Kingdom Hearts Comparison 1&2

When I first bought my ps3, it became my way of playing all the great ps2 titles I had missed out on. However, after playing through Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence I pretty much forgot about backwards compatibility. Then over the summer I asked myself why I was spending 60 dollars on unproven games, when I can head down to Gamestop and pick up a classic for twelve dollars. The first game in the store that got my attention was Kingdom Hearts, and this was due almost entirely to hearing how hard Sephiroth was. And after the acid trip of an opening, I was hooked on the series. I beat Kingdom Hearts in 3 sittings, and then immediately bought Kingdom Hearts 2 and beat it just as quickly. It wasn’t until last weekend when I was sitting around drinking with some friends that the conversation inevitably turned to video games. I talked about how I had recently beaten both games and thought they were the best action RPGs I have ever played. They instead started arguing about which game was better, and I was asked to break their tie. After contemplating about it I decided that I would really have to sit down and compare them point for point to make an educated guess. So i decided to blog about it which brings me to this point. I’m going to compare KH1 and KH2 on the points that I feel differ between the games.

Story/characters- I’m going to compare these first so I can give some background to anyone whose reading this and didn’t play the games. I’m not exactly sure why you would be reading this article, but I’m definitely not complaining about the views.

-KH1-

You play the entire game as Sora, a 15 year old kid, who is given the ability to wield the keyblade after his world is destroyed by the heartless. The heartless play the henchman throughout the entire game, and are creatures made from people’s hearts that have been consumed by darkness. When Sora’s world was destroyed he lost track of his two best friends Kairi, a princess of heart, who lost her heart to darkness. The other person he is looking for is Riku, who he has a friendly rival with. The two people that remain in your party for the majority of the game are Donald and Goofy, who had been given a task from King Mickey to find the key. The key ends up being the keyblade that Sora carries with him, and is a very powerful weapon against the heartless. So Sora, Donald, and Goofy form a group to find Sora’s friends and King Mickey. From there you go to a bunch of different worlds that all have a Disney theme such as Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, and my personal favorite Hercules. While your protecting these worlds from the heartless you find out two things, Sora can protect a world from heartless by sealing the keyhole with his keyblade (like i did to your mother ooooooooh burn), and that the Disney villains are attempting to find the Princesses of heart. Eventually you defeat all the Disney villains, but only to find out there is a greater evil Ansem who is attempting to open Kingdom Hearts. I won’t ruin the game but the ending does leave you satisfied.

-KH2-

You start by playing as a completely new character Roxas, and essentially just go around learning the new mechanics of Kingdom Hearts 2. Eventually you start facing a new type of heartless, the nobodies. Nobodies are upgraded versions of heartless that form when a more powerful person’s heart is consumed by darkness. Eventually you find out that Roxas is a nobody and that he must wake up Sora, Donald, and Goofy, who have been asleep for a year. They were sleeping so that a girl, Namine, can put their memories back together after what happened in the PSP title Chain of Memories. From here it goes back to what you were doing in the original game. The group goes to different Disney themed worlds and saves them from heartless and nobodies. The difference this time is that you are opening portals to new worlds instead of closing the keyhole on these worlds. The story eventually becomes about Organization XIII, who are a collections of nobodies that are trying to get hearts for themselves. They are accomplishing this goal by creating another Kingdom Hearts from the remains of heartless that keyblade users kill. The finale is of course taking on all the remaining members of Organization XIII in some epic showdowns.


Decision- This is actually really close for me, because I have like and dislikes of both stories. The original had nothing to work with and came through an extremely interesting, eventful, and compelling plot. The problem is that I always felt that the part with Ansem was tacked on and didn’t really conform to the rest of the plot. KH2 was a little annoying because they used my pet peeve Amnesia as part of the storyline. Amnesia is what you do when you can’t think of anything good. The part of it that was amazing was the epicness that it gave you. The heartless invasion of Hollow Bastion, Tron world, and the world that never was all taking the original and going to an extreme level. In the end though I’m going to make the winner KH1. Amnesia is just too much of a crutch for a storyline

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Tally
KH1-1
KH2-0

Game play- This is always the second most important aspect in any game that I play. In these two games the overall game play is similar, but varied enough that you probably have a favorite.

-KH1-

Action RPG at its finest. You control Sora while both Goofy and Donald are controlled by the computer. However, you have the ability to customize Goofy and Donald’s AI so that it conforms to your play style. You can make Goofy a completely offensive player or save his mp for the occasional heal. Donald can be an offensive magic user or make him stay back and be a pocket healer. Magic spells rely on what else mp, but the system they use for it is outstanding. MP is located next to your health and can contain up to 14 MP, and each spell usually costs 1 MP with some spells costing more. The way you get MP back is by attacking or collecting items left behind from fallen enemies. This forces you to attack often instead of sitting back and turtling. The moves you can use are based off of a set amount of AP you have, which is tied into your level. This usually means that you cannot equip all the moves at the same time, and for each battle you’re going to need to customize your attacks. So for a boss fight that will contain a lot of MP use you need equip MP rage and MP haste so that you have an easier time getting MP back. For other fights you may need your combo to be longer so you drop MP rage and pick up +1 to ground melee combos. Your keyblade is going to be your biggest weapon in pretty much any battle you are in.

-KH2-

In KH2 they really did a complete overhaul of the entire battling system, and it turned out excellent. The only thing that I felt was a downgrade was the MP bar. Now all healing spells take your entire MP bar no matter if it is full or close to being empty. Also you don’t get your MP back from attacking enemies it just has a cool down when completely used up that resets your bar to full MP. This means that sometimes you are going to have to run away and avoid damage until your mp comes off cool down, and you are able to heal yourself. They also added two amazing new game play elements to this game drive form and joint attacks. The drive forms allow you to do more damage and make yourself invulnerable to any sort of knock back. This means that even though you may be getting hit by the enemy you can continue to attack without getting knocked away. Joint attacks use up all your MP however it can do ridiculous damage with another party member and it makes yourself invulnerable to any kind damage. Every character in the game has a separate joint attack with Sora, and it’s very fun to discover what joint attack they perform. Also new to the game are reaction commands that will initiate a cut scene such as Sora destroying a building, getting a big hit on a boss, or taking control of an enemy’s weapon. These could be confused with a God of War quick time event, but it has its own originality that will not feel like you’ve done this before

Decision- This one is a no brainer for me the winner, KH2, has infinitely better game play than the original. The original turns into to a go smack the boss find a place to heal and repeat. It was still extremely fun but the sequel showed how you can take it a step further. KH2 has you timing your joint attacks, looking for reaction commands, and using your drive forms as effectively as possible.

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Tally
KH1-1
KH2-1

Enemies/Antagonist- Games pretty much go to *** unless you have the drive to finish the game, and a big factor of that is how badly you want to beat the main antagonist. There has been a few games I just cant finish, because I don't have any motivation. Luckily these games succeed in giving you the proper drive, but which one does it better?

-KH1-

All of the Disney villains as bosses was pure genius. I can’t put into words how much fun it was flying around Captain Hook, facing Maleficent as a dragon, taking on Boogey in his casino themed lair. Even the fights that weren’t that great, such as the fight with Jafar as a sorceress, slam into you with this amazing wave of nostalgia you will not forget. And let’s face it, if you had to pick one Disney villain to rule them all I’m going with Maleficent. She is one *** Mother *** that is evil to the core. You have to love how they did the Coliseum on Hercules’s world. Every one of those tournaments required some in depth planning and of course Sephiroth was a b*tch to beat. The heartless themselves are pretty solid and imaginable. Each area you’re facing heartless that conform to the theme. The big belly guys breathe fire in Agrabah, monkeys in Tarzan’s world, and pirates on hook’s ship all fit perfectly into their environment. The one downfall is again Ansem, because I absolutely despise fighting him. The first part he is invulnerable 75% of the time, and in the second part he becomes a giant ship. Why????????

-KH2-

So we go back to the formula of Disney villains as Bosses and then another organization that are the true enemies. The Disney villains themselves were pretty much on par with the original. I loved how they upgrade the Jafar fight, but was pretty disappointed at Boogey. The Coliseum was given some variation to it and it really kept you interested in all the tournaments. The real downfall of this game was Pete, who I felt was never a challenge. I think it’s extremely hard to pull off a main antagonist as comedic relief, and they didn’t succeed here. Bringing Maleficent back was a good idea in my opinion. However, the way they explained her coming back was extremely sketchy. The real difference between KH2 and KH1 was how unbelievably awesome the fights were with Organization XIII. The first fight with Demyx just sets the tone for originality and difficulty that you see in every fight. It all sets up an epic final boss fight that I won’t ruin for you.

Decision- KH2 it’s all about Organization XIII and how much fun I had defeating each one. You can’t say enough about stopping someone with their own axe, and having a time limit on defeating thirty enemies. All the fights were just pure win.

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Tally
KH1-1
KH2-2

Music- Music is a huge deal to me when I play a game. I still marvel at the sounds of moon level, Wiley stage 1 and 2, and love snake eater from MGS3. It’s always the music that puts a good game over the edge to becomeing a great game, and you should expect the best when it’s a Square Enix game.

-KH1-

The first song you think of when you hear Kingdom Hearts is Simple and Clean. This is one of my favorite video game songs ever created, and rightly so. It really gives you this light hearted feeling of Disney mixed with the Pace of a video game. It also sets up the love story aspect of the game between Sora and Kairi perfectly. It’s impossible to talk about Simple and Clean without mentioning the opening cinematic that accompanies the song. It felt like someone had slipped me some drugs and this was the results of an acid trip. I literally had to pick up the case and make sure I put the right game in that’s how out there it was. Still when I got over how weird it was I had to go and look it up on youtube again, because how amazing it was. The rest of the soundtrack is very diverse and has some pretty good highlights. You hear dearly beloved constantly throughout the game, but it never really gets annoying unlike some other tracks that get overplayed. Guardando Nel Buio is an extremely good example of what final boss music should sound like.

-KH2-

The theme song here is entitled Sanctuary and it’s pretty good compared to Simple and Clean. This time around it’s a bit darker, slower, and sinister to show the different tone this game takes. The opening cinematic this time around seems a little too conservative. I wanted them to expand on the original opening and just make me think I’ve gone insane. Instead we’re treated to some great graphics and an introduction to all the characters. What a rip off! The rest of the soundtrack is definitely stronger than KH1 with the tracks standing out on their own a little more. Some highlights here are Vim and Vigor and the 13th struggle(Axel’s theme)

Decision- This is the closest of all the categories, but I'm too much of a fan of Simple and Clean for me to ever go against it. So the winner is KH1. Simple and clean is just one of those songs Ill turn on while I’m doing some work or playing some PS3 near my computer. KH2 certainly tried with several very strong songs but nothing ever really touched Simple and Clean.




tally
KH1-2
KH2-2

Epicness- I already stated the second most important aspect of a game, but for me the most important aspect is Epicness. How epic you can make a story, a boss fight, or a setting is so important to the immersing yourself into the game.

-KH1-

The epicness in KH1 is mainly confined to the storyline and bosses. Just the fact that they put you into a story where you fight alongside Aladdin was epic nostalgia. Some of the worlds really delivered the extra punch. I couldn’t believe they were actually allowing us to fly while in Neverland, and turning us into fish for Aerial’s world gave you a different style of game play. And even though I despise the Ansem final fight, it did give the feeling of a Final Fantasy VI fight with Kefka. Just the fact that they brought in a story that really didn’t have any stretches, but still allowed you to go to every world was epic.

-KH2-

This one I felt was all about the joint attacks, drive forms and Organization XIII. Some of the joint attacks were just amazing to use like the Goofy whirl, which could easily take off 3 life bars of a boss' life. You also have to love the ability to just go into a berserk mode and rape some enemies. Every time I went into final form all I could think of was turning into a super saiyan (now if only I could fire a kamehameha wave). I know I already gushed about how much I loved the Organization XIII fights but let me go into a little more detail. The fight against Saix was ridiculously fun, because they basically gave you no room for error. He has a berserk timer that goes up gradually as you fight him, and the only way to take him out of berserk mode is to hit him with his own weapon. The problem is when he goes berserk he starts moving fast, and if you miss him you have to cycle through all your cool downs just to survive. The other fights are all bring something different to the table, and of course have their own style of epicness. Then there are parts of this game that transcends what I mean when I say epicness. When Hollow Bastion is attacked by hordes of Heartless and you get to fight alongside all of the Final Fantasy characters its just awesome. Doing a joint attack with Yuffie, and then kicking some ass with Cloud was fun, but then you get to finish it up by killing 1000 enemies at once. Yeah that’s right its Sora vs 1000 heartless and you win. I don’t want to give anything away but you also get to play as certain person if you die that will just make you love this game.

Decision- As if you didn’t see this coming KH2 is far and away the winner of epicness. The characters are more involved, you get better boss fights, and you have a super saiyan transformation What else do you need?

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The Final Tally
KH1-2
KH2-3

Overall- Well it comes down to KH1 winning two decisions, while KH2 takes down three and wins the title of best Kingdom Hearts game so far… In three thousand words I've barely scratched the surface of these games. There were so many things to talk about I decided to summarize a lot of the plot elements and game mechanics that make this game amazing. I can't stress enough if you have not played the series I would suggest you look past the kiddy exterior, your hatred for all things Square Enix, or your dislike of the Disney Corporation and play the best action RPGs ever created!

EDIT: wow 400 views, but only 9 comments :(. anyways im currently beating DKC2 so that i can do a sequel comparison for the first and second games. I didn't remember it being this hard though and I'm getting held up by that, but I'm here to ask would you rather see a sequel comparison of Golden Sun or God of War. I would replay both of them and right now im leaning towards Golden Sun but let me know. Also check out some of my other blogs they aren't getting enough views :)