The Let's Play Archive

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

by 1234567890num

Part 54: Challenges C

Today we're going to do more challenges because I'm delaying the inevitable boss think we're strong enough to take on more of them.



This kinds of mission requires special preparation.



Changing all the useless Level Up panels to magic panels and adding Limit Recharge while we're at it. Because there's nothing better to put there. The second page is the same as the normal one, which I'll show later.

Anyway, let's divert to the Lite's Play while this mission is going on, shall we?



Um...





We'll check back on them later. Looks like they're kinda busy right now.



As for the challenge, Blizzara in the face is still as good as ever.



These challenges are great opportunities to see the other member's Final Limit. Demyx's is kinda meh.

Oh, and I reset after this because this is a timed mission, which is why standing there watching others are detrimental to the success.




We have to complete it within 2:40. Phantom Gear++ and Blizzara is so good.



This is the panels I used when there's no special restrictions.



This one can be considered interesting, I guess.



You know, if getting stunlocked by enemies that pose absolutely no threat can be called interesting. Limits work well, but they do so little damage that I can't use it even with Limit Boost.



Those Icy Cubes are what most of the Hearts come from. The rest can be gotten from 3 enemies. I use Frost Crystals because they die with 1 Fire.



At least if THAT didn't happen. This is EXACTLY what I meant by Frost Crystal stunlocking by freezing



The time limit is 2:45. I did extremely well considering all the time I spent frozen.



I used the "Low Level" panel set again, just trading a few magic with levels.



Blizzara in the face is extremely great for armor Heartless



For the rest, just kill the Soldiers normally. We have to jump to use the Barrels.







We could jump once. I don't know why we need to, but we could.





Meanwhile, U-1 springs into action. He just finished eating Burger Queen, you see.



He was in a dilemma over whether to use his money for toys or for gambling.

Okay, not really. He just came out of nowhere. I'm being serious here!




On the gameplay side, this level is much harder than the first one. This is only the second level and we already have these quick notes. My fingers aren't quick enough to reliably hit them, and longer notes heal more, so I usually sacrifice the second note.



The people had been running all those time, but for some reason they stop now. Why could that be?



Oh, a death ray



Wait, they're fine! And they're dancing now! It's just a false alarm, I guess.



More importantly, though, there's a building called Game City which have a car jutting out of it. Not as big as a slot-machine building, but still.



Going back to the challenge, Final Limit makes beating it much easier. The time limit is 2:25, which we're much ahead of.



The time limit is 1:40. I'll discuss this mission along with the next one.



Last mission is just a quicker version of this one.



This is my "No Attack Magic" configuration. I made Rage Gear+ because it has the higher attack out of all the available Keyblades right now. As a bonus, it even has Combo Boost! :frogin: The other abilities are Combo-Jump and Combo-Air Slide, which lets us jump or air slide in the middle of the combo, respectively. They're useless.

The first page is the same as normal, by the way. And there's going to be plenty of them even in this update.




Anyway, we have to block the Morning Star manually since we can't use Aero here. Eventually it'll stop, but it takes a lot of time.



After that, we have to beat it as much as we can before it spins again. I didn't realize that Xigbar is using his Limit, so I had to stay to get a good view of it. Even if you're using your Limit, you still had to troll me



Rage Gear+ is pretty good for this because it has a pretty long aerial combo. The ground combo is pretty much the same as Phantom Gear's.



I'm actually very amazed that I didn't miss even once. We can miss once, but I used savestates anyway for safety.





Guard phase is becoming more difficult, with more buttons. It's hard to capture because of the PSP's small screen.



The Attack phase is also harder. There's actually multiple versions to most levels in this game, with the one I'm showing here being the easier one (and last level being the harder one). I'm showing the one Ambisagrus didn't get.

The variations are kinda random, but for both this and last level I can "choose" pretty consistently by missing some notes in the Charge Phase to get the easier one.




There's no changing visuals between the Battle phase unlike last time, but the townsfolks' dancing is nice to watch. You know, when you can actually see them dancing and not just posing.



It's hard to convey in Screenshots, but the slot machine/building is actually spinning its slots. It doesn't do it all the time, but it's still a nice touch.



This challenge is like normal. The 3 Creepworms are basically the only ones we have to go out of the way to kill for this.



The time limit is 1:45. It probably has to do with the fact that I waited 5 seconds for the Pumpkin Bomb to explode. And that none of the Hover Ghosts are hit by it.





Did you know that Xaldin's limit actually hurts nearby enemies without him even attacking? It's true! Also, at least he actually jumped in his Final Limit, considering that the AI is too stupid to do that otherwise.



As you can see, that GIF comes from a failed run. That's because I didn't shoot enough Blizzara in Dark Follower's face.



Blocking these helps too, I suppose.



3:10. By the way, there were a Gigas Shadow. It dies very quickly I didn't bother taking a screenshot of it.





Oh, look! Puma's enjoying the groove



He's even running around!



Oh, and if you're wondering why the people are dancing after running around and being shot by a laser, you'll know by the end of the update.



Here's Rage Gear+'s ground combo. It's okay, I guess. Its Aerial Combo is much better, though.



It's very easy to see which chest has Heartless in it in Challenge Missions. It's all of them.



I regretted not bringing enough Fires earlier for the Poison Plants and Avalanche when originally doing this mission. This one is much worse than that.





Remember when Blizzara is great for Clay Armor? It's even better for Solid Armor, being weak to ice and all. The time limit is 2:20. We're just breezing through timed challenges today!



Of course, we can't use it for the next challenge



Here's Xaldin's Limit, with him actually using the original part! This means that the only person whose Final Limit we haven't seen yet is Axel.



We can actually miss 10 times. It's extremely lenient, since it's usually just once or twice. I didn't even have to use savestate for this one.



No new method for fighting the boss this time, sadly.



This is pretty much the worst attack to be getting here. There's absolutely nothing we can do. Even magic can't really help with this.



It's best to get hit by the hammer immediately to get Infernal Engine to use its other attacks.



This is the attack we want. I think it's obvious why.



Honestly, I wasn't expecting to get this attack.



2:30. Cutting it very close there . I guess this ends the streak of coasting through timed challenges.



I'm not going to bother doing it now. It's probably doable, but it would be a slog.



This is what Astral Blast looks like. We currently have 102 Challenge Sigils now, which is still well below half of them



Other than Slot Releaser and Level Up, the rewards are just

Phantom Gear+ is useless since we have Phantom Gear++ already, while Haste (3) is useless without Haste LV+.




I don't want to end on such a sad note, so let's go back to how U-1 is doing.



Looks like Puma is biting a Little-O. Okay.



And someone managed to stop dancing. Okay.





A new scenery!



I love the >_< face the Little-O makes.



Fun fact: Once we go to the End Phase, we don't take any damage for missing, so we basically already won the level.



Is it okay to defeat Flying-O while you're still on top its underlings?



Yep. That's what I thought.



Hooray?



Sadly, I can only get B rank for the rest of these.

New reports:



Oh, Kazuya is U-1's competition for getting Pico. There's no indication of him crushing on Pico in the story, but he does bully U-1. Both he and Pico disappears until after the final level, by the way.