Last time on Kingdom Hearts: I had just the worst possible time. Chain of Memories was too easy and too hard at the same time, and if you haven't yet I fully suggest you read through my blog on that game as I'm going to persist as though you have. (Plus, I'm going full spoilers on this blog because, why not?) But my reward for pushing through all of that painful gameplay drudgery was a whole new campaign for the game only this time as the bleach-haired deuteragonist; Riku. Now sure, I could have completely ignored that and moved onto the next game (me and my brother were super interested in whatever the heck '358/2 Days' could be about) but I couldn't just turn down the opportunity to jump into the shoes of someone as chronically 'edgy' as Riku. I played through the entirety of 'Shadow: The Hedgehog', this could hardly be any worse. And so I swallowed my pride and jumped into the succinctly named 'Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories Reverse/Rebirth HD'. (Just rolls off the tongue...)
Unfortunately the purpose of this extra campaign is strictly story based so I'm going to have to go full lore on you. (Don't say I didn't warn you. Also, Spoilers) So the base game of 'Chain of Memories' followed Sora and co as he ran into Organisation XIII for the first time. (Okay, Xemnas turned up as the last superboss of the original, but that hardly counts.) These hooded freaks then guide him through a castle built from his memories whilst forcing a magical girl called Naminé to rewrite his memories in order to turn him into her simp slave. (What? That is the plot!) By the end, Sora's plain innocent stubbornness manages to spoil their plans enough to where he went fact to face with their leader (Or rather, the leader of this splinter branch of Organisation XIII) the fabulously-haired Marluxia, and defeated him. At the end he chooses to forget his adventures in Castle Oblivion in order to have the chance to regain his old memories, although before he does he promises that he'll find Naminé again so that they can become friends for real. (Very wholesome.)
Riku's story is positioned as a flash sideways to events that are happening in the basement of Castle Oblivion at the same time. (Although they are so similar I wonder why they even bothered to make that distinction.) So in terms of story, Riku's journey is much the same as the base game with the player going through randomly-connected refab floors featured off of worlds based on their memories of the first game. The only real difference is the fact that this time these worlds aren't actually from Riku's memories, they're from Sora's, making the significance of the story layout pretty much entirely moot. This is reflected in the way that the story is laid out for this campaign, as pretty much every world serves only filler between the actual story elements that happen almost exclusively in the spaces between each world.
So the story is a bit of a disappointment in presentation, does the game have any redeeming factors? Why yes, actually, it has quite a huge redeeming factor in that it manages to take Chain of Memories' card system and make it... fun. (Someone wash my mouth out with soap!) Now I assume that you've already read my last blog and so are very well aware of my gripes with Chain of Memories' card gimmick, but you'll be surprised to know that Reverse/Rebirth actually changes things up a little in this regard. Firstly, in an effort to streamline things the game doesn't let the player build decks but rather gives them a set deck straight up. This immediately stops players from building 'win everything' decks and means that the Devs had to build each floor to meet the capabilities of the player's currently equipped deck. (Wait, is this basic game balance logic in a Chain of Memories game? Nani?)
Instantly this makes Chain of Memories many fights that much more palatable, because you'll never be put up against enemies with ludicrously overpowered decks. (At least, not without the player having a similarly OP deck.) Each floor grants a new deck too, meaning that the pace of combat changes up as you progress through the game. However, this does present a little issue for those surprise bosses who inevitably jump you after beating every other floor as you don't get a chance to look through and memorise your deck beforehand. (You can't expect this team to think through all the obvious pitfalls, that'd be crazy!) But even then, this is marked improvement over the main game's design philosophy which pretty much amounted to: give this boss 20 high cards, hope the player's cards are higher.
With this direction comes an evolution in the way that the team designed their boss fights, and it's actually for the better. Of course, there are still the holdovers from the base game, in which every single boss felt like it was retrofitted from an action adventure title without a card gimmick (Because it was) but the new bosses built exclusively for Riku's campaign are actually pretty unique. Lexaeus, for example, executes a lot of high card moves that encourages players to keep breaking him whenever feasible; Zexion actually has some moves that steals cards out of your deck until you only have about 6 left, at which point he starts using them against you; and Ansem meets you with such aggression that you are practically forced to keep him locked down with card duels for the majority of the fight. These are boss fights that are built with the card gimmick in mind and that's what makes them fun to play through and master.
Levelling was also improved upon from the base game, with something of that special RPG magic working it's way back into the formula. Rather than levelling up health and card points, 'Reverse/Rebirth' allows players to directly buff their attack points every level (A metric with an easily discernible and rewarding output) as well as Dark points, which relates to another interesting mechanic. Break enemy cards enough and you'll stack Dark gauge to the point at which you morph into Dark Riku, which is the only way to execute Sleights, allowing for Sleights to be made incredibly powerful without rigging it so that you can just spam them to win every encounter. (How did they fix this issue for the extra campaign and not the base one? What sort of backwards world is this?)
The final great addition which makes 'Reverse/Rebirth' infinitely more playable than 'Chain of Memories' is that duel system I alluded to earlier. Basically, if Riku matches the same card value as his enemy, instead of a card break you have the opportunity to 'duel' your opponent. This allows for a quick battle in which the player has to break 3-7 cards straight in a limited amount of time, doing so will break any sleight they are building whilst allowing for Riku to perform a power counter manoeuvre. (Some boss fights are even built to be fought almost entirely through duels.) That's the sort of combat versatility that makes the gameplay fun and replayable, something I never thought I'd say after 'Chain of Memories' killed all love and hope in my heart. The final fight was a difficult battle to slog through but one that I felt accomplished for completing, and not one in which I spent the entire time actively hoping the game explodes in my console and burns the house down. (Of course, that isn't to say there weren't any exploits that I may have taken advantage of.)
Here's an unrelated video of Captain Hook just killing himself. I suppose that's what happens when Peter Pan pushes too far.
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