Some players in KH2 are more likely to use magic in anticipation of not wanting to waste all their MP. In a traditional MP system, you might save your MP for only healing opportunities. It also enables you to cast other magic abilities before deciding to use cure or limits. It also prevents you from spamming Limits without adding an extra bar to keep track of. This really makes you think more critically about when you should use it and requires you to play more cautiously afterward, but only for a set amount of time. In Kingdom Hearts 2, if you cast Cure, you have to wait some time before being able to do it again. The devs wanted a way around this strategy.
Attacking would refill MP so you could Cure almost anytime you needed to. In KH1, there was a first-order optimal strategy to Attack/Cure. Why did they make the MP System like this in the first place? It prevents people from spamming Cure. Here’s the thing though: the MP System helps add several interesting decisions and challenge layering throughout the game. People are used to restoring MP in other ways. It doesn’t make sense that Cure takes a variable amount of MP, especially when other games don’t do this.Limits are very discouraged because you are essentially deciding that you don’t need to Cure.Some people feel discouraged to use any magic because they want to save it for Cure.(It’s up to personal opinion here and can often change depending on the enemy you’re fighting.) Some people feel this isn’t “real difficulty” it’s just boring because it wastes player time. Sometimes, people end up running around to avoid damage when they don’t have MP to wait for it to recharge.Common criticisms (some valid, some less valid): Entering a Drive Form will refill your HP and MP immediately.But, Sora has a limit on the number of items he can bring into battle (single digits). You could use an Ether or another item to restore MP.Thankfully, Critical Mode gives you MP Hastera at the beginning of the game, which is great game design for hard difficulties. As you equip more of these they stack so you can go from the default 50 second recharge time down to 18 seconds. MP Haste/ra/ga abilities can increase the percentage recharged per second.MP Rage can recover your MP based on Sora receiving damage.You can only use magic while MP is not recharging i.e.When it is full, the bar becomes blue again. The MP bar becomes purple during this time. When MP reaches 0, it begins recharging at a percentage per second (2% default).
ONCE MORE KH2 FULL
Let’s talk about how it works, what’s not great about it, why it’s awesome, and how it could be made better in Kingdom Hearts 3. It’s often criticized but also loved by others. Kingdom Hearts 2 has a rather odd MP System.