How's everyone enjoying it?

[DoctahFaz]

I most certainly have the impression that I am in the the calm before the storm in terms of difficulty on this Critical playthrough.

 

[Chuman]

critical mode is harder than expected, the only issue with this is the lack of retry or replacement checkpoints during story missions leads to frustration. on the upside, i use my head more before i go into battle.

fucking anti sora

 

[DoctahFaz]

I got a little taste of how hard it can be when I accidentally went to Twilight Town before completing the first visits to Halloween Town and the Pride Lands. The world's battle level was four levels over me and now I know why; I couldn't beat those last 3 Berserkers in the Sandlot (before meeting Saix) since when they merge with their staves, go flying, and land on top of you, it's a one-hit KO.

Off to the other two worlds first and we'll revisit this later!

 

[Kikonu]

It's cool, but not how I expected. BBS was much better than KH2 IMO.

 

[Divine Past]

Idk I'm having a tough time getting through KH2 right now. Guess it's because I beat the game plenty of times in the past, but the game is such a slog to get through. I just finished the first cycle of worlds and it's just so meh. The disney worlds are pretty boring to me so having to go through them to get to the fun parts of the game is making it hard for me to pick up the controller here.

 

[Megavoltage]

I watched videos of it when BBS Final Mix first came out but I never got to play it myself until now. I finished 2.5's BBS Secret Episode. That was fucking metal! The atmosphere, the platforming, the strong monsters, it was all so cool.
VOLUME 2 WHEN?! I want it so bad!

 

[The Dark Mamba]

I'm not sure if I over-leveled or not but for a final boss Vanitas is way too easy. I was at level 34 prepared for an epic boss fight and with a little Ars Arcanum he went down like a wuss. What crap. Terra-nort & Braig better not disappoint.

The only good thing to come out of that fight was how I used Aqua's D-link in the first phase to finish him off in order to avenge her getting knocked the hell out. Justice was served.

 

[Divine Past]

I'm not sure if I over-leveled or not but for a final boss Vanitas is way too easy. I was at level 34 prepared for an epic boss fight and with a little Ars Arcanum he went down like a wuss. What crap. Terra-nort & Braig better not disappoint.

If you mean the Ventus version of the fight, eh the 1st version was pretty rough on me.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

I
I have to agree, the fight against Roxas is really well done. It is probably my second favorite boss fight from the whole series. You can`t blindly button smash your way trough, because Key of Destiny will crush you in seconds if you don`t know how to block and avoid his attacks.

I have been fighting against him on LV1 and the best attempt was were I got 5-6 of his HP bars down. One mistake in this fight and you are dead. It gets really brutal when he starts summoning those light pillars, and even more harder when they appear when he is teleporting around. I`am not even sure how I am supposed to survive his strike raid move on LV1.

All in all a really awesome fight, and also Roxas is my favorite character from the series.

If you try to button mash against Rox you're dead faster than Donald in most other boss fights. ;P
That battle is really reliant on getting your blocking game right and punish him afterwards.
Later on when the Light pillars enter the fray too you either need to adjust your blocking timing or switch to Reflect.

Yea, that move where he teleports and throws his Keyblades like buzzsaws I found to be his most annoying/dangerous one. Especially since when low on health he sometimes performs it five times in a row.
You need very good reflexes to survive that one as he also cannot be staggered while using it, so you'll need to use Reflect five times with the exact right timing.
On the other side though if you do manage to guard the move with Reflect, the resulting damage backlash towards him is huge.

I actually agree. Mushroom I is the worst Mushroom to try to please. That being said, Mushroom VIII comes very close.

As for the Data battles, Larxene was annoying. For me, all I really did was perform a combo every little once in a while, spam Reflect and, if health is low, either cast Curaga or go into Limit Form and cheese her with Sonic Blade and Strike Raid.

As for Marluxia, when not doing a level 1 run, his Data battle is infinitely easier than his Absent Silhouette since you have Second Chance and Once More on you now and nothing kills you in one hit.

And yes, you have to do the mini game at least once for Luxord. My biggest tip that I can give is to constantly hit the pause button until you see an O and press the button there. Do this until you've lined up all four O's and then immediately follow up with a combo. I suggest going into Limit Form right beforehand so that once the mini game is complete, all you have to do is use Strike Raid to immediately end the match. I had to do the mini game three times because I messed up on the last O and got an X on the first two. By then, he had roughly half his health back, but lining them all up the third time still took all of that away leaving you to deal in the last hit.

Also, holy crap, you beat him first as Terra!? You deserve a medal for perseverance.

I'm just relieved I finally managed to please the little shit and got the crown, lol.
Now I'm just using the easier Mushrooms to farm synthesis items from them sometimes, for that I use either Mushroom II (a breeze since I got my blocking abilities so much better from the Roxas-Data battle) or Mushroom V in Agrabah (Limit-Form + Zantetsuken makes easy peasy work of it).

Annoying is indeed the correct word, as Larxene isn't particularily difficult, her constant Lightning spam just drags out the battle for very long (at least she doesn't shout "Thundagaaaa" everytime like Lightning in Dissidia 012, lol)

Marluxia, alongside Roxas, Zexion and Xigbar is actually among the most fun data battles as you have some measure of control of the battle for most of the time.

That was exactly how I managed to finally beat Luxord this weekend after at least 12 tries, not because of bad fighting skill but because of that stupid forced game.
It is crystal clear that this was added solely to add an artificial difficulty spike since otherwise Luxord would be a joke boss.

After that nightmare on the PSP with Terra I was certainly positively surprised how much easier I could handle that creep with Aqua.
Now I'm actually looking forward to how this will play out in 2.5 when I finally start with BBS.

---

Status Update from the last weekend.
I went fully into trying out the Organisation data battles and defeated Luxord, Demyx, Axel, Saix, Zexion, Lexaeus, Vexen and Xigbar in that order.

Luxord gave me quite the annoyance fit because of that stupid forced game at the end.
When I finally got it right after more than 10 tries with help of the Pause function I admit I had a certain feeling of dirty glee when finally offing that guy with a glorious last Thundaga to the face.

Demyx...well, what to say, Demyx was a total joke to be completely honest. I beat him in the second try and that was only because I needed the first one to assert how the data battle works.
The only "difficulty" with Demyx comes from his stupid timed water clones. When in regular battle, he couldn't even land one attack at all because I burnt him to death with Wisdom Form Firaga attacks.
Firaga in itself is also gods end against his stupid water forms and the only two things you really need to be good in for Demyx is to a) aim with Firaga and b) manage your MP.
I put Ether on a shortcut alongside Firaga (and Reflect as well as Curaga for emergencies) and filled all my item slots with Ethers. Donald got all ethers too while Goofy got filled with all Mega-Ethers.

Then Axel...well, Axel's the same as Demyx actually, a total joke and one of the easiest data battles if you know what you're doing.
While with Demyx you have to be good in managing your MP, with Axel you have to be good in managing your HP because of the Fire walls and floor, and once you get the knack down when to heal and learned Axel's moves, you can steer the fight in any direction you want and actually goad Axel into doing the move that allows the reaction command to remove the fire from the floor.
It had cost me four tries to beat Axel and I had the additional satisfaction to finish him off with a Zantetsuken in Limit Form.

Saix was quite a problem at first because his Berserker Gauge is so much faster and the Claymores for the reaction command vanish much quicker.
It took me around six tries to actually get that you have to approach Saix defensively and outglide most of his attacks, only blocking/Reflecting when he does the sword throw which allows you in 9 of 10 times to get a claymore. After knocking him out of his Berserker state, you can smash two full combos into his face (three if you block his counter attack) before he goes berserk again.

Zexion was really fun to battle against, much like Roxas and Marluxia. Donald and Goofy are actually pretty useful in this battle as they can divert Zexion's attention and also heal you during his meteor shower (I realized the meteor shower targets to 90% Sora only, leaving Donald and Goofy free to heal). I beat him on the first try.

Lexaeus I think was the quickest Data battle I had so far. Summoning Stitch really takes away much of Lexaeus' bite as Stitch interrupts his attacks so often you're free to attack him with impunity. If he does an attack Stitch cannot interupt, I just have to use Reflect several times (which is easy thanks to Stitch refilling MP) to survive the attack and damage Lexaeus the same time. Like Zexion, I only needed one try for this one.

Next in line was Vexen, and damn was that guy annoying. Not only because of his laugh, but mainly because of his ultimate attack and the goddamn Anti-Sora that does more damage than Vexen himself.
Using Firaga when Vexen is without his shield is truly very effective and often also has the benefit to get the Anti-Sora caught in its blast radius as well.
Vexen's ultimate attack and Anti-Sora in tandem was what literally had cost me as much as eight tries until I could beat the Prof. Hojo wanna-be. As several times when I could sufficiently avoid Vexen's ice chunks, I would get caught in an endless combo of the Anti-Sora and vice-versa.
Outgliding everything was part of a luck game but necessary to avoid the last ice blast of that attack.
I eventually got to manage the fight better by adjusting Donald's and Goofy's AI stances. Donald was ordered to do only support and healing while Goofy was ordered to attack all enemies Sora doesn't attack.
Goofy did a splendid job occupying the Anti-Sora while I dealt with Vexen personally.

After dying on Xaldin more than twenty times I decided to try out Xigbar first and that decision turned out to be a wise one.
Like Roxas, Marluxia and Zexion, battling Xigbar is loads of fun.
After experimenting for two tries I got down three different possibilities to deal safely with Xigbar.
One is the good old block everything variant, hurting him by deflecting everything back at him. This variant needs precise timing and quick reflexes, even quicker than in the Roxas battle, and you need to watch out for his bigger shots which cannot be blocked and need to be dealt with Reflect.
The second variant is to directly use Reflect to deal with everything from the beginning. Disadvantage is that you need to watch MP closely, so Donald and Goofy need to be filled up with ethers again.
The third, and to me personally most fun and rewarding variant is the "in-your-face"-strategy which involved lots of jumping to get close to Xigbar and hammer away with the Keyblade. You can get in two full combos before he teleports away.
How does it work? Well, it requires also strict timing, but the aerial dodge (the second jump from Master form) actually deflects Xigbar's shots so with correct timing you can jump right through Xigbar's salvos and get in his face directly.
His ultimate attack is really something to look out for though and was ultimatively the reason why I needed four more tries to defeat Xiggy. The platform you're on is too small for gliding and the attack outlasts your ability for Reflect.
I eventually resorted to use chained Quick dashes to avoid most of the shots.

Now only Xaldin and Xemnas remain.
So far though, Xaldin gives me quite a run for my money, mostly because of these annoying Wind fireballs which strike several times in a row and the multi-jump Lance dive.
His wind dragon across the whole bridge is actually easy to survive.
Any sure-fire tips for dealing with Data-Xaldin?

 

[wolfshadow]

I'm hoping by the 13th or 14th of March i should have my copy of kh2.5 and ps3 from christmas. Ugh....it's been such a long wait..I've been ready to play it. I just really hope this time it happens.

 

[hemmoheikkinen]

Now only Xaldin and Xemnas remain.
So far though, Xaldin gives me quite a run for my money, mostly because of these annoying Wind fireballs which strike several times in a row and the multi-jump Lance dive.
His wind dragon across the whole bridge is actually easy to survive.
Any sure-fire tips for dealing with Data-Xaldin?

Hmm. I think Data-Xaldin is also one of those fights were you simply have to learn to time your blocks and dodges. He always starts the fight with the wind balls. Just reflect or block them. He always shoots 3 of them. I try to take the fight slowly, so I can watch his moves, and block them. If you watch the movement of his body, you can predict what attack he is going to do. Also try to steal as many Jump commands when you can. When you block his spear lunge(or some other attack) he opens up and you can steal them. The fire away! He will open again and you can perform a combo on him. You can speed up the process by using the Keyblade which increases the damage done by reaction commands.

I like to use normal block, since recovering from reflect takes too long, at least from me.
His third phase can be a pain, since he starts to teleport, but this can be avoided. Just jump an aerial dodge away, and hover in the air. Xaldin teleports next to you, but not close enough to inflict damage. I don`t remember the specific amount, but after a few teleports Xaldin will strike again with his spears. Block this anyway you can.
Hope this helps!

Also if anyone is curious I finally defeated Data-Roxas on LV1. The fight is not the best I have had against him, but I still managed to record the fight. I am also proud of the way I finished the fight. The clip can be found here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXPEo4OUgzo

 

[kuraudoVII]

I'm just relieved I finally managed to please the little shit and got the crown, lol.
Now I'm just using the easier Mushrooms to farm synthesis items from them sometimes, for that I use either Mushroom II (a breeze since I got my blocking abilities so much better from the Roxas-Data battle) or Mushroom V in Agrabah (Limit-Form + Zantetsuken makes easy peasy work of it).

Glad you finally got him. That Mushroom was a pain.

Annoying is indeed the correct word, as Larxene isn't particularily difficult, her constant Lightning spam just drags out the battle for very long (at least she doesn't shout "Thundagaaaa" everytime like Lightning in Dissidia 012, lol)

Ugh. I remember vividly...

That was exactly how I managed to finally beat Luxord this weekend after at least 12 tries, not because of bad fighting skill but because of that stupid forced game.
It is crystal clear that this was added solely to add an artificial difficulty spike since otherwise Luxord would be a joke boss.

It is for that reason and that reason alone that his boss battle was one of the worst. It was a cockblock disguised as a gimmick. Glad you finally got him.

Now only Xaldin and Xemnas remain.
So far though, Xaldin gives me quite a run for my money, mostly because of these annoying Wind fireballs which strike several times in a row and the multi-jump Lance dive.
His wind dragon across the whole bridge is actually easy to survive.
Any sure-fire tips for dealing with Data-Xaldin?

As hemmoheikkinen already mentioned, timing is key for this battle. Every time he uses Jump, I always jump forward myself while mashing the triangle button to get as many Jump commands as I can. The wind-fireball thingamajig only requires blocking, so as long as you time your Guard, you should be fine.

I'm hoping by the 13th or 14th of March i should have my copy of kh2.5 and ps3 from christmas. Ugh....it's been such a long wait..I've been ready to play it. I just really hope this time it happens.

I know your pain. I still don't have a 3DS or Wii U and all the games that are coming out and have already come out are teasing me (Smash 4 and Majora's Mask 3D come to mind). At least you know you'll be getting them.

Hmm. I think Data-Xaldin is also one of those fights were you simply have to learn to time your blocks and dodges. He always starts the fight with the wind balls. Just reflect or block them. He always shoots 3 of them. I try to take the fight slowly, so I can watch his moves, and block them. If you watch the movement of his body, you can predict what attack he is going to do. Also try to steal as many Jump commands when you can. When you block his spear lunge(or some other attack) he opens up and you can steal them. The fire away! He will open again and you can perform a combo on him. You can speed up the process by using the Keyblade which increases the damage done by reaction commands.

I like to use normal block, since recovering from reflect takes too long, at least from me.
His third phase can be a pain, since he starts to teleport, but this can be avoided. Just jump an aerial dodge away, and hover in the air. Xaldin teleports next to you, but not close enough to inflict damage. I don`t remember the specific amount, but after a few teleports Xaldin will strike again with his spears. Block this anyway you can.
Hope this helps!

Also if anyone is curious I finally defeated Data-Roxas on LV1. The fight is not the best I have had against him, but I still managed to record the fight. I am also proud of the way I finished the fight. The clip can be found here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXPEo4OUgzo

Nice job! Data Roxas is easily one of the most interesting fights in the game.

 

[hemmoheikkinen]

Nice job! Data Roxas is easily one of the most interesting fights in the game.

Thanks!
I think that in a way Roxas has similarities to the possessed Riku fight in KH1. In both bosses you have to learn to guard the attacks, and time your dodges. Also blindly mashing the attack button won`t get you far, all thou counter ability kind a makes the fight little too easy(in my opinion). Also both have a really crucial opening. Roxas when you block his X-slash, and Riku/Ansem when you evade or block his jump attack. Sora is also alone when you fight them.

 

[wolfshadow]

I know your pain. I still don't have a 3DS or Wii U and all the games that are coming out and have already come out are teasing me (Smash 4 and Majora's Mask 3D come to mind). At least you know you'll be getting them.

The only chance of me not getting it, is if i'm not off on both of those two days. which would mean i would have to wait longer. Either when i get vacation days or something. if i get vacation days then i could schedule a week to go back home to meet family and friends and get everything i hadn't gotten for christmas and birthday except...the only problem is a working vehicle. So i'm hoping the 13th and 14th happen so my mom and sis can come up atleast to meet me after being gone a year and then get my gifts. But ya I want to get Majora's mask as well and I have both SSB games (registered for the free soundtrack and mewtwo dlc code when they come out). Hopefully you'll get everything as well.

 

[Cosmic+Amarna]

I'll tell you what I'm not enjoying, goddamn Item Boost ability in Command Melding. I guess I should have a command guide pulled up when I'm melding from now on. Other than that, BBS looks great. Just finished Terra's story last Saturday and now I'm in RG with Ven. Who knew rocks and mountains could look so good! (Keyblade Graveyard)

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Hmm. I think Data-Xaldin is also one of those fights were you simply have to learn to time your blocks and dodges. He always starts the fight with the wind balls. Just reflect or block them. He always shoots 3 of them. I try to take the fight slowly, so I can watch his moves, and block them. If you watch the movement of his body, you can predict what attack he is going to do. Also try to steal as many Jump commands when you can. When you block his spear lunge(or some other attack) he opens up and you can steal them. The fire away! He will open again and you can perform a combo on him. You can speed up the process by using the Keyblade which increases the damage done by reaction commands.

I like to use normal block, since recovering from reflect takes too long, at least from me.
His third phase can be a pain, since he starts to teleport, but this can be avoided. Just jump an aerial dodge away, and hover in the air. Xaldin teleports next to you, but not close enough to inflict damage. I don`t remember the specific amount, but after a few teleports Xaldin will strike again with his spears. Block this anyway you can.
Hope this helps!

Also if anyone is curious I finally defeated Data-Roxas on LV1. The fight is not the best I have had against him, but I still managed to record the fight. I am also proud of the way I finished the fight. The clip can be found here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXPEo4OUgzo

Heh, hemmoheikkinen your advice was golden!
I finally defeated Xaldin yesterday evening. The only remaining really annoying phase was his constant teleporting and trying to rush into me with his aero shield. The constant "Sora"-shouting was nearly as annoying as Phil's "get up on the Hydra's back", lolz.
Using the appropriate Keyblade I did get him down to one and a half bar remaining before he went crazy wild and brought me down to 1 HP.
I had five jumps left and instead of trying to make them full again I simply used them, finishing Xaldin off while having only 1 HP left (both Donald and Goofy were dead and MP was recharging).

Now only one Data Battle remains before I can get the trophies for the Org XIII data battles and all treasures obtained: The lightsaber swinging Zebra.

Nice work on dat Roxas Battle, I also realized you own the exact same TV as I do.

Glad you finally got him. That Mushroom was a pain.

Ugh. I remember vividly...

It is for that reason and that reason alone that his boss battle was one of the worst. It was a cockblock disguised as a gimmick. Glad you finally got him.

As hemmoheikkinen already mentioned, timing is key for this battle. Every time he uses Jump, I always jump forward myself while mashing the triangle button to get as many Jump commands as I can. The wind-fireball thingamajig only requires blocking, so as long as you time your Guard, you should be fine.

Yea, when I do my second KH 2 FM playthrough on Critical to get the trophy, I doubt that I'll do all the Mushrooms again. That will be a sole scenario playthrough.

I recall that it was especially annoying in a narrow stage like Phantom Train when Lightining would keep spamming Thundaga with that voice...

It's interesting somewhat that both of the most bland and unimportant Organisation members, Luxord and Demyx, are only "dangerous" because of such extra gimmicks to their fight.
Marluxia also has a "gimmick" with the counter or Lexaeus with his power meter, but they're nowhere as annoying and game changing as Luxord's forced game or Demyx's timed water clones.
At least the latter can be easily handled by Wisdom form Firaga spam when you have stocked up enough ethers.

hemmoheikkinen's tips were what ultimatively helped me get Xaldin yesterday, lol.
The timing of the guard for the wind fireballs differs from the ones you need against Roxas, and as he was the one where I trained my timing on I guess that's what caught me off hand several times.
In the end I survived these by simply reflecting them.

 

[hemmoheikkinen]

Glad I was able to help!

 

[Divine Past]

Hmm the Aqua vs TerraNort 2nd battle in the secret episode was pretty bleh. I'm not saying it was easy because if he landed a hit on me it hurts bad, but the battle was so formulaic that it wasn't really fun. Maybe I just exploited the fight but I just triple fire/blizzaga him to death with an occasional thunder shotlock. Maybe I was expecting something a bit more epic than a fight against boss who just loop his 4 attacks over and over again.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Glad I was able to help!

In regards to this topic I've to deliver another implementation report. This evening I also defeated the lightsaber swinging Zebra after three tries just ten minutes ago.
The key for the Final Xemnas battle is actually to carefully watch Xemnas' actions and let him start up an attack first, then counter it.
The blue glowing bowling balls can be easily countered with Reflega (just like when he summons a circle of red lasers) and when he's nearby he receives huge damage from the counterblast.
If he chooses to go Emperor Palpatine and shoot thorn-lightning, the reaction command brings you right up beside him so he can eat a full combo.
The "Can you spare a heart"-torture attack which forces you to use Riku can also be prevented with a well-timed Reflega while his standard combos and shooting lasers in a straight line can be guarded against.

The only complicated issue is the reversal-air-dance number because it plays out much faster than in the regular battle. The window to input the reaction command is very small and if you have Riku's abilities like Dark Shield etc. equipped, these can get in the way and mess up the very tiny window to use reversal.
I circumvented the whole thing eventually by using Riku's "Session" Limit which luckily lasts long enough to get Xemnas back to the ground.
Once you reach the great laser dome the battle is practically won unless you get a finger cramp from pushing triangle and X so often.

That's two more trophies secured, now the only things missing from KH 2 FM are the Lingering Will (which I assume will also give me the trophies for all character entries, relationships and tasks in Jiminy's Journal since I still haven't unlocked them) and then a second playthrough on Critical just for fun to get the last trophy.

Speaking of the walking, rusty pile of armor, is there anything in particular I need to watch out for or is it similar to the Org Data-Battles that I just need to learn its moves and how to respond to them?

 

[hemmoheikkinen]

Speaking of the walking, rusty pile of armor, is there anything in particular I need to watch out for or is it similar to the Org Data-Battles that I just need to learn its moves and how to respond to them?

I think learning will be the key for your victory. Terra`s attacks can be quite powerful and dangerous(he can curse you like Xemnas does in KH1FM, and take away your magic, or either your attack), but a big chunk of them can be guarded. Even most of his desperation combo can be blocked by an normal block. Just experiment which attacks can be blocked, and you will learn the flow of the fight. But I do think that he is the hardest boss in the game, and one of the hardest bosses in the series. Kind a tells how pissed Terra really is.

Even thou he is hard, I find him quite fun. Rage Aweakaned is also amazing, all thou I like the BBS version slightly better.
If you really have trouble with him, Everqloww has an amazing, and a very detailed guide for him, but I find it the most fun, when you learn the fight yourself.