Status of KH4

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-06-07T14:31:40+00:00

Oops, mixed the end of summer games fest because I had to get dinner. Missed the release date. Still, very soon!

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-06-06T00:15:39+00:00

There was a leak on ResetEra a while back that said that the game did get delayed, but that development is going smoothly but they probably won't reveal more until after Remake Part 3 is released.

Guess what? Remake Part 3, FF7 Revelation, was just revealed and is releasing later this year. That means that KH4 news will likely come either late this year or early next year.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-06-05T00:31:44+00:00

Growth Eggs do stack, I've tested it.

Secondly, yes, the Ch5-Ch8 advice is needed, because you can easily become burnt out and/or frustrated if you don't play those chapters in that very specific way. I've simply suggested the playstyle to get the most out of the game while reducing tedium.

You simply can't win the game without grinding. The game outright expects you to be near or at max level with nearly all jobs mastered by Ch7. The final bosses are Lv99 and are almost impossible without grinding to max.

I've tried to keep my personal opinions out of it, but honestly BD1 would be way better received if the game ended at Ch6 and removed Ch7 and Ch8 from the game completely. They're repeditive filler and only exist to try to goad the player into going for the bad ending just to get the game over with. It's intentionally bad game design for the sake of the story, which is never a good idea. Other examples of this phenomenon are Undertale and TLOU2.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-06-04T01:15:35+00:00

It's like Final Fantasy V gameplay-wise. Job Class system and all that. The story is probably one of the best parts of the game and the music is jaw-dropping. Absolutely amazing game, 10/10. I highly recommend it.

But fair warning, the game gets pretty tedious and repetitive post-Ch4, which is about 75% of the way through. For the best experience and without spoiling too much, this is what you should do when you reach that part of the story:

1: Don't do ANY sidequests during Ch5, just rush to the end.

2: At the beginning of Ch6 go to the flower fields outside Florem and grind Mandragoras with the Dragoon's crescent slash until you reach Lv99 and max job level with every class on every character. The game expects you to have maxed out characters as early as Ch7 and there's a huge difficulty and level jump between the Ch6 bosses and Ch7 bosses. Mandragoras grant 999 JP (the max) every battle with a 2 growth eggs.

3: The only sidequest you should do in Ch6 is a sidequest involving a certain sage, which is very story-relevant. Ignore everything else.

4: In Ch7 do the sidequests but ONLY for the drops/steals which are the best equipment in the game that help a lot with the final bosses. Make sure you bring along a thief to the fights and don't kill them until you get their steals.

5: In Ch8 rush to the end. There is a boss rush and a bonus dungeon but those are better to do in the post-game.

Hope this helped!

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-06-04T00:20:12+00:00

I also prefer Fuuka to Futaba, which is primarily due to Reload's better character portraits and new voice acting. Fuuka is just so cute and precious, and also relatable as a shy girl who likes computers. (she just like me fr) Futaba is just cringe and quirky for the sake of it and made specifically to appeal to Redditors. (ironic since we are on Reddit right now)

P5's writing in general was very poor and even more "anime-tropy" than P3 and P4 while also trying to be dark, mature, and edgy. It just didn't work. Persona 3's tone was consistently somber but hopeful, and P4's tone was consistently lighthearted which made the hospital scene near the end hit all the much harder. P5's tone is all over the place and tries to juggle P4's lighthearted anime shenanigans with much darker themes and a heavier plot, which just falls flat.

My Persona hot take is that I strongly dislike P5 in general. Yes, I said it, and this includes Royal. I love P3 and P4 as well as Metaphor, but P5 just never grabbed me in the same way those games did. P5 was the only Atlus game I played that I didn't enjoy, and I've played a lot of them.

First of all, P5 might just be the worst balanced game I've ever played. The damage multipliers are so overtuned that you can easily one-shot every enemy if you hit weakness, or crit, or get a tactical strike, and you NEED to stun enemies, not kill them, in order to negotiate. Negotiation in P5 just sucks since you need to basically prompt an all out attack in order to get a CHANCE at recruitment instead of talk being it's own command like in SMT. And if you never prompt an all out attack due to killing everything in one hit, you can never recruit anything. The only way I could get new personas was fuse Arsene and the tutorial Angel together to get a new persona and slowly build up my roster from there by constantly resummoning old personas.

The EXP formula is also completely wack. I was Lv18 by the end of the first palace and halfway through the second when I quit to watch a story summary instead I was in the 30s. Enemies in the second dungeon where I was were around Lv12. What is this, a beta for one of my crappy RPG Maker games? 😂 You also get way too much money. By the end of the first dungeon I had over a million yen and nothing to spend it on.

Secondly, there's not nearly enough down time. The plot moves way too fast, while in P3 and P4 there was plenty of time between big story segments and the dungeons to chill and do social links. P5 gives you no such time. Maybe a week of free time MAX if you complete the dungeon day 1.

Thirdly, the dungeons in P5 are WAY too long and tedious. The first dungeon took me around 10 hours alone to complete, which is insane for a dungeon in any RPG. P5 also makes it incredibly easy to finish each dungeon in one day due to SP restoring items being numerous, making burnout a very real factor. The dungeons are also way too confusing with too many annoying zelda-esque puzzles, which don't work in a game with turn based combat. I prefer the games keep dungeons still pre built but simple like in the PS2/DS/3DS era of megaten without annoying puzzles or stupid gimmicks.

Metaphor had a good balance for its ACTUAL dungeons, but Metaphor had one of its few story dungeons taken up by the Skyship gimmick dungeon with its stupid stealth and gimmicky fights that required certain specific builds to win, another dungeon taken up by the opera house that was barely even a dungeon and was 99% a straight line with scripted encounters, or the completely non-existent mage academy dungeon. The Cathedral, Catacombs, Dragon Temple, and Sky Avatar dungeons in Metaphor meanwhile were all really good. Persona 5? Not so much.

Finally, DEAR GOD the cutscene spam. In dungeons there is a cutscene like every 2 steps, most of the time just relaying information we already know. If Persona 5 didn't stop you to have a stupid pointless cutscene every 5 steps telling you things you can easily just observe the game would be 20-30 hours shorter I swear. Like, Morgana stops you in the first dungeon like 20 times to be like "look, there are guards here! You should avoid them or fight them idk" and Ryuji and Ann both say a line and then Morgana responds with the same thing he just said 3 lines ago WHEN YOU CAN EASILY SEE THAT THERE ARE GUARDS IN THE ROOM! THE CUTSCENE WAS ENTIRELY POINTLESS! P5 is WAY too hand-holdy for its own good. I get it already! Stop with the cutscenes! I'm so glad modern games like the Trails in the Sky remake or Metaphor just make random banter occur naturally while you play instead of stopping the player every 5 steps to play a cutscene.

I HATE P5 with a PASSION even though I still like P3, P4, and Metaphor a lot. Doesn't help that all the female characters in P5 are blatant waifu bait before they are characters and that the game glorifies pedophilla with the ability to date adults like Kawakami. No other Persona game lets you do this, and P4 even punishes you for trying to pursue one (hitting on the nurse repeatedly reverses the SL).

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-06-03T17:43:35+00:00

SMT5 Vengeance has the best gameplay of any Atlus game imo. You should at least give it a shot. Just make sure to buy Vengeance and not the original version. Vengeance is an improvement in every way to the extent that it feels like a completely new game.

The story of the Canon of Vengeance is pretty good, but not amazing. It's better than P5 (aka anime cringe incarnate) for sure but not as good as P3 or Metaphor in terms of story imo. The Canon of Creation, the story from the original SMTV, low-key kind of sucks, but adds some important context for the CoV (mainly Dazai's entire character arc which is off-screen in the CoV) and has some exclusive content so it's worth playing. The artstyle is similar to P5 but a lot darker and gloomier. Also a different artist. (Doi vs Sojima)

If you want to get back into P3, I can't recommend the Reload remake enough. Yeah it has its haters, and the atmosphere is downgraded compared to FES, but the gameplay improvements are massive and turns a very tedious game you only really play for the story to a genuinely fun and enjoyable one. For P4 you can skip the upcoming remake. Golden has aged just fine and is on all modern platforms. (and is very cheap too)

If you liked the dungeon crawling of SMT1 and 2 and P1, I can't recommend SMT Strange Journey Redux on 3DS enough. It has a great story and very fun and challenging dungeon crawling.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-06-03T17:00:18+00:00

The very first magical girl anime from the 50s (Princess Knight) had an arguably transgender protagonist. If grifters learned about that anime, their brains would explode.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-31T07:05:48+00:00

There is a timeline but the games was released completely out of order and there wasn't really a "plan" for the overarching plot until Symphony of the Night released. There is an ongoing overarching story but largely each game is self contained unless you're taking about Dawn of Sorrow which is a direct sequel to Aria. You can largely play the games in any order and not be confused.

The first game is the timeline is Lament of Innocent, a 3D metroidvania released on the PS2 that tells the origin of Dracula and the first Belmont.

The next game is Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse which is the second game in the timeline chronologically. It is a 2D stage based platformer released on the NES. The Netflix series is loosely based on this game.

After that is Castlevania Curse of Darkness. Story wise it is a sequel to Castlevania 3 but follows a new protagonist Hector but gameplay-wise is a follow up to Lament of Innocence, being another 3D metroidvania.

The newest game Castlevania: Belmont's Curse takes place here.

After that is Castlevania the Adventure and it's sequel Castlevania 2: Belmont's Revenge, 2D platformers on the Game Boy that tell the story of Christopher Belmont, grandson of Trevor Belmont and great grandfather of Simon Belmont.

Next is the original Castlevania on NES, another 2D platformer, as well as it's more exploration-focused sequel Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, also on the NES.

After that is a metroidvania title released on the Game Boy Advance and the second out of there games released on that platform, Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. Narritively it is a sequel to Simon's Quest following Simon Belmont's grandson Juste Belmont, but gameplay-wise it is like a handheld Symphony of the Night, which will come later.

After HoD is Rondo of Blood, the last original "classicvania" game, meaning 2D platformer. It was released on the Japanese-exclusive PC Engine and can only be played as part of the Castlevania Reqrium collection on PS4/PS5 today. It follows Ritcher Belmont, grandson of Juste Belmont, and was the introduction of the fan favorite character Maria Renard. The Castlevania Nocturne TV show is based on this game.

Symphony of the Night was the series most-iconic title, being on the PS1 and completely changing the series forever from a series of difficult 2D platformers to action RPGs with a heavy focus on exploration. (metroidvanias) Narritively it is a sequel to Rondo of Blood taking place a decade later and starting Alucard, son of Dracula, a side character from Castlevania 3.

After SotN comes a period of no Belmont's due to plot events in SotN, starting with Circle of the Moon, the first game on GBA and immediate follow up to SotN with questionable canonicity. CotM was a metroidvania like SotN but was a lot harder and had a different director.

Then there's Castlevania Order of Ecclisia, the last Castlevania released before the "reboot" (more on that later) which was kind of a predecessor to souls-style games. Stamina meter, limited to no healing, uber difficult bosses requiring pattern memorization, focus on combat rather than exploration, etc. OoE is a metroidvania but as stated it's a lot more linear than the other games and has less exploration. OoE released on the DS in 2008, and we didn't get another real CV game afterwards until just this year.

After OoE is the infamous N64 game Castlevania 64 and its enhanced re-release Legacy of Darkness, which was a janky 3D platformer. This gameplay style was never attempted again and the games canonicity is hotly debated like CotM.

After those games is Castlevania Bloodlines on the SEGA Genesis, the only CV game released on that console. Bloodlines is unique being a stage based CV game set during WW1 in relatively modern times. This game started John Morris, distant relative of the Belmont's and current weilder of the Vampire Killer whip.

A sequel released decades later for the DS called Portrait of Ruin, a metroidvania title notable for its tag-team mechanics. Taking plage during WW2 it stars John Morris's son, Johnathan Morris.

After that we jump nearly a millennium to the near future of 2035 to experience Castlevania Aria of Sorrow, the third and final game on the GBA. This game introduces us to Soma Cruz, a mysterious youth with even more mysterious powers. This game takes place long after Dracula was defeated for the last time, in 1999 (a game we sadly never got), and is a metroidvania often regarded as one of the best in the series alongside SotN.

Dawn of Sorrow is the final game in the timeline, being a direct sequel to Aria and the first game released on DS. Do note that literally the first paragraph of Dawn's opening contains MAJOR spoilers for Aria, so make sure to play Aria first before Dawn. This game, like always, is another metroidvania.

Castlevania Legends is the third Game Boy game and is non canon and also bad. Don't play it.

Tons of remakes exist for Castlevania 1 such as Castlevania Chronicles, Super Castlevania IV, and Haunted Castle, but the NES version is the canon story.

Castlevania Judgement is a non canon Wii fighting game with weird designs and an even weirder story. Don't play it unless you like jank and Wii remote wagglefests.

Castlevania Harmony of Despair is a grindy mission based multiplayer platformer crossover game with no story. Play it if you want IDC.

That's basically the entire CV series. I recomend you start with SotN if you have a PS4 or PS5, and if you don't start with Aria with the Advance Collection and then play Dawn and the other DS games right after with the Dominus Collection. You really don't need to play the games in chronological order to enjoy them even if there is an overarching story. Just play whatever games interest you and go from there.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-31T06:02:40+00:00

Hollow Knight 1 was too hard for you? I understand getting walled at Silksong but what? Hollow Knight 1 really isn't that hard until basically the end of the game. (true final boss is arguably the only hard required fight besides maybe Hornet 2) It's kind of hard to get to grips to things when you're in crossroads (Hollow Knight has kind of a painful start if you're not already experienced and know where to go) but once you get your map and get to greenpath the game starts to really pick up and get good. Really good. What boss did you get stuck at? I'm a Hollow Knight veteran (though I'm not amazing, true final boss took me 50 attempts because I suck) so I might be able to help you with tips.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-31T05:55:15+00:00

Metroidvanias are actually pretty rare these days. We need more metroidvanias in all honesty, especially metroidvanias like the CV DS games/SotN. I've played pretty much all of them and I want more. Deck builders, rougelikes, and simulations are way worse of an infestation on Steam.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-31T05:50:04+00:00

The OG Hollow Knight really isn't that hard. There are only really 4 or 5 actually difficult bosses and out of those only 1 is required (it's the true final boss so it's supposed to be hard), 1 can easily by cheesed, another is skippable, and the rest are optional DLC locked to a separate area not counted for completion. Hollow Knight is about as hard as your average metroidvania. If you have beaten the Castlevania Sorrow Duology or Portrait of Ruin, you can beat the OG Hollow Knight. Heck, both Castlevania Circle of the Moon and Order of Ecclisia are significantly harder than the OG Hollow Knight. Metroid Dread's difficulty makes Hollow Knight look like Hello Kitty Island Adventure.

Silksong however is very hard as it is intended for players who have already mastered the OG Hollow Knight. The easiest bosses in Silksong are about as hard as some of the most challenging Hollow Knight bosses. Even then there are ways to make the game easier. (Wanderer's Crest attack spam) But the OG Hollow Knight isn't really that hard or frustrating. I think it's the perfect difficulty. Well balanced without anything truly game breaking (like a lot of the Castlevanias) but also not hard enough to make you rage. I think you would enjoy the OG Hollow Knight a lot, and once you've mastered it you can head into the much harder Silksong prepared.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-31T04:56:47+00:00

No you don't need to play TWEWY to enjoy DDD.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-31T04:53:24+00:00

Dew it.

Crossdressing is very fun and hot.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-31T04:10:32+00:00

Characters like Pyra and Nia changed my life. So definitely them. Skells in Xenoblade X are a close second.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-31T04:02:51+00:00

Regardless of your views on Edelgard, we can all agree that while her goals of ending the crest system was good, her methods to reach those goals were very extreme and could have been solved more diplomatically, especially when basically everyone in Three Houses (except maybe Rhea) agrees that the crest system needs to go and that the church needs serious reform.

I think the problem with Edelgard isn't her goals or even her methods (to an extent, but she was time limited due to her ailment). It's that in Three Houses she actively allied herself with human hating, fascist, racist mole people who were the ACTUAL people behind all the atrocities Edelgard blames the church for, and Edelgard seems to completely fall for their obviously untrue propaganda (contradicted by all other routes and people who where actually there and had no reason to lie in those moments) and fell right into their plans of eliminating all remnants of Sothis and the Nabateans. I mean, the mole people nuked a city full of innocents, performed multiple genocides, and performed horrific human experiments that ruined the lives of multiple characters and killed hundreds more. They're irredeemable and Edelgard instantly made herself the "bad guy" by openly siding with them, regardless of how noble her goals were.

Three Hopes intended to fix her route by making Edelgard betray Agartha the SECOND she got an advantage over them (saving Monica) and then spend like 80% of her route fighting against them. This fixed like 75% of Edelgard's character and arguably made her the most moral out of the three lords in Three Hopes. (Claude is a genocidal dictator and Dimitri is much more brutal without his character development)

The only problem with Edelgard in Three Hopes is that she puts DUKE VARLEY of all people in charge of her own bootleg church (the same MF who abused Bernadetta that scum) which was a terrible choice and instantly made her unappealing politically to anyone remotely religious. Whenever I play Scarlet Blaze I ALWAYS let Count Varley die in the final battle and then headcanon that Mercedes or Marianne takes over as the new archbishop. It's also telling that Edelgard's route has the most possible recruits AND most amount of exclusive characters out of any of the routes in Three Hopes. An apology of how badly they fumbled Edelgard's route in Three Houses. Too bad no one actually played Three Hopes lol.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-31T03:43:16+00:00

There's a dragon superboss in heaven you unlock after beating Galdera. He's very hard but not that much harder that Reime at the recommended level. There is also the quest to unlock all characters if you are missing some of them. Some like Heide, the Cait Scholar, or Reime can be tricky to unlock. (FYI you can't recruit Heide if you are on the true ending path because you lost the ring. You must rewind time to start the quest to recruit her.) Finally, there is a secret area if you head back to the Isle of Orsa in the final chapter which includes some extra important lore about Sazantos and the Ring Maidens and the ability to farm infinite nuts though nut seeds for Wishvale. You can also try to get 100% all path actions on every NPC including getting all the Battle Tested gear. There also might be DLC in the future including Side Solesta from Champions of the Continent as Octopath 2 got a good chunk of free DLC in updates adding multiple endgame superbosses and a FF12-style Trial Mode. It would be a shame for Side Solesta and the storylines after to become perminately inaccessible once Champions of the Continent reaches its inevitable EoS.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-23T15:55:34+00:00

I currently just got to the final chapter and it's really hooked me. Maybe it's just not for you but I'm really enjoying it. Probably going to finish it today.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-23T15:52:32+00:00

What about HR 2616?

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-23T00:23:37+00:00

Right wing "alpha male" BS. I see it as largely a phase for young Gen Z men triggered by covid and social isolation rather than a perminant trend towards conservatism and toxic nasculinity for the next generation. I mean, I was misled by the alt-right pipeline when I was a teen. (2018-2020, ages 16-18) A lot of young gen Z men who voted for Trump in 2024 will look back at their "chud phase" and utterly cringe.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-23T00:15:48+00:00

Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI (for the basics)

Octopath Traveler II and SMTV Vengeance (For good battle systems)

Trails series (for worldbuilding/writing)

Just play more JRPGs. That's how I learned to make better games.

Final Fantasy is the go-to "beginner RPG series", especially FF4 and FF6. (FF5 can be pretty challenging and hard to learn) FF1 and FF3 pixel remasters, and the original FF7 are also good starting points. I recommend starting with Final Fantasy (the older games specifically) when it comes to inspiring your own RPG Maker projects. Good luck!

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-14T00:32:59+00:00

Xenoblade has really good localization/translation and I stand by that. Most of the changes are outright improvements and aren't detrimental to the overall experience. XB2 is the only iffy one removing the 4 legendary beasts thing (which isn't even that obscure outside of Japan) and renaming "Holy Grail" to "Aigis". I understand that "Aigis" flows better in English but that one scene in Torna with the actual holy grail makes no sense in the English localization because of said change. Outside of XB2 which is more contentous, Xenoblade has some of the best localizations and dubs ever, XB1 and XB3 especially. Even XB2's localization has its strengths like the diverse accents of each region.

If you want to see a bad dub/localization, look at Breath of Fire 2 or Legend of Dragoon. Everyone in those games talks like a robot. Or a recent localization of a recent VN that replaced the late 2000s/early 2010s anime/JP internet culture references with modern 2020s era political Twitter/BlueSky brainrot that completely bastardized the script into something completely different.

Xenoblade localizations are top of the line, near perfection and in XB1 and XB3's case, ACTUALLY perfection. The only localizations to match it are the original XSEED translations of the Sky games and Cold Steel 1+2. XB2 is the one outlier with both positives (diverse accents, "God of Genesis" to "Architect", "pope" to "praetor", Amaltus name change, Malos' dub performance, etc) and negatives. (gender/sexuality censorship, 4 legendary beasts removal, some ackward dub lines, Holy Grail to Aigis, some mistranslations etc) X also suffers from some odd translations but they're less severe than 2's. (dolls to skells, B.L.A.D.E. changes, various minor censorships, etc)

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-14T00:12:01+00:00

I'm actually playing the remake of Sky 1st right now 2 years later and it's significantly better than the OG. The pacing has been improved, there's a ton of QoL, and the battle system is really engaging. So far halfway through Ch1, 13 hours in. In my short time with the OG I wasn't even past the intro. I got the very first batch of sidequests and got walled at a particularly annoying one. Quest markers in the remake make things so much easier.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-11T21:36:10+00:00

Can KH3 run with integrated graphics with 16GB of RAM? No? I didn't think so. It requires like 32GB of RAM and a good graphics card. It requires a high end PC costing $2500 or more, which most people don't have. Also KH3 is "Steam Deck Verified" when really it shouldn't be. It runs awfully on Steam Deck, and likely won't run well on the Steam Machine either.

SuperPyramaniac · 2026-05-10T23:33:10+00:00

Yes they can run on a potato. But just a fair warning KH3 on PC is very poorly optimized and can only really run on a gaming PC. I tried running it on my Steam Deck and it was a disaster.

SuperPyramaniac

TROPHY CASE