Doing this in terms of story, so if I had to rank them for the gameplay it would be a different list entirely:
KH1: What more can you ask for? This game started it all. Nothing would have been possible if not for this game, and it was just SO good. The atmosphere, magic, and mystery were so great. You FELT like you were actually in the Disney worlds, and influencing things there.
And this game by far has the best balance: with the main plot and Disney stuff, the Destiny Trio, etc. I also feel like Neverland in KH1 is the only Disney world in KH where important plot stuff happens there and not in an original KH world.
Also, Sora was so good in this game--he was actually a character who got development--and everything in this game taught him/us something.
KH1 was good. KH1 was very good.
CoM: Not much to say about this one. I'd just be ripping off Blackdrazon's amazing retrospective about it if I said a lot here:0 But this one has SUCH good writing, dialogue (mainly the GBA version), and character building. This one even has some better writing than KH1 in some places, imo. And this was a game that still felt like KH1, but you could still note a slight gradual shift in it. The Disney worlds were also important in this game.
Oh, and Naminé. Naminé's a wonder.
Chi (this might even end up beating CoM for me eventually, even): Chi is perfection, Chi is goodness, Chi will not make my fingers swell. (Anyone get that reference? No?) But in all seriousness, this game is marvelous and I haven't been impressed by KH like this in a LONG time. I wasn't even sure if I still could be.
It's just so well done. I feel like all the story stuff is mostly released in perfect increments. And I enjoy that I haven't been able to predict a lot yet
This game also proves that you don't have to go big or go home to be a good KH game. And I've fallen in love with Player, Skuld, and Ephemera WAY TOO MUCH. Probably even more than even TVA and RAX at this point. The art style in this game is also lovely=)
BbS: This game has its flaws. And believe me, I know them ("Walls of the Heart" makes zero sense to me compared to the stuff that happened before it), but I still can't help but love this game. It was the first game I'd played in years that really felt at all like the old KH magic, and there's just so much
good about this game.
I liked how it connected to the main plot and yet didn't feel like it was too much. I even felt like you could enjoy this as it's own self-contained story, maybe.
Seeing everything through three eyes was neat, and actually trimmed a lot of fat that the other games often have by making their visits to worlds shorter here.
AND I ABSOLUTELY ADORE the gameplay in this game. I know I said I wasn't talking about that here, but it still has to be said, I think
KH2: Despite the fact that this game is pretty high on my list, I oddly tear into this one the most. It just... The writing is very bad at times. SO VERY BAD. Snagging lines from ASAS/Deep Dive to put in this game didn't help things at all, I don't think, and just made some moments so awkward and forced.
I LOVE the ideas behind this game (especially in Final Mix; Final Mix fixed a lot of the original 2's junk), but the execution of them is so terrible. And it's so unfortunate because, on paper, this could've been the best game in the saga.
A lot of this series' problems started with this game, too, and it feels more at odds with KH1 (Days does this, too) than coexisting pleasantly with it.
There ARE good things about this game. There are. Like how Ansem the Wise pretty much ended up being exactly the monster his apprentices were to him, and fortunately
he got to make up for his mistakes and to see the error of his ways.
But mostly this game just lets me down now (probably because I used to love it, and saw it as my favorite in this franchise, but now I just feel betrayed by it and I would've expected better from our "long-awaited KH1 sequel").
Oh, and the gameplay was far too easy in this title.
Days: This game has the best character interactions and character development to me, which is good because this mostly is a political drama and not much else. I also love Xion (and her and Roxas' arc) and am just so glad she exists, personally.
Though I do feel like this is the most alien KH game, and the plot... the plot is dumb (I'm not going to pretend otherwise anymore), but I can appreciate what this game did for its characters.
In that way, it's the exact opposite of 2 for me: I like the ideas behind 2, but find the characters completely lacking, but in this I hate the story and like the characters.
I will admit that this game is not fun to play for me anymore... at all (it's too clunky).
And though I do appreciate the narrative for the most part (once again, for the characters), I'll probably never actually play the game again...
Unless they remade it really nicely, with Days' mission mode (*cough* KH Dissidia *cough*), maybe.
Coded: Oh, Coded. What a love-hate relationship I have with you. This game, by far, has the best dialogue and humor out of any of them. I also enjoy that this is a simpler, happier, self-contained story (that kind of feels like 1 in some ways), that mostly focuses on Pete and Maleficent as the threat again, BUT it was
completely unnecessary. I'm never going to be able to see it as anything else. And it's the only KH game that I look at and have to wonder, "Why? Why did you have to exist?"
It's also the first KH game where I wasn't able to suspend my disbelief at the ridiculousness of it all.
And this series has ALWAYS been terrible about girls, but Coded is where they started taking it up to eleven for me: in only showing one girl, Naminé, at the end of the game and only so she can disappear... with no one combatting that, when
we literally just went through a data!Riku saving arc, and MDG bringing data!Sora back for the Castle Oblivion section. -sigh-
Sometimes I really love this game. A lot of the time I hate it. But if nothing else, this game gives me hope for character interactions, and that the writers could possibly nail that in III if they tried hard enough (this game is proof of that).
Dream Drop Distance: I hate this game. I hate this game so much. (A good portion of that probably being because I spoiled this KH game more than any of the others before playing it...) I really only care about the TWEWY cameos in this game, tbh.
I just- I HAVE SO MANY ISSUES WITH IT.
Time travel is a nuisance and never should've existed (and I feel like the creators have literally now written themselves into a corner with it), Riku's being a Dream Eater annoys me (as this game, for things like that, is the first time I really couldn't keep up with KH and see how/why things were happening, and I feel like I'm not alone in that).
The whole plot is kind of pointless...
Lea's wanting to go to Yen Sid to learn how to use a Keyblade is the stupidest thing I've ever heard (as how did Lea even KNOW about Yen Sid, and that he could maybe get him one), and...
This game... This game is just so bad, imo. The only shining things in it being Riku's arc and some of the Sora stuff, perhaps.
All of Kairi's character development from 2 just vanishes in this game with absolutely no explanation (and Sora, likewise, breaks all the promises he made to her at the end of 2--and their one to Roxas and Naminé about "being together everyday"--by doing this), and that brings me to my biggest gripe from it:
NO FREAKIN' GIRLS IN THIS GAME. What the actual hell? We get Kairi (the real Kairi, that is, and not just stupid illusions or flashbacks, I mean) just in the secret ending--something that some people won't even
see--for five seconds with no dialogue.
Naminé isn't even
in the game, as it was actually Xion that Sora saw! She wasn't even in the credits with everyone else!
Xion gets a few, microscopic scenes and just one line: "Riku, what do you wish?"
And an illusion of Aqua was in one scene, but with just a recycled "Ven" line from BbS.
-sigh- How can you fail so much? This is just
abysmal, SE. I don't care
what you say!
And Lea's getting a Keyblade was the straw that finally broke the camel's back when it comes to people and Keyblades in these games for me.
I also don't like all the fan service in this game (like bringing back fan-favorites from the Organization, but being lazy with it by not having a Ienzo and Lea confrontation like they should've).
And this is the first game where I felt like they
COMPLETELY sacrificed good character stuff, and good character interactions, just to waste time in trying to make sense of their stupid time travel plot that they literally
can't make sense of.
I... I don't like Dream Drop Distance anymore. At all. And there's a lot more I could use to complain about it with, but I'll refrain from it because I don't want anyone who likes this game to feel bad (and sorry if I maybe
did make someone feel awful unintentionally
).
Looking back on it, I feel like I was too critical with this list. But IDK. I guess for once I just wanted to somewhat stop lying to myself, and you guys, and finally set the record straight on how exactly I feel about these things now that I'm older/wiser.
Sorry if this was uncalled for at all
Edit: I just remembered another problem I had with DDD: that it made me feel like
everything we've done was all for nothing. I HATE things that do that.
And the fact that a good portion of Organization XIII is alive again--and that Xehanort is acting like he planned "everything"--makes me absolutely furious.
Honestly, if I didn't know that most of these people will probably get killed again in III--and if I hadn't been waiting for III for so long, and didn't want to see how this whole crazy tale will end--I probably would have quit the series for these two plot points.
