Micro-thought #3: KH2 Bestiary

Even though Kingdom Hearts is designed by Square Enix, it doesn’t really integrate status effects or enemy resistances into its combat. Contrary to most Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest games, Kingdom Hearts doesn’t really have poison, stop, slow, haste, silence, fury, etcetera. While I was playing KH1 and KH2, it didn’t seem like any enemy had resistances besides the mages.

I’m surprised that a common effect like poison doesn’t exist in KH. Maybe Disney had some problems with it potentially being too complicated and inaccessible to non-gamers. Maybe they wanted to emphasize the puzzle-adventure aspect than the combat, and developers who disagreed worked their ass off in KH2 while trying to preserve its simplicity.

Whatever the case is, adding something simple like status effects or resistances would require players to strategize more. Some may say this takes away the flashiness, but I think strategizing a stylistic encounter would be better, especially since it’s not a turn-based RPG. I would actually have to think, instead of spamming the X-button and casting Thundaga.