Forcing myself through Reverse/Rebirth...

[Wilford111]

I'm serious, Reverse/Rebirth has to be my least favorite part of any Kingdom Hearts game, ever. But, it's the only part of the main Kingdom Hearts storyline that I have never completed, so I'm just trying to force myself through it.

My main problem with it is that the entire thing seems like one big grind. Sora's story kind of had this too, but at least you got some variety with editing your decks and making it your own. There was a balance in gameplay. But with Riku's story, all there is is just hitting things with your pre-set deck.

Even on Easy, I'm still having a hard time with some of these bosses. Maybe it's because I'm not going through every room on the map, and thus not leveling myself up as much as I can, but I chose easy difficulty. For example, I died on the Heartless Armor boss from Traverse Town, and I almost died on the first Riku Replica fight. I know I should be leveling myself up as much as I can, but I'm doing everything I can to just keep playing the game. It's just mind-numbing.

Anyone else feel the same way? Or, is there some way to keep the game fun? I just want to know what you guys think on the matter.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

I love CoM...I hate Re:CoM. It is such a slugfest.

The only thing I can recommend is go (reasonably) nuts on sleights! Mickey cards are your best friend.

 

[BlackOsprey]

Ohh, I know that feeling so much. CoM's gameplay felt like a drag to me overall. I was mostly in it for the experience and for the story. And Reverse/Rebirth has even LESS story outside of the white hall cutscenes.

Like Spockanort said, use sleights within reason. For me, I felt like the entire campaign was slightly less of a drag because darkness mode did make it kind of fun. I mean, there's just nothing like using bad guy powers for yourself. Just grind through, play smart, and grind only when a boss has you completely walled.

 

[Wilford111]

I love CoM...I hate Re:CoM. It is such a slugfest.

The only thing I can recommend is go (reasonably) nuts on sleights! Mickey cards are your best friend.

I agree with you there, I think I actually prefer the GBA version of this game. Sure it doesn't have voice acting or pretty cutscenes, but I think the gameplay is a lot better.

 

[BlackOsprey]

I agree with you there, I think I actually prefer the GBA version of this game. Sure it doesn't have voice acting or pretty cutscenes, but I think the gameplay is a lot better.

Mechanics created for a mostly 2D environment don't often translate that well into 3D, and vice versa. The biggest problem here is that the original CoM is just so different from all the other KH games gameplay and mechanics-wise, and it's not just limited to the fact that every fighting move you make is dictated by the cards.

The ongoing retrospective of Blackdrazon's has made me even more aware of those kinds of issues that bugged me before, but I couldn't put my thumb on it at the time.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

I agree with you there, I think I actually prefer the GBA version of this game. Sure it doesn't have voice acting or pretty cutscenes, but I think the gameplay is a lot better.

There was something not so frustrating in the GBA version that is extremely prevalent in the 3D remake. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the 3D levels.

Edit: BlackOsprey hit it right on the nail!

 

[Sakide]

I was actually having quite a hard time playing as Sora in Re:CoM. Not having played the original Chain of Memories, there was quite a learning curve I had to overcome. Then I ruined my deck completely by turning all my strong Attack Cards into Premium Cards, without knowing that I can't reload them because the game didn't tell me. Apart from that, the bossfights were really unnerving, partly maybe because I refused to do much grinding for cards and set up fancy strategies for each fight. I was hardly using any Sleights at all during the entire game. Then, halfway through I simply created myself a magic spam deck after I heard that those kinds of decks are OP. And indeed, it did speed things up and did work quite nicely. All in all, I can't say I've had much fun with the gameplay at all. Which is quite sad because I really liked everything else about the game (between the worlds, the story/cutscenes etc.).

Then, the instant I got to play as Riku, I fell in love with Reverse/Rebirth. It felt much more dynamic - and I felt like a total badass once I got Dark Mode. Compared to Riku, Sora just feels kinda lame and repetitive. It's also nice that Reverse/Rebirth is much more shortened and streamlined compared to Sora's mode. Nothing really happens in the worlds (which are quite boring because they don't offer anything new anyway, and are literally just cheap copies of the worlds featured in Kingdom Hearts Final Mix). So I was quite happy that I could just head straight to the boss fights. Although some retrospective exposition wouldn't have been that bad - like in Hollow Bastion, where Riku makes a brief comment about the room he was living in while working for Maleficent. But yeah, I was relieved that they cut all the unnecessary crap that was existent in Sora's story.
The fights became much more exciting for me, since I didn't have to pay attention to annoying things like deck building. The pre-determined decks actually made me feel much stronger - probably because I never had a knack for deck building, not even in Yū-Gi-Ō. lol
And also, I was finally allowed to level my character's attack power, as well as Dark Points which are also quite a nice perk. While leveling Riku, I actually felt much more like I'm getting stronger. Not so much with Sora.

So, all in all, I hated Sora's story, and loved Riku's story gameplaywise. I liked both stories storywise. It was kinda good that the game was concluded by Reverse/Rebirth, because at first I hated Re:Chain of Memories when I started it directly after having played through the gorgeous Kingdom Hearts Final Mix. But that way, I ended Re:CoM with a much better feeling than the one I started it with.

I think though that it is kind of to be expected that many players new to the series will feel the same as me, while most "core" players will rather be opposed to this and like Sora's mode more than Reverse/Rebirth. I guess that's just the way it is. I still hope to see though who else actually liked Reverse/Rebirth like I did. :biggrin:

 

[Grono]

*secretly loves everything about re:com and is plotting revenge against reverse/rebirth haters*
I personally thought the Castle Oblivion segments with Riku were surprisingly good, and, although you couldn't customize your deck, it offered a new sense of difficulty with having to adjust to what the world offered you, such as in Wonderland, and offered some very interesting, cool cutscenes, such as any cutscene with both Riku's or the bad-ass scene where Riku and Lexaeus meet and Riku is slammed against the ceiling by Lexaeus' axe-blade.

 

[Divine Past]

At least reverse can be done in like 7-9 hoursish depending how much you want to grind. But yea I love CoM but I don't blame anybody for the struggle to get through Riku's bleh story.

 

[BlackOsprey]

*secretly loves everything about re:com and is plotting revenge against reverse/rebirth haters*
I personally thought the Castle Oblivion segments with Riku were surprisingly good, and, although you couldn't customize your deck, it offered a new sense of difficulty with having to adjust to what the world offered you, such as in Wonderland, and offered some very interesting, cool cutscenes, such as any cutscene with both Riku's or the bad-ass scene where Riku and Lexaeus meet and Riku is slammed against the ceiling by Lexaeus' axe-blade.

I enjoyed those parts too. They're the reason that I slogged through everything else that I didn't, both in Sora's and Riku's stories. Plus the fact that I didn't have to bother with customization on Riku's end (or even worry about recharging my deck) was a really big bonus.

The problem for me was just the gameplay itself. The rooms are big, dull, and boring. Ha, people complain about all the other games' world designs, but this one is by far the worst. Completionism is slow, dull, and painful to say the least. The fact that the CO story is so much better than the room worlds (where in Riku's case, they were literally non-existent) just makes you wanna rush through them all even faster.

Re:CoM is one of those titles that I'd read a novelization of, or rewatch its cutscenes, but I wouldn't pick up as a game again. The story was so good, but the gameplay was so bleh on both characters.

 

[Wilford111]

Yeah me too, but I'm planning on getting a Platinum trophy sooooo.... Wish me luck XD

 

[Hovhannes1998]

Yeah me too, but I'm planning on getting a Platinum trophy sooooo.... Wish me luck XD

First of all, good luck. Next, I would like to vent my frustrations with reverse/rebirth. This is probably not common, but I actually liked the Riku gameplay better than Sora's because it gave you a preset deck. Less trouble making a new one for every boss and incorporating in new cards. Now the story is a different... story. I felt like I was going through the worlds killing things. I was really angry with the fact that we were pretty much all alone and the bosses would just pop up. It gave the explanation of Riku fighting his dark side, but the same exact worlds and enemies (minus some Org 13 members) just felt way too repetitive, especially just after beating Sora's mode.

 

[Wilford111]

First of all, good luck. Next, I would like to vent my frustrations with reverse/rebirth. This is probably not common, but I actually liked the Riku gameplay better than Sora's because it gave you a preset deck. Less trouble making a new one for every boss and incorporating in new cards. Now the story is a different... story. I felt like I was going through the worlds killing things. I was really angry with the fact that we were pretty much all alone and the bosses would just pop up. It gave the explanation of Riku fighting his dark side, but the same exact worlds and enemies (minus some Org 13 members) just felt way too repetitive, especially just after beating Sora's mode.

Thank you

Although I do very much enjoy Riku's story (so far at least), I agree that it's cut down by the actual worlds that you go to having no story whatsoever... not even any dialogue.

 

[dlppictures]

Good luck with platinuming Re:CoM.

It took a long time, and I was exhausted afterwards but CoM GBA is the only game I have ever truly platinumed, no wait, maybe Crash Bandicoot 2 counts? bah nevermind...

Personally I love Reverse/Rebirth, and I think the preset decks was a choice made to differentiate Riku's playstyle from Sora's. Also for a lot of players who thought Sora's customization was too complicated (me during my first playthrough) Riku felt like an easy mode as a reward for beating the complexities of Sora's story.
After learning the tricks behind Sora's customization, Riku has given me a different purpose, I can use all the boss enemy cards when I want to, and use that as an experiment as to which cards I want in my Sora deck.

In short I think Reverse/Rebirth is a great addition to the story and the different choice in playstyle was to differentiate him from Sora, whichI hear many people complain about not having happened in DDD, but I digress.

 

[Anagram]

I love CoM...I hate Re:CoM. It is such a slugfest.

A lot of me agrees with this. I liked the cutscenes and finally hearing the org names spoken but it just felt so much more tedious than the original version. I can't even play either file on ReCoM.

 

[kuraudoVII]

The issue with Reverse/Rebirth for Chain of Memories in general was that there was little to no plot. It was mostly just a crapton of rooms that you were forced to slog through in order to get to the next boss and floor. This was especially apparent in the second set of cards where the only person that Riku interacted with between floors was Lexeaus.