- Joined
- Jan 27, 2020
- Messages
- 68
- Awards
- 2
Did you even read my post? I clearly explained how even though action games used DMC1 as a baseline, it doesn't mean they have the same priorities. Literally nothing in your description of DMC applies to God of War for example. It doesn't have a style meter. It doesn't have ranks. It doesn't have 'sexy stylish combos'. And yet no one in the world is going to argue that GoW isn't an action game like DMC and thus can't be compared. Wonderful 101 completely inverts every single aspect about modern action games resulting a system that has way less in common with DMC than KH does. Oh but that means it exists in its own exclusive bubble according to you, contrary to what anyone who's played it believes. KH has it's own mechanics and playstyle? Super. Welcome to the exclusive club of every single action game ever made.Except Kingdom Hearts ISN'T like DMC, at all, it doesn't even come close in many ways. The fact that you give a shallow comparison to DMC shows you don't understand the differences between the two.
YES, Devil May Cry 1 was the precursor to the action game template, I know because I was there from the beginning when it first came out on the PS2. However, DMC came out while Kingdom Hearts was already at least 2 years in development as it started in February, and we know that Nomura wanted it to be an action platformer from the beginning. KH was likely not inspired by DMC, therefore comparing those two is not a good comparison to begin with. Plus KH1 is an action-platformer RPG while DMC is pure action mixed with gothic horror.
DMC is a game series about looking cool with elements of fighting games and old cabinet arcade games that would score you and how well you did on the games. That's why the combos are done via button combination with the joy stick. The games are ranking you on your style, on not getting hit or damaged and in essence just being as cool and deadly as possible. And from 3 onward, it's also a much faster paced action game where you can also redo any stage over and over again to get better scores. That's why weapon switching is not more prevalent there, because it was something actually built into the system and around it, as switching weapons on the fly is just another extension on the idea of doing cool combos. While there are things like Devil Trigger, its primary use is simply to add extra power to your combos, and in Nero's case, make his Devil Bringer moves even more potent. The first four games may have had items to use in combat like healing stars and holy water, but actually using the items tended to lower your score because they aren't *cool*. And yes, the games can be hard, but that means you have to be very careful and precise with these combos so you aren't broken out of them and lose your style ranking. Doing extended combos with various different weapons, switching them out instantly, is all for one thing in the end and that's extending the damn Style Rank during that encounter and never letting it drop, EVER!
Kingdom Hearts is not like that and it never has been, especially when it comes to the major numbered games. Yes, avoiding getting hit is very much something you want to do, but it wasn't necessarily feasible or even intended to be that kind game since it's also much slower in the first game. Speed became more viable in KH2, but the major difference with KH2 and by extension KH3's gameplay is the various other combat mechanics. DMC's combo is all about physical combos, with occasional use from Dante's styles, or Nero's Devil Breakers, they tend to still be more focused on actual combos. KH has summons, drive forms, reaction commands, situation commands, flow motion, attraction flow, team attacks. All of these are intended to give different kinds of options for combat than just physical. That's why the combat modifiers don't rely on the same kind of fighting game system as DMC, rather you just press either square or circle to branch into a different combo, but it's not more expansive than. And that's because the game developers want you to use the other mechanics, especially on Critical Mode, which is where the magic system in particular really shines through in KH2FM and why pre-patch the grand magic situation commands were more effective than either Attraction Flow or Form Changes, even though the latter tends to be much more fun in many ways. And then there's Revenge Values in KH2 and KH3, where enemies will break out of a long combo and become more aggressive means its not a viable tactic to do with the gameplay system they have in place. As the exploit video shows, this so utterly breaks the game it arguably loses much of its appeal to many fans, who want a good challenge from KH on Critical mode and when fighting the bonus bosses like the Data/Limitcut Battles, Lingering Will or Yozora. It's why BBS Young Xehanort was considered a bad super boss because that fight wasn't about using all the games options to beat him, but rather just survive him long enough to Thunder Surge him into oblivion. Exploits like this one, while fun, go against what the gameplay is meant to be.
And like I said before, weapon switching in this game is not about extending combos, it's about storing Form Changes. This is because form changes can be very effective to start a fight with, especially they cannot be extended like Drive Forms in two. And don't bring up Form Extenders, those are completely different from what I'm talking about in this context. This is also especially true if you're running low on a Form Change that has two tiers to it and you just want to make sure you have three situation arrows before switching back to that Keyblade to get the Form Change charge. That's why you're only allowed to equip three Keyblades and why the Critical Booster slows down your situation commands (initially). The fact you have to work to get these Form Changes means it's not worth comboing them.
But this is the point of differences between DMC and KH and why they are different action games. DMC is all about fast paced combos where you're relishing the combat and how cool you are, meaning rushing through it, while it could give you a good score on time, it wouldn't grant you much stylish points. Kingdom Hearts' combat, especially on Critical Modes, is all about quickly killing enemies to move on to the next objective, or when it comes to grinding for exp or synthesis material. As the game also has stuff outside of combat, since it is an Action RPG not a full on action game, you are neither scored for regular encounters nor can you so easily repeat levels. Hence why grand magic was such a game breaker for how quickly it could take down enemies, thus ensuring you could get more EXP or materials quicker. The game also doesn't even actually rank you in the Battle Report at the end, because it's not that kind of action game where it grades your performance.
I could go on on the differences between these two games and why your comparison is a shallow, but I'm gonna guess that you will refuse to listen. You are so obsessed with wanting the KH game to be like DMC, you are forgetting that they are different genres, have different overall demographs (even if they may overlap at times) and finally, are just made differently. If the staff of KH3 wanted the game to be an action game like DMC, they would have done. But they wanted it to be, shock of shocks, like a Kingdom Hearts game! Maybe in the future we could explore something more similar with actual, real Form Change combos, but this is not the game to do it. It wasn't designed to be that kind of action game, it was designed to be a KH action game. End of story. If you want to keep complaining about, I have nothing I want to say about it besides this and if you don't want to listen to these reasons, than I do not think I or anyone else will ever give you an answer you're satisfied with.
Let me tell you a little fact about myself. I love KH1. I love it more than every single post-KH2 game combined. But KH as it exists today is nothing like KH1. That's because while 1 was a Zelda/Mario 64 inspired adventure game, 2 was blatantly inspired by dedicated action games. That's not even debatable. And every KH since has followed 2's lead. If KH is going do away with what it was in favor more action, then I'm allowed to compare it to other action games. And it's not like I was even comparing the entirety KH3 to the entirety of DMC (In fact, I never compared it to DMC at all). I think 3's entire weapon system is bad just compared to KH2. You build up for a transformation and then activate it (because why wouldn't you?). Then if there's no enemies left you store it (because why wouldn't you?). Fin. The whole process is brainless and a huge step down from 2's Drive system, which interacted with every single mechanic and forced you to make meaningful decisions. So making weapon switching solely for storing is a waste. There's no other word for it. I didn't ask for you to explain how Form changes work. I know how it works. I asked how not having combo switching improves the gameplay. 'It's not like DMC' is not an answer.
What's funny is that despite you rambling about how I want every game to be DMC and how I want DMC's babies, until my last post, I never actually brought DMC up. Not once. You guys did. Almost instinctively. Because you know it's been done better. But rather than call it out, you wanna hide behind arbitrary labels because otherwise you'd have to confront the fact that the game you like isn't as good as you like to believe.