this is the only game i played that actually feels magical and mysterious. dragon quest and zelda are too stock/generic, like bare bones fantasy tropes taken from tolkein and stripped down to saturday morning cartoon simplicity. final fantasy too often ruins the atmosphere with technology and futurist anime stuff

Sounds like you really need to play more games then

Here, I'll even help you zoomie. Here are some games that actually have "magical/mysterious" atmospheres without featuring The Little Mermaid rhythm games.

>Ico
>Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
>Riven
>Unreal 1998
>The Longest Journey
>Morrowind
>Panzer Dragoon Zwei
>Otogi
>Shadow of the Colossus

Now go play them

>>11839501 (OP)
I don't know about all of that "magical and mysterious" stuff. It's more like a fever dream. FM on proud is definitely a ton of fun, though.

>>11839517
You listed exactly 2 games worth playing.

>>11839521
Oh no! Now I'm left wondering about which games this absolutely nobody doesn't like!!!!!!! FUCK BRO!

>>11839517
>>11839528
You are based

>>11839501 (OP)
>dragon quest feels too much like a cartoon
>unlike this game full of disney characters
Okay.

>>11839517
The optional rhythm game that's not even in the game OP posted? I guess it's easy to get confused when you trash things you've never even played.

>>11839501 (OP)
a friend asked me to check this game out, and i don't think i could ever take it seriously with all the disney shit and crap voice acting. i'm a grown man.
i think he might see something in the deeper themes with heartless/nobodies or whatever is going on, but i can't help but just think of it as kids larping with disney ocs and shit. i dunno man. tell me op, why should i give kingdom hearts a chance?

>>11839563
My nigga I played KH on a launch PS2 the day it came out. I'm well aware that the Ariel shit is in 2, no need to be pedantic. I liked KH1 then and I like it now, but its still a game where you play minigames with Winnie the Pooh while Goofy talks to Final Fantasy characters with some of the most cringe dialogue imaginable. Deriding other games for having "saturday morning cartoon simplicity" and then praising picrel as "magical and mysterious" is laughable. It's a retarded anime Disney game with a few Square characters thrown in for good measure. I like it for what it is, but it's not exactly a shining example of atmosphere and tone like OP is implying. I think you are very young or likely on the spectrum.

Threads of Fate feels like KH beta version. Definitely check it out, it has rough patches with awkward bosses and platforming but the characters and music and world are lovely
You have beaten Majora's Mask right?
Megaman Legends is chock full of secrets to find and a sense of mystery.
Silent Hill/Resident Evil both have a great sense of mystery and unveiling
Banjo Kazooie is goofy but it definitely feels magical as you progress
Psychonauts has the feel of a surreal American cartoon it's very sleek and mysterious you'd probably like it
Cosmology of Kyoto is the most spiritual game I have played. You enter Kyoto in ancient Japan overrun by demons and your choices matter to an extreme degree. You will die a lot, witness and take part in gruesome events
King's Field series has a very spiritual feeling to exploring it's world and is full of mysterious npcs and magical entities
>>11839575
It has great mechanics. KH 1 & 2 are the best ARPGs in my opinion just from a design standpoint . Sure the cutscenes might be laughable but these are games they aren't meant to be a badge of identity for grown adults. You just pass the time with them

>>11839501 (OP)
Kingdom hearts is literally full of Saturday morning cartoons. 5/10, I replied.

>>11839501 (OP)
Personally I could never get into this series no matter how hard I tried. Something about the combat never clicked with me. I get why people liked though and it's certainly unique.

>>11839575
Everyone I've known who was into Kingdom Hearts back in the day was also severely autistic.

>>11839575
You are supposed to play it when you are a kid or with your own kids.

>>11839517
excellent list

>>11839787
>>11839560
Yeah, Kingdom Hearts has magical cartoons aka Disney. Dairy Queen and Zaloopa have toned down DIC/Hannah Barbera tier cartoon fantasy tropes because Japanese cannot into Western fantasy. They take high adventure and turn it into a Snagglepuss.

Did you ever want an epic adventure through Kirby style art? No.

>>11839517
Hell yeah man

Things I'll miss in KH 1 that were abandoned in future games
>Sora, Riku, and Kairi acting like real kids rather than anime tropes
>the Ansem reports hinting at the Darkness and Heartless being some creepy, eldritch thing

Actually, thats about it. Really hated what they specifically did with Sora in the future games. Where as before he had a personality, from 2 onward he was basically the retarded iteration of Goku.

358/2 and CoM (gameboy) get an honorable mention for having really good stories and characters.

Beyond that, gameplay peaked with 2's Critical then never recovered after DDD. Now we are in pants on head territory and fujos/western subversives are STILL trying to make the series gay.

WHEN YOU WALK AWAY

>>11841087
>from 2 onward
Sora was still Sora in that.

>>11841087
KH1 was the only game that seemed like a proper blend of Disney and Square, or at least the closest thing to it. Everything after that got too deep into Nomura's nonsensical OC shit while Disney stuff felt like an obligation with little to no real importance.

>>11839560
You never read Dr.Slump have you? Toriyama is pretty much a western cartoonist living in japan.
Same for people like Benimaru Itoh, he's huge Disney/Dr.Seuss wannabe

Kingdom Hearts is like an 5 season anime show that has American cartoon characters as cameos

>>11840804
>Did you ever want an epic adventure through Kirby style art?
The Kingdom Hearts writer co-made Subspace Emissary

>>11841087
Hell yea that's basically my opinion.
Story peaked at KH1 and some handheld spinoffs
Gameplay peaked at KH2

Rest is just nomura lorefaggotry that just balled into a big fat mess by KH3
I don't care if it feeds to your 2000 cringe phase/shibuya-visual kei nostalgia, it's just didn't work out for me.

>>11839501 (OP)
>acting as if only japanese games exist
this thread is bait isn't it

>>11844928
>only japanese games exist
Let me dream.

>>11839501 (OP)
>magical and mysterious
>game about literal childrens cartoons

you must be 18 or older to post on 4chan

>>11844957
Wrinkled hands typed this post.

>>11839501 (OP)
It will always hold a special place in my heart

>>11844973
what, like he did dishes

You can like games that jiggle familier IP in your face without having to put down good games for attention.

>>11844957
I was born in the late 80s which means I have a fondness for Disney as does anyone who isn't perma-stuck in teen angst phase jamming Slipknot and flipping off their grandma. Disney didn't suck until Zoomers were kids growing up with CGI crapola

>>11846686
And you can like games but be objective about their merits. I like some Zelda games but I've always been let down by the atmosphere, for a series people really autistically get into and obsess over the lore of, I can't think of anything more bare bones and uninspired when it comes to being generic cartoonized or later anime-ized fantasy

>>11844104
Nah, in 2 Sora and Riku go full anime (which is an odd complaint considering the styles of the games, I know). In 1 and CoM they really did seem like a group of kids. A good example of that was when Sora was forced to smile and realized how silly it was, or how he'd be a bit stand offish to strangers he'd meet. He was just a kid out of his element. In 2 and 3 he becomes a lot more silly, dumb, and laid back.
>>11844223
I'd say 2 was still "okay". It was leaning towards the convoluted lore, but it still did an alright job of progressing the Disney, FF, and KH related stories alongside one another. It's was after 2 where they did a massive survey and found out people cared the most about the story in the series thought so after that they really made it as a story that was never meant to end. BBS is when the story really started to go down hill, 3 is definitely the worst of everything though. Almost completely abandoned the traditional gameplay and completely divorces the Disney stories from the KH stories all the while completely getting rid of the FF aspect.
>>11844849
Its wild how some people take it all so seriously after 2. Nomura is legit just making it up as he goes and people act like some aspects were always planned. It was a good series, shame it didn't wrap up in 3 and they are going to keep it going forever, but 2 at least has a nice soft ending point.

>>11844223
>>11844849
Oh, another thing that has been completely lost was the magic of seeing traditional animation carefully brought to life in 3d and playing through fully realized (most of the time) worlds based around those properties. Just taking Tangled and Frozen and playing in those worlds loses a lot of what was neat about the older games.
>tfw Treasure Planet world never ever.

>>11841087
>>11844849
I think most people can agree that 1 & 2 were the only truly good games in the series that represented what Kingdom Hearts was about, 3 teenage friends on a island who got attacked by Heartless and one of them has to go a journey through Disney worlds, meeting FF characters to unlock and seal the keyholes from darkness, simple as fucking that before Nomura’s bullshit.

Yeah, I know 2 had the whole Roxas/Namine/Organization XIII crap but it was still 95% a Sora story about finding Riku, Mickey and Kairi.

>>11846785
That's why 358/2 gets the pass. It slips right into that spot between 1 and 2 relatively well which was before all the craziness happened and plays out like a sort of radio drama. It's very character driven and doesn't step away from the sad ending that's coming. It also does a good job at making you see why they sort of had to "reprogram" Roxas at the end.

I still need to play Re:Coded at some point. I know some people sorta like the story in that one.

If 3 did anything, it at least gave the suffering magnet that was Roxas and friends a happy ending even if nothing went as it was intended. DDD was definitely the lowest of low points in the series both from a gameplay and story perspective and its wild 3 took so many of its gameplay ideas from it.