exposingtheidiocy

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fresh save

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The tl;dr is so true in a meta sense - Pete is a timeless classic Disney icon, Master Xehanort is a zombie non-character that will never hope to reach that level of relevance and probably won't be remembered in a few decades when/if he's replaced by some bigger asshole (most likely Master of Masters, who also won't hold up in the long run).

My favorite Kingdom Hearts fact is that one of the biggest plot-holes that Nomura has never been able to meaningfully retcon or write his way out, a plot-hole so big that it fundamentally breaks the very rules the series is written on…

Is the existence of Steamboat Willie

Let me explain for the uninitiated:

In Kingdom Hearts 2, there’s a small detour in the story involving Maleficent trying to invade Disney Castle, the home of King Mickey. She can’t step foot in the castle due to an artefact of pure light that wards off darkness locked in the basement.

Pete, who is working for Maleficent, opens a door into the past (Before Disney Castle, this land was known as Timeless River) and decides to remove the artifact from it’s place in time so it won’t be there to stop them from getting in.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy chase Pete into the past thanks to another magic door provided by Merlin, and through some shenanigans involving old cartoons and teaming up with Pete’s past-self, they lock the door the villains are using, and return the artefact to it’s proper place so it can exist in the present.

You with me so far? Pretty straightforward-ish time-travel plot right?

Here’s where it goes off the rails.

Time travel would go on to become a staple of Kingdom Hearts going forward and would come with a very strict set of rules over how it operates:

1. You can only travel to a point in time where a version of yourself exists

2. You basically give up your body to do so, and travel as a disembodied soul unless you have a vessel to inhabit

3. You can’t alter the past in a meaningful way, what’s going to happen will happen

4. You lose your memories of said trip once you return, but your actions could leave a lingering instinct on your other self that could influence their decisions

“Wait” you may be thinking “Why should anyone go through all those hoops? Wasn’t time travel super simple that first time?”

And you’d be totally right, because the existence of Timeless River completely renders all of these rules and restrictions meaningless. 

There is no version of Sora that existed in Timeless River before he step foot there, everyone kept their bodies, the trio and Pete were able to mess with the timeline as freely as they pleased, and they all very much remember their trip. 

Nomura has never been able to meaningfully explain this super simple, easy way of time travel and the more convoluted method co-existing other than a cheap-throwaway line from one of the villains saying that Merlin “broke the rules” 

The hilarious part about this line is that it implies that PETE of all characters is actually more powerful than the actual villain of the series, because Pete opened a door into Timeless River through sheer willpower and nostalgia for “the good old days”

But the all-knowing chess-master of a villain who had an evil plan several decades in the making with countless moving parts and contingencies to account for had to use the roundabout, more complicated method of time travel where a lot could go wrong.

Pete though? Dude just casually broke all the rules of time travel because he felt like it. He’s just built different.

TL;DR: Steamboat Willie breaks Kingdom Hearts lore in half, Pete is more powerful than Master Xehanort, and I fucking love this beautiful trainwreck of a series you guys it means so much to me

I love Kingdom hearts so much.

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Trying to jump into Kingdom Hearts 3 like

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Triangle in 2, X in 1.

having a debate w/ @dreamsy990 and i need the kh fandom to settle sth. where do y’all map cure to in the shortcuts menu? i put it on triangle but apparently they put it on X

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I couldn't have said it any better myself! Amazing responses! These perfectly explain why the arguments from Square-Enix shills do not hold up at all.

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Is "Them" the same person as "No One Ever"?

Them: You're a bootlicker and a white knight if you defend SEGA

Also Them: Stanley and Flynn can do no wrong, their writing is literally perfect, they are better than SEGA in every single way, they should be granted full ownership of the IP, their interpretation lacks the Japanese cringe of the games, if you disagree even slightly then you have my permission to die

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"If Kingdom Hearts 2 is so good, why isn't there a KH2 2?"

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That last sentence was so true, but also really sad.

There will never be another game like Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix again.

Why did you think KH3 "paled in comparison to KH2" and what's so great about KH2 in your opinion?

lemme break it down like this:

-while graphic fidelity is definitely much higher in kh3, many cinematic fights are not as well choreographed as those within kh2. it often looks floatier or more rushed.

-kh3’s combat attempts to slim things down to the point that it doesn’t feel like you grow beyond just having different equipment. once you have a weapon, you can do every move it has, and every single one is floaty feeling. i often felt a lack of control when fighting in kh3, and yet that combat was absurdly easy. i only “died” once, against that annoying flying boss, due to misunderstanding it and not actually taking damage myself.

kh2 meanwhile has extensive customization possible, between drive forms, magic setup, and abilities which let you dictate even how many swings you do in a combo. the control is tight, the parries and dodges feel impactful and important to the flow of combat.

-kh3’s plot is... poorly done, in many ways. the most universally acknowledged flaw is that of how useless the disney worlds feel. there often is literally no reason for you to go to these places and as you finish each one you wind up feeling like you gained nothing as plot happens in the background on other worlds. yen sid insinuates sora needs to recover his strength but your strength never actually scales in a way that reflects this. i felt the difficulty was not there, and that i never grew more powerful.

many characters have incredibly disappointing involvment in the game too. riku is set to the side, and often rendered laughably useless. he gets a full outfit change and haircut and is still a benched character. meanwhile, kairi, who was given buildup for years of becoming more battle ready, is immediately put on a bench and then fridged *twice*.

conversely, kairi and riku were CONSTANT active influences on the plot in kh2. riku is a tangible character who is there across multiple worlds, and even becomes a teammate who fights beside you at the end. kairi is present from the start and is actively pursuing her friends herself. they are vocal and have a level of depth to their behavior and reasoning we don’t get to see at all in kh3 on any similar level.

-kh3 has better banter, but worse characters. sora interacting with donald and goofy is the cherry on top of a sundae made with sugar free ice cream and oily whipped cream. that trio is absolutely at their best in kh3, which is what highlights how neglected the destiny trio’s relationships are.

in kh2, sora, riku, and kairi were always thinking of eachother. each of them. sora was looking forward to rescuing riku and bringing him home so they could BOTH play together with kairi again. riku was defending sora and doing his best to quietly guide kairi cuz he felt guilt for, in his mind, failing BOTH of them. kairi refused to hold on to just memories of riku, upon remembering sora was determined to save him, and made sure they BOTH got home.

instead, in kh3, we have the most bizarre behavior where nomura somehow wants us to believe their friendship isn’t the same?? even tho this is after multiple events that solidified the trio’s love of one another more and more??

-i’m still traumatized by the scene-by-scene recreations of tangled and frozen, god... dammit. monsters inc. world is golden, it does what kh2 had done, take a story setting and establish a original twist involving kingdom hearts. kh2 was lengthy as hell, but at least we had frequent original involvment in each setting. i absolutely love the hollow bastion/radiant garden sections, and it is something missing entirely from kh3.

we have these worlds that are gorgeous but shallow. each one is a one-and-done deal, where, as i said before, you feel so... uninvolved and unnecessary.

-the endgame content of kh3 is so goddamn disappointing and odd. the fights are so fast and simple, with the floaty combat i both felt out of touch and untouchable. roxas literally ends the fight with saix for you. in under 20 seconds. the mob fights are conceptually cool but wind up being a cluster where you pick each member off with little resistance or fanfare. also, the behavior of the characters does not match up with the experience of play. aqua can kick vanitas to a curb in battle but then cutscene comes in and says she struggled, which i did not feel at all seeing his health melt like butter beneath the heat of my firaga.

kh2’s endgame is an aesthetic and tactile treat. the scenery is so goddamn good, the boss fights are so well spaced, and they can kick your ass too and paired with the writing every angle of it screamed ESCALATION.

there is no actual tangible escalation in kh3. just a flat line and a sudden skip to The End once you hit the Badlands.

i can ramble for ages on this i guess, i didn’t intend to be so lengthy, but really in more ways than one kh2 is just... satisfying in ways kh3 isn’t. the plot, the writing, character development, action choreography, gameplay... you feel so involved in kh2 and it is famous among livestreamers and speedrunners for good reason, its a ride, its fun, its silly and weird but makes you feel invested, its what i wish every kingdom hearts could be.

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This post nails a lot of what made the game so good, even at the lowest points there was still a sense of fun and sincerity. And I'd gladly take the subplot mentioned over Verum Rex!

Honest KH2 Appraisal

Continuing looking at Kingdom Hearts II from a moderate standpoint, here is a post looking over all the good of the game’s tumultuous narrative, because accentuating the negative as described in this post without looking at all the positives does it no justice. Here are the ten major things that went right with the game’s narrative:

- The Characters: Even if much of the character writing is a downgrade from the previous two installments, one vital quality is still retained: you like these characters, you feel for these characters, you are interested in these characters and invested in where they end up. As this video points out, it’s still a story about Sora and his friends, not about the increasingly incomprehensible Xehanort and his increasingly uninteresting followers. In fact, it’s the story that ends the larger story they’ve been a part of ever since the original game. It’s the true end of their journey, and you’re with them all the way.

- The Emotion: I find that “melodrama” is something that is very unfairly maligned. It’s bad in the wrong place, sure, but in the right place it is highly effective at going straight for our hearts and giving us something memorable, possibly even formative, that will last us our whole lives, more than more “seriously” written things do. And KH2 piles on the melodrama to superb effect, exactly in the way you would want and expect in a Disney JRPG. The convoluted nature of the plot falls by the wayside when you are wrapped up in the emotions - to paraphrase Ansem the Wise, you don’t need to wrap your mind around things when your heart already knows them.

- The Balance: KH2 might just be the crowning achievement in the series when it comes to balancing Disney, Final Fantasy, and KH-original elements. Each receives more than their fair share of spotlight, and each is able to interact with one another in perfectly natural ways. So as out of sync as the forces behind the narrative were, the forces within the narrative have never been as much in sync. The KH universe has never felt as unified as this ever again.

- The Tone: Similarly to the unfair rep that melodrama gets, there are many who instantly judge the “early 2000s shonen anime” tone (meaning style, flashiness and Rule of Cool takes precedence over serious subject matter) that KH2 goes with, often upset either because they wanted the first game’s tone again or they wanted something darker as suggested by the famous secret ending video from the first game. But there’s so much that’s good and fun about early 2000s shonen anime when it’s done right, and KH2 is an example of doing it right. I honestly think that this tone really works for the series and wish it had stuck to it, rather than deteriorating into the bad, pretentious, self-important shonen anime style that it did.

- The Themes: While continuing the themes established in the prior entries such as hearts, connection of hearts, darkness within hearts and light within darkness, and the power of memories, KH2 brought several new themes to the table such as the nature of existence, what your place in the universe is, the importance of keeping the promises you make, and perhaps above all reunion with friends. And even if the story’s writing was wonky, the themes always shine through and are explored and wrapped up perfectly. 

- The Visuals: Masaru Oka’s lackluster Event Direction can’t detract from how visually grand Nomura’s story is, with the imagery on display still remembered by all who played the game even today. Of special note has to be the World That Never Was, which is positively dripping with atmosphere and filled with unique structures, doing full justice to what was glimpsed in KH’s legendary secret ending.

- The Sense of Humor: As much as I harp on Nojima for his writing problems, I would be remiss to not praise his excellent sense of humor that he filled his scenario with. Nomura even confirmed a lot of comedic touches like Sea-Salt Ice Cream being a running gag that runs so long that it becomes an important plot point was Nojima’s doing. Also notice how the Halloween Town stories are written in a hokey manner like a Christmas special - don’t think that wasn’t intentional, that’s the whole joke and it’s hilarious. In fact, a lot of famous “KH2 out of context” moments and lines like “we totally owned you lamers!” seem to be conscious, tongue-in-cheek choices, and done in a way that doesn’t offset the emotional sincerity of the dramatic parts of the story. With the KH series often being unable to lighten up these days, this kind of comedic touch is sorely missed.

- The High Points: This story’s high points aren’t just high, they’re goddamn iconic. “Looks like my summer vacation is…over”. The Hollow Bastion war sequence and the battle of 1000 Heartless. The stories of Beast’s Castle, Olympus Coliseum and Space Paranoids. Timeless River in its entirety. The tough, climactic boss fights against the members of Organization XIII, Disney villains like Hades, and powerful Heartless such as Groundshaker. And of course almost everything that transpires in the World That Never Was. I believe I speak for many when I say that the low points like Atlantica or that weirdo subplot with Cloud, Tifa and Sephiroth are entirely forgivable when high points of this caliber are packaged along with them.

- The Finale: Like I said above, the World That Never Was gives us one of the best finales in video game history. From going through the dark city streets, to the mental duel against Roxas, to scaling the Castle That Never Was and taking down the rest of the Organization, to seeing all the heroes reunite, to the verbal battle between Xemnas and Ansem the Wise before the latter’s heroic sacrifice, to entering a physical manifestation of Kingdom Hearts itself where you slice through buildings, dodge laser fire from a flying mechanical fortress, fight hordes of Nobodies and take down Xemnas, to the final boss fight against Xemnas in the Realm of Nothingness, and finally to the sheer perfection that is the ending sequence. Every character gets a moment, every plot thread is wrapped up in a bow, and the happy ending you’ve longed for since the first KH didn’t have it is finally achieved. There are flaws, but in the grand scheme of things they’re nitpicks. This is the most satisfying conclusion the KH series has ever given us or ever will give us. There’s just no topping it.

- The Collaboration: Tragically, Nomura took the wrong lessons away from KH2’s success and from the criticism its narrative received. Here is what he admitted after KH3’s release:

By axing professional scenario writers like Nojima and collaborators beyond Masaru Oka since they get confused by his concepts and stories, Nomura has traded one style of narrative mess for a much worse one. With his name under the “Story” credit, the stories are now even more convoluted, pretentious and badly paced, and now with far less sharp dialogue, less humor, less balancing between Disney, FF and KH-original elements, less emotion and thus less emotional investment, and less characters to be interested in or care about. Just…less FUN. This old post nailed it. Kingdom Hearts III came as close as was possible under the circumstances, but when compared to Kingdom Hearts II, it’s still a noteworthy step down. Regardless of its faults, KH2 is clearly where the KH series peaked.

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Good criticism! I think it's fair to say this game had the highest highs but also the lowest lows of the classic games.

Honest KH2 Critique

I wanna talk about Kingdom Hearts II since we’re quickly approaching it’s 15th anniversary. Ever since it was released, it’s become a game that people irritatingly refuse to be moderate over, or at least when it comes to the vocal fans online. People who love it don’t love it so much as worship it, while people who hate it don’t hate it so much as despise it with every fiber of their being. I may technically fall into the “love” category (I share the majority fan and critic view that KH2, especially it’s Final Mix edition, is the best game in the series), but I’m also willing to look at both its good and its bad, and do so in moderation rather than hyperbolically.

And I know, without a doubt - Kingdom Hearts II…has the absolute worst-written story out of the KH Trinity!

OK, that was said hyperbolically, but I did so as a joke!

It’s so weird that the original Kingdom Hearts and Chain of Memories have narratives that are deeply and thoughtfully structured with such care and consistency, and then the trilogy is rounded out by such a messily-written rollercoaster of quality!

…..Well, all right, maybe not that weird.

When interviewed shortly after KH2’s first public reveal at the 2003 Tokyo Game Show, this is how Tetsuya Nomura described the process for writing the game’s story: “I’m writing the plot, the main story of Sora and co. Other people are in charge of the plots for the events that will happen in each Disney world. Combining that with Nojima, we’re completing one scenario.”

The “other people” in question are the Event team: Masaru Oka, Ryo Tsurumaki, Michio Matsuura, Atsuko Ishikura, Yukari Ishida, and Kumiko Takahashi. Daisuke Watanabe and Harunori Sakemi also assisted Nojima with scenario writing whenever the need arose.

The problem that this process caused isn’t apparent at first glance, but it’s actually right there in that interview excerpt: “I’m writing the plot”. In KH and CoM, Nomura only wrote the initial plot outlines, which were very simple and ripe for being fleshed out by the actual scenario writer. There’s a big difference between that and writing a full-fledged plot the way he did here. 

Nomura wrote the story for what transpires in the KH-original worlds: Twilight Town, Hollow Bastion, the World That Never Was and Destiny Islands. It goes like this:

As far as plots go, I actually really like this one. It’s a strong plot.

It’s also convoluted as Hell.

I made a post saying the three one-word convoluted elements of KH2’s plot are “Nobodies”, “Data”, and “Ansem”. All three of those are literally the cornerstones of this plot that Nomura cooked up: they play a huge role through the beginning, middle and end! Because Nomura had more power with making this game, none of the more…out-there stuff that these concepts created could be curbed or removed. Which means that the scenario writer had better be in tune with Nomura when it comes to presenting them in a coherent way.

For the most part, Kazushige Nojima was….not.

Here is a tell-tale sign that Nomura and Nojima were not in sync. When asked if he planned from the start to make Kingdom Hearts be the heart-shaped moon seen on the cover of the original game, Nomura replied “No, I didn’t. I asked Nojima-san to write the scenario and in his scenario it was written that the Kingdom Hearts Xemnas created is ‘like a moon that floats in the World that Never Was’. When I read that, I thought ‘’Oh, this can be connected!’’”

Nomura just admitted that Nojima essentially had to make up how to convey Xemnas harnessing and trying to complete Kingdom Hearts, because Nomura’s plot did nothing to convey it. It was a “wait, how the fuck is he doing that!?” detail. And you really get the sense all throughout the scenario that Nojima is struggling with trying to convey Nomura’s stuff, and he has said as much in interviews: Nomura’s plot and concepts confused him.

It also doesn’t help that Nojima was the least major scenario writer on the original KH, mainly limited to the co-creation of Ansem with Nomura and writing the entire End of the World section. This is probably why Xemnas and Ansem the Wise are clearly the KH-original characters with the most confidence and complexity behind their writing in KH2’s scenario. Nojima writes Sora, Kairi, their Nobodies Roxas and Namine, and Riku far more simplistically and trope-y, and the other Organization members and trio of Hayner, Pence and Olette are side characters so naturally they don’t get much depth. 

Then there’s Masaru Oka and his Event Team. First off, while Masaru Oka is definitely on Nomura’s wavelength and understands his vision to a fault, as Event Director he is superbly mediocre at presenting that vision, or Nojima’s for that matter. He just isn’t cinematically inclined the way Jun Akiyama was in the original KH, and that leads to the event scenes usually being the barest minimum of adequate at best, and laughably awkward at worst.

Secondly, Oka and his team were responsible for creating the plots in the Disney worlds (hence Oka’s credit alongside Nomura under “Base Story”). But not only were they frequently lazy and just directly rehashed the movie’s story but with Sora, Donald, Goofy and the Heartless shoved in, but half of the time they didn’t even bother connecting the world plots to Nomura’s main plot in any meaningful way beyond thematically ala CoM, and neither Nomura nor Nojima seemed keen on correcting this even when they really should have.

Here is a chart displaying the game’s flow, stage by stage as set by world battle level. Stages where the main plot is progressed in some way are bolded, and stages of the main plot as created by Nomura have red borders around them:

Aside from Space Paranoids which was part of Nomura’s plot from the get-go, the only time where correlation with the main plot occurs without any side factor to note is Beast’s Castle, where both visits feature the machinations of Organization member Xaldin and culminates in the boss battle against him that leads to his demise.

Olympus Coliseum correlates to the main plot in the first visit but not the second, although the second visit is now made plot-relevant due to tying up loose ends from the first. Port Royal correlates to the main plot in the second visit but not the first, although the first visit is now made plot-relevant due to setting the stage for the second (it also has Larxene’s Absent Silhouette in FM). There is technically a main plot correlation in the second visits to the Land of Dragons and Agrabah (the latter of which has Vexen’s Absent Silhouette in FM), but Nojima botched the writing of them to the point where there may as well not have been, especially in the case of Agrabah’s which is “oh btw, an Organization XIII member came by off-screen”.

And then there’s the case of Disney Castle / Timeless River, which only acquires relevance to the main plot because it was decided that Maleficent should be resurrected and be Pete’s boss in the present time. And unlike her appearance in Halloween Town, her role in this stage correlates directly to her role in the main story, revealing her resurrection to the heroes and establishing that she seeks a new evil stronghold from which to advance her return to power. Pete’s backstory and connection to King Mickey shown here also receives a direct reference toward the climax of the World That Never Was.

While it could be argued that there’s additional value in the first visits to Port Royal, Agrabah, Halloween Town and Pride Land due to the presence of Pete (Maleficent when it comes to Halloween Town), I would have to disagree because nothing they actually do in these stages end up mattering to the main story whatsoever - especially in Pride Land, where Pete just shows up in lion form to say “Ooga Booga Booga!”. Their presence alone just ain’t enough.

The consequence here is that for the continuous stretch of Port Royal in the first go-round, Olympus Coliseum in the second, and Agrabah, Halloween Town and Pride Land in both go-rounds, it feels like nothing is advancing. And as bad as that sounds on paper, it’s even worse when applied to gameplay because it means this lasts for several hours straight! The only main plot event that happens in either cycles is Kairi going to Twilight Town, which happens in a sudden cutscene between Agrabah and Halloween Town and is thus totally out of the player’s control!

To sum things up, Nomura wrote a main plot that was good but too overwrought with confusing and complicated details. Nojima is a highly talented writer, but he didn’t fully get Nomura’s vision. Oka gets Nomura’s vision, but he isn’t a highly talented Event Director (and as seen in later games, he has even less talent as a writer) and often portrayed scenes that Nomura or Nojima came up with flatly. And none of these men were in sync when it came to how the Disney world plots and the main plot would connect, often simply not caring or else just not trying hard enough.

That is why KH2 has the weakest writing in the KH Trinity: the primary creative voices that shaped the story were completely out of sync with one another on a regular basis. You could say that their hearts just didn’t connect on this project. And as a result, we have blatant inconsistences, bad edit jobs, pacing problems, mood whiplashes, missed opportunities, and dumbass moments galore.

However, on the occasions where things between them did manage to sync up, we were given some of the highest points in not only the KH Trinity but the entire KH series, and the input that was given from Daisuke Watanabe, Harunori Sakemi, and others like production assistant (and major Disney fanatic) Eri Morimoto surely helped the messy story become not quite as big a mess as it could have been otherwise. And that story still stayed true to the series’ roots as a whimsical Disney/FF crossover project driven by relatable characters and emotional resonance, as opposed to a vanity project for Nomura that is driven by perplexing lore, plot twists and mystery boxes.

And that’s why I and so many others love KH2, warts and all, and would gladly take dozens more narrative messes just like it over the different, far less enjoyable kinds of narrative messes that we’ve been getting afterward.

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The GCN, Dreamcast, PS2 generation of games was so choice. Lots of super weird (weird in the BEST WAY) games (Billy Hatcher, Space Channel 5, Chibi Robo, Animal Crossing, Voodoo Vince, and KATAMARI DAMACY my favorite game of that generation). Lots of classic franchises being more experimental, making changes and taking chances (Super Mario Sunshine, Wind Waker, Sonic Adventure 1&2, Starfox Adventures for better or for worse, Luigi’s Mansion, Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime). Some really pretty imagry, even from games with low poly counts by today’s standards (every game I’ve listed so far, and also Halo, Star Fox Adventures, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy 10, Tales of Symphonia, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and WAY more). Easily my favorite generation of games.

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minor mechanic related kh3 spoilers incoming but I’m finding the combat kind of lacking. the way i have most fun playing is when i go mage in the game. melee is so draining after a while. the combos are just not satisfying. i feel permanently vulnerable while i fight close quarters and it’s a mix of many things at once i think. the camera is just uncoperative, idk if it’s because the environments are so big but i’m always having blind spots that i can’t cover. and the combos are so slow too, SPECIALLY while on air when the falling down is ALSO slow and this is quite the problem when all you can choose in a long combo is how soon you want to air fight. all sora attacks will send most enemies upwards so you’ll have to go air for convenience. not to be a shill but this didn’t happen in kh2. is not that i was invulnerable but it feels like i had much more input in the fighting than in kh3. like i could actually choose how to fight. so when i avoided or blocked (i haven’t guarded ONCE in the game) it felt like it was strategical, and i could switch back to attacks quickly or at least it felt quick. it felt like a decision i took instead of an action i did to buy me time because im floating in the air so i better air dodge because i can’t see shit. on the hand, magic feels improved and not only because the new spells. i can use it in the distance (which means i can actually see the battlefield) which captures that feeling of strategy. of “i am doing this thing”, of “this success or failure are entirely up to me, so i can improve and feel like im getting better at it”. it’s also literally rewarding to keep using it because you can trigger higher level magic and use it for free. it’s the only game in the series where i actively use ethers because i just WANT to keep spellcasting. in the other main installments magic (except for cure and magnet) was something you used to facilitate melee combos mostly! like, im making decisions in equipment and abilities about what makes me better at flashy wizardry! im using my pre-ordered keyblade to give a fire boosted empowered first strike that takes a whole health bar away and makes me feel like a sniper! and it’s early to mid-game!! this kind of decision-making and rewarding experimentation and player choices is what ARPGs is all about babey!!!

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Something I just realised about kh3 is that the voice direction was weird. Like why dose half of the cast sound like they don't wanna be there??? If they have the same type of direction In kh4 idk what I'll do

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Soul > Encanto > Luca > Raya, haven't seen the others.

Click here to find more about the governances & players of this tournament

*From 2020-2022, as Wish (2023) hasn’t come out yet as of posting this poll. A different poll pitting Wish and Elemental (2023) against each other will release the first week of January. That winner will then be pitted against this poll’s winner, as a new potential 2020s winner.

If a new movie for the 2020s wins, I will then hold a new decades poll, pitting the winners from each decade against each other once again.

2023’s decade poll (aka, the Finale) is coming out next week, after this poll ends and I know the result to put in for 2020s.

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The winner is... the classic, the original, Kingdom Hearts! I expected it to win, but not by that much, its victory is very well deserved!

"Why did you omit Kingdom Hearts II?", you might be asking. It sweeps the competition in every other poll, so I think removing it would bring more interesting results.

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PBS Kids (no cable growing up)

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As far as I'm concerned Smash Ultimate is the actual KH4!