The Best Settings for Donald and Goofy

twitch
twitter
stream archive

[StickmanSham]

songs used in order:
River of Samsara - Digital Devil Saga 1
Police Station - Persona 1 (PSX)
Sweet Home - Digital Devil Saga 1

[ultrayoshi]

Donald in KH1: I'll wipe this encounter for you Sora
Donald in KH2: lol I'll use my tickle thunder

[yisusmen]

Although many people say that Donald and Goofy are useless, I don't think so, I have always seen them as important members of the team and when there are sections in which I don't have them I feel that sensation of being exposed

[xMatthewStar]

Nah Donald and Goofy in 1 are part of the reason 1 is my favorite game. It actually feels like a whole party working together and that everyone plays a big role.

[arvontathurman]

What’s funny is, I just did a replay of. Kingdom Hearts 1, and since I’m a little older now, I actually healed my team members, and cared for them, and they actually helped me out a lot.

[reddodeado]

After fucking around in level 1 KH 2, it seems that party members do, in fact, follow a damage floor system like Sora does, but only against small enemies. In CoR, Goofy Tornado gives you basically free opportunities against the cars, just like the big fire guys in HB2.

[interrobangings]

people forget you can hit triangle in KH1 to make them focus on an enemy

[bubbletea_]

you mean to tell me that taking advantage of the parameters on an AI will make it _better?!_
finally someone gets it.

[aStupidGecko]

Something people don’t realize about KH1 Donald is his ai is smart enough to not use magic on enemies that are immune to it. The only time he will use magic on an enemy immuned is if it was a crossfire and Donald was aiming for something else. Noticed this a long time ago when grinding for the heartless weapons in 1 and how donald never used elemental magic on the wizards. Despite this I would hear on the internet for years that donald would waste magic healing enemies when that isn’t the case

[mookiedt]

I wish they had kept kh1's customizations for the later games.

[madprophet]

Referring to MP Gift as "the best support ability ever created" gave me life.

[jg]

Fun fact: Goofy will only use his discus attack in the final Nort fight in KH 3. Doland also only uses Blizzard and Fire in the final boss too.

[minlow]

Party members would be more useful in KH2 if the game didn’t nerf all the damage they do to 1 for most enemies and all bosses

[IosLocarth]

I actually felt party members were at their most useful in 3 than ever. I was fighting the final boss and was getting comboed and Donald literally stunned the boss with a fire spell allowing me to aerial recover and do a combo

[Zoosmell]

Every time I play KH1. I make Donald the physical attacker and sora the mage. Donald with the Violetta staff and enough strength can 1 shot large bodies. Its pretty funny.

[ultima]

This comment will probably get drowned, but as somebody who has done challenge runs in KH1 and KH3 (and attempted in KH2) where Sora doesn't get to attack directly until needed to beat a boss, or for other reasons (I dubbed it the "My Friends Are My Power" challenge), I have some alternative takes on D&G (and guests) customization in these three games:

KH1
There's definitely something to be said about the support setups from the video for the endgame, but I feel like it's doing an injustice to the pure potential D&G have in this game when properly set up for offense.
--- Goofy, with a couple of good Strength boosting accessories, will be shredding health bars on most bosses with every use of Tornado, and his shield charge move under the Shield Techniques category can kill Defenders with a mere two ticks of the charge, the first tick doing well over 80% of the thing's health. Having a support Goofy is neat, sending out a Slayer Goofy against either a boss or a wave of mooks is a sight to behold. His Special Attack, Charge, being able to stun large threats and Rocket being his anti-air are also good tools for him to have, though Rocket is likely benched by the time you get High Jump. Never felt the need to put Special Attacks beyond "frequently", since his best move is still his Shield Technique running attack or Tornado, and he's smart enough to use Tornado on targets above ground level. Most of this also applies to guests with a Strength-centric moveset, namely Aladdin, Tarzan, Beast, Peter Pan, and (Spiral Wave) Ariel.
--- Donald meanwhile, as well as all caster guests, is 100% equal in spell power to Sora in KH1, and that fact can not be understated enough. Because of the formulae behind the spells being tied to Max MP for their power, gearing up Donald for all of that MP goodness means his spells never drop off. But that's the important part, keep him equipped. Against certain end-game bosses that just have magic resistances already, that is where I would switch Donald's AI for a more support centric role sometimes. Or, hear me out, melee Donald! He has some killer staves at the end game with huge Strength boosts and the ability to crit on a few, Donald can take some big chunks if geared for Strength, too! And even a Strength Donald can do Cures, Aeros and Stops fine enough, his base MP pool is still solid. Just crank his Offensive Magic down, Regular Attacks up and you're set.
--- Overall, that's the main takeaway in KH1. You want your allies to perform way better offensively? GIVE THEM THE GOOD EQUIPMENT! With Synthesis you can make multiple copies of some of the best gear out there for any setup you can think of, and even without, boss and chest spoils can be swapped around as needed for some solid combinations. Alongside that, the Lock-On + Triangle command makes it so that you have full control of target prioritization, giving you full control of the flow of any fight. And finally, don't be afraid to throw some stat boosts to D&G in particular. People see it as a sin to use those stat boosts on anyone but Sora, but trust me, your homies will be much more capable with their whole toolbox available. And finally, KH1 has no restriction on the damage of your allies, so don't have it set up that only Sora has to do ALL the damage. Leave that unfortunate truth for KH2...
--- I highly recommend the challenge run if anybody is looking to replay this game. Just don't make the same mistake I did; pick Staff first to get Scan at the earliest to know when to hit the bosses.

KH2
Like I said at the start, I *tried* to do this challenge on KH2. It just didn't work out for several reasons, most of which I had to document myself.
--- First off, the damage output. Through my tests, I have discovered that, no matter how high their stats are, D&G are stuck on dealing 1 damage per hit on certain enemies, which I nicknamed as "elites". Think something like Assault Riders in Land of Dragons, and anything of that kind of caliber and beyond, including all bosses. From a game design standpoint, this has been likely done to make the player, as Sora, feel much more powerful, as it will almost always be by their actions that such enemies get vanquished. Unfortunately, it made D&G (and the guests) feel less than useful in boss fights, outside of enabling Limits, Drives and Summons. However, this doesn't mean they'll never be able to beat enemies on their own. In almost all but the most difficult areas, the spawn groups of normal enemies tends to consist of a couple of elites, and a whole bunch of non-elites. A player aware of this limitation can play around it, and set every ally's AI to Party Attack, where they will focus targets other than Sora's; then initiate the fight by going after the elites themselves immediately. By the time you're done with the elites, your allies will have thinned the herd substantially, if not wiped it fully.

--- Second was defenses. Even if they were doing all their damage all the time, they can get overwhelmed by just a few stray touches. Granted, in this game, every ally has at least one, if not several, moves where they have a long animation with full invincibility throughout, like Goofy Tornado, but the different system behind MP and Cure spells means that you can't pick them up faster than they can get knocked down once those moves run out of MP. From there on, it's just a waiting game to get them up again, and this is from the perspective of a passive Sora. An active player will want to use their resources on something other than the one Cure every minute, of course. This is mainly a concern in boss fights, again, since most normal enemies are at the same pace that D&G are, whereas bosses are at a pace more befitting Sora's capacities. Not to mention the fact that all bosses will exclusively target Sora, ignoring the rest, because they are by the very code capable of getting away with that in this game. On those invincible moves, however, they're often the kind to incapacitate the target in some way during the move, and with Party Attack, this does make it so that anything that you're not targeting will be either damaged by the others and defeated, or otherwise carried off until you're ready to deal with them. Or your allies run out of MP, whichever happens first. It is a good way to stay alive in certain fights. Who cares if you're not getting an Quick Blade RC setup on a Magnum Loader half the field away because Tron's Disc Toss is flinching it over and over, if you're dealing with the Devastator right in front of you?
--- There are still merits to equipping your allies with good equipment in this game, but you have to adjust your playstyle to how this game works fundamentally to see them. I'll repeat, Party Attack and Sora going for the elites first in a fight, things will feel so much more natural this way. And for bosses, since your allies are very fragile, it makes more sense to use the resources their presence provides more frequently; Drives, Limits and Summons. A final note: I do personally recommend to split the AP Boosts you get evenly across SDG. Sora can do fine without the overkill amount of AP, but Donald and Goofy with an extra 20 each do get all their passive skills without having to compromise.

KH3
I did eventually have success in the challenge in this game, but I had to add the addendum that Teamup Attacks were allowed, both for being in the spirit of the run, and out of neccessity. Without that, I couldn't see a reasonable way to get past certain sections like the timed fight in the crumbling house Herc is holding up at the start of the game.
---- For Donald, I'd actually recommend Blizzard over Fire, but only slightly. It can freeze enemies, which is pretty helpful and comes up more than you'd think. I also give Thunder and Aero bonus value since they are instantly cast at the target location (excluding underwater Thunder). It's not too uncommon to see a Fire or Blizzard spell of Donald swerve around a target so hard, it just misses the mark entirely. Really though, all of his spells are good for different reasons, it's just that you can't gear him up for all the boosts at once until the end. So to make the most of Donald, prior knowledge of upcoming encounters is very useful.
--- For Goofy, Discus is essential for some bosses or enemies to have him contribute damage. This game is bigger in scale than any before, so to take away Goofy's only hope of hitting those opponents is ill-advised. It hits pretty hard, too, with some solid Strength boosts from equipment and the like. Against stationary/heavy targets, Turbo can actually outperform Tornado easily if Goofy gets stuck on them in the right way. And Tornado's main benefit of old, the invulnerability during the attack, is gone, as it is for all of those skills for everybody, it's still a strong move for general use, Goofy just needs to be able to initiate it from the target's blind spot for best results.
--- However, the biggest sleeper hit in KH3 is how potent most the guests are as combatants. Which is a very welcome bonus, what with everybody being present on the field at the same time. D&G might struggle sometimes against tougher foes, but when they get one or even two extra allies backing them up, the odds are stacked in their favor. Not to mention the Teamup Attacks can both deal huge damage, AND activating one will revive the ally you're teaming up with on the spot, which is always useful.
--- I'ma say it again: give your boys the equipment they deserve, and they'll do much better in battle. I would say the challenge is worth attempting, but if you do it after the KH1 variant, just know that fights will feel a lot slower in comparison, until the mid-point, roughly, where it'll pick up the pace.

I do not apologize for this wall of text, and have a nice day.

[thewaterlord]

MP gift is probably the goat ability in this entire series

Oh yeah good video btw.

[kaptinkitten]

I agree, KH1 Donald is way smarter than you think. He prioritizes spells that are most effective, like how he taught me gravity is very effective against behemoth or how he usually casts gravity and stop on the wizards since those are the only spells that effect them.

Edit: this is experience coming from a no equipment change run.

[thesejokesarentfunnyyetthe]

I finished a Kingdom Hearts 1 on the PS2 Hard Mode run, and Donald and Goofy fucking carried me throughout the whole game
Donald saved my life repeatedly and Goofy kept up with damage. They’re like, amazing practically and while I haven’t gotten a chance to play the rest of the series, I’m sad to hear that Donald got changed up in the future games

But also yeah GIVE MY MANS DONALD AND GOOFY RESPECT

[wevegottrouble]

"Turn off Divider"
Sorry Amigo, but I'd rather choose fucking death than to cripple my boy Auron from flying around like a jet pilot.