there was a time that i believed kh1 was a better game than kh2, but that kh2 was the better kingdom hearts game. i later thought that kh2 was the better kingdom hearts game and a better gane overall than kh1. but now i've matured, and i've seen the truth. in reality, attempting to discern which of the two games is "better" than the other is ultimately fruitless, as the two games set out to accomplish vastly different goals. kh2 is more concerned with telling an epic story and having stylish, fast-paced, engaging combat. kh1 seeks to tell a relatively simple story, and instead of making you feel like an ultra-instinct combat god, it primarily wants to transport you to these disney worlds and truly immerse you in them. the idea of putting you, the player, into these worlds is core to the design philosophy of kh1 - evident both in how the worlds themselves function and how the game is fundamentally played.
in kh1, there is a huge emphasis on interacting with the worlds, whether to progress the story or for secrets/optional items. this level of interaction with your environment is just not present in kh2 - the game rarely, if ever, asks you to do so much as solve a puzzle or do some basic platforming. this also extends to the structures of the worlds: kh1's worlds are much more open-ended with many different interconnected rooms and pathways, while kh2's worlds are mostly very linear, focusing more heavily on making arenas for combat encounters. this comparison is most clearly on display when comparing both games' versions of halloween town. in kh1, almost every single room has multiple ways to reach it, as well as mulitple other rooms that you can reach from it. kh2's halloween town, however, is essentially s single long hallway from one end of the world to the other with only a couple of rooms off of that path (which, themselves, don't lead anywhere else). this design philosophy of getting from point A to point B with little resistance can often lead to the worlds feeling like you're walking from one cutscene/scripted battle to the next, whereas in kh1, there's a greater emphasis on exploration, and you end up coming across the story as you explore. kh1s lack of a map also means that if you want to be able to effectively navigate the worlds, you need to pay attention to howthe different rooms connect to each other and how the world is structured, further immersing you in the world.
the other big design philosophy difference that i see between kh1 and 2 is each game's camera. now, i'm not going to sugarcoat it: i really, really hate how the camera in kh1 controls. it just... feels wrong. that said, however, i think how it is used by the game does a lot for what the game strives to do and be. this point pretty much comes directly from Regular Pat's KH Hot Takes Tournament video, which probably does a better job explaining this than I do, and I highly recommend watching the video for some new perspective on the series. essentially, the biggest difference between the two games' cameras, besides how they control, is where they are in relation to sora. in kh2, the camera is more zoomed out and higher above sora, allowing the player to more easily see what is behind and above sora. while most wouldn't bat an eye at this, as a wider camera angle is so common in action games, thinking about it for a bit can lead to a bit of break in immersion. we, the player, are able to see things sora is incapable of seeing, and make sora react to them (one of luxord's games even requires you to do this). in contrast, kh1's camera is more pulled in and close to the ground, only allowing you to see what is in front if sora and a bit to either side - essentially, you can see what sora sees plus a little bit more peripheral vision. the person in Regular Pat's video described it as if you use the left stick to control sora's body and the right stick to control his eyes. the way the camera puts you in sora's perspective causes the scale of many things in the game to be much more imposing and threatening - most notably bosses like cerberus and maleficent dragon. the way these bosses tower over you can make them feel that much more threatening, and as a result, that much more satisfying to beat.
personally, i don't think any of the differences presented here are a matter of better or worse between the two games. they're simply different. i prefer kh2 because its story and focus on combat are more engaging to me than the immersive experience of kh1. but at the same time, there is a dreamlike quality to kh1 that i simply cannot deny, and i can absolutely see why one might prefer that game to 2. the games seek to achieve such different goals that i don't think it's a matter of which game is better or worse, but which game works more for you in particular.
annaxmalina
kianamaiart
titsay
baratheonpilled
dededos
areudirty
janainaart
dailybridgerton