Dispatch from the Dive Chapter 12: The Melding Pot

Last week was a bit of a trial as I plunged into Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, a game that did little to upend the Kingdom Hearts formula. But after a discussion with NantenJex, the “Yoda” of Source Gaming (or as I’d put it, the Vic Fontaine of Source Gaming), I’m ready to keep at it.

March 20: Entered Disney Town; played three mini-games.

Hey, it’s Disney Castle in the much more recent past! It’s got the remix and everything, and there’s young Pete dressed as a terrible superhero. There’s also a character, Horace, whom I’m assuming is Goofy’s grandpa…? It was pretty neat, all things considered. Kind of a shame it seems to be taking the place of 100 Acre Wood as our token terrible mini-games level, as the Wood seems stuck in the weird “Command Board” section of the game. Let’s take a look at our mini-game offerings:

Fruitball: The best of the bunch, where all you do is wildly swipe at giant fruit to hit a goal. It’s kind of confusing, and I found trying aerial shots to be largely a waste, but it’s a fine mini-game by the standards of this series.

Rumble Racing: It’s Mario Kart, just bad! It maps all your verbs to the “face” buttons of the PS4 controller, so you’re stuck taking your hand off the wheel if you want to shoot at your opponent or, well, drift. Me playing it after driving through the DLC levels in Mario Kart 8 is definitely poor timing on its part. But I kind of love the needless hubris of just doing a bad driving game in your game.

Ice Cream Beat: Last place by a mile. It’s a rhythm game that requires you to aim and keep with the beat, which is bizarre and needlessly convoluted. And it’s all to satiate the ice cream desires of Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck – and not the good ones, the ones from the 2017 DuckTales, but the boring original ones. But how can you not play when you’ve got such bangers as… David Lynch’s most hated song and the non-lyrical Gummi Ship music?

It’s very surprising to me that we’re coming back to Disney Castle, a pretty neat idea in and of itself, in this way. It’s odd to have this take the role of the hated mini-game level when we could spend more of our time with Pete and Minnie and the characters we’ve actually known from the other games. Though it also leads to another issue I have, which is that I’ve absolutely no idea how the Command Boards work. At all.

March 21: Didn’t play.

She’s not a “good” character, but I do appreciate that Aqua is at least somewhat different from our other Kingdom Hearts heroes. She’s blandly serious and studious in a world that gives those kinds of characters limited roles: mentors, teachers, and plot expositors. Sora, Donald, and Goofy were pals joking around, and that was fine, but we’re at an ostensibly threatening point in the world’s history, filled with secrets to uncover. We need people with an eye on the ball.

And it’s neat having a member of a trio whose role is just to be the one with the eye on the ball (the Hermione, you could say, were Kingdom Hearts written by a raging lunatic*). Sopranos creator David Chase once suggested that we tend to like characters more for their competence than anything else, that we respond well to people who are good at what they do. I think there’s something to that. And in the context of this series, there is definitely a noted difference between, say, Goofy’s at times surprising and heroic wisdom and the terrible, ceaseless jokes about how stupid and useless Donald is. But since the Birth by Sleep heroes are older than Sora, and further along in their studies – except for the two times Sora literally saved the multiverse and stopped Xehanort – they know things. They understand things. Which is cool, especially after so many entries of people who are just constantly in the dark.

* Thankfully, Nomura appears to be merely a joyful lunatic.

March 22: Entered and completed Deep Space, Olympus Coliseum.

That’s more like it, I suppose. I’m referring to Deep Space, a level based on Lilo & Stitch (or “& Stitch,” as it’s set on the alien ship that I assume we only see in the first act of the movie). It lets us see the adorable, six-limbed monstrosity before he became a summon back in KH2. And that fits, since Deep Space felt much more like one of the levels from the earlier games. It was quite a bit longer, though a lot of that was due to my walking back and forth struggling to find where to go. It also has a classic Kingdom Hearts-style gimmick the other Birth by Sleep levels haven’t had, in a device that lowers gravity, but that was a small thing. What really defined the level was endless, endless enemies, all of whom took way too much punishment for my abilities.

Doesn’t help that, even more than the other levels, the spaceship is so boring visually. Guess that’s what happens when your Deep Space doesn’t even merit a number on the end.

On the plus side, the high level of difficulty did force me to do something I needed to do before: meld those abilities. A big part of the game is that you don’t just have powers but fuse them to make stronger powers. And though fusion may be a cheap tactic that makes weak magic stronger, I’ll take anything I can get. I’ve now gone from some weak and mid-level powers to Blizzaga, a move that really rips apart enemies. I’m almost exclusively focusing on magic (and specifically, damaging and healing magic), since that seems Aqua’s forte, and it’s much more satisfying. The act of leveling up powers, fusing them, and fusing the fusions has given me, for the first time in Kingdom Hearts, magic that really hits hard. It reminds me of a magic build in a FromSoft game, and while I only dabble in that space in those games, it’s nice to have here.

Especially given just how hard it is to fight enemies. Part of it might be that Aqua’s deliberately weaker with her Keyblade and stronger with her magic (and more than part was how long it took me to engage with the melding system), but most fights in this game have been slogs. These changes have helped quite a bit, which I got to see in my triumphant return to Olympus’s silly Coliseum.

Compared to that, the story at Olympus was more rich in mild oddities. We inexplicably met Zack Flair from FF7 (a.k.a. the Dr. Druid to Cloud’s Dr. Strange, if Dr. Druid really loved doing bad stretches), which frontlines how much these games focus on Nomura’s tenure on Final Fantasy. Terra had to face off obnoxious, unwanted suitors like the Disney movie was adapting The Odyssey instead. According to Hades, Terra was seduced by the darkness, so that’ll be something to see in the next playthrough. And we saw skinny-ass Hercules! Look at that shrimp!

Okay, “skinnier.”

As much as I really did not like Deep Space, and as much as that level did dominate my session today, things do finally seem better on the gameplay front. Though it’d be nice if I had more cash. It feels like I’m always pretty short on munny between the Hi Potions I need to replace and the new spells I need to fuse. The game doesn’t give you nearly as much dinero as you need for even the basic spells, and enemies don’t drop them nearly as frequently to compensate.

March 23: Didn’t play.

March 24: Entered Neverland, did two hours of grinding at Olympus.

Vanitas is just… he’s just too much for me. I’m losing so much health with every hit, so desperate for munny that I can’t buy any more Hi Potions, and none of my attacks seem to do much of anything. He’s a duel boss – like Dark Link or Gwyn or any fighting game “mirror match” – in a game whose mechanics are not set up for duel bosses. By this point, it’s clear what Birth by Sleep’s systems do well: be easy to use and allow you to fuse together crazy powers. And it’s clear what they’re weaker at, which is more precise fights and obstacles. It’s a big part of why pretty much every boss fight thus far has been a nadir for the whole series.

It also doesn’t help that it’s really the only thing I find interesting to talk about with Neverland. The world’s most fun and likable character, Captain Hook, is barely a presence. The world’s visual style is dull, only distinct in the “Indian Camp” that made me cringe (and which serves as the site of the Vanitas fight). The mechanic of the level, that Hook is regularly firing on you as you run and fight, except when he isn’t, is fine but not particularly deep. I guess that’s one of the pitfalls you risk falling into when you make levels this short; they don’t have time to get better.

It’s funny, ‘cause I’m also at a not dissimilar point in Elden Ring. I’m near the end, with Commander Naill and the Fire Giant each blocking access to some of the other final areas. Both fights are very hard. But I also get why they’re hard, what I need to do, and how much I need to grind versus simply practice. And they’re both in an exciting, dramatic location, one filled with threatening enemies and true visual splendor (splendor that’s partially from the game having 2022 graphics and not 2010 graphics, but Elden Ring also has much better art direction).

I know I’m near the end of the game as it is, but I’m gonna spend a lot more time grinding. Just getting these spells as powerful as I can can get them, trying to get cash to buy more of them, and leveling up. I dunno; anything to help with this would be great. And if it helps me later in the game, too, all the better. But this isn’t the first time I’ve felt the need to drastically step back and rebuild before the end of a Kingdom Hearts game, and it’s getting to be a bit too familiar.

March 25: Grinded (“ground?”) further, completed Neverland, and entered Destiny Islands.

And that’s exactly what I did! From Level 21 to 35, thanks to only two hours of late night but very, very easy grinding (and this morning, I went further – up to 39). It was also a great way for me to really engage with the Command Deck. It’s actually quite a bit deeper in practice than I had realized, with all sorts of super-powerful abilities hidden behind other abilities, and the bonus side effects (like series staples like Second Chance) that you can affix to yourself permanently. It’s funny; two days ago, I was excited to see Blizzaga, but now I’ve since gotten several just to fuse them into even more powerful ice spells. It’s kind of a shame the regular game doesn’t really do much for helping you explore it – and that it’s so short that it’s probably easy to miss a lot of it on a casual playthrough. Check out Deep Freeze!

It made Vanitas an incredibly easy boss, but that’s not a problem for me. I liked how intense and quickly it went, with me just barreling in with Seeker Mines (something I hadn’t ever tried before grinding! They’re great) and obscenely powerful versions of my fire, thunder, and ice magic.

March 26: Didn’t play.

I know I’m near the end. If I wanted to, I could’ve probably just finished the game when I got off work. But I did have other things I wanted to do, I’ve finally sat at my computer after doing just that, I don’t want these games to define my schedule so much. Since it’s three playthroughs in one, I don’t need to try ending it before one week or anything…

…Is what I wrote before immediately walking out of my room, turning on my PlayStation 4, and switching out the Elden Ring disc for the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 Remix one. I’m actually at the end, and there’s clearly not much more stuff left, let’s so it. So let’s start this over!

March 26 (for real): Entered Mysterious Tower, Keyblade Graveyard, and completed Aqua’s story of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.

Very easy, very quick. My fights with both Braig and the Vanitas-Ventus fusion were perhaps not the intended way to win, but I don’t care. Vanitas was exceptionally challenging at the “intended” level, and I still remember that atrocious fight with Xigbar, the equally silly and goofy Nobody to Xehanort’s scarved goon Braig. Instead of cutting down tiny pieces of their health bars (a giant one in Vanitas’ case), I just slashed them constantly with my souped-up powers. I got to even use Mega Flare, which I only just fused after getting to the final level, Keyblade Graveyard. It, Triple Blizzaga, Thundaga both normal and Shot, Seeker Mines, and two Curagas formed my coterie of spells. Good collection of magic it was. Firing them again and again, with their recharge time having been cut down to seconds, felt powerful.

I’m also very happy that this was the fastest and simplest finale of the games I’ve played. There was no multi-hour dungeon filled with obscenely high level enemies, no rush of bosses with seven health bars each, no slog. It was just fast – shockingly so, and with the dopey plot threads coming in at a more concentrated rate. There was a Keyblade War, where innumerable people of innumerable sides all died trying to get… the “Keyblade.” Or, rather, the χ-Blade, which is hilariously only explained in the subtitles. It’s just good practice that Kingdom Hearts uses subtitles constantly, but it was needed here. Otherwise, the breathless way Ventus talks about a concept that, when spelled without the Greek letter pronounced “Chi,” sounds exactly like the thing I’ve been using to whack enemies for three games might be silly.

I guess the whole “Vanitas taking Ventus’s body” thing is also a callback to Riku. And take a look at that two-handle’d χ-Blade! You’re gonna need two people to badly wield it!

It’s such an odd detail that, tragically, almost kind of overwhelms all the other silliness. Like Terra being hit by the ground (irony!). Or Ventus being frozen, dropped off a cliff, and only saved because he landed on Aqua and not the ground a few inches further. Or, hell, Braig being part of the plot as it is. Or Vanitas riding a wave of Keyblades. Or the sudden end, where Mickey saves Aqua and Ventus, and we’re left on a weird cliffhanger that may get resolved in Dream Drop Distance?

Final Thoughts: Gameplay-wise, I think that this might be the system I’ve liked most, with some caveats. First, I do think the balancing is pretty bad; it’s hard and, at the beginning, kind of exacting. It also demands a pretty huge financial investment (in-game only, thankfully) to actually get the most use out of it. Being tied to such a short game also hurts it, since I do think three separate playthroughs makes exploring it and mixing and matching powers less easy than just one long game. Overall, the Kingdom Hearts II system is sizably better – and more consistent.

But this one has a really great immediacy to it, and the melding is great. From the three or so hours I started grinding to the end of the game – basically the end of my experience with Aqua’s story, admittedly – I kept finding new powers. It’s a system both made for and undercut by the method in which we use it.

Which leads me to the more important thing: the story. It’s a bit weak, to be honest. While it was very nice to play Aqua instead of Sora, a lot of her story is on the outside looking in. We know Terra kills Eraqus (thus granting us an assuredly great Mark Hamill death scene) and gets turned to the darkness by Xehanort (thus granting us years of “norting” memes). And we know that Ventus is tied to the Chi-Blade, the ultimate MacGuffin that will in theory provide Xehanort the entrance into Kingdom Hearts. That’s the core plot, and what we’re supposed to take. But a lot of Aqua’s plot is adjacent to that, where these terrible things keep happening in places where she can’t help. That’s her drama, to live with her friends’ collective failure despite her having failed the least, and that’s not bad by this series’ admittedly middling standards. But it also means that our connection to these things is more tertiary. Our access to the other principal characters – except for Mickey, who thankfully actually gets some stuff to do here – is more restricted, since the events are happening without our understanding. Again, that’s painful for her, but a bit weaker for us.

But it has some benefits, and I think starting with Aqua helps that. See, I might be totally wrong on this, but while they all start at the same time, I think Aqua already seems the most sensible choice for the one that ends last. It certainly can’t be Ventus, at least; he’s in a coma (and ending on Terra seems… narratively difficult). She’s the survivor who only sees how things look in the end, with Sora presumably coming in to clean things up in a later game. And narratively, the denouement is normally not that interesting to me, but starting at the end? Now that’s more distinct. That’s film noir-styles. This way, what we miss comes from the limits of her perspective, not the obfuscation that is the series’ unfortunately standard narrative tool. Having the χ-Blade just come out of nowhere isn’t good storytelling, but it’s also kind of exciting for it to just suddenly be in play. I think I’m waffling between my frustrations with the limits of the plot, the limits it puts on Aqua’s role in said plot, and an appreciation for Birth by Sleep telling this story in a different way from the norm. Not great, not terrible.

And that leads me to the other, other hand. I don’t want to say it, but there is a possibility that these flashes will be more interesting than the full picture, when I start on Terra’s story next week. What made the glimpses of the other stories interesting was that they were just that: glimpses, with any broader context in scraps for us to piece together. In comics terminology, they’re small panels surrounded by white space. Will they hold up on the whole? I’m not sure, and I’m a bit doubtful. But waiting on it isn’t a luxury I have – and it’s certainly not one I want.

Other games played: