Time played: 5 hours 37 minutes

It’s time for first impressions of Kingdom Hearts 2! Sort of. It’s a bit odd trying to give “first impressions” of a game I’ve already done 4 full playthroughs of, but then again I’m looking at Critical Mode specifically, and if it offers a whole new play experience compared to the other difficulty modes. I should mention that this is my first time playing the PS4 version of the game, and it looks good and runs well on the PS4 in 1080p 60fps. So far I’ve gone through the tutorial section with Roxas up to Olympus Coliseum, and I’ve died seven times up until this point. In my old playthroughs of KH2 my general game plan was “mash X and Triangle, use Valor Form, cast Cure when almost dead”, and I never really considered any other options like limits, or even guarding. This was a bit of a bit of a knock against playing the game casually on lower difficulties (and even Proud Mode): it felt mindless.

Playing on Critical Mode up until now I feel like I’ve done a lot of the same, but with a bit more experimentation with limits and more careful ability selection, which honestly already feels pretty nice. Discovering that a drive form activation can damage enemies around me, or that I’m invincible during a limit, and abusing those things against Shan Yu and Hades in The Land of Dragons and Olympus Coliseum respectively made me feel like I’m starting to see the matrix in this game. I can’t wait to see if the difficulty ramps up and to see how far I can push myself and the game’s mechanics. Stay tuned!

Kingdom Hearts 2 – Critical Mode

• Part 3
• Part 2
• Part 1
• Part 0