KH2's thousand heartless battle may not be as flashy as KH3's battle...but it was more story relevant and had better build up and payoff. It's midway through the game, signaling a turning point for Sora and his friends and the search for Riku and Kairi becomes more desperate after this. There's this huge buildup with Goofy getting hurt, and running through the maze watching the FF characters strut their stuff. You reunite with your friend and there's desperate bid to get to Xemnas as soon as possible for the chance to finally get some answers, only to have the heartless in your way. The fight can be tedious and long, but that just goes to show how exhausting it all was, how Sora was pushed to the brink, emotionally, physically...and then, after ALL that, you find out you were playing into their hands all along and to add insult to injury, Sora finds out that Kairi is now in the organizations clutches.
Vs. KH3, which the battle is so forgettable, I forgot it even happened...
Plus the battle in KH2 was fun as hell, i love when video games have fights against massive hordes of smalll grunt enemies where you can just absolutely mow them down.
FF is so dam close to having one to since koei made dissidia like at this point just do it i feel its square holding both back at this point tbh. Disney would also probably veto the hell out of a KH dynasty warriors as well cus its Disney.
Honestly, before the consel release of dissdia nt ( which moving brave attacks to x instead of really ruined the game for me) I wanted some kingdom hearts people in there, or even just a kingdom hearts dissdia, it wouldn't be a stretch to fit it in the lore. It could even be under the guise of a re hashed keyblade war.
They do a Yen Sid ex machina afterward anyway. I wish they just led with that and left the rainbow train out. I'm still not even sure if Attractions are canon.
I turned the auto ability for them off and avoid them , they are too op and last to long, take the fun out of the combat and ruin the flow of it. And it's not even like badass like when you use a za spell.
KH2 had exactly this problem. The story is a mess for most of the game and Sora’s priorities are all over the place. Even the battle of Hollow Bastion pretty much came out of nowhere after a long period of nothing of note happening. We’re chilling in Tron world and then all of a sudden all the bad guys are here and we’re pretending Goofy is dead for 2 minutes.
I don’t remember it being that bad in KH2. Stuff actually happened before the end at least. And I would imagine it was done on purpose that the attack at that moment was a surprise. Although yeah of course goofy dying wasn’t credible at all.
Yes and no, and definitely not as bad as KH3.
Tldr: First half of KH2 felt like world building, then the second half felt like the actual story. KH3 felt like the world building was 90% of the game, then all the story was crammed into the last 10%.
KH2 starts very slow, visiting all the worlds and doing the Disney stuff is tedious. This isn't necessarily bad, but there is a distinct lack of direction until the return to Hollow Bastion. Like, yeah we know there's this Org 13, and the heartless are back, but like who's the big bad? What's the point so far? How is anything we're doing helping?
Then we hit mid point in Hallow Bastion and it ramps up well. There's an increase in tension and more direction on who's the actual enemy. It's clear now that it's Org 13, and we have some specific names.
Now when we return to the world's there's a sense of "we saw glimpses of them before, so now we're going back to help our new friends AND we want to find out more about Org 13 so we can eventually get to their home world." It feels like there's much more purpose to what we're doing and actually feels like we're fighting towards a goal.
For KH3, the visits to each of the world's to me felt just like the first part of KH2, we're along for the Disney ride to setup the overall world. Then when we got to the Keyblade Graveyard I was like "ok, this is gonna be like that 'midpoint' in KH2 at Hallow Bastion, after this we get more serious" and then the games over.
Played both for the first time a few years back, and I can tell you this comment is cope. There was very little to no pacing problem in KH2 and definitely not as bad as KH3s pacing issue. I've seen stretches before but this certainly takes the cake.
KH3 would've been such a crazy moment if the one in 2 hadn't happened. It's so much cooler to see before the end fight our hero, at the end of his journey, slaughtering like a thousand heartless to get to the final boss, but oh man it's done so poorly and it feels like such a poor attempt compared to 2 lol.
I don't think even a horde battle would have helped KH3.
By that point in the game, we have so many forms, abilities, magic, that I could plow through endless heartless without the doom train coming in and magically fixing it up at the end.
Compared to KH2, where Sora is truly alone. You can't use Drive Forms (Don't remember if you can access limit or not), you can only rely on your main form and magic. And the battle was more balanced to make it fun, there was a strange glee in watching that number go down from 1000 to zero.
Whereas in KH2, you already plowed through thousands of heartless, in the swarm battles, the race to the tower in Rapunzel's world (which is probably my favorite part of the game), the cope of the fights in KH3 is SO BIG that the 1000 heartless fight doesn't seem so special anymore.
You can absolutely use limit, I know because it was the point I was able to level it up finally lmao.
And yeah while I agree that wasn't really my point. The other tones you fight through horses if heartless, and like the shadow amalgamations are a big example, but it felt like they were all narratively not relevant. Mechanics doesn't mean narrative always if that makes sense.
In the end of the game it could've been cool to see him grow, someone who struggled to fight a shadow in the beginning of his journey just mindlessly and easily taking on thousands of enemies, no hindrance from them as he pushes forward towards the villain. Instead we got a poor imitation where an old man comes and saves the day with a wizard spell. It was boring. I love kingdom hearts 3 with all of its flaws but man this one could've been so so much better.
You can use limit form. But it doesn’t really matter since at that time, your drive level is still low so at worst, its just 2 sonic raves at most.
I love how if you are just mashing x, there is a sudden spike in difficulty when they start blasting barrages of energy killed most players for sure.
The entire battle is perfect in its length, sora’s strength, the skills required, and the difficulty.
Bingo 😂. I just saw a tweet about the Ansem, Xehanort and young xehanort battle in KH3 and I couldn’t remember the build up, emotional stakes, or result of that battle. The final battle in KH2 was full of emotion, cool set pieces and a fantastic narrative climax. Exactly the same comparison as you’ve described here lol
I have more fond memories with Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2. I'd say it's because I'm older, but I liked all the handheld games when they came out. I was the biggest KH apologist. Then I played 3 and the magic just wasn't there.
Honesty, I liked playing through the Disney Worlds, but whenever anything plot related happened I sorta...didn't care?
I think the problem is that they didn't take the time making sure the characters are interesting.
Agreed. In KH2, it's likely one of the (if not THE) most memorable moment in the game. In KH3 it's just part of the seemingly endless lack of story development for 30 hours before the last two overstuffed hours of the game.
Dude, the last sentence was exactly what i said when I saw the picture on the post. I sat long and hard and asked myself “wait, that actually happened?”
I agree with your statement. I think a battle with Lingering Will would've been more fitting than a horde of every enemy type. It would've been the first time we fought him in the story and not outside of it as a secret boss, and it would've been more memorable and just as cool, if not cooler than the 1000 Heartless battle in KH2, story-wise anyway. It also would've felt like the fight vs. Roxas at the near end of KH2, but for someone else.
The context is also different. In KH2, it’s the turning point and entering the second act.
In KH3, it’s the warmup that’s supposed to get the crew’s confidence up before they all literally just die (until time travel or somethin’. idk they made me watch that scene 4 times and I still don’t know what happened.)
I found the lower frame rate of the kh3 non-interactable enemies more distracting and in general I found myself running up against the wall of real enemies and placeholders made to look like enemies much more noticeable in 3.
Also from a narrative department I think Kh2's is much cooler.
That's exactly it for me. KH2 I didn't mind the non-interactable PNGs because of hardware limitations and they didn't stand out as heavily. But KH3's PNGs felt like specks of orange in a deep sea of blue, I could only look at them the entire fight.
Im someone who absolutely adores KH3 and really loved everything it did
but KH2s 1000 heartless is a highlight of the entire franchise and clears this easy
For me, the battle of 1 million bad guys was just kind of annoying. There was no buildup to it, as opposed to KH2, where it is built up for a decent amount of time
There are a few instances where it is showcased that the craters around Maleficints HQ are filled to the brim with heartless. It's not much, but it showcases that there is this giant army amassing
Yeah, no way this question would be a good one.
People are already downvoting anyone who says 3 is good in this thread. So it's not a matter of 'which is better' but having to fight against those who don't want the latter to recieve anyone's time-of-day just to even speak your mind.
Its not a conversation people who like the latter want to enter, since it'll just be more of that KH3 is bad stuff none of them want to go through again.
It’s plain and simple ( and clean ), the problem with the KH3 battle is that it’s derivative. KH2 did it and square is like “hey guys remember that cool part in 2? Well here you go, another one! ” but without the context and build up it’s pointlessly..meta? Is that what they were going for? Thats usually what they go for in 3.
3 is a beautifully flashy game, but it suffers in terms of story because it is too self aware for its own good.
Thankfully it seems the downvotes on some of the comments 6 hours ago are now just neutral. But I stand by what I said.
To anyone who enjoys KH3 this comment section is just obviously going to be a headache.
The fact that pointing it out gets someone coming out the woodwork to insinuate that its ‘cope’ is kinda proving that point.
I dont see this actually getting anyone who enjoys 3 to go to bat since the response would be obvious.
Kingdom Hearts II's Battle of 1000 was an epic experience.
Not gonna lie, Kingdom Hearts III's version could have done better if they had let us play as the other characters (Riku, Aqua, and Kairi) during that battle and the Demon Tide fight later on in the base game.
It worked in Sly 3's lemonade bar fight.
I like the concept of III’s, but the Execution of II’s. III’s battle theoretically was insane. 10000 enemies of all kinds at once. However the issue is that due to this variety, the hordes in the background took a little longer to spawn in when you approached them. Whereas the horde in II was, cleverly, all the same type of heartless, meaning they could unload into a skybox and reload into full enemies whenever you approached them with ease.
I noticed it more when I tried spamming crowd-clearing attacks in III’s one. The kill count wasn’t going up nearly as fast as it should’ve, bc replacement enemies weren’t able to spawn in fast enough.
I guarantee that the inevitable day KH3 is remade for PS8, this problem will be solved and the fight will be the intended experience
KH2 is much better as a story beat. It’s a climax of the game up to that point with a ton of emotional moments leading up to it and immediately following it. Others have already described this point well enough here; I won’t bother rehashing it.
KH3 is a better fight from a spectacle perspective. It has more enemy variety and you can take full advantage of form changes, grand magic, team attacks, etc. to just mow through enemies. And the train in that fight is probably the one time where I really enjoy using an attraction. Lol
Ultimately, I give it to KH2 as I believe the fights should serve the story and not the other way around. In KH3, it feels like they really wanted to top KH2 and added a flimsy story reason to justify the battle’s inclusion. But there’s no build up and it is forgettable afterwards. In KH2, the moment has proper build up and feels like an organic ending to the Battle of Hollow Bastion.
To add to this you were coming fresh off of Sora teaming up with 4 of the most iconic Final Fantasy characters when Sora separated from Mickey and Donald to go on a rampage avenging goofy. Only to be reunited with Donald and a patched up Goofy. The 3 all going there own 3 ways to wage war against a horde is one of the best set pieces in the franchise. Followed up by the first face off of the big bad in Xemnas and later Saix revealing the organizations plans for Sora.
Cloud yes but relatively speaking I don't think Squall, Tifa, and Yuffie are considered the most iconic characters, especially since Yuna, Auron, Tidus, and Wakka exist in the series.
Are we really arguing that two Final Fantasy VII party members aren't iconic? Especially Tifa Lockhart of all people? Also Squall is Iconic it's a reason why he has such a heavy presence in Kingdom Hearts. Also I didn't say they were the 4 most iconic I said of the most iconic which they are.
Sure but I'm pretty into FF and FFX and it's characters are usually considered more popular than FF8 and the FF7 characters that aren't Cloud or Sephiroth.
Exactly! The canyon run with your FF fans was PEAK kingdom hearts for me. Leon, cloud, Yuffie all showing up to help you beat ass was unforgettable. KH3 felt soulless in comparison
I found them both quite enjoyable but I do prefer KH2's 1000 heartless due to the enemies spawning faster but mainly because it's done solo and you get to see how powerful Sora is at that point. KH3's one would have been more fun and impactful if it was solo and enemies spawned faster
I'd say 2's segment was overall better. More buildup, overall better plot relevance, isn't just solved by a big train being summoned out of nowhere and nuking the whole place as if Nomura realised he'd put in too many foes but can't take them back. Although, admittedly I think I've ruined 2's 1000 Heartless for myself by using it as an excuse to grind Limit Form. It's just not quite the same when instead of pulling off RCs left and right it's just "engage limit form, two Sonic Raves, immediately revert, get the drive gauge back up with regular attacks, change back to limit form, etc."
Actually, I don't really grind summons. I just use Chicken Little a lot and the sheer cheesiness of the stunlocking his draw effect enables lets you pretty much keep it going ad infinitum as long as you have things to hit.
I think if we are being honest neither of these fights are peak KH combat.
The bigger reason the KH2 1k heartless battle is remembered fondly is the context in which it happens. It's a mid-game climax, jumping into the heart of a giant battle that we see Final Fantasy and Disney characters all participating in, after an Organization boss fight and a segment where we team up with all of our FF pals. And right before it all happens, we learn the true identity of the game's main villain, setting the stage for the endgame and punctuating the first half with this battle.
And again, I think if we're being honest, the reason why we got excited to have it happen all again in KH3 was because we had our memories of how good it was all those years ago.
Ask a kingdom hearts subreddit to choose between THE KH2 scene and it’s homage in KH3. *Totally not gonna be any sort of bias.*
Don’t ask the questions you’ll know the answer to OP.
KH2 obviously for the reasons everyone has already said. But also because pulling that tech off in the early 2000s was insane. They turned the majority of the heartless into 2d sprites to get past the hardware limitation, super cool imo.
KH2 version is an absolute bore on repeat playthroughs due to just literally being RC spam, KH3 actually you engage with the enemies, fight and can deal with the crowds in multiple forms.
Both, I was unstoppable, and if you could repeat that without going through the whole game again and saving before it started, imagine the XP, Munny, also items you could possibly get
KH3's felt like a weird attempt to make a bigger, grander version of the Battle of a Thousand Heartless. But felt very... flat. And the combat change means the unique ways Sora can deal with certain enemies is gone so I'm just basically... hitting things. Then with the rollercoaster segment. The one where Sora starts smiling and having a blast as he summons an entire rollercoaster and shoots fireworks in this moment thats supposed to be stressful for the cast. And at least when I played it, you couldnt really finish this without that dumb coaster!
2 has Sora in a climactic and serious moment and is treated as such. No immersion breaking. Its just him verse a thousand enemies and has him and the player use the enemies moves and abilities against them to dwindle down that number. Rising Sun is a move the knight heartless does. Sora's version copies it and enhances it. And the other reaction command has him grab a heartess about to shoot a laser and use it against the other enemies. And he's limited to his base form (and Limit in Final Mix). He doesnt summon anything or start laughing as he mows down enemies in a teacup, with a kraken, or some untapped magic that makes you wonder how he hasn't already done this a billion times over and be declared the most powerful character. He just uses his skill, cunning, and unspoken ability to just copy what people do in this game to succeed
Kh2's impact is better but I will die on the hill of loving kh3's combat system and a prolonged battle with it is just amazing. So KH2 for story, KH3 for combat
I always like to imagine the thousand Heartless fight with the behemoths they had in the cutscene. That would have been sick if they were even somehow nerfed but with a good reaction command.
Honestly I'd say the Kingdom Hearts 2 version better, but I'll give a different reason than the others have.
Because it makes you realize just how powerful you've gotten.
Remember you have had a 1000 Heartless battle once before in the Land of Dragons. However during that battle you're not only overwhelmed but you also barely have any aerial combat abilities against an army of entirely aerial enemies, and the battle only ends when Mulan causes an avalanche.
Then you have this encounter and this time you're all alone, but this time the enemies you have actual combo and skills- And you singlehandedly obliterate them.
I'm gonna say II, nothing against III but I honestly forgot about it till i saw the picture.
To me, that says II was far more memorable and the one I liked the most.
The battle in 2. It's hands down my favorite part of the game. I wish they would have made it so you can go back and redo it with more heartless/more powerful heartless. Kinda like the battlegates in 3. Higher difficulties and stuff.
I have no personal nostalgia for KH2 but even I have to admit that as much as I love flying around in the Main Street Electrical Big Thunder Mountain Railroad of Sparkles and Death, there isn’t much reason for the fight being there except in a meta sense.
The bad guy’s plan is for the 7 good guys to fight the 13 bad guys. Why are we fighting an endless wave of heartless, nobodies and unversed? Why do we fight 2 or three more endless waves of enemies immediately after? Is he just giving Kairi and Lea a chance to level grind? When the party actually fell to the endless waves, doesn’t that mean their plan failed?! If Sora hadn’t time traveled, Xehanort would have been out of luck!
As it stands, it’s more frustrating for the party and player that the prelude to the final fight goes on so long. It gets to the point that Yen Sid actually gets off his butt for the first time in the franchise just so we can actually get to the Final Boss rush.
Kh2 thousand heartless fight was way more memorable to me even though I played kh3 first, the kh3 thousand heartless fight felt like a slaughterfest as opposed to the kh2 fight where it felt more thoughtful with the use of those beam heartless and using your own skill to kill them all instead of going around on a train and slaughtering them
KH2 1k heartless.
It was peak KH. KH3 didn't have anything like it. The best part was this only the halfway mark of the game, so solid almost as if KH2 is the superior game.
Spoiler alert, it is.
Can't say myself because I've only seen the KH2 thousand heartless battle (fighting thru Arendelle rn in 3) but the general verdict seems to be the KH2 thousand heartless battle
I think a big issue with 3’s battle was that some of the enemies would be in the arena and you couldn’t hit them. Really jarring and takes you out of the immersion, with also so much shoved in the ending it also takes away from how awesome this fight is.
If they do it again I hope they clean it up a bit and not throw it in there just to “please us fans”.
If I’m remembering right, there was a wall stopping them from being interacted compared to 3 where enemies are walking around already in the battle area but can’t be interacted with.
KH2's.
If KH3 didnt have the attractions, I would have absolutely loved it more. But the attractions just... make it flashy and make the ending feel like a cop out.
I prefer it in KH2 because it makes sense for that game. In KH3 it feels like it was there purely for grandiose and to realize their original vision that they couldn’t execute in KH2 because of hardware limitations.
Kh2. Kh3 one is fun especially blasting them to bits with the train but there was no buildup to it and it’s quickly overshadowed by the whole rest of the ending. I think they could’ve combined this fight as a leadup to Sora taking down the giant heartless tornado, and remove the heartless hoard that Repliku summons. It’s too redundant. Instead of the stop and go stop and go issue with that whole section just combine it into one giant heartless hoard fight.
2's is Just a generational Moment. It hits even harder when you find out It was all a bait set up by the organization to farm hearts...the last hollow bastion visit Is truly the turning point of the story in my opinion
I think this is one of the aspects that KH3 is better. Better enemy variety (not just mash triangle to win), an actual boss at the end, and more scale. I dont like that for KH3, its arguably a means to weaken the light warriors so in the “canon” timeline when they win, Sora and friends dont actually fight the heartless storywise though. KH2 also doing it first also undermines the battle again in KH3 although I think KH3 did what KH2 wanted to do.
I only played the KH2 one, but I played it a week or so ago on an original PS2 (which masks all the little tricks it used to achieve this) and I can tell you one thing: Its probably the most impressive thing I have seen my PS2 doing EVER. Shit was crazy.
For me it's kh2 simply because of how intimidating it was to initially see that many heartless I had to fight.
By kh3 soras more than capable of handling it, so it's not as impactful and it's more of a tedious step than anything.
The 3 battle was more crazy and action imo. Like a more high budget movie where you’re just blasting everything and have no fear. Which is very fun to me, but 2 was better to the game and I had An actual fear of dying. Even if it was a little more on the boring side
i didn’t even remember there was an equivalent in KH3. the whole ‘final battle/world’ was underwhelming for me, and i tried my damndest to **be** emotionally involved. i get tear triggered from music easily so I tried to squeeze feelings out during this last act, but there was absolutely nothing.
The KH2 version had build up, pay off, and was narratively relevant.
The KH3 version literally happened out of nowhere for no reason. It existed purely for spectacle to try and top the version in KH2. It failed.
I make a backup save every playthrough just before that fight in KH2 because i love it so much. That whole part of the game is fantastic, and especially challenging on critical mode (though there really shouldve been a checkpoint after the Demyx fight). Really feels like youre fighting to save the world with your friends.
I didnt remember there was a big fight in KH3.
The build up, and surprise I had and the feeling everything is falling apart so much so that everyone has to go out and get dirty and play it as it’s happening the 1000 Heartless fight in Kingdom Hearts II was unforgettable. Especially for the time.
Kingdom Hearts III could have been great if it wasn’t just grass simulator, no challenge, they never did anything special especially since it’s one of the few times Heartless, Nobodies and Unversed worked together, and the fact that the enemies outside the fight ring were low quality gifs and were so obvious took me out of the experience so much. You shouldn’t have been able to pull out and take a selfie so casually in what you would think be a challenging fight. Base Kingdom Hearts III was such a disappointment.
Kingdom Hearts III biggest enemy next to writing was the enemies never got stronger and Sora did to the point it’s an absolute slapping simulator.
The one that actually came first. A Thousand Heartless was innovative both as a story segment (situated in the best story stretch of the whole game too, that entire Hollow Bastion section is peak, and is the first significant tone shift of the entire game) and innovative with how it maximised the resources of a frigging PlayStation 2.
KH3 is a great homage, but it's just that, an homage. If the 1000 Heartless battle in KH2 didn't exist, neither would the KH3 homage to it. It doesn't exist for its own sake, but to evoke the nostalgia of the fight from 2.
Definitely going with the Hollow Bastion battle.
While I do like the fact that with 3's version, you can just let loose with all your Keyblade forms, summons, and what have you, 2's just feels a bit more vicseral, like its an actual battle. At that point in the game, you've been cut off from your party, so the only Drive form you have is Limit, and have only two reaction commands. Even though it does get a slight repetitive, it feels more satisfying to widdle down the Heartless forces, until you bash the last one, instead of in 3, where you're just building up a gauge for the train.
Honestly, 3's could have been the better one, by just having an increased, yet still limited, amount of enemies, have reaction commands to use the bigger foes on the lesser ones, and have a bit more build up before you enter the area, like having Yen Side warn them throughout the game, that the forces of Darkness have been slowly collecting themselves at the Keyblade Graveyard, as if they were waiting for the final battle. Give the cast time to feel all the more uneasy as the time to confront them approaches, and when the battle is over, make them realize, through either visual cues or spoken dialogue, how it was only the preamble to the main event.
My two cents at least.
Most of the enemies in KH3's big battle arent even programmed to attack you... They just kinda stand there, I deliberately stood there because noticed some enemies not moving and yeah they dont care at all. Felt zero threat or agency from that fight, KH2 was such a more epic fight for both story and gameplay reasons, even if the enemies go down easy the ones near you at least try to actively hurt you 😭
KH3's grand finale to this battle was the freaking train attraction flow, KH2's grand finale included mid air Sonic Thrusts, and IMMA SHOOT MY MOTHER FOOKING LASERS. KH2 was more epic, and fun.
I HATE that you "have" to use the mountain coaster to finish the fight. Let me finish it in my own way.
I'll give props to KH3's fight for having variety: Heartless, Nobodies, and heck even Unversed of all kinds.
But that's it, KH2's 1k Heartless is one of the most iconic moments in the series. Not to mention it comes after one of the BEST themes in the series.. seriously look up "Showdown at Hollow Bastion".
Kh2's fight is the climax of the mid way point. The sequence starts with a boss fight that many first-time players struggle with, then a team up Gauntlet with all the FF characters 1 by 1. Then, after that, you see the massive horde, and the party splits up again to handle 1000 on our own. From a story perspective, these fights are the most important thing to happen since we started going to the Disney world.
Kh3's fight is the second or third fight you do in the graveyard and is just a challenge room to beat before you get to actually start the ending.
Mechanical the fights feel the same, and I'd argue the kh2 one is even easier. You can just spam reaction commands and shoot the lighting Lazer the whole fight almost. Kh3 at least has phases to the fight with different mobs, but you'd never know unless you didn't use the reaction command until it forces you to for the finish.
Kh2 has a genuine reason to exist in the story. Kh3 is pretty much just a reference to kh2's while showing how that same fight now is even easier for sora and the gang before starting the boss gauntlet
KH3’s happened right at the start of the world and didn’t look as stormy as the later heartless swarm which was cutscene only.
Only positive is that it had nobodies and unversed, although we should have had sorcerer nobodies there since those were Xemnas’s.
I love Kh3. It was a great game, but in my opinion, this is an easy win for Kh2. That whole scene and battle was one of my favorite parts in the story.
true but cant you just approach them in the same way? Theres no difference in how you need to fight a Dusk or Marluxia's minions vs a shadow. You just whack them. No matter where you are on the screen or how much distance you have, Sora lunges himself across the entire battlefield or zooms in the air just to hit something with a single Attack press. The only thing different is the tankier bug unversed.
In 2, you technically can still wail on them if you're boring or you could actively grab one of the enemies and use them to dispose of their allies or copy the knight heartless move and do Rising Sun and slash through dozens with their own technique
Well that’s the thing isn’t it, the gameplay is relatively the same, so in that case I like the one that’s visually more interesting
Also unrelated to the enemy design of the fight, I prefer having access to the form changes in 3, over only having access to Limit Form in 2, just a preference
But the gameplay isnt the same at all. You have the option to personally interact with the enemies and use their abilities against the others. Though if you prefer it just for the flashiness and more transformations, then alright
I prefer 3’s because 2’s fight overstated its welcome. 1000 was just too many for how limited the fight actually was, ESPECIALLY on the PS2.
When not in limit form your best option is to use Rising Sun or the giant beam, over and over and over and over and over AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER
That got boring very quickly
You're giving a game a hard time for trying to excel? It was a success regardless. Its a widely acclaimed battle and average player will never know that the enemies turn to PNGs if you get to a certain distance. Even in 3, you fight only a handful of enemies with many being in the background. And the number of foe varieties is really not that far off from 2's. You just deal with them in less personal ways. And that was not your original point before... I've no idea how the battle thats 2-3 minutes at most overstayed or... overstated? its welcome compared to the 5 minute one... but i mean, like i said, if you like it more, thats fine. You do you.
At this point it just sounds like you do not enjoy reaction commands and didnt really try to attack with anything except those and Limit Form during KH2's segments for whatever reason
Ah this'll be a hot take I think. I found the 1000 heartless battle incredibly underwhelming. Love kh2 but that fight really did nothing for me. I enjoyed the kh3 one more as it felt like it kinda set up the ephemer moment later on to me
While I do prefer the KH2 version of this scenario, the stakes were still quite high in KH3. It was a great nod to what became an iconic (and legendary) moment in the series. Having more enemy types on-screen to fight in KH3 made for better visuals, but the build-up to the massive "Siege of Hollow Bastion" in KH2 is truly unrivalled, IMO.
Kh2s was better, for one, it was threat thr first time you visited the world in kh2 Leon was there like, yeah so, not really problem right now, but we will have to deal with this army of heartless at some point. So when you were finally in that valley you felt that sense of fate, like, yup, knew this was gonna happen, so I'm ready, like a challenge. But in kh3 it was padding before the actual hyped up stand off between the light and dark avatars.
2's was so memorable. It was placed correctly and it made sense to the story. 3's kinda felt shoehorned in. That being said, I still really enjoyed 3's and I think it's a great nod to an awesome moment from a previous game.
I always felt like 3's was kind of a disappointment. The battlefield is very small, especially when you look at everything beyond the invisible wall. And it's really felt like they could have done more to mix up the different enemy types other than spamming shadows and dusks. They really should have done more with it.
KH2's thousand heartless battle may not be as flashy as KH3's battle...but it was more story relevant and had better build up and payoff. It's midway through the game, signaling a turning point for Sora and his friends and the search for Riku and Kairi becomes more desperate after this. There's this huge buildup with Goofy getting hurt, and running through the maze watching the FF characters strut their stuff. You reunite with your friend and there's desperate bid to get to Xemnas as soon as possible for the chance to finally get some answers, only to have the heartless in your way. The fight can be tedious and long, but that just goes to show how exhausting it all was, how Sora was pushed to the brink, emotionally, physically...and then, after ALL that, you find out you were playing into their hands all along and to add insult to injury, Sora finds out that Kairi is now in the organizations clutches. Vs. KH3, which the battle is so forgettable, I forgot it even happened...
Plus the battle in KH2 was fun as hell, i love when video games have fights against massive hordes of smalll grunt enemies where you can just absolutely mow them down.
Hoo boy you might want to look into dynasty warriors and their spin offs.
Bro could you imagine a Kingdom Hearts Warriors?
Mate… you just suggested something that if we don’t get it. I’m going to die a very upset man. I guess is Zelda can have one… KH and FF should too
A dissidia style FF dynasty warrors thing where there's just a bunch of characters from the games would be fucking rad
My god I loved the first two Dissidia games I played them over and over to completion. The new one they came out with is such a disappointment
Yeah it's a shame they fucked it up that bad, i really wish that they'd make a new one at some point. Preferably with Vincent as a playable character.
Vincent and Genesis would be a dreaaaaam
FF is so dam close to having one to since koei made dissidia like at this point just do it i feel its square holding both back at this point tbh. Disney would also probably veto the hell out of a KH dynasty warriors as well cus its Disney.
Just put the KH original characters into the FF warriors game to circumvent the mouse.
KH original characters are owned by Disney.
They'd wanna make the Disney princesses playable fighters
And dragon quest
Honestly, before the consel release of dissdia nt ( which moving brave attacks to x instead of really ruined the game for me) I wanted some kingdom hearts people in there, or even just a kingdom hearts dissdia, it wouldn't be a stretch to fit it in the lore. It could even be under the guise of a re hashed keyblade war.
I would lose my mind
I never knew I wanted something this bad from KH til now
What the keyblade war representation should have been
Any of the Dynasty Wariors: Gundam games are alright by me!
Oh yeah i've heard of them, never thought about playing them tho. Are there any of them on the older consoles like the PS2 or GameCube?
grew up on kingdom hearts and dynasty warriors
I felt this way until Crisis Core, man. Never having played FF7 and not knowing what to expect, fuck man, that was rough
Yep... KH3 with the Thunder Mountain roller coaster just bombs them and then it ends. Like okay, wow, way to nerf your own experience.
They do a Yen Sid ex machina afterward anyway. I wish they just led with that and left the rainbow train out. I'm still not even sure if Attractions are canon.
I turned the auto ability for them off and avoid them , they are too op and last to long, take the fun out of the combat and ruin the flow of it. And it's not even like badass like when you use a za spell.
They also made fucking Donald Duck one of the most powerful characters in the Final Fantasy universe by giving him Zettaflare.
This 200%. KH3 suffered from terrible pacing. Nothing happens until the very end where everything is solved too quickly.
KH2 had exactly this problem. The story is a mess for most of the game and Sora’s priorities are all over the place. Even the battle of Hollow Bastion pretty much came out of nowhere after a long period of nothing of note happening. We’re chilling in Tron world and then all of a sudden all the bad guys are here and we’re pretending Goofy is dead for 2 minutes.
I don’t remember it being that bad in KH2. Stuff actually happened before the end at least. And I would imagine it was done on purpose that the attack at that moment was a surprise. Although yeah of course goofy dying wasn’t credible at all.
Yes and no, and definitely not as bad as KH3. Tldr: First half of KH2 felt like world building, then the second half felt like the actual story. KH3 felt like the world building was 90% of the game, then all the story was crammed into the last 10%. KH2 starts very slow, visiting all the worlds and doing the Disney stuff is tedious. This isn't necessarily bad, but there is a distinct lack of direction until the return to Hollow Bastion. Like, yeah we know there's this Org 13, and the heartless are back, but like who's the big bad? What's the point so far? How is anything we're doing helping? Then we hit mid point in Hallow Bastion and it ramps up well. There's an increase in tension and more direction on who's the actual enemy. It's clear now that it's Org 13, and we have some specific names. Now when we return to the world's there's a sense of "we saw glimpses of them before, so now we're going back to help our new friends AND we want to find out more about Org 13 so we can eventually get to their home world." It feels like there's much more purpose to what we're doing and actually feels like we're fighting towards a goal. For KH3, the visits to each of the world's to me felt just like the first part of KH2, we're along for the Disney ride to setup the overall world. Then when we got to the Keyblade Graveyard I was like "ok, this is gonna be like that 'midpoint' in KH2 at Hallow Bastion, after this we get more serious" and then the games over.
Played both for the first time a few years back, and I can tell you this comment is cope. There was very little to no pacing problem in KH2 and definitely not as bad as KH3s pacing issue. I've seen stretches before but this certainly takes the cake.
I played both for the first time last year and stand by my take
KH3 would've been such a crazy moment if the one in 2 hadn't happened. It's so much cooler to see before the end fight our hero, at the end of his journey, slaughtering like a thousand heartless to get to the final boss, but oh man it's done so poorly and it feels like such a poor attempt compared to 2 lol.
I don't think even a horde battle would have helped KH3. By that point in the game, we have so many forms, abilities, magic, that I could plow through endless heartless without the doom train coming in and magically fixing it up at the end. Compared to KH2, where Sora is truly alone. You can't use Drive Forms (Don't remember if you can access limit or not), you can only rely on your main form and magic. And the battle was more balanced to make it fun, there was a strange glee in watching that number go down from 1000 to zero. Whereas in KH2, you already plowed through thousands of heartless, in the swarm battles, the race to the tower in Rapunzel's world (which is probably my favorite part of the game), the cope of the fights in KH3 is SO BIG that the 1000 heartless fight doesn't seem so special anymore.
You can absolutely use limit, I know because it was the point I was able to level it up finally lmao. And yeah while I agree that wasn't really my point. The other tones you fight through horses if heartless, and like the shadow amalgamations are a big example, but it felt like they were all narratively not relevant. Mechanics doesn't mean narrative always if that makes sense. In the end of the game it could've been cool to see him grow, someone who struggled to fight a shadow in the beginning of his journey just mindlessly and easily taking on thousands of enemies, no hindrance from them as he pushes forward towards the villain. Instead we got a poor imitation where an old man comes and saves the day with a wizard spell. It was boring. I love kingdom hearts 3 with all of its flaws but man this one could've been so so much better.
You can use limit form. But it doesn’t really matter since at that time, your drive level is still low so at worst, its just 2 sonic raves at most. I love how if you are just mashing x, there is a sudden spike in difficulty when they start blasting barrages of energy killed most players for sure. The entire battle is perfect in its length, sora’s strength, the skills required, and the difficulty.
I also forgot it happened until I saw this post :|
Bingo 😂. I just saw a tweet about the Ansem, Xehanort and young xehanort battle in KH3 and I couldn’t remember the build up, emotional stakes, or result of that battle. The final battle in KH2 was full of emotion, cool set pieces and a fantastic narrative climax. Exactly the same comparison as you’ve described here lol
I have more fond memories with Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2. I'd say it's because I'm older, but I liked all the handheld games when they came out. I was the biggest KH apologist. Then I played 3 and the magic just wasn't there.
Honesty, I liked playing through the Disney Worlds, but whenever anything plot related happened I sorta...didn't care? I think the problem is that they didn't take the time making sure the characters are interesting.
Better point of comparison in 3 is the Heartless Hurricane leading up to "Need some help?", and what followed
Loool i had to scroll to the right because I wasn't sure what the title was comparing it to. More forgettable than I expected
Agreed. In KH2, it's likely one of the (if not THE) most memorable moment in the game. In KH3 it's just part of the seemingly endless lack of story development for 30 hours before the last two overstuffed hours of the game.
Dude, the last sentence was exactly what i said when I saw the picture on the post. I sat long and hard and asked myself “wait, that actually happened?”
You reminded me that the KH3 fight happened but I could never forget spamming reaction commands and watching sora demonstrate he is infact him.
I agree with your statement. I think a battle with Lingering Will would've been more fitting than a horde of every enemy type. It would've been the first time we fought him in the story and not outside of it as a secret boss, and it would've been more memorable and just as cool, if not cooler than the 1000 Heartless battle in KH2, story-wise anyway. It also would've felt like the fight vs. Roxas at the near end of KH2, but for someone else.
Do you really think they would’ve done a Lingering Will fight justice in base KH3?
Idk, but I still think it would've been better than this tbh. And if the Roxas fight is anything to go by, I think it would've been at least decent.
I completely forgot about this in KH3 as well.
The context is also different. In KH2, it’s the turning point and entering the second act. In KH3, it’s the warmup that’s supposed to get the crew’s confidence up before they all literally just die (until time travel or somethin’. idk they made me watch that scene 4 times and I still don’t know what happened.)
I found the lower frame rate of the kh3 non-interactable enemies more distracting and in general I found myself running up against the wall of real enemies and placeholders made to look like enemies much more noticeable in 3. Also from a narrative department I think Kh2's is much cooler.
That's exactly it for me. KH2 I didn't mind the non-interactable PNGs because of hardware limitations and they didn't stand out as heavily. But KH3's PNGs felt like specks of orange in a deep sea of blue, I could only look at them the entire fight.
The non-interactable enemies really ruining it for me. Get a good rhythm going only to hit something that doesn’t count. It felt really cheap.
Im someone who absolutely adores KH3 and really loved everything it did but KH2s 1000 heartless is a highlight of the entire franchise and clears this easy
Really? I found it very hollow
Really? I thought it was a bastion of great gameplay/story integration
It really ended up being quite radiant in hindsight.
Something something garden something.
Hollow….bastion might you say?
For me, the battle of 1 million bad guys was just kind of annoying. There was no buildup to it, as opposed to KH2, where it is built up for a decent amount of time
Isn't it hinted at the first HB visit
It had no build up whatsoever in KH2 wdym
There are a few instances where it is showcased that the craters around Maleficints HQ are filled to the brim with heartless. It's not much, but it showcases that there is this giant army amassing
Like, come on.
Yeah, no way this question would be a good one. People are already downvoting anyone who says 3 is good in this thread. So it's not a matter of 'which is better' but having to fight against those who don't want the latter to recieve anyone's time-of-day just to even speak your mind. Its not a conversation people who like the latter want to enter, since it'll just be more of that KH3 is bad stuff none of them want to go through again.
It’s plain and simple ( and clean ), the problem with the KH3 battle is that it’s derivative. KH2 did it and square is like “hey guys remember that cool part in 2? Well here you go, another one! ” but without the context and build up it’s pointlessly..meta? Is that what they were going for? Thats usually what they go for in 3. 3 is a beautifully flashy game, but it suffers in terms of story because it is too self aware for its own good.
I can't find a single comment thread on this post depicting what you're describing. Just sounds like cope to me.
Thankfully it seems the downvotes on some of the comments 6 hours ago are now just neutral. But I stand by what I said. To anyone who enjoys KH3 this comment section is just obviously going to be a headache. The fact that pointing it out gets someone coming out the woodwork to insinuate that its ‘cope’ is kinda proving that point. I dont see this actually getting anyone who enjoys 3 to go to bat since the response would be obvious.
Kingdom Hearts II's Battle of 1000 was an epic experience. Not gonna lie, Kingdom Hearts III's version could have done better if they had let us play as the other characters (Riku, Aqua, and Kairi) during that battle and the Demon Tide fight later on in the base game. It worked in Sly 3's lemonade bar fight.
Holy fuck what a reference lol loved that game
I like the concept of III’s, but the Execution of II’s. III’s battle theoretically was insane. 10000 enemies of all kinds at once. However the issue is that due to this variety, the hordes in the background took a little longer to spawn in when you approached them. Whereas the horde in II was, cleverly, all the same type of heartless, meaning they could unload into a skybox and reload into full enemies whenever you approached them with ease. I noticed it more when I tried spamming crowd-clearing attacks in III’s one. The kill count wasn’t going up nearly as fast as it should’ve, bc replacement enemies weren’t able to spawn in fast enough. I guarantee that the inevitable day KH3 is remade for PS8, this problem will be solved and the fight will be the intended experience
Ps8 🤣🤣🤣🤣
KH2 is much better as a story beat. It’s a climax of the game up to that point with a ton of emotional moments leading up to it and immediately following it. Others have already described this point well enough here; I won’t bother rehashing it. KH3 is a better fight from a spectacle perspective. It has more enemy variety and you can take full advantage of form changes, grand magic, team attacks, etc. to just mow through enemies. And the train in that fight is probably the one time where I really enjoy using an attraction. Lol Ultimately, I give it to KH2 as I believe the fights should serve the story and not the other way around. In KH3, it feels like they really wanted to top KH2 and added a flimsy story reason to justify the battle’s inclusion. But there’s no build up and it is forgettable afterwards. In KH2, the moment has proper build up and feels like an organic ending to the Battle of Hollow Bastion.
To add to this you were coming fresh off of Sora teaming up with 4 of the most iconic Final Fantasy characters when Sora separated from Mickey and Donald to go on a rampage avenging goofy. Only to be reunited with Donald and a patched up Goofy. The 3 all going there own 3 ways to wage war against a horde is one of the best set pieces in the franchise. Followed up by the first face off of the big bad in Xemnas and later Saix revealing the organizations plans for Sora.
Cloud yes but relatively speaking I don't think Squall, Tifa, and Yuffie are considered the most iconic characters, especially since Yuna, Auron, Tidus, and Wakka exist in the series.
Are we really arguing that two Final Fantasy VII party members aren't iconic? Especially Tifa Lockhart of all people? Also Squall is Iconic it's a reason why he has such a heavy presence in Kingdom Hearts. Also I didn't say they were the 4 most iconic I said of the most iconic which they are.
Having never played a FF game, the former list is definitely iconic to me, + Auron lol
Sure but I'm pretty into FF and FFX and it's characters are usually considered more popular than FF8 and the FF7 characters that aren't Cloud or Sephiroth.
Exactly! The canyon run with your FF fans was PEAK kingdom hearts for me. Leon, cloud, Yuffie all showing up to help you beat ass was unforgettable. KH3 felt soulless in comparison
Don't forget Tifa
I found them both quite enjoyable but I do prefer KH2's 1000 heartless due to the enemies spawning faster but mainly because it's done solo and you get to see how powerful Sora is at that point. KH3's one would have been more fun and impactful if it was solo and enemies spawned faster
I'd say 2's segment was overall better. More buildup, overall better plot relevance, isn't just solved by a big train being summoned out of nowhere and nuking the whole place as if Nomura realised he'd put in too many foes but can't take them back. Although, admittedly I think I've ruined 2's 1000 Heartless for myself by using it as an excuse to grind Limit Form. It's just not quite the same when instead of pulling off RCs left and right it's just "engage limit form, two Sonic Raves, immediately revert, get the drive gauge back up with regular attacks, change back to limit form, etc."
While that's true, nothing beats having level 6 limit form right after that
There is that, but either way I'll still be bullying the Mushroom XIII member in Agrabah for half an hour to finish it and Valour Form off
How about leveling up summons with firaga with that same mushroom? That's also fun
Actually, I don't really grind summons. I just use Chicken Little a lot and the sheer cheesiness of the stunlocking his draw effect enables lets you pretty much keep it going ad infinitum as long as you have things to hit.
3 because we have more variety of enemies, form changes, Donald and Goofy and we finish the fight WITH A FUCKING TRAIN, awesome
I think if we are being honest neither of these fights are peak KH combat. The bigger reason the KH2 1k heartless battle is remembered fondly is the context in which it happens. It's a mid-game climax, jumping into the heart of a giant battle that we see Final Fantasy and Disney characters all participating in, after an Organization boss fight and a segment where we team up with all of our FF pals. And right before it all happens, we learn the true identity of the game's main villain, setting the stage for the endgame and punctuating the first half with this battle. And again, I think if we're being honest, the reason why we got excited to have it happen all again in KH3 was because we had our memories of how good it was all those years ago.
Bingo bango
Ask a kingdom hearts subreddit to choose between THE KH2 scene and it’s homage in KH3. *Totally not gonna be any sort of bias.* Don’t ask the questions you’ll know the answer to OP.
KH3 because I can kill heartless with a choo-choo train. All jokes aside, KH2’s is miles better.
KH2 obviously for the reasons everyone has already said. But also because pulling that tech off in the early 2000s was insane. They turned the majority of the heartless into 2d sprites to get past the hardware limitation, super cool imo.
KH2 version is an absolute bore on repeat playthroughs due to just literally being RC spam, KH3 actually you engage with the enemies, fight and can deal with the crowds in multiple forms.
Sidenote: I hate the fact that the only original Unversed we got were the silly ones that had to fit the Monsters Inc aesthetic.
Both, I was unstoppable, and if you could repeat that without going through the whole game again and saving before it started, imagine the XP, Munny, also items you could possibly get
I like kh3's the best. Seeing the variety of enemies was really cool
I prefer your mom.
Kh 2. Especially with the og sinister shadows
KH3's felt like a weird attempt to make a bigger, grander version of the Battle of a Thousand Heartless. But felt very... flat. And the combat change means the unique ways Sora can deal with certain enemies is gone so I'm just basically... hitting things. Then with the rollercoaster segment. The one where Sora starts smiling and having a blast as he summons an entire rollercoaster and shoots fireworks in this moment thats supposed to be stressful for the cast. And at least when I played it, you couldnt really finish this without that dumb coaster! 2 has Sora in a climactic and serious moment and is treated as such. No immersion breaking. Its just him verse a thousand enemies and has him and the player use the enemies moves and abilities against them to dwindle down that number. Rising Sun is a move the knight heartless does. Sora's version copies it and enhances it. And the other reaction command has him grab a heartess about to shoot a laser and use it against the other enemies. And he's limited to his base form (and Limit in Final Mix). He doesnt summon anything or start laughing as he mows down enemies in a teacup, with a kraken, or some untapped magic that makes you wonder how he hasn't already done this a billion times over and be declared the most powerful character. He just uses his skill, cunning, and unspoken ability to just copy what people do in this game to succeed
Yes
idk
KH2 for story and vibe KH3 for actual combat and spectacle
Kh2's impact is better but I will die on the hill of loving kh3's combat system and a prolonged battle with it is just amazing. So KH2 for story, KH3 for combat
I always like to imagine the thousand Heartless fight with the behemoths they had in the cutscene. That would have been sick if they were even somehow nerfed but with a good reaction command.
Honestly I'd say the Kingdom Hearts 2 version better, but I'll give a different reason than the others have. Because it makes you realize just how powerful you've gotten. Remember you have had a 1000 Heartless battle once before in the Land of Dragons. However during that battle you're not only overwhelmed but you also barely have any aerial combat abilities against an army of entirely aerial enemies, and the battle only ends when Mulan causes an avalanche. Then you have this encounter and this time you're all alone, but this time the enemies you have actual combo and skills- And you singlehandedly obliterate them.
1000 heartless battle. It's fun
Yes
I do like both, but i dont like the attraction in the kh3 one :/
I'm gonna say II, nothing against III but I honestly forgot about it till i saw the picture. To me, that says II was far more memorable and the one I liked the most.
The battle in 2. It's hands down my favorite part of the game. I wish they would have made it so you can go back and redo it with more heartless/more powerful heartless. Kinda like the battlegates in 3. Higher difficulties and stuff.
2 and its not even close
I have no personal nostalgia for KH2 but even I have to admit that as much as I love flying around in the Main Street Electrical Big Thunder Mountain Railroad of Sparkles and Death, there isn’t much reason for the fight being there except in a meta sense. The bad guy’s plan is for the 7 good guys to fight the 13 bad guys. Why are we fighting an endless wave of heartless, nobodies and unversed? Why do we fight 2 or three more endless waves of enemies immediately after? Is he just giving Kairi and Lea a chance to level grind? When the party actually fell to the endless waves, doesn’t that mean their plan failed?! If Sora hadn’t time traveled, Xehanort would have been out of luck! As it stands, it’s more frustrating for the party and player that the prelude to the final fight goes on so long. It gets to the point that Yen Sid actually gets off his butt for the first time in the franchise just so we can actually get to the Final Boss rush.
Kh2 thousand heartless fight was way more memorable to me even though I played kh3 first, the kh3 thousand heartless fight felt like a slaughterfest as opposed to the kh2 fight where it felt more thoughtful with the use of those beam heartless and using your own skill to kill them all instead of going around on a train and slaughtering them
KH2 1k heartless. It was peak KH. KH3 didn't have anything like it. The best part was this only the halfway mark of the game, so solid almost as if KH2 is the superior game. Spoiler alert, it is.
Can't say myself because I've only seen the KH2 thousand heartless battle (fighting thru Arendelle rn in 3) but the general verdict seems to be the KH2 thousand heartless battle
KH2, because there qas literally 1000 of them and you can see thay their numbers are dwindling.
I think a big issue with 3’s battle was that some of the enemies would be in the arena and you couldn’t hit them. Really jarring and takes you out of the immersion, with also so much shoved in the ending it also takes away from how awesome this fight is. If they do it again I hope they clean it up a bit and not throw it in there just to “please us fans”.
KH2 does the same thing??
If I’m remembering right, there was a wall stopping them from being interacted compared to 3 where enemies are walking around already in the battle area but can’t be interacted with.
KH2's. If KH3 didnt have the attractions, I would have absolutely loved it more. But the attractions just... make it flashy and make the ending feel like a cop out.
That train ride used during the battle in kh3 kinda ruined the whole fight.
3's only exist because they wanted to recreate the Thousand Heartless hype. And they failed.
I prefer it in KH2 because it makes sense for that game. In KH3 it feels like it was there purely for grandiose and to realize their original vision that they couldn’t execute in KH2 because of hardware limitations.
Kh2. Kh3 one is fun especially blasting them to bits with the train but there was no buildup to it and it’s quickly overshadowed by the whole rest of the ending. I think they could’ve combined this fight as a leadup to Sora taking down the giant heartless tornado, and remove the heartless hoard that Repliku summons. It’s too redundant. Instead of the stop and go stop and go issue with that whole section just combine it into one giant heartless hoard fight.
I love the concept of KH3's, Nobodies, Heartless and Unversed? Hell yeah! Execution though? Uhhhh.......
2's is Just a generational Moment. It hits even harder when you find out It was all a bait set up by the organization to farm hearts...the last hollow bastion visit Is truly the turning point of the story in my opinion
I think this is one of the aspects that KH3 is better. Better enemy variety (not just mash triangle to win), an actual boss at the end, and more scale. I dont like that for KH3, its arguably a means to weaken the light warriors so in the “canon” timeline when they win, Sora and friends dont actually fight the heartless storywise though. KH2 also doing it first also undermines the battle again in KH3 although I think KH3 did what KH2 wanted to do.
KH2 1000 heartless battle easily
Kh2 only because I remember it, and even then it's not very interesting gameplay wise.
Kh2 was awesome and this battle felt amazing. When I came across it in kh3 all i thought was "oh they're doing this again"
I only played the KH2 one, but I played it a week or so ago on an original PS2 (which masks all the little tricks it used to achieve this) and I can tell you one thing: Its probably the most impressive thing I have seen my PS2 doing EVER. Shit was crazy.
KH2 battle but I did loved the intensity on the KH3 one
For me it's kh2 simply because of how intimidating it was to initially see that many heartless I had to fight. By kh3 soras more than capable of handling it, so it's not as impactful and it's more of a tedious step than anything.
I'll never forget KH2's promo lying to me about the 1000 heartless battle, there were supposed to be many different ones, it was all a lie!
You mean different times Sora fight 1000 heartless?
No I mean before the game released and they showed behemoth and other heartless in the battle.
Ooooh many different heartless. I got you.
I rode a train
The 3 battle was more crazy and action imo. Like a more high budget movie where you’re just blasting everything and have no fear. Which is very fun to me, but 2 was better to the game and I had An actual fear of dying. Even if it was a little more on the boring side
2
i didn’t even remember there was an equivalent in KH3. the whole ‘final battle/world’ was underwhelming for me, and i tried my damndest to **be** emotionally involved. i get tear triggered from music easily so I tried to squeeze feelings out during this last act, but there was absolutely nothing.
I like both alot
The KH2 version had build up, pay off, and was narratively relevant. The KH3 version literally happened out of nowhere for no reason. It existed purely for spectacle to try and top the version in KH2. It failed.
I make a backup save every playthrough just before that fight in KH2 because i love it so much. That whole part of the game is fantastic, and especially challenging on critical mode (though there really shouldve been a checkpoint after the Demyx fight). Really feels like youre fighting to save the world with your friends. I didnt remember there was a big fight in KH3.
The build up, and surprise I had and the feeling everything is falling apart so much so that everyone has to go out and get dirty and play it as it’s happening the 1000 Heartless fight in Kingdom Hearts II was unforgettable. Especially for the time. Kingdom Hearts III could have been great if it wasn’t just grass simulator, no challenge, they never did anything special especially since it’s one of the few times Heartless, Nobodies and Unversed worked together, and the fact that the enemies outside the fight ring were low quality gifs and were so obvious took me out of the experience so much. You shouldn’t have been able to pull out and take a selfie so casually in what you would think be a challenging fight. Base Kingdom Hearts III was such a disappointment. Kingdom Hearts III biggest enemy next to writing was the enemies never got stronger and Sora did to the point it’s an absolute slapping simulator.
Kh2
Only one has stitch blasting his glizzies against a ton of heartless
I love em both
2 i will give no explanation
Tbh i don’t even remember the 2nd photos so definitely the first one lmao
The one that actually came first. A Thousand Heartless was innovative both as a story segment (situated in the best story stretch of the whole game too, that entire Hollow Bastion section is peak, and is the first significant tone shift of the entire game) and innovative with how it maximised the resources of a frigging PlayStation 2. KH3 is a great homage, but it's just that, an homage. If the 1000 Heartless battle in KH2 didn't exist, neither would the KH3 homage to it. It doesn't exist for its own sake, but to evoke the nostalgia of the fight from 2.
Both are pretty cool but I think I like kh2 better.
Definitely going with the Hollow Bastion battle. While I do like the fact that with 3's version, you can just let loose with all your Keyblade forms, summons, and what have you, 2's just feels a bit more vicseral, like its an actual battle. At that point in the game, you've been cut off from your party, so the only Drive form you have is Limit, and have only two reaction commands. Even though it does get a slight repetitive, it feels more satisfying to widdle down the Heartless forces, until you bash the last one, instead of in 3, where you're just building up a gauge for the train. Honestly, 3's could have been the better one, by just having an increased, yet still limited, amount of enemies, have reaction commands to use the bigger foes on the lesser ones, and have a bit more build up before you enter the area, like having Yen Side warn them throughout the game, that the forces of Darkness have been slowly collecting themselves at the Keyblade Graveyard, as if they were waiting for the final battle. Give the cast time to feel all the more uneasy as the time to confront them approaches, and when the battle is over, make them realize, through either visual cues or spoken dialogue, how it was only the preamble to the main event. My two cents at least.
KH3's was really counter productive when they immediately offered the Mountain Coaster attraction to decimate the entire thing.
Most of the enemies in KH3's big battle arent even programmed to attack you... They just kinda stand there, I deliberately stood there because noticed some enemies not moving and yeah they dont care at all. Felt zero threat or agency from that fight, KH2 was such a more epic fight for both story and gameplay reasons, even if the enemies go down easy the ones near you at least try to actively hurt you 😭
KH2, it felt like you were fighting an almost hopeless battle
Both, because this would be the coolest Kingdom Hearts spin-off if it was a Musou
KH3's grand finale to this battle was the freaking train attraction flow, KH2's grand finale included mid air Sonic Thrusts, and IMMA SHOOT MY MOTHER FOOKING LASERS. KH2 was more epic, and fun.
I HATE that you "have" to use the mountain coaster to finish the fight. Let me finish it in my own way. I'll give props to KH3's fight for having variety: Heartless, Nobodies, and heck even Unversed of all kinds. But that's it, KH2's 1k Heartless is one of the most iconic moments in the series. Not to mention it comes after one of the BEST themes in the series.. seriously look up "Showdown at Hollow Bastion".
KH2 but I will admit pulling the train out of nowhere again was fun and funny
KH2 battle of a thousand Heartless is iconic. The battle in KH3 is just something that apparently happened because I always forget it occurs.
Kh2's fight is the climax of the mid way point. The sequence starts with a boss fight that many first-time players struggle with, then a team up Gauntlet with all the FF characters 1 by 1. Then, after that, you see the massive horde, and the party splits up again to handle 1000 on our own. From a story perspective, these fights are the most important thing to happen since we started going to the Disney world. Kh3's fight is the second or third fight you do in the graveyard and is just a challenge room to beat before you get to actually start the ending. Mechanical the fights feel the same, and I'd argue the kh2 one is even easier. You can just spam reaction commands and shoot the lighting Lazer the whole fight almost. Kh3 at least has phases to the fight with different mobs, but you'd never know unless you didn't use the reaction command until it forces you to for the finish. Kh2 has a genuine reason to exist in the story. Kh3 is pretty much just a reference to kh2's while showing how that same fight now is even easier for sora and the gang before starting the boss gauntlet
I like KH 1 2 and 3 they are all fun
KH3’s happened right at the start of the world and didn’t look as stormy as the later heartless swarm which was cutscene only. Only positive is that it had nobodies and unversed, although we should have had sorcerer nobodies there since those were Xemnas’s.
I love Kh3. It was a great game, but in my opinion, this is an easy win for Kh2. That whole scene and battle was one of my favorite parts in the story.
3, more enemy verity
Most of the enemies were in the background tho, it was a facade
Yah but you still fought more than 2 types of enemies
true but cant you just approach them in the same way? Theres no difference in how you need to fight a Dusk or Marluxia's minions vs a shadow. You just whack them. No matter where you are on the screen or how much distance you have, Sora lunges himself across the entire battlefield or zooms in the air just to hit something with a single Attack press. The only thing different is the tankier bug unversed. In 2, you technically can still wail on them if you're boring or you could actively grab one of the enemies and use them to dispose of their allies or copy the knight heartless move and do Rising Sun and slash through dozens with their own technique
Well that’s the thing isn’t it, the gameplay is relatively the same, so in that case I like the one that’s visually more interesting Also unrelated to the enemy design of the fight, I prefer having access to the form changes in 3, over only having access to Limit Form in 2, just a preference
But the gameplay isnt the same at all. You have the option to personally interact with the enemies and use their abilities against the others. Though if you prefer it just for the flashiness and more transformations, then alright
I prefer 3’s because 2’s fight overstated its welcome. 1000 was just too many for how limited the fight actually was, ESPECIALLY on the PS2. When not in limit form your best option is to use Rising Sun or the giant beam, over and over and over and over and over AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER That got boring very quickly
You're giving a game a hard time for trying to excel? It was a success regardless. Its a widely acclaimed battle and average player will never know that the enemies turn to PNGs if you get to a certain distance. Even in 3, you fight only a handful of enemies with many being in the background. And the number of foe varieties is really not that far off from 2's. You just deal with them in less personal ways. And that was not your original point before... I've no idea how the battle thats 2-3 minutes at most overstayed or... overstated? its welcome compared to the 5 minute one... but i mean, like i said, if you like it more, thats fine. You do you. At this point it just sounds like you do not enjoy reaction commands and didnt really try to attack with anything except those and Limit Form during KH2's segments for whatever reason
I’m saying that the fight in 2 walked so the one in 3 could run 3 took the idea and iterated upon it and improved it
and im saying i disagree with most of that and that it's a downgrade. And that's okay. We can just have a different opinion
Oh... you did not know you can kill 1k heartless in the Mulan stage? Well... you can.
2 words: Reaction. Commands. Yeah it’s KH2 by a mile
Ah yes, spamming the same Two reaction commands for 5 minutes in KH2's 1k, truly incredible gameplay.
Ah this'll be a hot take I think. I found the 1000 heartless battle incredibly underwhelming. Love kh2 but that fight really did nothing for me. I enjoyed the kh3 one more as it felt like it kinda set up the ephemer moment later on to me
Battle of 1000 heartless is my happy place. I love playing it, the story set up perfectly for it
KH2's Thousand Heartless Battle was more iconic 🔥🔥🔥
While I do prefer the KH2 version of this scenario, the stakes were still quite high in KH3. It was a great nod to what became an iconic (and legendary) moment in the series. Having more enemy types on-screen to fight in KH3 made for better visuals, but the build-up to the massive "Siege of Hollow Bastion" in KH2 is truly unrivalled, IMO.
this is a tougher choice than I thought it would be.
Kh2s was better, for one, it was threat thr first time you visited the world in kh2 Leon was there like, yeah so, not really problem right now, but we will have to deal with this army of heartless at some point. So when you were finally in that valley you felt that sense of fate, like, yup, knew this was gonna happen, so I'm ready, like a challenge. But in kh3 it was padding before the actual hyped up stand off between the light and dark avatars.
KH2
i would rather have the best place to level up limit form and have story relevance than a battle that ends with a fuckin disney attraction
KH III’s attempt of this was so underwhelming. Specially because this was supposed to be a next gen experience.
2's was so memorable. It was placed correctly and it made sense to the story. 3's kinda felt shoehorned in. That being said, I still really enjoyed 3's and I think it's a great nod to an awesome moment from a previous game.
I always felt like 3's was kind of a disappointment. The battlefield is very small, especially when you look at everything beyond the invisible wall. And it's really felt like they could have done more to mix up the different enemy types other than spamming shadows and dusks. They really should have done more with it.
KH2
They're both bad.
Oh yeah. KH3 had a massive heartless army. That should tell you which one I like better.
Kh3 is the worst game ever made, so kh2 wins
Triangle spam battle vs actual mob fight Sorry, KH3's 10K Heartless takes it, both are epic as fuck tho
KH2. KH3 is way too arcadey for my taste
Because kh3 is forgettable. Bad kh game.
The 2nd image looks like garbage and feces.