Kingdom Hearts III - Critical Mode Guide

A guide to help players handle Critical Mode by utilizing the mechanics of KH3 correctly. Hopefully this will help people properly prepare for the DLC coming out. I could have forgot other important tips (not specific things though like Countershield/Ultima spam). So feel free to comment other large tips I may have missed.

[WillJV]

Really good video. I feel like one more thing worth mentioning is how good airstep is. You can use it to chain combos pretty much forever which can be really good for getting forms safely in the air against mobs. It's also just really good for closing distance fast and cancels so many animations

[Alexandroid_]

I spent hours on the last demon tide on lvl 1 cm. Imagine my face when I saw you using Ariel.

[AlexisGHQ]

Me: Watches an entire video on how to deal with Crit mode in KH3

Also me: Don't even own KH3

[andrewkos]

I was honestly waiting on something like this before I gave Critical Mode a serious attempt, so this is an excellent surprise. Thanks a lot Biz!

[GhoullyXX]

15:10 "Good thing we're experts at this!"


*Instantly dies*

[tigerfestivals]

Seeing this gameplay makes me want to go back and do antother critical mode run. This game is far from perfect, but it sure is fun and beautiful.

[GiantButterKnife]

The issue I had with mobs in critical mode was mostly tied to the enormous room size in KH3. Because dying resets you to the last room load, mistakes are more punishing than in other KH crit modes for just the time loss.

[phantom-X]

Although KH2FM is my favorite game, this game is kind of underrated when it comes to battle options, people just haven't tried them out much and say the game sucks

[darkimpetus]

Don't forget the healing shotlocks. Thought to throw it out there.

[fendyandy]

People: Ralph is garbage.
Ralph: Hold my blocks.

*desimate Grim Guardianess in 10 sec*

[BlueMoonZerc]

One other thing I would say for advice is Airstep, Airstep, Airstep Airstep. A lot of people tend to forget to even use it or do not even know can use it on enemies. It is useful for getting away from enemies hogging you. Besides airstep you can shot lock at any time during a combo; so if you have a laggy move you can hold the shotlock see around you and if no one is going to attack can continue to combo. Another thing can even do is use a shotlock at end of a combo to do more damage.

[Beeboysquared]

Awesome video Biz! A few tips/ideas to add on to your vid:

1. The three different reprisals that you can equip all have differing amounts of i-frames (invincibility frames), range, and AoE potential; if you're not getting much value out of a reprisal since it misses on a fight, trying another one might be beneficial. Kick has the best i-frames but can whiff on fast-moving targets and has a slow animation, Impact is AoE-focused and is sort of a middle-ground, and Slash has very few i-frames but comes out really fast.

2. Critical Mode gives you Rising Spiral and Groundbreaker from the beginning, you can use these two modifiers to extend your combos to 7-hit or even 10-hit combos if you use both.

3. You briefly mentioned Critical Recharge, but just to reiterate, even if you're not planning on using much magic in a fight or don't have Cure Converter equipped, letting your MP gauge run out will help you get you to your powerful Keyblade transformations faster.

4. To add on to your tip on accessories/armor, knowing the element/type of the enemy/boss you're facing, equipping armor and accessories (Cufflinks, in particular), and changing up your combat style/magic use to exploit weaknesses can go a long way, especially for people using mage builds. (Fire vs. Ice, to name an example)

5. As a very general tip, and one I think sorta serves as a theme for Critical Mode as a whole, is that the game gives you an infinitude of tools to work with, so if you're not feeling so hot about a specific combat strategy, change it up! The game, at least in my limited experience, is designed around that philosophy.

[nick]

It was such a breath of fresh air to see a KH3 video without it getting bashed. Thank you for taking time to showcase some mechanics of KH3.

KH2’s combat is more refined, but was also improved with Final Mix. People forget dodge roll wasn’t in the vanilla version. KH2 is more systematic, but KH3 is more reactive based. Both are very fun and thought out. KH3 doesn’t get enough credit.

[Loran]

When Bizkit sits down and write a video, he always delivers!

[FFanatic]

People seem to be forgetting the 3 Focus Syphon abilities while having all 3 of them can break Shotlocks they can be good if you need an emergency heal with Ever After or Hero's Origin. The first one is found in Toy Box (you need a "A" ranking in Verum Rex) and the other 2 are found in The Caribbean (Flan Heartless Mini Game) and in San Fransokyo (obtained automatically during the story there). Focus Syphon also has Invincibility frame benefits when activating the ability (via Shotlock when the Focus Gauge is empty) you are fully Invincible during the animation when Sora absorbs focus from enemies. Strangely enough the ability also works on certain objects (like the Fruit on the Fruit Tree's in The Caribbean for example).

[adonai]

Water and Aero are great situation meter builders as well. Especially on mobs. It seems that situation meter is dependent on the number of hits you do, so wide AOE attacks are great and is also why formchanges build so much faster since they typically allow you to do multiple hits. It kind of becomes a delicate dance between purposefully running out your MP to activate Crit Converter and building meter and using your MP for magic and links. It's honestly a very fun system and I haven't had this much fun figuring out KH mechanics in a long time.

[notsaxor]

Thanks for mentioning the form changes building up situation commands faster bit. Most people just ignore it in crit.

For anyone new I’d like to add that try to never be without a form. So, at least have 1 form in stock always. Then you can always build up forms faster by using that form to build up 3 SC gauges and then do a regular combo with an unchanged keyblade.

With strike forms you can press circle to immediately go into finishers and this can be extremely helpful in mob fights with Hyper Hammer’s aoe finisher.

Accessories are very important but if you feel like you can ditch one(or two), definitely put on a cufflink. They make you get grand magic more frequently. Grand magic, especially aoe grand magic with blizzard blades and storm flag does so so much damage.

You can also use grand magic to cancel out of long from finishers like hyper hammer and claw.

Don’t put on all of Sora’s finishers like speedslash, triple rush and magic flash. They will take up regular attacks your combo if you don’t have combo plus and you can’t immediately cancel out of them with air slide or guard. Have one, preferably magic flash or speeeslash.

[adonai]

Yo so a quick thing about Stitch is that you wanna layer the hazard zones on top of each other so that when you hit the finisher it's always hitting the same area up until the final blast. Place yourself in the center of the fields you make so even if enemies leave the zone, theyll probably come back into it to attack you. Combine with magic or master treasure magnet to collect all the goodies stitch makes enemies drop easier. It's also great for stationary enemies like the Krakens tentacles in the Davy Jones fight, the dinosaur heartless in San Fransokyo, etc

[tropichawk]

My first run actually was a Lvl 1 Proud run, and now my second run is on Lvl 1 Critical. Even still, I hadn't recognized everything you bring up in this video. A lot of it I had learned on my own, but there were a decent amount of tips here that will be really useful going forward in my current run. So, yeah. Thank you for making this video!

[NinjaGirlSakura]

Personally I think kh3 critical is the best critical mode we've gotten since kh2fm, and I'm glad square didn't just put it in upon release without making sure it worked properly. They took time and made sure it would be a mostly fair challenge.