Dangit Mystic! I wanted to post this thread! D:<
Anyway, I have beaten all four (counting CoM and Re:CoM as the same game) Kingdom Hearts titles that have come out in English a few times each, and I have to say that so far my over all favorite is KH2. What made KH2 was the versatility of combat with Driving, Limit Breaks, and various finish moves and combos that could be performed. I also felt that the enemy difficulty was much higher in that I could beat Sephiroth as low a level as 65 in KH1, but in 2 I need to level up to 75 before I could withstand his hits. Also, the Paradox tournaments were much more intense than any of the battles thrown at us in KH1 or CoM.
The only downside KH2 had was its shallow story. The Disney worlds in KH2 were just rehashes of the movie with Sora involved and contributed very little to the over all plot if anything at all. On top of that, the Organization members introduced in 2 had very little character development. Of the eight of them, Xemnas, Saix, Axel, and Roxas got the most, while the other four had pretty flat personalities compared to their Castle Oblivion counterparts. Days did a fairly descent job on fixing that I thought. IMO, they should have left out Maleficent's return and focused more on the Organization, or at the very least have the game more like the battle at Hollow Bastion where the two parties are always at eachother's throats with the Organization steadily getting more ground. That way, it would have shown that this new enemy is stronger than the last one, and they wouldn't have needed to seemingly divide the game in half.
Best story goes to KH1 because each world had a place in the story and contributed something. Wonderland introduced us to the keyholes and was home to a Princess of Heart. Deep Jungle reinforced Sora, Donald, and Goofy's friendship, and the other worlds involved Villains who were collaborating together to open the door to Kingdom Hearts.
Chain of Memories is interesting because it has a battle system unlike the others with its Card Battles. I much prefer the PS2 remake, not just for the better graphics, but also because the 3D made it was a lot easier to maneuver Sora to dodge/block enemy attacks. The CBS was also improved with how much faster it was to make sleights, newer sleights, and the card duels that you could use when playing as Riku. Again, I found the Organization members introduced in his game to be much better developed, especially the Axel, Marluxia, Larxene, and Vexen. This was the first time I was introduced to Axel as I got this game a little while after it came out for the GBA, and right away I knew this guy was a badass. He's been my favorite KH character ever since. After beating this game, I was really excited about what the Organization would do in KH2, but I already gave my thoughts to that.
I might as well go into what I like about 358/2 Days while I'm here since I talked about the other games already. As said above, the Org members that weren't eliminated in CO got some much needed development here while also expanding on the overall arcing story of the series. The inclusion of a mysterious XIV member Xion seemed a bit weird at first, but made a lot more sense later in the game. I enjoyed the multiplayer Mission Mode where I could play a various members of the Organization with friends. I usually mained Axel in that mode though I also used Larxene occasionally. The Challenge Mission weren't too bad as they forced you to overcome previous missions with stricter conditions.
Probably the only two thing that I didn't like about the game were the leveling up post game and the inability to explore the World That Never Was. I'll start with the leveling up. After beating the Final Boss, all of the Challenge Missions and all of the Multiplayer Missions, I was still in the mid 70s. While I could still go back to previous missions to level up, I would need over 100,000 Exp. at higher levels and Riku gives the most Exp. at only 6,300. To even get that much Exp. you must first equip an item that reduces your HP to 1 in exchange for doubling the amount of Exp you get. Probably 1/4 of my game time is leveling up to 100.
Now The World That Never Was is my favorite world of all the games so the thing I was looking forward to most before getting this game was to explore the castle in its fullest. As Sora in KH2, there were numerous road blocks for him, he couldn't use dark corridors to get to secluded rooms, and he was more focused on saving Kairi and defeating Xemnas than seeing the sights. Roxas was a member of the Organization so surely he would have full reign over his home right? Wrong! Up until the end of the game, the player is restricted to the tiny Grey Area, not even able to go into the empty hallway. Come the end of the game when Roxas escapes the Castle, we are plopped right into the Hall of Empty Melodies with the only direction to go being the same path Sora used in KH2. I was pretty disappointed about that.
Wow... I didn't expect to talk/type this much. Sorry if I was ranting a little ^^; Well what do you expect? This is my favorite game series ever. I am so looking forward to the release of Birth by Sleep n 70 days! ^-^ I also can't wait for a release date on ReCoded or more information on KH3D!