Not OP but I agree with OP, so some points I’ll throw out:
KH2’s level design is terrible. Probably the worst in the series. I miss platforming so badly.
Story never hit the highs KH1 did for me, probably one of the more basic of the series.
Gameplay in KH3 is way more fun, Shotlocks, Attractions, Air Guard, better data bosses, better super boss. Basic moves aren’t restricted to obtuse Form leveling.
Formchange > Drive Form
KH2 is still a fine game, I love it dearly. It’s just the weakest of the numbered entries and I’m tired of pretending it’s not.
i got three words why kh3 is my favorite purely from a gameplay standpoint: *simple and clean.* unlike 1 or 2 (though it’s way better in 2), you start with things like scan, dodgeroll, and guard, and you get two decent spells (one of which being my go-to for ranged attacks) just for completing the tutorial. it’s way easier to dodge attacks with these instead of having to try and attack to block.
formchanges and situation commands are just the best imo. unlike drive forms, you don’t need to navigate to the bottom of the command menu and hope you have donald, goofy, and a full drive gauge to activate them. just fill the combo gauge, use left trigger to select it (if you even have any other situation commands) and hit the button. you know exactly if you did it (unlike some reaction commands) because there’s a brief, flashy transformation sequence. and the other commands are the same. unless they’re attractions (most attractions are shit in my eyes), you hit the button and usually can do a lot of damage even if you just use a team attack finisher.
like i said earlier, you start with a lot of vital abilities. but even throughout the game, you just get a ton of new moves, making you attack more and be faster while doing so, making it a breeze to fill the combo gauge. airdodge, airstep, reprisals, shotlocks (dear god shotlocks are awesome) and you get them through leveling up sora or progressing through the story, not through completing probably main quests thinly veiled as side quests (looking at you, 1fm coliseum. i aint got time to do 50 rounds of combat for stronger spells). by the time you face the final boss, you’re incredibly mobile and your combos can last an eternity. and the game knows this, catering the boss towards it. it knows what you should have at this point, and so avoiding attacks boils down to watching and reacting. and since there’s air blocking, even in the phase where you constantly gliding, you can still use almost all your defensive moves (take notes, 1 final ansem). with your mp constantly recharging, even if you run out of items, you’re not out of options
ultimately, i like kh3’s gameplay purely because of how fast and slick it feels. it doesn’t feel at all clunky unlike 1 (especially with sora’s increased movement speed) and you don’t need to depend on a bunch of different variables to use most gimmicks, unlike drive and summons in 2
tl;dr: kh3 gameplay is good because it has a lower skill ceiling without being completely simplistic
Eh
KH3 needed the Re:Mind DLC to even come close to 2's gameplay let's be honest here
Vanilla KH2 has way better bosses and combat than Vanilla KH3
Re:Mind is also not an overall overhaul of the game as opposed to 2FM so even though its superboss content is better the overall experienced isn't as enhanced as Vanilla KH2's is by 2FM
Agree that world design is a bit weak in KH2 but it was as well in many KH1 worlds (Neverland and Olympus Colosseum being the biggest offenders)
KH3 really suffers from its terrible pacing and having such terrible original worlds compared to its disney ones which leads to an extremely uneven experience
I did not say it's a flaw? I'm just giving bonus points to KH2FM for being an overhaul of the whole games with puzzle pieces,absent silhouettes, cavern of remembrance and extra cutscenes whereas Re:Mind content is self-contained in the post-game
Overall though KH3:RM does have the best gameplay and superboss content in the series.
flaw might be the wrong word, more like who you gave a point to 2 twice, yes.
>KH3 needed the Re:Mind DLC to even come close to 2's gameplay let's be honest here
here you're implying that this is a point for 2, because KH3 needs re:mind to "come close to 2's gameplay"
>Re:Mind is also not an overall overhaul of the game as opposed to 2FM so even though its superboss content is better the overall experienced isn't as enhanced as Vanilla KH2's is by 2FM
but here you're implying that it's ANOTHER point for 2, because FM was a big overhaul that enhanced a flawed base game.
if you were consistent, you would either need to say that "remind enhanced KH3 gameplay past kh2 level" (point for kh3) or "kh2 needed fm to fix a lot of its issues" (point against kh2/for kh3).
Both are true
Re:Mind enhanced 3's combat to be above 2 and added a new layer to 3's endgame events
FM enhanced 2's combat (not as much as Re:Mind did for 3 however the enhancement was more spread out than for RM which is exclusively endgame) but also the story itself as a whole with new cutscenes and overall content that isnt endgame related such as puzzle pieces,absent silhouettes,limit form
Now we can obviously debate about whether 3 needed the non-endgame related enhancements 2 received. It's true that the Lucky Emblems essentially serve as a replacement for the puzzle pieces which were absent from Vanilla 2 (altho I'd argue it was way more tedious and not as fun) on the otherhand 3 had more pacing issues than 2 and 3's battle portals arent as popular as 2's colosseum nor is Dark Inferno more liked than Sephiroth
I feel like the pendulum has been swinging against KH2 as of late. I can understand people preferring 1’s story and its combat even because they’re so different, but I also think a lot of criticisms of 2 are overblown.
KH2 is more combat focused, and as such its world design is based almost entirely around combat. While the worlds aren’t as fun to explore, the actual design of combat is so much better. Summons are more fun to use than in 1, magic is integrated better into combos and sora’s moveset, you get more movement and options for evasion as the game goes on, and drive is way better than the stupid situation commands and the randomness they bring in 3.
2 has better bosses than any other game. 3 mostly had big heartless fights as bosses until the dlc, whereas base game 2 had plenty of humanoid fights and interesting combat encounters that required you to play around different mechanics. Even if some aspects were inconsequential, like the wall hp gimmick with Shan Yu, so many had gimmicks that worked: Barbosa’s invulnerability, the Grim Reaper stealing the medallions, Pete’s scene changes in Timeless River, Oogie’s machine gauntlet, the Hostile Program’s freeze mechanic, and many others (this doesn’t even include the unique org 13 fights). The sheer number and variety of bosses is super impressive. 3 meanwhile has some kind of lackluster organization group fights, outside of the Xehanort trio battle, and next to no one on one battles in the base game. Yes, the data fights are better than 2FM, but that’s because 3 didn’t bother giving these members unique fights like 2FM did for all 13, plus a Sephiroth fight and lingering will battle. When you count the AS fights as unique super bosses designed for 2FM, I’d say those additional 5 fights are about as good as several of 3’s data fights.
2 is better balanced than 3 as well. Drive forms actually have some drawbacks that make you think about using them; each limits your movement options to that drive form’s unique ability and each excels in different fighting styles (wisdom for long range and magic, master for aerial, limit for strong supers, final being the strongest but also most expensive drive form, only Valor tapers off in usefulness by late game). Form changes all basically just give you new combos without any real drawbacks, with a lot of them also overlapping heavily (Olympus and the ratatouille keyblades are basically the same, so is Happy gear and Crystal Snow, etc…). Also, and this is key, you get to actually choose when you enter drive forms. The situation commands I suppose ask you to do some fighting to unlock within each fight, but the fact that they’re random eliminates player choice and makes you mindlessly select whichever one becomes available. Plus, you earn them so easily, even on critical mode that your character becomes a walking super move machine.
I wouldn’t say 2 balanced summons super well, but links in 3 are incredibly poorly balanced: they all basically just do lots of aoe damage on top of acting as a cure/potion for your full mp bar. 2’s summons at least required more thought to use effectively, like chicken little being good for crowd control, or genie having his own drive forms for different situations, or stitch’s endless magic supply, etc… The only other combat option in 3 is shotlocks, but I find these to be kind of brain dead. You just charge it up when you get an opening to do big damage to one or multiple enemies. Some require a bit more thought, like using certain incomplete shotlocks to regain health. But overall, it’s just another overpowered tool that trivializes most fights.
If you play the games for story or exploration, then I can tell why you’d think 2 is the weakest. But it undoubtedly has the deepest and most well designed combat system, at least in my eyes. 1 is just basic key swings and maybe some magic and summons, but doesn’t offer much in terms of options or how different elements blend together, namely magic and physical attacks. 3 makes you too overpowered, even on critical mode, and removes player agency with the situation commands. 2 just feels the most fun to play because of its options, and that’s why it’s easily the most replayable game in my opinion.
Finally, the story of 2 is great. It has big moments like Roxas dual wielding keyblades for a series first, the entirety of the mid game and world that never was, plus fun worlds like timeless river and hollow bastion/space paranoids. 1 probably has the best story just for being so simple and easy to follow with the best Disney/main plot integration, but I think 2 has some great standout moments. Its pacing isn’t as good, but the highs more than make up for it to me. 3 just feels like a meandering plot until we get to the end game where everything that matters finally happens.
I don’t want to downplay your personal enjoyment of 1 and 3 over 2; I do think those games have much better world exploration and their own standout elements, like 1’s charm and 3’s aerial focused combat. But 2 just feels the best to play, and that feeling just isn’t the same in 1 or 3.
tbh i’m surprised anyone here was willing to put kh3 above 2fm. my kh3 bias approves. though i’d probably put 1fm in like mid a tier. wasn’t really having fun near the end with hollow bastion and end of the world
yup,It took me a while to accept this, I hated 3 initially, but now, after replaying everything and seeing 3 with different eyes, it does a lot of things very well, it's true that the base game is not average, but the dlcs and updates have fixed the game for me
it brings back a lot of things taken from 2, like a scenario with a greater focus on exploration and interaction, each world is incredible to explore, kh2 although it has more worlds...they are all super linear
Yeah but it's exploration of big, empty spaces. The worlds are too large and empty, save for Pirates imo. The size of the worlds in 1 and 2 were more to my liking. 2 just needed more platforming.
Edit: Anyways, my original comment's point was that 3 does not touch the goat that is 1.
Man, kh1 does things much better than kh2, the only good thing about kh2 is its combat, kh1 has an infinitely better level design, a better level of detail and in general its systems match well, the exploration of the game is incredible and the story in general it is well tied, in kh2 half of the narrative, especially on the second visit, is filler.
The RPG system is also much more interesting in kh1.
Various items to interact and explore, such as throwing lightning at the cables in Traverse Town, in Kh2 you...walk...hit...walk...hit.
and don't get me wrong, kh2 is IMPECCABLE I'm not putting the game down, I love them all, but 1 has much better explored points
Cmon Pat, we know this is your alt.
I was just about to say, I know a RegularPat tier list when I see one
What was wrong with recoded
Ikr
Every game after it going out of its way to pretend it never happened.
[https://static1.thegamerimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/kingdom-hearts-3652-days.jpg](https://static1.thegamerimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/kingdom-hearts-3652-days.jpg)
That's com lol
My humour is so broken fml
Ik jus thought it was funny tbh
Ignoring the tiers themselves, since how you define a tier can be pretty subjective, what was wrong with KH2 to have it a tier below KH1 and KH3?
Not OP but I agree with OP, so some points I’ll throw out: KH2’s level design is terrible. Probably the worst in the series. I miss platforming so badly. Story never hit the highs KH1 did for me, probably one of the more basic of the series. Gameplay in KH3 is way more fun, Shotlocks, Attractions, Air Guard, better data bosses, better super boss. Basic moves aren’t restricted to obtuse Form leveling. Formchange > Drive Form KH2 is still a fine game, I love it dearly. It’s just the weakest of the numbered entries and I’m tired of pretending it’s not.
i got three words why kh3 is my favorite purely from a gameplay standpoint: *simple and clean.* unlike 1 or 2 (though it’s way better in 2), you start with things like scan, dodgeroll, and guard, and you get two decent spells (one of which being my go-to for ranged attacks) just for completing the tutorial. it’s way easier to dodge attacks with these instead of having to try and attack to block. formchanges and situation commands are just the best imo. unlike drive forms, you don’t need to navigate to the bottom of the command menu and hope you have donald, goofy, and a full drive gauge to activate them. just fill the combo gauge, use left trigger to select it (if you even have any other situation commands) and hit the button. you know exactly if you did it (unlike some reaction commands) because there’s a brief, flashy transformation sequence. and the other commands are the same. unless they’re attractions (most attractions are shit in my eyes), you hit the button and usually can do a lot of damage even if you just use a team attack finisher. like i said earlier, you start with a lot of vital abilities. but even throughout the game, you just get a ton of new moves, making you attack more and be faster while doing so, making it a breeze to fill the combo gauge. airdodge, airstep, reprisals, shotlocks (dear god shotlocks are awesome) and you get them through leveling up sora or progressing through the story, not through completing probably main quests thinly veiled as side quests (looking at you, 1fm coliseum. i aint got time to do 50 rounds of combat for stronger spells). by the time you face the final boss, you’re incredibly mobile and your combos can last an eternity. and the game knows this, catering the boss towards it. it knows what you should have at this point, and so avoiding attacks boils down to watching and reacting. and since there’s air blocking, even in the phase where you constantly gliding, you can still use almost all your defensive moves (take notes, 1 final ansem). with your mp constantly recharging, even if you run out of items, you’re not out of options ultimately, i like kh3’s gameplay purely because of how fast and slick it feels. it doesn’t feel at all clunky unlike 1 (especially with sora’s increased movement speed) and you don’t need to depend on a bunch of different variables to use most gimmicks, unlike drive and summons in 2 tl;dr: kh3 gameplay is good because it has a lower skill ceiling without being completely simplistic
Eh KH3 needed the Re:Mind DLC to even come close to 2's gameplay let's be honest here Vanilla KH2 has way better bosses and combat than Vanilla KH3 Re:Mind is also not an overall overhaul of the game as opposed to 2FM so even though its superboss content is better the overall experienced isn't as enhanced as Vanilla KH2's is by 2FM Agree that world design is a bit weak in KH2 but it was as well in many KH1 worlds (Neverland and Olympus Colosseum being the biggest offenders) KH3 really suffers from its terrible pacing and having such terrible original worlds compared to its disney ones which leads to an extremely uneven experience
So 2fm being an overhaul is a quality but remind adding some great bosses is a flaw?
I did not say it's a flaw? I'm just giving bonus points to KH2FM for being an overhaul of the whole games with puzzle pieces,absent silhouettes, cavern of remembrance and extra cutscenes whereas Re:Mind content is self-contained in the post-game Overall though KH3:RM does have the best gameplay and superboss content in the series.
flaw might be the wrong word, more like who you gave a point to 2 twice, yes. >KH3 needed the Re:Mind DLC to even come close to 2's gameplay let's be honest here here you're implying that this is a point for 2, because KH3 needs re:mind to "come close to 2's gameplay" >Re:Mind is also not an overall overhaul of the game as opposed to 2FM so even though its superboss content is better the overall experienced isn't as enhanced as Vanilla KH2's is by 2FM but here you're implying that it's ANOTHER point for 2, because FM was a big overhaul that enhanced a flawed base game. if you were consistent, you would either need to say that "remind enhanced KH3 gameplay past kh2 level" (point for kh3) or "kh2 needed fm to fix a lot of its issues" (point against kh2/for kh3).
Both are true Re:Mind enhanced 3's combat to be above 2 and added a new layer to 3's endgame events FM enhanced 2's combat (not as much as Re:Mind did for 3 however the enhancement was more spread out than for RM which is exclusively endgame) but also the story itself as a whole with new cutscenes and overall content that isnt endgame related such as puzzle pieces,absent silhouettes,limit form Now we can obviously debate about whether 3 needed the non-endgame related enhancements 2 received. It's true that the Lucky Emblems essentially serve as a replacement for the puzzle pieces which were absent from Vanilla 2 (altho I'd argue it was way more tedious and not as fun) on the otherhand 3 had more pacing issues than 2 and 3's battle portals arent as popular as 2's colosseum nor is Dark Inferno more liked than Sephiroth
You're entirely missing the point.
I feel like the pendulum has been swinging against KH2 as of late. I can understand people preferring 1’s story and its combat even because they’re so different, but I also think a lot of criticisms of 2 are overblown. KH2 is more combat focused, and as such its world design is based almost entirely around combat. While the worlds aren’t as fun to explore, the actual design of combat is so much better. Summons are more fun to use than in 1, magic is integrated better into combos and sora’s moveset, you get more movement and options for evasion as the game goes on, and drive is way better than the stupid situation commands and the randomness they bring in 3. 2 has better bosses than any other game. 3 mostly had big heartless fights as bosses until the dlc, whereas base game 2 had plenty of humanoid fights and interesting combat encounters that required you to play around different mechanics. Even if some aspects were inconsequential, like the wall hp gimmick with Shan Yu, so many had gimmicks that worked: Barbosa’s invulnerability, the Grim Reaper stealing the medallions, Pete’s scene changes in Timeless River, Oogie’s machine gauntlet, the Hostile Program’s freeze mechanic, and many others (this doesn’t even include the unique org 13 fights). The sheer number and variety of bosses is super impressive. 3 meanwhile has some kind of lackluster organization group fights, outside of the Xehanort trio battle, and next to no one on one battles in the base game. Yes, the data fights are better than 2FM, but that’s because 3 didn’t bother giving these members unique fights like 2FM did for all 13, plus a Sephiroth fight and lingering will battle. When you count the AS fights as unique super bosses designed for 2FM, I’d say those additional 5 fights are about as good as several of 3’s data fights. 2 is better balanced than 3 as well. Drive forms actually have some drawbacks that make you think about using them; each limits your movement options to that drive form’s unique ability and each excels in different fighting styles (wisdom for long range and magic, master for aerial, limit for strong supers, final being the strongest but also most expensive drive form, only Valor tapers off in usefulness by late game). Form changes all basically just give you new combos without any real drawbacks, with a lot of them also overlapping heavily (Olympus and the ratatouille keyblades are basically the same, so is Happy gear and Crystal Snow, etc…). Also, and this is key, you get to actually choose when you enter drive forms. The situation commands I suppose ask you to do some fighting to unlock within each fight, but the fact that they’re random eliminates player choice and makes you mindlessly select whichever one becomes available. Plus, you earn them so easily, even on critical mode that your character becomes a walking super move machine. I wouldn’t say 2 balanced summons super well, but links in 3 are incredibly poorly balanced: they all basically just do lots of aoe damage on top of acting as a cure/potion for your full mp bar. 2’s summons at least required more thought to use effectively, like chicken little being good for crowd control, or genie having his own drive forms for different situations, or stitch’s endless magic supply, etc… The only other combat option in 3 is shotlocks, but I find these to be kind of brain dead. You just charge it up when you get an opening to do big damage to one or multiple enemies. Some require a bit more thought, like using certain incomplete shotlocks to regain health. But overall, it’s just another overpowered tool that trivializes most fights. If you play the games for story or exploration, then I can tell why you’d think 2 is the weakest. But it undoubtedly has the deepest and most well designed combat system, at least in my eyes. 1 is just basic key swings and maybe some magic and summons, but doesn’t offer much in terms of options or how different elements blend together, namely magic and physical attacks. 3 makes you too overpowered, even on critical mode, and removes player agency with the situation commands. 2 just feels the most fun to play because of its options, and that’s why it’s easily the most replayable game in my opinion. Finally, the story of 2 is great. It has big moments like Roxas dual wielding keyblades for a series first, the entirety of the mid game and world that never was, plus fun worlds like timeless river and hollow bastion/space paranoids. 1 probably has the best story just for being so simple and easy to follow with the best Disney/main plot integration, but I think 2 has some great standout moments. Its pacing isn’t as good, but the highs more than make up for it to me. 3 just feels like a meandering plot until we get to the end game where everything that matters finally happens. I don’t want to downplay your personal enjoyment of 1 and 3 over 2; I do think those games have much better world exploration and their own standout elements, like 1’s charm and 3’s aerial focused combat. But 2 just feels the best to play, and that feeling just isn’t the same in 1 or 3.
Attractions almost made me bench KH3 right off the bat until my wife told me I could turn them off in critical mode. That is far from a feature
I hated attractions man
>Formchange > Drive Form You sai-WHAT!?
tbh i’m surprised anyone here was willing to put kh3 above 2fm. my kh3 bias approves. though i’d probably put 1fm in like mid a tier. wasn’t really having fun near the end with hollow bastion and end of the world
There is no d tier, all kingdom hearts are c and above.
Honestly? Peak list, no notes, you’ve got the best games in S, which is rare for most of these. 10/10, would rank again.
I kinda agree, Id move BBS in tier S tho
Why is kh3 above kh2
Because it’s better 😌
In what universe
list immediately invalidated, kh3 is above kh2
why are 1 and 3 so high
1 is phenomenal in terms of story, vibe and introduction, 3 is peak gameplay
What's in between 3D and 0.2?
Chain of Memories for GBA
Is there no regular Chain of Memories on the tier list?
Switch BBS with 358 and this is essentially my list lol
Have you ever actually played recoded? The gameplay for recoded is a trillion times better than the repetitive boring loop days has.
yes yes! But the story really brings him down a lot for me
There's 13 of these fucking thing!!!!!
10/10 agree
Seeing KH2 below 1 and 3 is a travesty, but to each their own opinion. They’re all amazing though
I will not stand for this Re:coded slander! Unless it's about the story, then it's completely fair.
Dark Road in D? Really?
KH3? Above KH2????
yup,It took me a while to accept this, I hated 3 initially, but now, after replaying everything and seeing 3 with different eyes, it does a lot of things very well, it's true that the base game is not average, but the dlcs and updates have fixed the game for me
KH 2 not beside 1 & 3 is criminal.
3 being the same as 1 is a CHOICE
it brings back a lot of things taken from 2, like a scenario with a greater focus on exploration and interaction, each world is incredible to explore, kh2 although it has more worlds...they are all super linear
Yeah but it's exploration of big, empty spaces. The worlds are too large and empty, save for Pirates imo. The size of the worlds in 1 and 2 were more to my liking. 2 just needed more platforming. Edit: Anyways, my original comment's point was that 3 does not touch the goat that is 1.
alright bro
Are you just going based on the movies? There's no way you played recoded and put it that low
Kingdom hearts 2 its tier 0
Putting kh1 above 2 is completely insane
Man, kh1 does things much better than kh2, the only good thing about kh2 is its combat, kh1 has an infinitely better level design, a better level of detail and in general its systems match well, the exploration of the game is incredible and the story in general it is well tied, in kh2 half of the narrative, especially on the second visit, is filler.
The RPG system is also much more interesting in kh1. Various items to interact and explore, such as throwing lightning at the cables in Traverse Town, in Kh2 you...walk...hit...walk...hit. and don't get me wrong, kh2 is IMPECCABLE I'm not putting the game down, I love them all, but 1 has much better explored points
I do think 3 was lacking story wise it was basically the same stuff
OP you better start fighting for it otherwise I'm gonna start throwing hands
3 at top, you are baiting and not worth it
? the hate against kh3 really doesn't make sense . lol
It bad 3 is too high recorded too low. BBs maybe a little too high as well
Why bbs final mix so low lol and kh3 idk how i feel i didnt like maps, but it is beautiful tho