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So for the longest while I have been defending KH3 a lot after all the negativity and hate that it received. One of the constant critiques that it received was about the boss battles being too easy. I assumed that they were easy for me on Proud because I always leveled up about 2-5 levels higher than the recommended level on my first playthrough because I had no idea what was to come.
With every KH game, I always make a new save (separate from my main save) before each boss fight, in the event I want to return to them. I decided to do a little experiment after watching some people do LV1 Proud runs fighting the human bosses (like Aqua/Larxene etc). I loaded up my saves for the earlier bosses (Disney worlds) and tried to emulate LV1 Proud by stripping away all items/equipment, equipping only Kingdom Key, and changing the party members' playstyle to be as little help as possible. What I found was actually shocking and made me realize that there is a major issue.
It's not "the bosses are too easy" because it took me a while to kill them due to being weakened, which I assume the upcoming Critical Mode will help with greatly. The issue was the fight itself. The Toy Box heartless wasn't aggressive and I was barely hit even when standing still. The map was so big that I could run into a corner and use Cure, wait for magic to recharge, then rush out to beat him up. Even when it tried to "protect" itself, Sora had so many ways to bypass his shield or whatever and jump straight on it and beat it up. It wasn't a fun fight and it was just tedious because it took long to take down his life. The Titans were the same (I sort of give this fight a pass because it is the tutorial world, but the fight itself could have still been more engaging and memorable than just run up the hill and hit X). Corona's heartless... I did not remember it being so bland. The only interesting thing that it does it push you back and then create thorn walls to stop you from reaching it - fun the first time, but then you realize two things 1) the thorn walls have the same patterns each time, so you know exactly which way to go to get over the wall and 2) whatever "attack" it's using while you try to bypass the walls almost always misses you (even if you stand still), so there isn't really any threat or urgency to bypass the thorn walls. The Monstropolis unversed has potential and was at least more engaging/challenging than the previous fights, but the tedious factor comes in because I didn't feel like it was aggressive enough and I had way too many opportunities to just hit X to kill it. Arendelle's heartless was surprisingly good, but was repetitive after a while (I guess being so weak is what caused it to get repetitive). Davy Jones was an epic feeling fight, but again I feel like he needed to be way more aggressive and actually HURT me - I did really like that the fight had 2 stages (which I feel all the Disney bosses should have had like KH1). Dark Baymax was Dark Baymax.
It really hurt for me to actually experience this without the "OMG KH3!" glasses on, but hopefully with the Critical Mode DLC they slip in updated AI/fight mechanics for the bosses. Most of the Disney bosses were not memorable fights at all. The worlds were very memorable due to the depth of detail and expansive nature, but the boss fights were lacking ESPECIALLY because they were not even iconic Disney villains (most of them). Now I'm going to do something that I also fought against, but I guess call me a hypocrite because I need to use this example... even though KH2 was EXTREMELY easy (way easier than KH3), the Disney world boss fights were pretty memorable even though there wasn't much of a challenge. I liked that every fight felt different in some way and not just "run up and hit X" like the KH3 fights were. I think the fight design suffered because of how huge the battle arena was for the KH3 fights. You can see the fights that were decent (Monstropolis/Arendelle/Caribbean) were in a smaller and contained area while the problematic ones were in a huge space. Nothing's wrong with being in a huge space, but because of how huge it was in KH3 you never felt a real urgency to fight back because the boss wasn't even hurting you and you could find a far away corner to hide. There were huge space fights in KH1 (2nd Ursula fight and Trickmaster) and KH2 (2nd visit Pride Lands heartless and 1st visit Beast's Castle heartless) yet they were still memorable and way more unique than what we got in KH3.
I don't really mind that the bosses are easy to kill (IE quick to kill), but I do have an issue with the fight being so boring/bland. Realizing that you can stand up and take selfies, heal up, or just lay low in a corner for minutes without any threat really kills the vibe. I didn't catch it the first playthrough because I was like "gotta kill this heartless, let's go!" and I was so overpowered and fully equipped (and not analyzing the fight). I want the bosses to try to kill me. The Corona heartless really shocked me when its attack - even when I was still - missed me constantly and it wasn't attacking very often.
Please I hope that Critical Mode includes a patch to the AI to improve the fight mechanics of the bosses.
With every KH game, I always make a new save (separate from my main save) before each boss fight, in the event I want to return to them. I decided to do a little experiment after watching some people do LV1 Proud runs fighting the human bosses (like Aqua/Larxene etc). I loaded up my saves for the earlier bosses (Disney worlds) and tried to emulate LV1 Proud by stripping away all items/equipment, equipping only Kingdom Key, and changing the party members' playstyle to be as little help as possible. What I found was actually shocking and made me realize that there is a major issue.
It's not "the bosses are too easy" because it took me a while to kill them due to being weakened, which I assume the upcoming Critical Mode will help with greatly. The issue was the fight itself. The Toy Box heartless wasn't aggressive and I was barely hit even when standing still. The map was so big that I could run into a corner and use Cure, wait for magic to recharge, then rush out to beat him up. Even when it tried to "protect" itself, Sora had so many ways to bypass his shield or whatever and jump straight on it and beat it up. It wasn't a fun fight and it was just tedious because it took long to take down his life. The Titans were the same (I sort of give this fight a pass because it is the tutorial world, but the fight itself could have still been more engaging and memorable than just run up the hill and hit X). Corona's heartless... I did not remember it being so bland. The only interesting thing that it does it push you back and then create thorn walls to stop you from reaching it - fun the first time, but then you realize two things 1) the thorn walls have the same patterns each time, so you know exactly which way to go to get over the wall and 2) whatever "attack" it's using while you try to bypass the walls almost always misses you (even if you stand still), so there isn't really any threat or urgency to bypass the thorn walls. The Monstropolis unversed has potential and was at least more engaging/challenging than the previous fights, but the tedious factor comes in because I didn't feel like it was aggressive enough and I had way too many opportunities to just hit X to kill it. Arendelle's heartless was surprisingly good, but was repetitive after a while (I guess being so weak is what caused it to get repetitive). Davy Jones was an epic feeling fight, but again I feel like he needed to be way more aggressive and actually HURT me - I did really like that the fight had 2 stages (which I feel all the Disney bosses should have had like KH1). Dark Baymax was Dark Baymax.
It really hurt for me to actually experience this without the "OMG KH3!" glasses on, but hopefully with the Critical Mode DLC they slip in updated AI/fight mechanics for the bosses. Most of the Disney bosses were not memorable fights at all. The worlds were very memorable due to the depth of detail and expansive nature, but the boss fights were lacking ESPECIALLY because they were not even iconic Disney villains (most of them). Now I'm going to do something that I also fought against, but I guess call me a hypocrite because I need to use this example... even though KH2 was EXTREMELY easy (way easier than KH3), the Disney world boss fights were pretty memorable even though there wasn't much of a challenge. I liked that every fight felt different in some way and not just "run up and hit X" like the KH3 fights were. I think the fight design suffered because of how huge the battle arena was for the KH3 fights. You can see the fights that were decent (Monstropolis/Arendelle/Caribbean) were in a smaller and contained area while the problematic ones were in a huge space. Nothing's wrong with being in a huge space, but because of how huge it was in KH3 you never felt a real urgency to fight back because the boss wasn't even hurting you and you could find a far away corner to hide. There were huge space fights in KH1 (2nd Ursula fight and Trickmaster) and KH2 (2nd visit Pride Lands heartless and 1st visit Beast's Castle heartless) yet they were still memorable and way more unique than what we got in KH3.
I don't really mind that the bosses are easy to kill (IE quick to kill), but I do have an issue with the fight being so boring/bland. Realizing that you can stand up and take selfies, heal up, or just lay low in a corner for minutes without any threat really kills the vibe. I didn't catch it the first playthrough because I was like "gotta kill this heartless, let's go!" and I was so overpowered and fully equipped (and not analyzing the fight). I want the bosses to try to kill me. The Corona heartless really shocked me when its attack - even when I was still - missed me constantly and it wasn't attacking very often.
Please I hope that Critical Mode includes a patch to the AI to improve the fight mechanics of the bosses.