I am so kingdom hearts pilled rn

I bought the KH 1.5 and 2.5 collection on steam a while ago when it was on sale and I didn't get around to playing it until now and I just finished KH1 a couple days ago and am in the middle of re:CoM now. WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME HOW GOOD KH1 IS !!!!!

I honestly didn't know much about kingdom hearts going into it other than knowing that the main character was named Sora and there were disney characters. I have like really vague memories of watching my sister play KH2 like over 10 years ago but that's it.

KH1 really is a masterpiece for its time with excellent storytelling, a fun and fair fighting system that isn't too complicated, collectibles that aren't a pain to find, and it's also just a really accessible game overall with the main route being pretty easy to get through but there are also secret optional bosses which up the difficulty if you feel like the game is too easy and you haven't had enough. Not to mention the visuals still holding up really well with character models that blend really well within the universe of the game. My only complaint would be that it is really easy to find yourself severely under-leveled about halfway through the game since I guess they assume you will be backtracking and exploring more than I did. I was able to get through the beginning part pretty fast so I was like level 32 trying to fight Ursula and kept dying and being pissed off and it took me looking it up to learn that I was just wayyyy under-leveled. That led to me leaving Atlantica to go to Halloween Town, doing that story up to the final Oogie Boogie phase and then just grinding like crazy up to like level 45 I think.

In my run, I didn't have much of a problem after that beating the bosses first try until I got to the dragon maleficent fight that just kept whooping my ass. So I looked up a strat and found out it was because I just wasn't using summons at all for the entire game since my build was focused on just strength. After that, I just popped tinker bell and won immediately pretty much. On khguides they list the Riku fights like weirdly high in difficulty I think considering I was able to beat ever Riku fight first try. The second phase Ansem fight though on destiny islands kicked my ass though I struggled to get past that for a while and honestly being that far into the game I didn't really want to learn how to deal with his attacks with frame perfect stuff so I just submitted myself to grinding to level 75 and then beat his first try after that including the final boss. AND LET THE RECORDS SHOW I DID NOT PLAY ON BEGINNER MODE !!! I did standard mode like the good boy I am. Then after I finished the best ending I have ever seen I was too excited to just put down the game so I moved on to the most hated game in the series.

okokok I don't really mind re:CoM that much. It's really easy to cheese enemies so getting through the story isn't too hard so far since I haven't had to grind yet but I'm assuming I will probably have to start doing that at some point. The card system is whatever it doesn't really bother me like it bothers other people; it's easy enough to get around if you mash triangle. I think that people hate on re:CoM so much because they expected more from the kingdom hearts series than just a mediocre filler game, which is what it feels like. Also I have no idea what the original GBA CoM was like so maybe they were disappointed by the remake idk.

So far, I have gotten through traverse town, agrabah, and olympus coliseum and I only ended up dying once to Hades because I wasn't watching my health and was just spamming triangle without dodging attacks since that was what I was doing in those normal attack rooms idk what I was thinking.

However, I feel like I need to clear the air a bit though and I know that I just said that I really liked the designs or whatever but I really do not like Riku's design in KH1 he looks like he has two blue condoms strapped to his legs and he's wearing clown shoes. The KH2 redesign was worlds better and just fit the tone more I felt, so what the fuck did they do to him in KH3 they sent him to the chopped convention and they gave him a makeover he looks genuinely so bad now worse than KH1 like words cannot describe how much I despise his KH3 model I'm not even sure what it's supposed to give because it doesn't follow any modern trend and he doesn't look like a disney character like with his KH1 design he just looks like he's wearing a shitty halloween costume. It just pisses me off honestly.

Anyways anyways I want to take the time to properly thirst for KH1 Billy Zane voiced Ansem. BARK BARK BARK WOOF WOOF WOOF. Trust I will bring him back to impregnate him.