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This video game review was brought to you by Fabricant's Subjective OpinionTM
As opposed to? Having opinions are bad?
No but seriously, I've only played KH1 and 2 so I cant comment on birth by sleep. I'm being very genuine when I say I struggle to see what people like about these games beyond the novelty of seeing Sephiroth in the coliseum from Hercules.
Well there are many things and you'd have to ask fans of the series. For some it's a game that came out at a formative time in their lives. For others it's probably the fact that this baffling combination of two then-behemoths of their respected mediums actually worked well despite so much working against it. This is talking about the first one here specifically since by the time the second rolled around there was already the pedigree of the first and it wasn't until KH 2 that everything went to hell and they started fondling the corpse of the first game.
Mechanically, Kingdom Hearts 1 is not perfect, no, but just because the game has accessible combat doesn't mean it's shallow or easy - and that holds ESPECIALLY true for the sequels where the combat was clearly the focus. Play the game on Critical difficulty and say it's a tap X game. Play the game on NORMAL mode and you'll see that that's just incorrect.
The first game was awkward, bad almost movie-game level platforming, with extremely simplified and uninspired combat.
The platforming was only awkward and bad in two instances, those being Wonderland and Monstro and in the case of the former that is largely to do with the camera since the game came out when devs were still thinking the right analog stick was dumb. Kingdom Hearts 1 was the only game in the series up until Dream Drop Distance where they actually made a game that was as much about exploration as it was the combat; and DDD only gets that moniker because they made exploration a gameplay mechanic. Whether or not the exploration was worth doing is up to the individual but it makes the game fundamentally more interesting because the sequels are just a series of linear paths broken up by combat rooms.
Considering the different abilities you get for exploration and traversal, the platforming is not punishing or difficult and is fairly generous considering how early and experimental the game was. Wonderland is especially bad for it because you don't have any of the abilities and the vanilla camera is garbage.
As far as combat goes, see earlier comment.
The plot was somehow overly simplified on one level, but then convoluted on another, but mindlessly boring on both.
Are you talking about Kingdom Hearts 1 or 2 here? Because the convoluted shit didn't start until 2. Well, there were hints of it in Chain of Memories but 2 was when everything started going off the rails. What's the problem with a simple story? Games don't need Metal Gear Solid type stories (especially since MGS is bad story telling) or overly complex narratives when they can barely tell decent ones regardless of complexity. Kingdom Hearts 1 leans into the Disney trappings far more than the JRPG trappings in terms of story and when have you known a Disney animated movie to be complex?
The story in the first game could not be more simple and not at all convoluted. Three friends hang out on an island that's a quick trip away from the mainland. One of the three friends is not from their home which inspires the other two into wondering what's out there and together the three of them plan to explore all the while one of them is oblivious to the love triangle that is forming. Meanwhile, different worlds in the universe are disappearing for mysterious reasons and Mickey Mouse is trying to find out why and sends his two trusted allies to find the 'key' to this. The island where the three protagonists live is the latest the be overtaken by the darkness and through a series of events Sora meets up with Donald and Goofy and the three of them embark on a quest to find their friends/King and in so doing manage to save worlds from being taken over by the darkness.
The game uses very simple terminology. Light is good, Darkness is bad. It's very Disney like that since it's sort of a coming of age story and it's about the whimsy and wondrous sense of adventure that comes with childhood leading into the reality that childhood ends - like the whole Hollow Bastion section - but that doesn't mean the end of the world. The game literally ends with the powers of Light and love defeating the Dark and evil and the dark worlds are restored. It's not trying to be deep, it's all very on the nose. It's only in the sequels where they start delving into the convoluted and time travel and retcon and predestination garbage.
Which I blame mainly on the characters, I'm dying to hear any argument that KH1's characters aren't the most wafer-thin one-note trope cut-out, power of friendship-tween concepts out of anything that Disney OR FF have conjured up.
Is there something wrong with characters embracing the friendship concept? The concept that is core to JRPGs even today? You're making it seem like because the characters aren't super deep that they're bad characters or that a trope is inherently a bad thing. The characters develop over the course of the game and, yes, over the course of the entire series. Sora at the end of the game is not the same Sora as he was at the start, he's grown over the course of his adventure and while he's still staunchly in the camp of "FRIENDSHIP IS GREAT!" he's also matured as a person. He's still reckless and doesn't always think things through, and his loyalty to the concept of friendship is often used against him. That's a character flaw, not a writing one, and even comes into play at different points in the series - including being a reason why he fails his exam in DDD.
In the first game his devotion to Kairi's friendship is the catalyst for his confrontation with Riku. He puts one friend over the other and this carries into Chain of Memories all the way until KH 2. He hates selfish people and cowards - even though he himself often acts selfish - and over time these flaws of his have trickled out. Sora has more depth than you give him credit for. A character embracing the positive tropes of friendship doesn't make the character weak or flat.
When your game's deepest character is a walking 'dark rival' trope plucked from something out of a pokemon fan-ficiton you know you are dealing with some paper people.
Riku isn't the deepest character, he's just the one with the most obvious and apparent development. He's the Sasuke. Depth doesn't automatically make characters interesting or good.
Kingdom Hearts 1 was a polished snooze-fest which allowed me to see some fairly beloved final fantasy heores act out of character for a couple of cutscenes and getting to relive some plucked out nostalgic Disney cartoon scenes with little dialogue and no music.
What FF characters acted out of character? Also considering the music was done by icon Yoko Shimomura, 'no music' seems a stretch. Unless you mean no iconic music in which case go play the Atlantica or Nightmare Before Christmas worlds. Then go play Birth By Sleep's Cinderella world and want to die because it's terrible with the music loop.
]KH2 seemed to be even MORE convoluted but with slightly more bearable combat, (which was mostly just quick-time events and a poor man's devil trigger). I'll admit I skipped most of the cut-scenes a quarter of the way in, but it was fun playing the little mermaid mini game where I got to sing under the sea.
KH2 IS more convoluted. That's why 2.5 came out to contextualize a lot of the garbage that came out of nowhere when the game first came out. And the combat was not just quick time events/devil trigger and no amount of you belitting it will change the fact that the combat has depth to it.
Do you want to talk about how crap God of War is now?
I don't like God of War but the reason I don't like God of War has nothing to do with its combat and everything to do with Kratos.
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