As many others I found proud mode much more easy that it should be, but I'm really enjoying critical. The heartless doll fight in Toy Box is a nightmare with her spinning attacks and all those possessed toys jumping into Sora, killing him in a breeze. I almost didn't care about blocking or dodging in my proud playthrough because Sora received so little damage from attacks, it wasn't worth trying to be good at the game. For critical, such a reckless approach is suicide, which is making me develop strategies and learn when to attack, block or dodge, and which keyblade transformation are better for certain fights. Attractions are turned off, I'm glad that is possible now. I'm liking critical so far, it is difficult but not to the point of being unfair, it just requires to actually pay attention to evade damage when possible. After getting cure, I never used a single item on proud, but critical made me remember that potions are a thing, haha. I fear that it will become easier the further I progress and once I level up, so I'm trying not to overlevel Sora, and to not abuse the stat boost items. If Toy Box continues to give me trouble I'll pay a visit to little chef and see if food is useful to me this time.
I have never done a lv 1 critical playthrough, but that must be too insane for me.