Community Post #123 - I feel like a little revenge, OK?

[size=+1]Double Checked Community List #123[/size]​

So, I've been having something of a Kingdom Hearts marathon recently as I attempt to play the HD versions of every game in the series so far. With both collections sporting four pretty hefty Action RPGs, I'm going to be on this marathon for a while. A long while, considering Kingdom Hearts traditionally harsh difficulty curve.

And the fact that I'm going to play them on Proud because...why not? I played the first and second games over and over, I should be able to manage it.

So I recently finished the first collection disk, Kingdom Hearts I.5 HD ReMIX, and I've now come to one big conclusion on it.

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories (or 'Re:Chain' for short) can go straight to hell.

As the midquel that bridges two main games in the series, you kind of have to play it in order to get a sense of what's going on and I didn't ever do that until I got the HD version recently. Plus, the only other place was the GBA version as Re:Chain for the PS2 was never released outside of Japan. The PS3 version is the only, vaguely localised version. And even then, it's kinda obvious they simply dubbed over the character's voices as the lip-syncing is most likely still in Japanese. They never really match up.

Am I angry to have ever played this? No. But I would avoid playing it again, like the plague. Crossed with typhoid. And the Common Cold. And an affinity for really ugly shirts.

Let me explain what playing this game is like...Now, umm...Imagine an ordinary hack and slash kind of game. Some mindless button masher that you just hammer attack until everything is dead. Got it? Good. Now add a few RPG bits to it. Experience and levelling up mainly but stats or abilities. All right. It plays decently, you smack things but the extra stuff adds an interesting angle.

That's kind of what playing Kingdom Hearts is like. For Re:Chain, drop an entire card battle system on the top. Make it the soul focus of combat but don't alter any of the original mechanics that survived the surgical grafting of an entire separate game unto itself for the sake of making the whole experience more comfortable for the player. They're a Gamer, they'll figure it out.

Yeah, all actions are now cards, that you must spend to do ANYTHING. Swing your weapon, cast a spell, summon characters, perform special moves; all cards. You use an entire deck of the things in order to fight, recharging it when you run out.

"I just need a seven and I can breathe out again."​

On top of this is a value assigned to each card. Cards valued anything between 1 to 9 will trump cards that are currently in play if they're value is higher with 9 able to trump them all. Cards with a 0 value can trump anything else but can be trumped themselves by anything. This allows you to interrupt enemies and land some counter hits. This is actually one of the most interesting and fun parts of the game, as it counts for any move. The enemy could be winding up for a big old power move of ultimate death but then you come in with your card to stop them. It's like swatting bosses with a rolled up newspaper when they get too uppity. It's genuinely satisfying as it allows for a counter to any move, if you have the card.

But you most likely won't do this all the time consciously.

There's other cards that you win from fallen enemies that grants special effects like attack bonuses, card improvements or even an extra life. They're so many to choose and win, it's pretty awesome.

But you'll likely only stick to a handful as the Extra Life one will likely save your arse time and time again. The rest are situational at best and cater to strategies that you likely won't ever bother with.

Because of the massive, fatal flaw in the gameplay: the fact that you cannot ever feel like your in complete control. Your eyes are always darting from your character and the world around him to your deck. And back. And forth. Very often, looking for specific cards will kill you as you'll be unable to enemy attacks, because they keep moving whenever you start flicking through your deck. It feels like being asked to pull all the aces from a deck of cards while your being shot at by a maniac with a pistol. You can't dodge and flick through cards at the same time all that effectively so, you'll usually just get lost. Sure, enemies have some weird wait times between attacks to give you a chance to find the card you want but it's a poor attempt at balancing the game.

Now, playing as Sora allows you to build your deck however you please, but with the cost of Card Points to add them to a deck. You have a max amount you can't go over but it can always be increased through levelling. You would think this would allow for plenty of strategies, play styles and different ways to approach the same solution like in other card games.

Eh, no. The dominant strategy is usually to just stack you deck so that all the best, highest value cards you have are right at the top and just keep smacking things till they keel over dead. There's nothing to it, really. You can try some fancy-schmanciness but the inability to skip to a card in an instant without being carved in half stabs the intended depth of the gameplay in the chest, killing it stone dead. You throw your deck at your opponent till you win. Done, move on.

You can also play as Riku, who seems more interesting and fun to play as because his mechanics are different but they're kind of not. Riku can't build his own deck, the game just hands him a new pre-made one every so often. However, Riku can envoke the power of darkness whenever you trump characters cards enough times, boosting your power and what moves you can perform.

I also think his story, character and plight are all far more engaging than Sora's. Sure, Riku is pretty brooding and needlessly morose but he still manages to have a more likeable personality than Sora, who teeters between bland and weirdly childish, for me at least. Plus, the former villain seeking redemption after a fall to the dark side feels more justified and better handled than, say, Shadow the Hedgehog.​

However, the win button to all fights is the Duelling Mechanic.

If you attempt to trump a card with a card of the same value, you can declare a duel. Then, you throw your entire deck into trumping as many of the opponent's cards as possible before the timer runs out. Get enough and you'll perform a stupidly powerful special attack. Just keep doing that and you will win because spamming duels limits what your opponent can do because they're too preoccupied with duelling you. Plus, Riku doesn't have the same penalties as Sora, so you can reload all your spent cards as much as you like, in an instant. It's broken, but it gets you through the game.

But it's still stupidly cheep sometimes. On top of the above complaints about ridiculous multitasking expectations, which is exasperated by the fact that you want to be searching your deck for one specific card just to instigate a duel, some bosses are just damn infuriating. How about a boss with the ability to become immune to attack? Or lots and lots of area effect spells? Powerful ones too! Oh! How about a boss that will steal cards out of your deck and use them against you?

You have no idea how much I want to strangle Zexion.

Inversely, Re:Chain has one of the best stories so far.

It's decently deep, rich in the lore it's setting up and manages to give good introductions to the collection of villains we're going to be hanging out with for three whole games. The redundancy of the Disney worlds you encounter is addressed, attempting to tie their part in the story into the game's themes instead of just being a fresh excuse to fight things and run around. Even better is the genuinely dark moment when the game shows it means business. I won't spoil it but man, it does provide one hell of a cold moment for the series.

It's actually better at showing Organisation XIII as bad guys to be feared for they're lack of empathy than Kingdom Hearts II ever did, from what I remember. They just kinda twirled moustaches while looking all ghostly. Re:Chain showed them as completely unhinged in some cases. That's pretty cool.

Take Vexen here, who spends a good deal of the game perfecting a fake Riku for you to try and fight as well as doing his best to screw around with the character's heads.

Yes, he just makes copies of people in his spare time. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find one of himself tucked away under a bed or something. I don't want to know what for.​

So...I'm not unhappy to have played this. It filled in the blanks I had with the series so far and I actually understand the story in it's entirety now. I can go on to Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix without any worries. It's an interesting experiment that probably influenced a few other aspects to the gameplay of later games, but good god to I want to burn that combat. Every mechanic just infuriates me. If you don't know what I mean, play it and see the cluster-**** for yourself.

Because 'cluster-****' is genuinely the best word to describe this haphazard effort.

Anyway, rant over. I needed that or I would explode. It's good to share these things, I find...Right! There's other stuff to...umm...


[size=+1]- Site News[/size]

Right! I'll bet you've been wondering what's being going on! Well...

In short, we've moved hosting. Why? Well, our current hosting had proved to be no where near the same deal that we could have gotten with our current residence. On this shiny new server, we're told you can load things faster.

We're told, no one seems to have noticed it yet but it seems near instant for me.

On top of this is that it's cheaper for us to operate now, meaning your donations will go a lot further than before (*hint hint* (will do donation badges as soon as I'm finished here. Sorry for the wait.)) but we might be able to generate some extra dosh for extra things in the future now that our costs are much lower. Things like prizes might become more of a thing as they're not coming directly from our pockets. Plus, advertising with the site just got a whole lot cheaper. Probably around 5 bucks cheaper but we've got no numbers on that yet.

Yeah, businesses that might be reading! We've just had a price slash and we have a lovely spot right up there where cutesy Luna has been for weeks on end. The time to buzz us about that space is now.

We've also gained lots of extra dodads and features that we never had with our old hosting, which is wonderful! Means we can bring you an even better experience here at Everypony.

Which brings me to the small matter of the site itself.

Ugh...The ol' girl hasn't survived the move all that fantastically. This vBulletin forum has never been the absolute darling of the Technical Team we have here but we've always been aware of it's limitations, bugs and faults. We've been able to work around them to bring you a decent site, I hope you'll agree. However, Everypony herself has some pretty hefty damage to her code in some rather hard to fix areas. When the site was moved, most of the features of the site where turned off and we're working of the problems as we speak. Suffice it to say, the site's functional and stable enough that you shouldn't worry to much about any further bugs, even though there have been plenty already.

Now, this might mean occasional problems here and there, but nothing catastrophic like eradication of an account, for example, is likely at all. For now, relax and settle down. The sites OK.

This has lead us to wonder about long term solutions and we are looking into doing something larger to ensure the site keeps going for the foreseeable future. We'll let you know when we're sure it all works out OK.

All right, so, we up to speed? Yes? Good.

For now...Well, how about some tunes?

Artist - Song

Carbon Maestro - Legions - Derpy and Carrot Top's Epic
EnergyBrony - Flutter Heart (Fluttershy's Theme)
FlutterTreeMuffin - All You Need (ft. MandoPony)
Hydra - Honest
Mogul Dash - Broken Tears (ft. FritzyBeat)
Nicolas Dominique - Winter Night
SteelChords - This Is Not Goodbye (feat. Luna Jax)
Art Fonseca - Cheerfully
Aviators - Snowblind
EnergyBrony - Smiley Pie (Pinkie Pie's Theme)
Fire Frets - Chasing Fate Cover
Jeff Burgess - Discord (Metal Cover)
Reverbrony - Weightless
Synthis - Friendship
TenderFlutter - Little A.J.
The Brony Notion - Stop the Bats (Notion Remix)
Whydidimakeasongabouthorses - Someone's Gonna Have to Lose
WoodLore - My Sweet Peace

Album - Balloon Party: Academy of Power - Mindscapes

Neat huh? Oh! But you probably wont ever hear them without having to request them first, right?

Wrong! Dragonbait is now starting a new radio show. New Song Sunday will be from 1PM Eastern every Sunday were we play out the latest additions to our library, to show why they were worth adding to our collection. Check it out, maybe you'll discover something awesome!

[size=+1]- Recommended Reading[/size]

So, here's something of an interesting slip by Hasbro: The Cutie Mark Crusaders were given cutie marks. Well, sort of. One, a follow up image of the same toys these marks appeared in shows that the marks were altered to just the character's name instead. Which makes sense but then why did the other photo show the marks? Apparently they're from previous generations of the characters. But why add this? Are they hinting something? Just a slip up? Do they actually have marks planned out to award the fillies? Or are they going to turn up in some sort of future flash episode?

I dunno, but it's interesting to guess, at least.

This is still getting posts so...Sure, I'll throw this up again: Here, educate yourself on music of the recent past. There's Flock of Seagulls and Queen there so, I'm already happy.

Hey, guys! Simon's not dead! He's just been kinda busy. So, fair enoughski! You can read up on what our resident Entomology enthusiast has been up to while you look forward to another report on the contents of his back garden.

Yes, new bloods looking at that and frowning in confusion: Entomology. The study of insects, don't you know! Read up on some of Simon's other work. I'll stick up for it, it's pretty interesting. And amazing that he just finds this stuff hanging out in his back garden. Can't blame his interest if you've got the likes of these creepy crawlies just laying around.

A while back, Ridley called for the boycott of the Discovery Channel after they bafflingly promoted a documentary were some moron would willingly let an Anaconda eat him alive. Why? For the hell of it as we already know that snakes can eat some pretty ridiculously big things if given enough of a chance. However, despite they're ability to swallow, say, something the size of a person, it doesn't do them much good as it pretty much stretches they're bodies to breaking point. Ridley, quite rightly, brought attention to this so good on him really.

Well, the documentary is now out. Is it turns out, the stunt was attempted but not completed as the amature naturalist Paul Rosolie suddenly had his survival instincts kick in and stop everything.

Just as well, as he'd likely be labelled a moron whether he managed it or not. Isn't a Naturalist supposed to be protecting these animals through education and research, not using them to create a possible TV Career through a stunt likely created after a few dozen too many in a pub? In fact, how did that get as far as it did, considering how stupid it all sounds? Just...ugh...TV is weird some times.

[size=+1]- Survival Guide[/size]

So...How about some family movies you might have missed the first time round this week? Because Christmas Movies are being thrown at you from all directions but not all of what's going to be filling the TV Schedual is solely festive. Plus, this is Nostalgia Critic's bread and butter this time of year. I don't want to intrude on the big guy's space.

So, I'm going with family movies you should totally check out. If not because they're really good (in my opinion) but because they're pretty interesting. They try to go outside of what's normal for this corner of the movie sphere and should be recognised for it.

Wait, did I just talk about the corner of a sphere? Yeesh! Figuring that our is a migraine waiting to happen right there!

[size=+2]Igor[/size]
Watch the Trailer Here​

This Movie is bonkers. Mad, if you will. I mean, look at it! If you adore the art style of Psyconauts and games like it with it's highly exaggerated designs, then this is a wonderful movie to behold. Everything is steeped in this over the top art style that makes this world look like very little else. Plus, it's pretty hilarious. And the voice cast is wonderful. John Cleese, Molly Shannon, John Cusack, Eddie Izzard. The line up is pretty sweet. Heck! Jay Leno is in here...somewhere. Plus, the idea of Mad Scientists is just so much fun!

If that hasn't swayed you, then how about Steve Buscemi playing an immortal rabbit that attempts to commit suicide throughout the whole movie. No joke, 100% true.

[size=+2]The Adventures of Tintin[/size]
Watch the Trailer Here​

Oh, let me start this off by telling you that it was worked on by Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Edgar Wright (who directed The Cornetto Trilogy). So, that's a pretty big powerhouse right there! The action sequences are frigging amazing. They're punchy, fast paced and so much fun but teeter around on both what's realistic and what a cartoon could get away with. Some are incredibly creative and always keep you hooked. The adventure itself is really thrilling, the mystery doesn't do much but drive the story but it's a good story. Plus, Captain Haddock, I am informed, is remarkably unchanged in his translation to the big screen. Yep! All the gunplay and alcoholism played for laughs is right here on full display. Weirdly, it makes Haddock the focus of the story while Tintin is just Tintin that Tintin things up. Which is fine because Haddock is more fun to hang a plot on.

Now, I'll actually say that the CGI is ambitious but very successful in what it tries to do. It looks gorgeous and does hold up amazingly well, I think, seeing that the characters are mostly just HD 3D Model versions of their comic book counterparts. Tintin looks a little odd because they've tried to make him realistic but it's a very minor nitpick. I was happy to overlook it in Polar Express and it's more than worth it in this movie too. Seek it out!

OK, how about some actually Christmassy ones?

[size=+2]The Muppet's Christmas Carol[/size]
Watch the Trailer Here​

I'll defend this movie to the end! It's a damn masterpiece of family entertainment, in my opinion. 95% of the jokes land dead on. The story is told well and enjoyably with the Muppet's doing what they do best to give it a real pantomime feel of complete fun. Plus, Michael Cane makes a fantastic Ebenezer Scrooge. He's able to be harsh, stone and wonderfully warm without missing a beat. It's a joy to watch. Plus, the songs will get stuck in your head, even if later versions have omitted a pretty bloody massive and pivotal musical number from the middle. Grrrrr...

See it!

[size=+2]The Snowman[/size]
Watch it Here​

Hey, members from outside of the UK! This is something you need to see. The Snowman is a massively loved treasure over here in Blighty that I'm never sure how much has actually travelled elsewhere. This was made on a tiny budget in an independent studio for Christmas in the 80's for Channel 4. It was a big hit and has been replayed ever since. It's a wonderful short that needs to be shared and has absolutely magical musical backing that rises and falls with the action, giving almost as much character as the visuals. This classic needs to be seen by all!

The sequel? Leave that be. I've already ranted and raved about that one before.

I can't think of anything else right now. Maybe you've got some suggestions? Leave them in the comments below.

And I think that wraps things up for this week. I think I'll get to writing up a review at some point soon, as long as fighting through another set of Disney worlds doesn't monopolise my time too badly.

It very well might but...I'll try my best not to let it.

 

Heh heh heh!

 

After I've played on Proud Mode. Maybe...