished the overall experience when it comes to KH and this is just one of the many reasons why. It is an action RPG and you should be able to outskill enemies if you are proficient enough. Just finished this one, on to the next!

[@DrtyTetsigen]

@@Tetramorre nevermind there isn't another. Guess I'll check out the FF13 one. 😅

[@christopherbrown6322]

I am a little late to this party, but the thing I find the most irritating about the retcons in this game is just how easy they are to fix with a few minor changes. For example; instead of all keyblades being poor imitations of the χ-blade, the keyblades without chains are replicas able to mimic the lesser powers of the true keyblades but not the major ones (unlocking the heart of an individual but not able to reach the heart of a world, for example), there being 13 true keyblades, the χ-blade itself and the others 12 which seal it away until the time is right.

[@sasaki999pro]

23:06 I wanna address this whole timeline inconsistency, NOT because I'm trying to defend retcons or plot holes, but because there is *_TECHNICALLY_* an explanation for this...in Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, and its handled in the DUMBEST way possible, which I feel should be highlighted if you ever do a video on DDD. When Riku returns to Traverse Town on his second visit, he has a conversation about Joshua, regarding the desynced times from his and Soras worlds. . And he drops the MOST CRITICAL PIECE of world building lore in the Kingdom Hearts franchise in a single throwaway line. essentially ALL kingdom hearts worlds function in same logic as -Hyper Sonic Lion Tamer- -Hype Ebola Rhyme cha- The room of spirit and time from Dragon Ball Z. Riku just casually mentions that all worlds flow at different rates of time. So if you scrutinize the order of events in the most ludicrously pedantic manner possible, it is ENTIRELY plausible, that in the time it took aqua and ventus to catch up with Terra, he could've made MUCH more progress than time had passed for them.

[@cillbipher2613]

2:25:03 They did not have two different keyblades in KH1. The Inheritance Ceremony that Terra performed doesn't literally bequeath his own keyblade to Riku, but rather bequeath the ability. It's like a recommendation so that in the future, the one recommended will obtain their keyblade if their heart is strong enough The reason Sora got a keyblade without a ceremony was because on Destiny Islands, the one that was meant to go to Riku went over to Sora instead as Riku was currently being overwhelmed by his at the time uncontrollable darkness, and the blade in a way took notice of Sora once Sora seemingly touched the light of Riku's heart when he reached out to him at that time, and thus the blade went to him for the time being. Riku took it back at Hollow Bastion because while he was still leaning into darkness, he had more control of it. He had the stronger heart at that point, therefore the blade went back to the intended wielder. However, in the famous "my friends are my power" moment, the keyblade saw the true strength in Sora, and ultimately chose him as its permenant wielder. In a sense, what Yuffie said in KH1 is still true. Even with the ceremony, the Keyblade chooses its wielder. It's why in DDD, Young Xehanort says this: "It was yours first, wasn't it? But you succumbed to the darkness you could not control. And your prize, the Keyblade, passed on to Sora instead." As for the amount of keyblades in general, I personally feel like this was simply the natural path ever since Mickey whipped one out and the KH1 secret ending showed a lad pullin' out two. I always thought that there was bound to be a point where it turned out that they used to be more commonplace in the past. And I just think that's alright. But that's just me.

[@Tetramorre]

So, I guess my question at this point would be, why have a ceremony at all? It feels like an arbitrary and sorta thoughtless conclusion given this interpretation. It sorta feels like it doesn’t matter, anyone can potentially get a keyblade at any point and for any reason, and that’s just kinda lame to me.

[@cillbipher2613]

@@Tetramorre I may be wrong at some point but I believe the ceremony is a post Keyblade War/Post Missing Link/YX Scala era process to avoid the very event of anyone getting one at any time for any reason, as the last time there were a countless number of wielders the world got basically destroyed. In that sense, the ceremony is a sign of changing times, that massive societies of Keyblade Wielders did not belong in this new world lest they risk destroying the world through a new Keyblade War. That it was time to "put keyblades on a leash" so to speak and make them, as Terra put it, picky about their owners. The keyblade, like a gun, can't be widespread amongst massive amounts of people like the old days. ....also to explain why Riku was the Kingdom Key's original wielder and why he could snatch it back from Sora in KH1 before Sora went "nuh-uh" at him. Also, in case you're still wondering about the Xemnas Keyblade thing, that statement was a pre-DDD thing and Nomura just decided to not have that mystery. Which is why in DDD, Riku goes: "Xehanort. You used to be a keyblade wielder. But darkness stole your heart, and the keyblade with it." In other words Xehanort splittin himself into Heartless and Nobody without having the Kairi Purification Hug, and Terra's heart being trapped in the Guardian, ultimately left the Keyblade inaccessible to either Ansem or Xemnas.

[@ryujisakamoto3]

I dunno if anyone said this yet but in beta promotional images. It did show Ventus with Cinderella at the castle. So perhaps he was meant to be second and Terra First? But perhaps- least to me, they decided last minute to swap them.

[@greyrifterrellik5837]

Okay fair enough on what a "retcon" is, I hadn't thought of them in that way.

[@PataHikari]

Man it's funny seeing such a critical review of a game I really like and going "yeah that's fair." I like this game despite its heavy flaws thanks to its vibes and simple monkey flashiest. It helps, I think, that I never did the secret bosses.

[@Tetramorre]

Yeah I think I’d be much more positive if I didn’t play all the games on hard mode/do the secret bosses. That’s one of the many reasons I don’t believe you can ever “over-expose” a topic on youtube, everyones’ personal experience and desires will give them a different perspective and there’s value to exploring that.

[@PataHikari]

Yeah like nothing you said is really wrong. The game just doesn't scale well and the deeper you dig into the more the systems fall apart. The funniest thing I know about the game is that speedrunners don't have a separate level 1 category like every other KH game because due to the way it works its just always faster on Critcal Mode.