KH3 Light vs. Darkness [PC mod]

@kh3lvd.bsky.social

We're the team behind the "Light vs. Darkness" PC mod for #KingdomHearts 3! This fan-made #gamemod is a full rebalance of KH3's gameplay, adding depth, new mechanics, music and enhancements. Get it here: nexusmods.com/kingdomhearts3/mods/1186

A small goodie in our #gamemod: Sora in his KH2 outfit now has a full range of formchange garbs, thanks to one of our devs, dh! Some were ported from KH2; other were created for forms that had no lookalike in KH2 (Blitz, Light, Dark, Double) They also work out of the box in Data Greeting!

Montage of Sora posing in the Final World in KH2 formchange outfits from the "Light vs. Darkness Edition" mod for KH3.

Top row, left to right: Strike Form (as Valor Form) + Highwind; Element Form (as Wisdom Form) + Blizzard Claws; Guardian Form (as Master Form) + Hunny Blasters; Ultimate Form (as Final Form)

Bottom row, left to right, showing new outfits for KH2 Sora: Dark Form, Light Form, Blitz Form + Nano Arms, Double Form.

Not shown: Second Form (as Limit Form for KH2 Sora only), and Rage Form (as Anti-Form) which existed already in KH3 without mods.

Never stop making shit. Never stop being kind. Never stop being who you are. Never stop listening to music you love. Never stop talking with people and making them smile. Never stop taking up space. Never stop enjoying the world that we’ve built. And most of all, never stop loving yourself.

Amongst the last features to have been put in our mod: synergized combos with Donald, Goofy and most of the Guardians of Light! With this ability, these allies will occasionally auto-attack in sync with Sora's combos, spells & reprisals. Each ally has their own techniques to match Sora's 😉 🧵1/2

In-game tutorial screen for the "Unison Strike" ability from the "Light vs. Darkness Edition" PC mod for KH3. It describes (in text) and shows (with an image) how to directly combo together with an ally in proximity of the player character.

A few bits of info as we're finishing the 2.0 update: Our PC mod has 3 installable paths (Warrior / Mystic / Guardian) that you can choose from. Each has its own base stats and level up stats and abilities (up to LV99!)… plus different running, swimming, gliding & wall scaling speeds, etc. 🧵1/2

Montage of three illustrations showing the different installable paths in the "Light vs. Darkness Edition 2.0" PC mod.

From left to right: Warrior, Mystic, Guardian

Our mod has since 2022 a few optional replacements moves for Sora! Try one of ours offensive variants of Aerial Dodge or Doubleflight. Try also our 360° "Mighty Guard" with auto-reprisal (+ atop KH3's reprisals), or a "Mighty Syphon" that absorbs HP when successful… for a cost of 10 MP per use!

Composite image of the optional moves that can be installed alongside the main "Light vs. Darkness Edition" mod for "Kingdom Hearts III".

Top row, left to right: Dynamic Dash, Mystic Flash, Mighty Guard
Bottom row, left to right: Doom Dash, Malice Flight, Mighty Syphon
- Dynamic Dash vs. Doom Dash: hitstun enemies and damage their armour gauge (Dynamic Dash), or teleport around for effective evasion (Doom Dash)
- Mystic Flight vs. Malice Flight: escape and punish enemies below you (Mystic Flight), or hitstun airborne enemies with area-of-effect damage (Malice Flight).
- Mighty Guard vs. Mighty Syphon: for a small MP cost per use, deploy a barrier with automatic countering (Mighty Guard), or absorb HP by successfully blocking (Might Syphon)

We've done even more rebalancing to curb early-game OP mechanics! No Cufflinks (with -za spells), Ribbons or Expert's Ring in early worlds; no -za spells through Cuisine or with Elemental Encoder / Dead of Night… And large chests will have more useful items than Classic Kingdom games! 🧵1/3

#FunFact: the Stop status exists in KH3, used only during Clock Drill's form finisher. It works on the player, on allies and enemies alike! We're using it in "Light vs. Darkness" for interesting spells and attacks to use (for Donald, Roxas) or to avoid (Marluxia, Ansem…) (Image source: KH Wiki)

Screenshot of Sora in "Kingdom Hearts 3" using Clock Drill's form finisher, with it inflicting the Stop status on several Heartless around him. The entire image turned black and white as a result of the finisher.

Image source: KH Wiki

We wouldn't have buffed so much your party if it weren't for the enemies they'd be facing 😁 Buffed enemies with new stats, elemental resistances and behaviours? More status effects to deal with or to prepare for? Stronger trash mobs too dangerous for Sora alone? We've got *everything* !

Screenshot of Sora, Riku and Mickey being incapacitated by the "Slow" (or Stop) status effect, cast by Ansem, Seeker of Darkness in a pool of red darkness during the Nort Court fight in the Keyblade Graveyard. Large clocks appear on party members to signify that they are slowed.

Image taken with the "Light vs. Darkness Edition" PC mod for "Kingdom Hearts 3".Screenshot of Sora during the Boom Hammer formchange, fighting an Ace Gigas in Quadra… I mean San Fransokyo, at night. The Gigas is accompanied by a few Tireblade Heartless, while Sora is using Barrier against a range attack from the Gigas.

This is an example of revamped post-game trash mob that can be encountered with the "Light vs. Darkness Edition" PC mod for "Kingdom Hearts 3".Screenshot of Sora ice skating on sand (with the Blizzard Blades formchange) in the Caribbean, surrounded by Nobodies such as Gamblers and Berserkers.

This screenshot illustrates the type of dangerous trash mobs that may roam in worlds with the "Light vs. Darkness Edition" PC mod for "Kingdom Hearts 3".

P.S: You'll probably recognise in-game some of these music arrangements, as some have been on several of the charity albums by @marchcaprice.com ! - gamegroovescharity.bandcamp.com/album/march-... - gamegroovescharity.bandcamp.com/album/march-... - gamegroovescharity.bandcamp.com/album/march-...

March Caprice Concert Soirée -Bits and Bytes-, by GameGrooves Charity, March Caprice

21 track album

gamegroovescharity.bandcamp.com

KH3 Light vs. Darkness [PC mod]@kh3lvd.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Expanding the gameplay *and* the #gamemusic ?😉 🎵 Our #gamemod continues to add new music to KH3 to expand its score, with many new arrangements for fights and cutscenes (!), following the story. Here's a (short!) reel of some arrangements, by our musician and dev @timoram.bsky.social:

Forgot to post this: the main story also has 2 extra commands menus: one when facing Master Xehanort (complete with chess pieces), and one during the attack on Thebes. These are variants of Scala ad Caelum's and Olympus's standard menus, and show up only during the aforementioned story sequences.

Screenshot of the "Expanded Command Menu UI" PC mod for "Kingdom Hearts 3", showing a slightly edited Command Menu design for Scala ad Caelum, used when fighting Master Xehanort there.

The menu's original colours were stirred towards hues of purple and indigo, matching the in-game lighting in the final arena where Master Xehanort is fought. On the header, all windmills are removed, and replaced by large golden and silver chess pieces representing Master Xehanort (gold) and Sora (silver), on each side of a drawing of Scala ad Caelum's main island.Screenshot of a variant of Olympus's standard Command Menu design, as shown in "Kingdom Hearts 3" with the "Expanded Command Menu UI" during the attack on Thebes in the early game.

Compared to the original design, the colour palette is severely desaturated, with all clouds being depicted black as if smoke from fire. Some ornaments were removed, leaving only cracked pavements and materials. In the header, the two statues are removed, replaced by crumbled pieces of these statues, lighted by orange light that comes from fires behind the "Commands" header text (and matching the background which shows parts of Thebes on fire).
KH3 Light vs. Darkness [PC mod]@kh3lvd.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A treat for UI/UX lovers: Thanks to @themrpuzzles.bsky.social, the Dark World, Radiant Garden, the Final World & the Land of Departure have finally some lovely animated menus! Here's this as a standalone mod (also part of "Light vs. Darkness 2.0"): www.nexusmods.com/kingdomheart... 🧵 1/2

Montage of 4 command menus from the "Expanded Command Menu UI" for "Kingdom Hearts 3", showing designs for (clockwise from top-left) the Dark World, the Land of Departure, the Final World, and Radiant Garden.

Art by Mr. Puzzles

Another slate of animation improvements coming into our #gamemod: making certain dodges faster to make some characters snappier; adding a "Barrier" VFX on guards that do block in all directions; and fixing the game's wonky leg positioning on slopes for Riku… among many other things!

Montage of in-game screnshots from "Kingdom Hearts III". From left to right:
- KH3 Riku in Olympus Coliseum, without (left) and with (right) correct leg positioning (inverse kinematics, or IK) on slopped terrain; our mod will have correct IK, fixing one of KH3's unseen bugs for Riku
- Sora guarding during the Frying Pan formchange, now with an actual "Barrier" VFX to visualise the guard's actual hitbox
- Aqua cartwheeling in the Land of Departure, illustrating how this dodge (and a few others) are faster with the "Light vs. Darkness Edition" mod.

About Roxas: the blond-haired kid will have more tricks up his sleeves! We gave him unique commands to stagger foes or sabotage them with status effects + more useful abilities, and all of KH3's standard spells! Fast hit-and-run strategies & destabilising attacks will be this rook's endgame 😉

Also: since there's few KH games where Kairi is fighting, there's not much footage to use as reference 🤷🏽 What we did was expanding her combat style based on her existing aerial anims, on MoM's ending, on who she influenced (like Sora's Light Form, Xion), on Destiny Islands and Radiant Garden, etc.

Screenshot of "Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory", with Kairi flying through the endless seas and skies of the Final World to piece her heart back together. The UI showing progress on this task is shown on the upper right corner of the image.Cropped screenshot of Unreal Engine 4, showing a window where one of Kairi's animation for the "Light vs. Darkness" mod is being edited.In-game screenshot of "Kingdom Hearts III", showing Sora in Monstropolis unleashing Light Form's "Black Hole" finisher, summoning pillars of light (topped with the kanji for "light") in a flurry of white glowing feathers.
KH3 Light vs. Darkness [PC mod]@kh3lvd.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Kairi deserved more in KH3! We're giving her in our #gamemod new tools, oriented towards "offensive healing". The main draw are Unique Commands (like Phoenix Shift) that heal when landing hits, but there's also rare abilities, more combo moves with early cancel windows, faster anims… 1/2 🧵

Kairi deserved more in KH3! We're giving her in our #gamemod new tools, oriented towards "offensive healing". The main draw are Unique Commands (like Phoenix Shift) that heal when landing hits, but there's also rare abilities, more combo moves with early cancel windows, faster anims… 1/2 🧵

Aqua will get an expanded toolkit, revamped from previous versions of our mod. Her combo attacks replenish Focus, whose entire gauge can be spent on *very* strong spells: Mega Flare, Tidal Wave, Energy Magnet… She can also Teleport behind her target's back, & Mickey will even follow her! [🧵1/2]

In our mod's 2.0 update, Riku will get new mechanics as well! Landing combo attacks replenishes his MP (KH1-style), to use on specific "Unique Commands": Dark Aura, Dawnhammer, Dark Thundaga… "Onset Storm" will even sacrifice HP for AOE damage (like Sacrifice + Limit Storm in BBS & DDD). [🧵1/2]

It's well-known that KH3 has multiple magic styles, some paired with formchanges. In our mod's next update, we'll rebalance mostly the OP ones: Dual Magic will do much less damage & rarely make enemy react, while Proximity (AOE) spells will push foes away from their hitbox + incur a lot of revenge!

Composite screen shot of all four main magic styles in "Kingdom Hearts", with a short description of how they function with the "Light vs. Darkness" mod.

Clockwise from top-left: Basic Magic ("each spell has its own impact"), Dual Magic ("multiplied shots, but far weaker damage and stagger"), Proximity Magic ("push foes away with powerful AOE damage… wih higher revenge values"), and Artillery Magic ("destroy your enemies' Armor with explosive shots"). Each of them is accompanied by a screenshot of Sora using Water with each style in a different situation: no formchange (basic magic), Twin Yo-Yos (dual magic), Oathkeeper's Light Form (artillery) and Hyper Hammer (proximity).

We're working atm on rebalancing all KH3 spells! Some key points: making Cure use less MP but give less HP (now more tied to Magic stats), increasing costs for über powerful spells (like Thundaga)… …and recalculating stats for all spells, all characters, all forms, and all spell variants 😩

Our Square Enix Wiki is participating in this year's #MarchCapriceKH event! Check out our event page to get started! And be sure to check out the other two wikis and all the participants for March Caprice! wiki.seiwanetwork.org/wiki/Square_...

Square Enix Wiki:March Caprice 6 Wiki Edit-a-Thon from Square Enix Wiki - the Independent Square Enix Encyclopedia!

wiki.seiwanetwork.org

Kingdom Hearts Database@khdatabase.com · 5mo ago

We're excited to announce that we will be participating in this year's @marchcaprice.com event! Throughout this week, you can contribute to the Kingdom Hearts Database, @ffwiki.bsky.social, and Square Enix Wiki in our Wiki Edit-a-Thon event! Learn more about how to join in on our event page!