With the introduction of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix onto the Trophy Hunter’s radar, much beloved players have turned back to this game series to not only replay these stories but to get the sweet sweet trophies that accompany games now a days. As someone who played Kingdom Hearts 1 when it was released 20 years ago to someone who just finished a Platinum run of this game and all it entails, there are a couple of learns I have right off of the bat!
1. Multiple Runs
Unless you are a glutton for punishment or really abnormally good at the first game which was known for being a bit stiff and unforgiving, doing the whole thing in one run is going to be beyond difficult. Reason? That means you have to fit all of this into one run:
- Proud Mode
- Beat the game in under 15 hours
- Cannot continue if you die in fight
- Cannot change weapons or equipment
To make life easier and less hair pulling for the average gamer, doing one run on easy where you get literally everything done and then moving to Proud mode once that it all done will help substantially. That’s the strategy that I did and it worked out really well!
2. Save often!
The easiest way to minimize the amount of times you run through the story, it’s easiest to go through the speed run on easy mode and lump in the equipment and no continues together. It sounds worse than it is if I’m being honest. I was able to get through the game that way on easy in about 8ish hours? Give or take? It doesn’t give you the stats at the end like it does in the second game and I didn’t have an accurate timer if I’m being honest.
Reason for save often deals with the cannot continue aspect! If you die, but you saved two screens before the boss fight, that hurts a lot less than it’s been an hour because we’re use to hitting continue.
It will also help you gauge where you are in your speed run. Keeping to an hour a world will be a good gauge for getting through everything to ensure that you are properly ready and saving often will help you keep a closer eye on that.
3. Grind smarter!
One of my biggest things is grinding smarter, not harder. Taking the time once the speed run is done to familiarize yourself with where everything spawns will not only help you with getting items that you need for synthesis and that you’ll have to come back to, but also give you levels and experience you need for getting to level 100 will be needed.
Hunting Bright Shards end game is a great example. While the little Green Requiem feels everywhere when you’re going through the main story, it seems to be next to nowhere in the end game. While there is a single spawn by the camp in Deep Jungle, which is also one of the best places for Power Shards, there are far more in Hallow Bastion right before the Castle Chapel. You do can do a from the Castle Chapels save point and get all the shards you need while Soldiers, Wyvern, Defenders, Red Nocturnes, and more are summoned. Defenders and Wyvern are known to have Crystals on them and Defenders have a shield for Goofy that is a pretty low drop rate.
4. You don’t need to spend forever on your Gummi Ship
Compared to Kingdom Hearts 2 Final mix, there is significantly less Gummi trophies then in 1. There are 3 main ones I remember having our actually focus on.
- Collect 30 blueprints
- Complete a level 2 Mission
- Complete a level 3 Mission
Biggest thing? Look at the missions, get all the guns, and go! Now if you’re trying to do everything and get everything and all of that? Feel free to spend a lot of time! But for the base level platinum run, it’s not necessary.
