If you know what cards the enemies play, though, you can plan your deck accordingly - only equip attack and magic cards that are higher than what any enemy in the area can possibly play. If you're in Wonderland, for example, a few quick battles will probably show you that the highest card you'll see in that world is a six. So stock sevens and above. Another thing to remember is that while you normally lose the first card of every sleight, if that first card happens to be a friend card, then there's no loss to you at all; you won't lose any of your deck cards, and friend cards are infinite anyway. If you have a shortage of high cards and a surplus of low ones, just spam these Friend Card sleights. The Shadow enemy card is also your friend. So is Dodge Roll.

I've got a 7, a 6, a 5, and a bunch of low cards. That's it.
I'm only just finished with Agrabah. I haven't been allowed to get any new cards that aren't map cards. If I am allowed to, then I somehow missed the tutorial. The only place I've been allowed to use a Blue Card for a Moogle shop was also locked by an additional card which I haven't seen. Not the first such kind of locked door either. I know I'll get the keys to them eventually, but that just reeks of pointless backtracking through random(ish) floors.
The combat and tactics aren't difficult, just annoying so far.


I think I'll put it down for a bit and come back later. Leave Castle Oblivion and go back to regular Oblivion, where the mighty War Mage, Bolt Vanderhuge stalks the deadra with sword and spell. (And not cards. )
Approaching this game again in a bit with a fresh perspective seems like the best idea. Especially since I'm through some of that early tutorial level and can 'start' a bit further in.

The best way to get new cards is to ransack every room for its treasure, whacking everything that you can with your Keyblade. I averaged about one new card per room, if I recall correctly. Calm Bounty, False Bounty, and Guarded Trove cards also help. Not sure how many of those actually appear at the point you're at in the game.

I haven't found a single attack card. Only map cards. Only offensive card I've found so far is Fire which I got from Axel.
Just bad luck, I guess. That's why I hate random stuff like this.

Ugh....cards determining how much you can attack or use magic or items. Blah >_<

I'm pretty well with you on this one, Raist. I'd rather have it be a card game or an action game, not some weird amalgamation of the two.
Still, I'm trying to give this a fair chance. It's just not doing a lot to win me over.

I prefer to think of it as balanced difficulty. Apparently Birth by Sleep is better that way, though. Better in most ways, actually.

From what I've experienced of CoM, BBS is much better. Playing through that is what made me want to finally go back for the back story, and clear up all this Roxas/Organization 13 business. What I (and many people) hated about KH2 was that the whole starting storyline comes out of nowhere. But I digress.
BBS's balance is pretty good, and in only a few places is it off. In trying to balance the worlds for three characters with different strengths, they tipped it a bit here and there. Ventus is the middle ground, so he's fairly balanced throughout. Deep Space in particular stands out. I had a tougher time with Aqua here because to make it challenging for Terra they had to up everything's HP. No big deal for him as he's the powerhouse character. Also, by the time it's unlocked you're likely to have pretty good magic, so everything there has a higher magic defense, and as the next to last level everything got a pretty big damage bump too.
Aqua will have good magic and lousy attack power, so everything was against her in this level. It wasn't overwhelmingly difficult or anything (provided you'd put in the time to develop a good Cura/Curaga command). It just seemed to take forever to kill anything.

There are a couple of moves that can be a bit gamebreaking, especially if you get them kind of early. For instance, it's possible to develop a Megaflare command by the fourth world or so.
And there's one boss that could give you some trouble near the end with his love of teleporting. But if you make a Time Splicer command, it quickly becomes apparent that your tele-fu is best.
Note though that there is a secret version of that boss after you beat the game, and Time Splicer is no longer enough to give you the edge against him. (Stats-wise, he's meaner than Sephiroth. )

All that said, there's nothing really major in terms of balance issues.

CobaltMonkey wrote:

Note though that there is a secret version of that boss after you beat the game, and Time Splicer is no longer enough to give you the edge against him. (Stats-wise, he's meaner than Sephiroth. )

I'm assuming you're talking about

Spoiler:

I want to fight him so badly. I want to play this game so badly. It looks amazing in every way. I suppose I should ask again if anyone knows where I can get a PSP dirt cheap?

Yup. Really kicks the teleporting up in that second fight and outright refuses to take damage, sort of like the black mushrooms in KH1. They had low HP, but huge defense. He's got relatively low life but takes 1 damage from every hit. You pretty much have to hit him 200 times. Meanwhile, getting hit by any of his attacks leaves you stunlocked in a combo that will kill you unless you've synthed the Second Chance ability. Even then you'll need some sort of breathing room to cast Curaga or use a potion, or the next hit will kill you anyway, and he doesn't like to give you that.
Keep in mind, he did this to a character who just owned their endboss. Though I was using Aqua who is the least mobile of the three. I hear Ventus stands a better chance, but I haven't tried yet.
And apparently there's another harder fight elsewhere.

Dirt cheap? I don't know. You could try trading in some stuff at Gamestop, or getting an edge card for there ($15 USD) which will cut 10% off the price of a used one and add 5 or 10% to the value of anything you trade in towards it. Or wait for the release of the PSP2 and maybe the price will drop.

CobaltMonkey wrote:

Yup. Really kicks the teleporting up in that second fight and outright refuses to take damage, sort of like the black mushrooms in KH1. They had low HP, but huge defense. He's got relatively low life but takes 1 damage from every hit. You pretty much have to hit him 200 times. Meanwhile, getting hit by any of his attacks leaves you stunlocked in a combo that will kill you unless you've synthed the Second Chance ability. Even then you'll need some sort of breathing room to cast Curaga or use a potion, or the next hit will kill you anyway, and he doesn't like to give you that.

Any time you cast Cure, Cura, or Curaga, he heals himself to full, anyway. So I would advise against doing so.

Quote :

Keep in mind, he did this to a character who just owned their endboss. Though I was using Aqua who is the least mobile of the three. I hear Ventus stands a better chance, but I haven't tried yet.

Apparently the trick with Aqua is to block constantly at close ranges, and keep at a distance and spam magic - especially Mines.

Quote :

And apparently there's another harder fight elsewhere.

Perhaps you're referring to this beast?

Yeah, the mines were the only way I could hurt him. He always dodged the spells I took in. Couldn't dodge Seeker Mines though. I think to beat him I'll have to make several copies of those. Kinda like the guy in the vid there only used Thunder Surge on that Mystery Person.
Speaking of which...
Geez. Beast is right. About choked on my juice when he suddenly turned invisible. Nothing else in this game does that. Really comes at you out of left field.
Either Aqua's somersault pattern perfectly fits in between that guy's strikes, or whoever was playing got insanely lucky. lol

I'm a bit split on guessing who that was supposed to be. Might just be a non-cannon fight, like the Sephiroth arena fight in KH1.

Nope, it's canon. There are a couple of optional bosses that were introduced in the Final Mix edition that aren't, and I don't think that

Spoiler:

is (could be wrong about him, though), but I'm 99% certain that Nomura has said that the Unknown battle was within canon.

We really need those spoiler tags that don't break up the sentence like that. Sort of like the ones on TV Tropes.

I can make a guess as to who it might be, but that really would be a spoiler. Though you don't seem to mind digging around, I advise against opening this tag if you don't want an important spoiler.

Spoiler:

I was actually thinking that it could be Xehanort's Somebody.

Spoiler:

Or Kairi's grandma.

Okay, now you're just making stuff up.


Seriously, tell me you are.
Please?

The last line was a joke. The first line was serious conjecture and the spoilered text is for realz legit.

Okay then. It's just that with this series you never know.

Thinking about it, though, because of the events in the game, it makes perfect sense for Xehanort to have a second Nobody. And he is dressed the part.
I don't recall Somebodies ever being mentioned. Been a while since I played the second game though, so I could just be forgetting that. Unless it was in Days, in which case I haven't played it yet.

By "Somebody," I just mean his original self. Heart+Body.

(Spoilers in the link)

I'll skip the spoiler for now as I might play that one. I hear the combat's more like BBS.
The reason I think it could be a second Nobody is that at the end of Terra's story in BBS,

Spoiler:

Hey, someone at the Gamefaqs boards collected a huge amount of info from various interviews with Nomura that explains a lot of things.
Here it is.

Did a massive fifty floor run of my Avatar Sector. My thoughts:

-Wizards are overpowered. One cast of Thunder from one of them will take off a third of my HP, and that's with Shell and Maxed Defense.
-<3 Judgment Triad (Not a particularly new thought).
-Eliminators have gone from being the hardest enemy in the game to beat to the easiest, since I always make sure to have my rapefinisher handy if there's even a chance of encountering one.
-I'll get to do a ONE HUNDRED floor run later, if I want D-Blizzaga for my Collection.

Spoiler:

This is from Re:Coded, I assume?

Just started on Days. Finished the tutorial levels and am about to start on the game in earnest. Had to give it a back seat for a couple days so I could finish up a runthrough of Twilight Princess in honor of the Zelda games franchise turning 25 today. (Many happy returns!)
I think I'll like getting to know the O13 members...before I inevitably start wiping them out, anyway.

You don't actually wipe any of them out in Days.

**MEGA SPOILER**

Spoiler:

**MEGA SPOILER**

I know. I meant in KH2.
And slaughter them I will. ^_^ Or, if some theories are correct, resurrect them via slaughter.
I swear this is one of those series' that makes all its answers lead to questions.