Kingdom Hearts' first 8 hours in one word: UNDERWHELMING

[Agent 57]

Jeez, from all the conversations I've seen fly by about this game from you guys, especially Mental, I expected a incredible, sublime, fun game.

So far, however, all I've got is an RPG with incredibly stilted spoken dialogue; possibly the worst camera it has ever been my misfortune to try to wrestle with, which also has a nearly non-functional angle; half-assed platforming with horrible control; not even half-assed shooting sections that not only look like crap and have hideous pop-up, but are required to go through every time you transition between worlds, which I can tell is going to get very, very annoying; a "we're not going to make it all that obvious where you're supposed to go next, so just wander around until you trigger the next event" overworld system; and a battle system that so far has actually managed to be more simplistic and worse in execution than Jade Empire's.

Even the cameos so far have also underwhelming - I never saw Hercules or Tarzan, so two of the first three Disney-related worlds I've visited haven't even had the nostalgia factor.

Can someone help me out here? Does it get better? Please tell me it gets better.

[Lox]

For you? I'm afraid to say probably not.

I loved the game. I thought the battle system was simple but fun. The story wasn't amazing, but it was fun. The Gummi Ship stuff I really liked just because I enjoyed designing my own ship even if it was totally useless. And I never had major problems with the camera.

Sorry, man.

[Julius Seeker]

It's one of those hit or miss games. Some feel its awesome, some feel it sucks.

[Zeus]

I found the game to be like Castlevania 64: it tries really hard to make you hate it through horrid gameplay faults but is a great game at its core. The camera annoyed me to no end (I got about 8 hours in as well) but I loved the world that was created. And the voice acting was excellent. You get to a lot of the other worlds later, so it gets better in the cameo department.

[Don]

The only time I had problem with the camera is on stuff that moves really fast because if they run past your field of vision it's a pain to turn around and get them targetted again.

As for the Disney cameos, I don't think they're meant to be any more important to the story than the FF cameos.

[Agent 57]

Allow me to outline my issues with the camera so you guys can see what exactly I mean here.

<b>Problem 1: The camera angle is set too low and you can't change it.</b>

This mainly comes up in battles where I'm fighting a pack of enemies, am concentrating on the guy I'm hitting, and somebody else comes leaping in from the bottom corners and gets in a free hit on me that I didn't even see coming, so I had no chance to dodge.

<b>Problem 2: The camera is zoomed in too close and you can't change it.</b>

This is mainly a platforming problem, as it's a bitch to try to look around and see what your options are, but it also affects fighting in conjunction with #1, as that means you really can't see a damned thing.

<b>Problem 3: When you are standing with your back to a wall, the camera refuses to swing behind you.</b>

Therefore, whenever you need to make a jump straight out from a wall, you're mostly doing it half-blind and usually end up not pushing the stick in the right direction, so you miss the jump anyway.

<b>Problem 4: You can't invert the y-axis in first-person mode.</b>

How hard would this have been to implement? I seriously hate the "push up to look up" camera mode...it just feels so unintuitive and artificial.

<b>Problem 5: The camera just flat-out moves too freaking slow.</b>

Whether you're manually moving it or you're locked on to an enemy, it's too slow. Half the time I'm fighting, I can't see what the heck I'm doing.

[Nev]

I never really noticed the camera issues that others have harped on, but I haven't played a modern platformer in a LONG time, so I might not have any idea how a "good" camera behaves.

What I did is work the camera manually every battle with the shoulder buttons, and I actually found it very satisfying. I never really noticed any problems with seeing enough of any particular battle. The only part of the game I really had camera issues with was Neverland, in the boat, which I'm assuming you're nowhere near yet.

As far as the cameos go, Hercules shows up later in the Colosseum, and I'm rather perplexed if you managed to get past the treehouse in the Deep Jungle without seeing Tarzan (in an awesome cutscene) - he joins your party right afterward.

And as far as the Gummi Ships go, yes, they're halfassed and look like crap. That was the only part of the game that I really didn't think worked. The whole thing's getting redone in the second one anyway.

[Zeus]

I never really noticed the camera issues that others have harped on, but I haven't played a modern platformer in a LONG time, so I might not have any idea how a "good" camera behaves.

Check out the Ocarina or Beyond Good and Evil cameras, they're the standard IMO

[Agent 57]

I never really noticed the camera issues that others have harped on, but I haven't played a modern platformer in a LONG time, so I might not have any idea how a "good" camera behaves.

Rent Psychonauts and play it for ten minutes - you'll see what I mean.

I haven't tried setting the camera to manual yet, maybe that'll help. I'll try that the next time I play.

As far as the cameos go, Hercules shows up later in the Colosseum, and I'm rather perplexed if you managed to get past the treehouse in the Deep Jungle without seeing Tarzan (in an awesome cutscene) - he joins your party right afterward.

Hehe...you misunderstood me. I meant that I haven't seen the <i>movies</i> Hercules and Tarzan...therefore there was no connection/sense of familiarity with the characters for me. If there was, I would have had more incentive to overlook the game's flaws to this point.

Even the Square cameos have been a little disappoting, what with Aeris being voiced by Mandy Moore (urgh) and Cloud being half dressed in Vincent's costume (AND WTF IS UP WITH THAT??????? How can they sully the coolness of VV by giving his costume to that wuss? Dirge of Cerberus, with its promise of Vincent badass-ness, where are you???).

[Don]

The cameos aren't meant to have any profound significance to the game. They're exactly that, cameos.

The underlying story is still about Sora, Kairi, and Riku, though given the length of the game it's easy to forget that all this is related to finding Kairi.

Actually you can say the story doesn't begin until you get to Hallow Bastion.

[Tortolia]

KH is an average action RPG that has enough mass appeal to get lots of press/talk.

[SineSwiper]

I have no problem with the camera. I just wished that the extra attack option on the menu (the last menu option) was an actual button.

[Nev]

KH is an average action RPG that has enough mass appeal to get lots of press/talk.

Sorry, I feel compelled to fanboy all over that.

I would argue it easily has far-above-average animation on the Square stuff, and near-movie-quality animation in realtime on the Disney stuff. I rather liked the music, and the voice acting is some of the best I've heard in gaming. Also, Square's effects programmers put in some of the most wonderful light tricks and pyrotechnic effects, and to me the gameplay was very much not "average", with many different enemy patterns and designs and clever level design.

*h0rgazm*

So, there you go, a completely unbiased opinion from me.

[Tortolia]

I'm not denying the production values were nice. The gameplay, however, was repetitive and bland.

[Lox]

Even the Square cameos have been a little disappoting, what with Aeris being voiced by Mandy Moore (urgh) and Cloud being half dressed in Vincent's costume (AND WTF IS UP WITH THAT??????? How can they sully the coolness of VV by giving his costume to that wuss? Dirge of Cerberus, with its promise of Vincent badass-ness, where are you???).

Dude, Sephiroth is voiced by freaking Lance Bass from N'Sync. How much does that make you want to throw up?

[SineSwiper]

Dude, Sephiroth is voiced by freaking Lance Bass from N'Sync. How much does that make you want to throw up? :)

Dude, Sephiroth voiced by freaking Lance Bass from N'Sync will still kick your fucking ass in the arena! My god...I've never seen an enemy in any game so goddamn cheap!

[Tortolia]

Eh. I got it down to about a 50-50 shot at killing him each time. Just a matter of timing.

[SineSwiper]

I couldn't practice the half-second timing on Sin Harvest long enough, considering it completely killed my character, and wasted at least 10 minutes worth of work in the span. All of that just to see if I can get the timing down again. After I saw that all it did was level-build, I didn't see the point of trying, and I respected my PS2 controller enough to not try enough times until I was going to throw it into my TV.

[Nev]

I'm not denying the production values were nice. The gameplay, however, was repetitive and bland.

I didn't think so. The sheer amount of fighting got repetitive after awhile, but I thought most of the bosses were pretty innovative.

I mean, yeah, it felt a little tacked-on, but can you honestly tell me you thought Chernoborg (or whatever the Bald Mountain guy's name is) wasn't rather bad-ass? And I loved the idea of a boss so big that you fight ON him, instead of fighting him (Oogie Boogie's final form). Also, when I fought Yuffie/Leon in the arena, and she actually acted like a real Final Fantasy character (healing herself and Leon for very non-trivial amounts of damage, meaning that you have to KO her first and keep the pressure on her strongly enough that she can't use a healing item), I just about shit myself with joy. Turnabout is fair play, I say...

Oh, and Sephiroth and the Phantom are the only characters I have not yet beaten. Sin Harvest is a bitch. In my defense, though, I played on Expert right from the start...

(hopes that's an actual defense)

[Tortolia]

Duly noted.

[Nev]

Hey, now. You have to have an actual argument if you are going to disagree. Sarcasm isn't an actual debate tactic!

[Tortolia]

Kingdom Hearts isn't worth my time to discuss extensively. Some of the bosses were nice. Some weren't. Still bland.

[Don]

If Kingdom Hearts is repetitive and bland then what's an 3D platformer that's innovative?

What can you be doing that is so innovative for 20-50 hours is what a typical 3D platform runs for these days?

[Nev]

My god, I agreed with Don on something. First Seek and now this!