#AND HOW COULD WE FORGET HER ABSOLUTELY FUCKING SHIT UP IN KH3

[rhythmmortis]

honestly unsure why people tend to make roxas the edgy and emo one in the sea salt trio. xion is RIGHT THERE

[x2-become-1x]

Tell me your 5 paragraph thoughts on kh3 Kairi

Ohhoho we're opening THAT can of worms

I'd like to get this right out of the way, but I enjoy SoKai. So if I get some stupid ass response saying that my opinions are flawed because I'm a SoRiku stan (because i KNOW someone will try to use that as some kind of argument when in reality, it serves no fucking purpose to what im about to say), then I will shit a rock.

Alright y'all I like Kairi. She didn't really do anything bad at all. But I'm sorry, I really do just get mad everytime I see Kh3 Kairi oof. They really just took her, threw her under the bus, and ran her over multiple times. I like Kh1 Kairi, I stan Kh2 Kairi and I STAN kh2 manga!Kairi. Kh3 Kairi??? No gucci ...

Biggest problem I have is how they build her up to do some important shit, only for her to be barely present and then to be promptly executed with no hassel. This ties in a bit with how they tell the story, perspective wise but I'll get to that in a second.

Ok so, Kh3 honestly wants me to buy that Kairi keeps Sora together while he's shattered in the Final World. Ok my problem with this shit is that it's a classic case of Told, Not Shown. And no, i don't want to hear "oh but she's been his light throughout the series." No, I want some fucking substance from kh3 itself, not have to rely on past, stale substance from previous games. Give me more hints that she's supposed to be his light or something. Not a singular 1 minute cutscene of them sharing some dumb fucking fruit. I really felt they should have included Riku in that scene btw and it could have been a platonic gesture for all 3 of them being ... oh i don't know ... FRIENDS??? Something Kh3 seems to forget. Ideally, I wish there wasn't any romantic subtext in KH tbh. It absolutely did not need any of it and it feels like it just detracts from KH's already awesomely stupid over arcing plot.

Back to what I was getting on. Kh3 has shown to tell its narrative from different POVs sometimes. It's kinda limited POV, but a different focus none the less. So that being said ... Why not make some kind of segment focusing on Kairi? One where we see her view on things. One where we are SHOWN that she's keeping Sora in tact in the Final World? But no, I have to be told this and take it at face value while they're in some weird tunnel thing and they have a "omg sokai moment!"

Ugh, don't get me started on the bullshit one shot death they give Kairi. You know what would have been more interesting??? To see her struggle against Xehanort. To see her try to fight him. She would still ultimately lose and thus, forge Xehanort's key regardless, but some kind of struggle would have made it a clash of light vs darkness that was actually worth a damn, rather than something to just drive Sora's teenage angst. It would have been INTERESTING.

Anyways, the entirety of the Keyblade Graveyard left me pissed and absolutely burnt out.

HOOO BOY did that satisfy enough, anon? Anyways TLDR Kh3 is probably the hollowest story I've ever had the misfortune of experiencing and Kairi only fuels the fire to it. The game was fun! The story and writing though ..... uh oh sisters...

[mellz117]

Hello and welcome to the start of Mellz Plays Kingdom Hearts Re:CoM on the Playstation 2; Riku’s campaign

If you haven’t seen my thoughts on Sora’s story, why not start with Part 1? For the 5 of you who’ve been following along since then, welcome back! Check out the rest under the read more! I’m playing on standard difficulty so if I’m having a hard time, I just suck.

So we, as Riku wake up in the basement of Castle Oblivion. How did he get there? Sora just waltzed in like it was no big deal. Riku has to materialize in a cold basement and be woken up by the disembodied voice of an all too familiar bastard… Who has a new voice.

Thanks for the card, voice of Ansem, “Seeker of Darkness”. That ain’t him. It’s been almost 10 years and I don’t remember much of this game but I know that new Richard Epcar voice ain’t Ansem.

Riku’s got no time to waste, he’s a man on a mission.

So we get a melancholy scene with Riku happening upon the room Maleficent gave him during his association with her in the first game. Memories he’d rather forget.

After progressing a bit, the disembodied voice returns once again to taunt Riku. “You cast aside your home, your friends, the darkness. What else do you have? Nothing. Your heart is as empty as your old room.”

It’s so weird playing as Riku but I hope we get more of that beyond KH3 (ReMind hasn’t released at the time of writing this)

Alot of this game so far has been me saying “I don’t remember this”… …So I don’t remember Riku’s level up system being this different to Sora’s.

…well that’s bullshit. I vaguely remember that. The fact that I can’t even edit the order my cards appear to me in battle is even more bullshit. I like to organize my cards by type and value until I’m forced to use a different method.

So I dont have to wait for the reload gauge to count down, it’s immediate and I dont lose a card on every reload like I thought I remembered… What’s the catch? I don’t trust like that.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

We meet up with Maleficent at the end of the map. She’s 100% aware she’s a figment of Riku’s memory. Riku is none too pleased to see her.

I love his sass

Riku’s ready to kick the asses of everyone corrupted by darkness, including his own, he says. Time for a dragon fight because otherwise Maleficent isn’t a threat apparently lmao. I don’t think the mcguffen card even showed up.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Oh look it’s that asshole. Or is it? Dun dun dunnnnn. God his lips look soft. Why was this necessary???

So who has dominion over this castle? Marluxia, or Ansem?

This fucker is like “Sonny, you couldn’t even win against Sora. You don’t stand a chance against me”.

You have a teenager lying on the ground... Please reword your demands.

Oh my god it’s Mickey Mouse! well… sort of. He’s a bright light. Gives Riku some nice words to keep him going.

Knowing what I know now about the Guardian heartless bro, everything is so much worse…

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Ooh first scene with the boys in the dark room. “Don’t I even warrant a hello, Lexaeus?” I don’t remember seeing this as funny before but now, like 10 years later I appreciate how funny it truly is. Zexion sounds so insulted.. Lexaeus is a man of few words. Then Vexen shows up and he’s getting right down to business. Zexion’s like “Nice to see you too. We all used to be so close, what happened?”

Vexen’s all offended about that and gets pissy about “rank this, rank that, ooh I’m number 4, you shrimpy child.” as if your number indicated rank. Xigbar is the 2nd member but Xemnas’s 2nd in command is Saix (from my understanding) so sit your ass down, Vex.

So Zexion’s special talent? He smells people.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Riku smells people too?. Oh ok he can smell the darkness in his skin. Take a shower! …When was the last time he even got the opportunity?

Mickey appears before him and tells him some words of encouragement. He’s transparent because he can’t fully manifest in the castle right now. So where’s the other 50% opacity hanging out at?

“We shook hands in our hearts” omg… 

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Let’s go to Neverland first yay. I did a team attack with Mickey. I remember that!

Imagine being in Riku’s stupid, dumb, giant, anime boy shoes… addressing a giant, bipedal mouse as “Your Majesty”……….. Actually my sister and I used to do that back in the day when we both were obsessed with the series. Regardless of context we’d call him “King Mickey”. It makes me cringe thinking back on it.

Oh I was gonna try to challenge myself to avoid using the dark power but I guess I dont have a choice but to use it. Might as well put points into it if that’s the case.

uses Key to Beginnings, is immediately thrown into a battle with Captain Hook oh I guess we’re not focusing on any events in these worlds they’re literally just to pad out Riku’s story. Riku is officially less Disney than Sora.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

How does Zexy know who Riku is? “Riku is here because Sora is here”. Vex that makes zero sense. What else is new?

Agrabah. Uneventful. Riku is not good at hitting small targets. Had a hell of a time fighting Jafar, or rather beating Iago to a pulp, in comparison to playing as Sora.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Next scene, and immediately like NO breath between the fade in and the scene itself, Vexen appears. And in even less time after he appears, “I take it you’re Riku?” This mofo has no time to waste. He’s a busy man.

Riku’s already tired of his bullshit and is ready to FIGHT. Same, Riku. Same.

I had him stun locked during most of this battle.

I JUST LOVE RIKU’S COMPLETE LACK OF FUCKS GIVEN HE’LL BEAT VEXEN’S SHIELD WITH HIS FISTS AND POMMEL

Vexen is a fucking twerp. And seems alot more crazy, mad scientist-y when interacting with Riku than Sora. Emphasis on “mad”. He cray

Why do they hang out in the dark? I mean, why no lamps? All I can imagine is them hanging out and barely able to actually see each other. The only way anyone knows who’s there is because Zexion can smell people, everyone else just assumes Lexaeus is there, Vexen won’t shut up about something something science, and Axel likes to hear himself talk.

Fat boi

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Zexion and Lexaeus are talking about what’s going on,  I’m still not sure what they’re doing here. Like, do they want Sora for the Organization? But Marluxia wants Sora as his personal puppet? What about Roxas? Isn’t he like, in a coma or something? Just kill Sora, Roxas will wake up, and SOMEONE’S got a Keyblade wielder again. Lex says Vexen hates Marluxia and things with the replica could turn out disastrously because of it. What IS Vexen’s beef with Marly?

Ok I know it’s to pad out a second campaign but why does Riku go to SORA’S memory worlds? Unless Riku stalked him throughout the entirety of KH1, or had so visit them for darkness missions, and those are his memories as well? Idk, it doesn’t have to be explicitly stated

Oh no Riku, it’s you.

So at this point he’s aware hes a copy? Does he forget later? With Namine’s meddling? How does Vexen create a living, breathing entity out of battle data? Like, where did the body come from? Did he have it on standby for a while until the right moment?

“You’re afraid of the dark” Repliku states.. Lmao yeah, Riku- he still sleeps with a night light. Don’t tell Sora.

Repliku is like, a worse Riku as far as personality goes. The punk-ass bitch Riku from KH1 but worse. Repliku is quick to ditch the double pants with suspenders and ankle belts for a muscle suit and grass skirt. I’m not sure which one’s worse.

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! I got two level ups out of that!

I high key love Repliku’s laugh here when Riku tries to attacks him again RIGHT AFTER THEIR FIGHT. It’s adorable, hilarious, and creepy. GG David Gallagher! Check out that video if you want. [video]

Dutch angles make everything more dramatic. Unofficial rule no. 1 of cinema. Repliku peaces out and we give chase up another flight of stairs and another cutscene plays. Repliku joins Zexion, Lexaeus, and Vexen in the dark room and they talk about introducing him to Sora.

Riku finds himself alone on the next floor, yelling at empty air. Ansem shows up to taunt Riku again. This dude just doesn’t quit. God forbid he learns no means go the fuck away.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Oh hey we’re in Atlantica! Maybe Riku can wash that darkness smell off his skin. Oh wait the water doesn’t really exist. And hes just a human, not swimming like a mermaid. Give me mer-Riku, you cowards. Twiggy mer-Sora is funny, twiggy mer-Riku with buff arms would be HYSTERICAL. I had a difficult time with Ursula because poor card management and I’m avoiding battles to get this game over with, which kinda shoots me in the foot as I’m not leveling up.

Yeah I was right, he ends up thinking HE’S Riku. I honestly feel bad for the guy… he’s so scared and betrayed. I know I was shit talking him just a bit ago but I need to protect Repliku. [video]

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Give Riku a Halloween Town outfit, you cowards.

This scene between Repliku and Namine is so bittersweet. [video] Just listen to how gentle he talks to Namine. Oh, my heart cannot handle it.

This game makes me so sad. Poor Repliku, poor Namine… Larxene continues to be The Worst. Like, the ABSOLUTE worst. Was Elrena like this?

(I keep getting progressively more and more angry because I can’t upload a video file to this on desktop but I can on mobile, but if I post a video on mobile I can’t edit a read more on desktop. AND I HAVE THREE VIDEOS I WANT TO PUT IN. SO I MADE A BLOG SPECIFICALLY SO I CAN POST THEM THERE AND LINK THEM HERE)

See you in part 2, where I will continue to drag Larxene.

[bkdkink]

here’s part 2 for the ehhhh stuff 

“okay, so dy,” you ask, “if it looks good and plays well, story is excellent and music is perfect, wtf is up your ass about it then?”

so bear with me. what i am about to straight-up complain about rn is by no means anything major or even something that should prevent anyone from ever being apart of the game and its story. these are minor, personal complaints that i want to vent out, and if it so happens that i have people who agree with me then great! if not, then yeah i totally understand because people see the story differently and want different things, as life goes.

long rant ahead, beware. 

so the negative about kh3, ill start with the annoying and lead up to the heart-crushing part (yet expected) part first.

The Frozen and Tangled levels were rough. lmao, not skill-wise, no. Just. Tangled was going through the whole damn movie......right? without songs and certain minor characters, but we...went through the whole movie with Rapunzel and it was sooooo awkward to watch the cutscenes....because sora, donald and goofy were just. there. they did nothing to progress the story. they were just....there? eugene died. they witnessed a man DIE. and it was........anticlimatic a little in how they reacted???? like that they dont quite understand death so they were just like awwwwww :/ and then he came back so yeah, but. it was so weird?? with them there???? why were they there??? why this way???? why not make up a whole new story or add to it or something or other??? is it cuz she’s one of the new 7 princesses of light so we had to do a whole thing??? cuz we didn’t for any other princess??? oh besides Frozen.

Frozen was the worst level for me. just the worst. i never liked the movie, so that’s strike one, strike two is i had to re-listen to two of those infamous songs.......because sora had to listen to them. why....when....when was there disney songs shot frame-per-frame.....in KH? and no, ariel in KH2 doesn’t count because that whole WORLD was a MUSICAL WORLD. the only actions you could take was THROUGH muSICcccCCCCC.

my point is that there was too much pandering going on there, also the story was just as nonsensical as it was in the movie. if i never saw it i would have been so confused as to where that brunette dude came from, how he got Elsa, WHY he wanted to kill her---the game (tangled was a tad bit guilty of this too, wtf did Rapunzel start calling Flynn Eugene? i saw the movie so i knew but they didn’t explain that until their world was finished) so....good luck to whoever did watch the movies?? KH assumes you’ve seen both of them, compared to the Carribbean where I never saw the movie but i knew wtf was going on??? also big hero 6, never saw that but could get the gist!!!!

they were just WAY too movie heavy which isn’t the usual for the series, and im sure if they are included in the next game itll be a different experience because the movies are now established, so there hopefully there won’t be any pandering from Frozen’s end too much.

Now......the stuff that is more personal. okay here goes. 

KH, from the jump, has somewhat kinda tried to establish a maybe romantic angle between Sora and Kairi. Now, because of how friendship heavy the whole series is and the love friends share....I for one never picked that up until i was reading tvtropes and i was reading up on Kairi being one of the main reasons that Sora and Riku were even beefy in the first game to being with??? the both liked her but she chose Sora or something????? that shit flew so far over my head and no, i wasn’t a child playing the first game for the first time---this was only a couple years ago. i just....did not...pick up romantic interest? i picked up...friend?? because they kept saying....Friend™? 

anyway, series goes on, Kairi is known to the fandom as being written mostly out of focus and is never used well enough in the plot. and i agree. they never used her to her potential, and even in KH3, where she is now a keyblade wielder, she still becomes something to save...............even in the very end.........even when she and Sora had their moment of “imma save you this time!” .....no........sora still leaves to go and save her.............so.like.......yay for....growth? kinda....? i just feel bad for her tbh. 

that’s one thing. the main, large thing that i did see coming but was disappointed in nonetheless was that several games later of pushing her aside, of focusing much more on the relationship between Sora and Riku with an ENITRE GAME narrowed in on both of them and their journey toGETher---KH3 begins to focus on the romantic angle between Sora and Kairi again. and its obvious enough where NOW yes, even I picked up on it this time around.

and at this point......it just.....came off so forced? they lay it on thiccccccc my dudes. and it feels like it. yes, there are still moments between Riku and Sora, sure, but that is down-played SOOO much compared to fuggin KH:DDD or hell even KH2....

like.........i don’t expect any gay male video game protags from Square Enix, I really dont. but i also dont want some  last-minute romance shoved down my throat??? when i was fine with how it was before??? maybe if they still kept the subtly that they had done and with newer games continuing to build off of that, I wouldn’t be so put off by the idea. KH2 did a good job of building it, like when Sora imagined Kairi and him dancing together in halloween town--that was cute af?????? and well integrated????? and could STILL be taken as him just missing a FRIEND or yeah, a potential love interest! but just. jesus. you didn’t care about them being together then, don’t do it now because it comes off a little cheap.

also fuck Riku i guess???? kairi doesn’t give a fuck about Riku at all?/??? is the overall vibe i was getting???lmao aren’t all 3 of them friends??????? no???????? kairi only messes with sora and riku only messes with sora?????? can i get some uhhhhhhhhhhh riku and kairi time too or nah????? we had a moment of them at the beginning of the game i guess and then....that was....kinda it? so fucking disappointing how they write her man. she’s so much more than a love interest and there are moments when that shows, but there’s too many where she just....is only sora-focused? 

you want an example of how forced it was that they were switching Sora’s relationship from Riku to Kairi? now don’t quote me on this i could very well be wrong because i never actively listened for bkg music until DDD, but Dearly Beloved? the titular theme song for every single KH menu and emotional scenes? the theme song that DDD later ESTABLISHED in CANON that it was Riku and Sora’s heart song playing together????? a song that plays in some kinda version whenever Sora and Riku are having a moment??????? WELP. i wanna say they still kept it for Sora and Riku for at least one cutscene with them together. at least. i can’t name others, but they at least did it once cuz i remember getting excited about it. 

they now played it more frequently whenever Kairi showed up on screen, or when she and Sora were having a moment together. 

SORA. and RIKUS song....playing now for SORA and KAIri???? please correct me if im wrong, absolutely tell me if im wrong that im just not observant and it’s always been like that because tbh that’ll make this better for me lol but they just took Riku and went YEET. “Sora is the hero. Sora gets the girl because of course he does. Sora is GOD and fuck yall for not expecting him to have a love interest at the end of this and YES it will be a girl and YES it WILL be the one we keep forgetting about to make his love interest up until now because yall were getting the most wrongest ideas of where this was going so we’ll fix that right up for ya” 

i still loved the game. hell, even with the ending like that (”i gotta go save Kairi! again! even though we had a whole thing with the papou fruit about how she was going to save me and protect me this time! and i gotta do it alllll by myself!!! she has a keyblade you say???? she wants to be more useful to me you say???? well FUCK that imma go rescue her because im Sora and i am hero boy!!”) i still had a good time! it really is a good game, please go play it to get all the feels in the world, if this minor stuff is minor for you too, then go play it RIGHT. NOW!!!!!

but yeah. ya girl was disappointed by how forced it was. expected it, but still doesn’t negate how i feel in the end. so now im gonna indulge in soriku art. 

Rant over! if you actually read over this and wanna talk about it, feel free to hit me up! let’s rant together. maybe im wrong and too focused on my ship and i have ship glasses on too tight. 

[nautilusopus]

Serious non-troll: What if you like the cop-outs and the scrambled bullshit plots and the nonsense towers of half-constructed ideas? I agree that for example Nomura is a goddamn crazy person but I find his convulsions fascinating and want to see more of them.

i mean, you’re entirely within your rights to do that. it’s just frustrating that there’s visibly no effort put into any of it, and he’s just writing for the sake of what makes the trailer look good, and that’s been 100% to the detriment of the story ever since he’s started doing it

i’m not even inherently opposed to ridiculous convoluted bullshit. i’m one of those pretentious fuckheads that unironically likes End of Evangelion and thinks it made perfect sense, obviously, duh, with all its absolute nonsense of adam and lilith and rei being a god-analogue from absorbing both the white and black seeds and allowing shinji to dictate the ultimate outcome of third impact in the culmination of a couple of really fucking long and extremely obtuse character arcs. i mean, hell, i’m 38 chapters into a fic that is running off nothing but weird high-concept ideas of how reality and parallel universes work and abstract metaphor andsleep deprivation. in any other circumstances, i’m fine with convoluted batshit nonsense.

i think the best way to explain the heart of the issue is to look at what happened to the matrix trilogy. or actually wait this is tumblr, everyone’s in high school and would’ve been foetuses or something when Revolutions came out. homestuck, then. we’ll look at homestuck. 

okay so homestuck. remember when that was as big as it was? initially, the big stumbling block was the slow pace of act 1 where john just kind of fucks around throwing glass at clown dolls for a while and if you weren’t into that kind of humour that was where the comic immediately lost you, but what ultimately got the ball rolling was [S] WV: Ascend. the general metric back then was if you weren’t hooked by that one, you wouldn’t like homestuck at all, and for many people that was the point of no return. the reason WV: Ascend was as big of a deal as it was is that we’ve been seeing a bunch of disconnected nonsense happening all over the place, and this is the first time we see our first major time loop actually closed, with the promise of a few more being set up. all that supposed joke nonsense we’d been watching the whole time? it actually mattered, surprise! from there, the narrative spends a lot of time introducing a lot of new concepts – we have captchaloguing and paradox slime, and time travel, and doomed timelines, and exiles and future versions of planets from a parallel universe the metanarrative being perpetuated by the author being diagetic and fuck knows what other things i’m forgetting about. and then, to throw you for a loop twelve whole other characters show up on top of that. so then the narrative needs to spend time establishing who these people are and what their relevance to the story is – which it does, by having them be active participants in the first arc as things go on. this ultimately culminates in [S] Cascade, where we see all these different concepts eventually tie into one another because they were deliberately set up to, and it’s at that point that you figure, well shit we’ve hit a point where all the time travel stuff has finally come to a head. and with it, you’d expect it to also bring all the character stuff to a head too, but instead hussie has an entire extra act to go so we can’t have that resolve yet. 

so in the meantime, here are 20-ish whole other characters doing some other things. but we don’t have time to establish what’s effectively the silmarillion by now, so we have to speed past it, meaning we aren’t given a chance to care about these new people. but we can’t have a chance to care about them either, because we still have to tie all this into 5 whole previous acts that are meant to feed into this. at this point, homestuck is visibly collapsing under its own weight. character arcs are forced to fart around in circles because the status quo can’t change because we still need to make it to endgame with these character dynamics more or less intact. but that’s boring to read so we’ll do this entire “what if” thing and then retcon it all out of existence, and then have the fact that you can retcon things suddenly become vital to the resolution of the coming in place of anything we’ve already established previously – not the time travel, not the parallel universe with the trolls, not even the whole thing with the Scratch leading to the alpha kids being here in the first place – when the mechanic was only introduced in the first place to sloppily patch a story together that had long since devolved into infodumps that served to paint hussie further and further into a corner as he was forced to define his lore to get the plot to keep moving forward despite the fact that the narrative wasn’t focusing properly on the people that could make that happen anymore because the story had since switched focus from those people almost entirely. 

and in the meantime the damn thing got eaten up by filler, and suddenly characters from that filler are showing up like they were totally relevant to the main story the whole time even though literally nothing they did in their own subplot had any direct bearing on the story at large, unlike the initial 12 trolls. why yes, Alternate Universe Calliope was a completely necessary addition to the story! didn’t you see our important sidestory thing where they do Stuff, and then her showing up in the climax to resolve some other things that are sorta disconnected from the main plot anyway?

not to mention the shipping. nothing ruins a story faster than throwing in a love triangle or eight, and then immediately invalidating all the character growth that happened on top of that anyway by having it literally never happen. not that it would’ve mattered anyway, because remember, we never actually got to have any of this really developed to begin with. 

by the time we hit end of act 6, there’s been so many new concepts haphazardly stapled onto the story and so many threads brought up and discarded entirely when we already established back with [S] Cascade that the story works best when they actually do this and it is doable, that it stops being merely complicated and off the wall, and starts being spread too thin, incomprehensible, and ultimately no longer part of a whole narrative deliberately comprised of interlocking storylines. shit’s just kinda happening at you, and rather than getting to see parts of a text interacting as a result of them coming from somewhere for the express purpose of then going to somewhere, you’re just being asked to accept that, yup, that’s a thing that’s going on right now. neato. sure is some stuff happening and whatnot. and in the end, for all that posturing, it didn’t even do anything. in pre-cascade homestuck that wouldn’t have even been a full flash. a bunch of nonsense happens, and then They Fightan Good, and then it’s over and there’s not a single time paradox or meta-interaction to be found. none of the stuff they built up to over all these years mattered, and neither did any of the stuff they just threw in, either. 

i’m sure you see what i’m getting at with this. 

(also he treats the women in his stories like shit and quite frankly i’m sick of it and even more sick that people keep giving him a pass for it because it’s practically reached parody levels at this point , so there’s that)

i have no problem with convoluted twisty bullshit in and of itself. but it has to accomplish something aside from just existing, and nomura doesn’t do that. by his own admission, kingdom hearts wasn’t planned, and it shows really badly. characters and entire story mechanics and plot lines are introduced solely for the sake of introducing them. they don’t go anywhere or build to anything, because they can’t, because fuck we have to stall for kh3 shhhh just keep adding more soras and hopefully no one will notice. i think the last time any of this actually mattered was kh2, and even that had a lot of the issues i’ve mentioned here. as a result of all of this, the character arcs suffer a lot, and you’re left with nothing but a big ball of plot twists that goes nowhere, and a bunch of characters that only somewhat have anything to do with any of it. 

i don’t feel like it’s overly nitpicky to find this kinda gross and seriously insulting of the audience’s intelligence. it’s just lazy time-stalling. i get that people sometimes really don’t care about stuff like narrative and character development and are just here to see riku punching mike wazowski in the teeth or whatever, but i think it’s disingenuous to pretend that these aren’t nonetheless important parts of a game’s construction – especially a studio that used to openly pride itself on selling games with a focus on story. 

and the genuinely frustrating part is, no one cares. people are gushing all over everything square puts out because it’s square, so they know they don’t have to put effort into their stories. i’m well aware i’m in the minority for saying that these games are bad. but i also thought we were done with treating, “it’s just a video game, bro! why do you care so much about the story having quality as a narrative? this isn’t an english class!” as a valid rebuttal. 

maybe i should’ve used the matrix trilogy instead. most people hate movies 2 and 3 for the weird “YOU’VE ALREADY MADE THE CHOICE/EVERYTHING THAT HAS A BEGINNING HAS AN END NEO” shit and the bonkers christ-allegory ending. i hate it because neo is about as interesting as the rock that cracked goofy’s skull open.

[regalia-of-wisdom]

Why Vanitas and Marluxia can come back if they want to and Nomura didn’t retcon.

‪Ok so on twitter I said that I wasn’t gonna write this bc I didn’t wanna be called a KH3 apologist but then my friends were like “you’re a kh3 apologist anyways just do it” so I did it. I love KH and theorizing and analyzing everything and it’s great, but also it’s 2 am, and also Nomura really needs to consider writing these things down somewhere before releasing these games. Also stop recycling villains, dammit.

Sorry that I can’t line break. I’m writing on mobile rn :/ it’s a long post.

‪Ok I’m too lazy to go on the wiki or something and re read these but on the very first KH (or maybe it was in the Secret Ansem Reports in KH2...?? ANYWAYS IN ONE OF THOSE) it is stated that, according to the metaphysics of the Kh universe, a person is made up of a body, a heart‬, ‪and a soul. Bc the main lore of kh doesn’t mention it much not many players seem to remember or know what the “soul” is, especially since it’s clearly not supposed to be the same thing that westerners think of as a soul (that would be a heart in KH-metaphysics)‬.

‪So all we ever get in the series is people losing their hearts, which is synonymous to someone going fucking catatonic and emotionless bc they don’t have a soul (think Kairi in KH1), or just overall disappear bc of darkness related hijinks that cause complications.‬

‪Like, Kairi in KH1 was alive, y’all. She had a breathing pattern and open eyes and everything, she just didn’t have a heart. She’s the only example we have of this (unless you want me to include Aurora in BBS lol), because she’s the only one whose body wouldn’t react to darkness related hijinks (Darkness, as you all know, is quite annoying).‬ This means that, clearly, not having a heart doesn’t mean you’re a corpse. It’s probably more like you going in a coma. Nobodies in Org XIII aren’t walking corpses. They’re just ppl without a soul. (AKA a heart). They’re like, psychopaths? Sam in that one season of Supernatural? you know, just a bunch of ppl that don’t have to deal with pesty issues like guilt or ethics.

(If you’re wondering why Kairi’s catatonic body in KH1 isn’t a Nobody it’s bc Nobodies are dependent on Darkness. Only hearts that have turned to heartless (darkness) create Nobodies, and Nobodies are born with the ability to open dark corridors and control heartless and do whatever they want. Like, they technically have access to both light and dark (and. Void? I guess?) but they’re very obviously leaning more towards the side of darkness. Not that they’re inherently dark creatures, but that they are just yet another life form in KH that owes its existence to Darkness. Kairi, as we all will never forget, has no darkness bothering her and complicating her life. Sora’s the one that had enough darkness and body and soul to spare to create two nobodies out of thin air. What the fuck dude.)

Of course if you played DDD you’d be like “uh, but Xemnas said that Nobodies can grow hearts uhhh” and id be like yeah he did and it makes a lot of sense especially if you had watched/Played Re: Coded and payed attention to the juicy lore bits instead of the main plot like I’ve been saying forever. However unimportant the plot is, Re: Coded’s storyline literally exists to say that anything with a Body and a (what KH calls a) Soul (Like, say, the person made out of data that you’re playing as throughout the game) has the ability to grow a heart and become a person. The entirety of Jiminy’s Journal becomes a world a la Winnie the Pooh, obtaining its own heart. Like, it’s a book and it was made and it’s kind of fake but it developed its own sense of self, and developed a heart. Like, it was literally pointed out to us. Data Sora lives beyond his programming (just like, hey, Tron.) bc he developed a sense of self. A personality. A heart. He even makes his own Keyblade, that’s how much heart he mad. With a lesson like that being thrown at us, why wouldn’t the Organization XIII Nobodies eventually be able to develop their own sense of self? To go beyond what they thought their “original” selves were like, and become able to feel? Not to say they do, mind you. I think a lot of them, or all of them, like Axel in the beginning of Days, were so stuck on what they thought their original self was like that they were just following through the motions and doing what a data program would consider its “programming”. Axel only began to grow a heart once he stopped trying to be Saïx’s friend, and started to go beyond what his memories were telling him he should act like and do what he felt like he needed to act like.

Anyways now at this point you’re probably like, “what does this have to do with Villains in KH always coming back…” and I’m gonna get to that jeez hold on a minute, I just felt like I needed to explain what a heart was for this to be clearer to people. What are the functions of a heart, and what it ultimately serves. I needed to explain this, because losing a Heart does not mean you are dead, losing your Soul does.

The Soul in KH should probably be referred to as Spirit, as I think it reflects the idea better, while keeping basically the same word. (Unfortunately we already have things called Spirits in KH, and they’re adorable darkness creatures, so.) It’s supposed to be the energy that makes something move. It’s the Will to Live. The fact that the soul seems to be synonymous with will is important, bc only people with a “Strong Will”, that become heartless, create Nobodies. The Will in this case is clearly the energy source that provides a body with sustenance. With life. Pinocchio was given a soul by the blue fairy so he could move (the heart, I think, he made himself due to Geppetto's own feelings). The love of children give the toys in Toy Story a will to protect, love, and be played with. Terra’s will was so damn strong, it reanimated his armor. Terra’s Will to live makes his armor move on its own. Look, it’s even called The Lingering Will. What does this mean? That only a body and a heart that has lost its soul, that loses its energy source (its lifestream, I suppose) undeniably dies.

No one, absolutely no one in KH, has lots their soul. Ok, not true, obviously there are some exceptions, particularly regarding the Disney villains, but I’m talking abt the story original characters that Nomura loves to recycle so much. No one has lost it bc pretty much almost no one we fight is ever a complete human being. They’re always missing vital parts of themselves. Ansem the Seeker of Darkness was humanoid Heart walking around. Xemnas and the Organization were a few bodies and souls walking around with maybe a mini heart or two. Vanitas is literally the most incomplete being I can think of. He’s literally half a heart, half a body, and half a soul. The dude is a mess. Master Xehanort… MX is clearly using loopholes and luck to keep himself surviving this long. By now, he’s made a complete and utter mess of Terra, who got literally split into 3 entities for 10 years, while he himself is really only a floating heart and a soul ruining everything. Young Xehanort is a complete being that should probably watch out for decapitation or something, but we can certainly rule out that Riku would kill him because I mean. Y’all have met Riku, right? Also he’s just obviously alive lmao.

The fact that these beings are incomplete is important bc the keyblade, our weapon of choice, is a mysterious artifact that serves very specific functions. It opens and locks anything, specifically the hearts to a world and the pathways that lead to other worlds. It seems to exist to bring balance and stability to… anywhere it’s at, really. It’s a magical item with magical intentions. Now, I’m not gonna sit here and say what I’m about to say as if it’s proven fact that I read in an interview or deduced myself or something, I will admit that my next point is in theoretical territory, but that doesn’t make it any less likely or probable. And that is that the Keyblade can not kill people. That is to say, it can not kill a soul. It can only break apart, or reunite parts of a person, but not destroy them. “Killing” heartless restores them to their original state: a heart, and killing nobodies does the same. Xehanort and Sora stabbed themselves to get their hearts out of their bodies and created heartless and nobodies in the process. It’s like the laws of thermodynamics or something. It seems to me that that is the nature of a keyblade.

So, inclusion, nobody has died in KH. The end. This is unnecessarily long but I get like that sometimes. There is one last point that I have to address but I might do that tomorrow, if anyone gives a shit by then. Good night!

[theoutsanityshoppe]

Hnnngg KH3.

Note: This is my using Tumblr as a place to scream into the void my thoughts. I’m not looking for responses - or for anyone to try and change my mind, so please don’t bother. I’ve been playing these games since I was 8 years old when they first came out. 

Since I’m gonna be talking about the entire game, I’m gonna slap this on:

So all morning I’ve been highly annoyed and frustrated but unsure why until I let my thoughts just go on their own and I realized I’m just super huffy and upset about KH3 as I finished the game yesterday.

I’m writing this more entirely to get my thoughts/feelings down and maybe move the fuck on from them and not at all to influence peoples opinions on the game. 

But pretty much from the second I entered the Kingdom of Corona I was complaining throughout the entire game. That kingdom in particular pissed me off the most what with it beING THE GODDAMN MOVIE SCENE BUT FUCKING SCENE LINE BY FUCKING LINE and bored me almost to literal tears. I was infinitely more excited [and enjoyed it more!] to play Arendelle than I was Corona, and I can’t stand Frozen but love Tangled as films. 

I know Nomura has never been the best at linear, or hell for that matter, simple story lines but I felt that KH 3 was a mockery of what it could have been. It feels like it, and at the same time us, the fans, were shoved into the corner while other projects were worked on instead and only just finished because “well shit it’s been so long we gotta get something out there”.

The story line was the single shortest and most disappointing out of all of the games - and I have played every goddamn one of them [tho not very far into DreamDrop, the fact that you could drop mid-boss battle infuriated me to no end and I gave up on that game entirely after I had a single hit to go on a fourth attempt on Riku’s boss at Notre Dame]. They focused way too hard on the visual aspects of the game - the scenery, the characters [except, apparently, their hair as Rapunzel's hair made me cringe every goddamn time she showed up] the battle affects, the magic... all the most stunningly beautiful things I have ever seen. The vastly open worlds were amazing too - omaigod it was crazy just exploring every nook and cranny.

But the worlds were utterly pointless. There was no princess to save. No keyhole to lock. No Maleficent to stop. No Pete to beat up. No real REASON for the Heartless to even BE at the worlds and even less for Sora to be there! The only one that made any sense for why baddies were there was just Monstropolis cuz Vanita’s was there, thus, so were the Unversed. [Which was fun except it had already been spoiled that he was gonna show up there so good on your advertising team Square Enix /sarcasm.]. It was just Sora running around seemingly forgetting constantly that there is a HUGE ASS WAR coming literally around the corner. But naw, let’s just have him run around being a pirate during the middle of an incredibly jumpy PoC#3 film recreation. You really demanding we know these films forwards and backwards to enjoy the game??? Fuck that. [Also, I see they tried hard, but the faces on literally everyone in PoC scared the crap out of me. They showed too much teeth and despite trying to show enough human emotion still felt robotic and creepy. Sora, Donald and Goofy were freaking adorable tho.]

The only worlds I thoroughly enjoyed were Toy Box [cuz, gasp! It didn’t just follow the fucking movie line by line!! It was actually new and original but felt like it could be a Toy Story...story!!!] and San Fransokyo cuz I’ve never seen Big Hero Six. I purposefully didn’t watch it because I didn’t want to be bored to tears watching the fucking movie but with Sora, Donald and Goofy thrown in cuz why not. [Side note: Replica Riku and the Cubes showing up was awesome.]

On the topic of worlds: WHERE. THE. FUCK. WAS. RADIANT. GARDEN.

Why in the actual hell was it just a “””””””””””background””’”’’’”””” world???????????? Why was the completed version of Hallow Bastion - a world that has been in just about every goddamn game in some form or fashion minus DreamDrop NOT IN THE “FINAL” GAME [yes I know this is not the end of the series I’m talking about the final for this damn saga]. IT;S A FUCKING IMPORTANT WORLD and all we get is backdrops of it while other characters are there??????? THEY EVEN BROUGHT ANSEM THE GODDAMN WISE BACK AND STILL WE DIDN’T GO THERE. OR EVEN MEET THE BASTARD AGAIN.

There was no purpose for almost all of the old Organization characters to even be in this game, other to be puppets for Xehanort and just pointless background characters.

“But Bri! Vexen helped give Roxas and Namine bodies!” SO. WHAT.

Roxas goddamn did it basically on his own. Despite it being A HUGE plot point that no one has any damn idea how to do this, even Vexen being a bit out of it, Roxas just fucking appears out of the blue having basically put himself together at this point cuz - reminder! SORA NEVER FUCKING WENT TO RADIANT GARDEN AND VEXEN NEVER SAW HIM ONCE. So how the SHIT did Roxas’s heart get inside a vessel???? Even if it was the vessel that they just left on the goddamn floor of the labyrinth and not the one at Radiant Garden THAT MAKES NO SENSE.

Nor their overly drawn out death scenes and the weird ass Grim Reaper heartless. Or that weird “Final World” other than a very obvious way to throw Cirithy int here at the last freaking second. Or that we had to watch the same scene twice only for some new bastard to show up [Lingering Will, and I will admit I was cheering that whole fight cuz hell yes go Terra but still why didn’t he show up in the first place?????? Why did Sora resetting the whole fucking world apparently trigger him coming?????]

AKGJAKJFHGADFG Like I said before I’m only writing this out to air my own frustrations on the game - if you love this game, fantastic, I’m very happy for you -it has plenty of good aspects to it too. I am not trying to change anyone’s opinions on the game.

BUT AUGH. I FEEL SO HORRIBLY CHEATED. I won’t even go into my rant about Kairi - there’s enough text posts out there about how horribly they wrote her. How pathetic.

Xion being there made 0 sense too. I’m happy AF she, Roxas, and Axel got their happy ending but annoyed as hell as to WHEN they got it - but frankly just about everything in the actual story happened during the last goddamn second. 

I get wanting to set up intruge for later games - but this was a) a main title game and b) supposed to be the end of Xehanort’s Saga/Sora’s. WHY. WASN’T. MORE. ANSWERED??????? In my opinion: aboslutely nothing from Union Cross should have been in this. Not a damn thing. That should all be in the past and NO ONE from the current games should be from the keyblade war *coughfuckingVentusLariumandElrenacough*. I’m excited and want to know about that war and everything from the past but I’m sick of them trying so hard to connect it to the current characters - just place is in the goddamn past! Or STOP AGING CHARACTERS - how the fuck is Xehanort and Eraqus so damn old but Ventus, Larxene, Marluxia and Xigbar are apparently 100+ years old but all look like they’re between 16-30 [minus Xig who looks like 50 cuz of the streaks in his hair]. Also that surprise that Xig is Luxu????? Exciting at first cuz I adore him as a character and am happy to see him continue to be a main player but WHAT?????? THE?????? FUCK???????? 0 sense. Makes 0. Goddamn. Sense.

And how ARE the foretellers still alive???? WHY the hell are they still alive??? And why didn’t they fight each other at the end - we watched them try and murder each other in the damn back video!

Again: yeah, ok this is all being set up for a later game to come out in the future. SO DO THAT IN A WAY THAT DOESN’T MAKE THIS ONE FEEL LIKE A THROW AWAY MIDDLE GAME!!! That’s what KH3 feels like - like Chain of Memories or Coded. It took me 35+ hours to get through all of the worlds [and find all of the treasure/lucky emblems] before it ACTUALLY started getting into the real plot of the story aka the real reason I was playing the goddamn game. In the end I finished the game at 43 hours. So. Less than 10 hours of this entire game was dedicated to the fucking plot and the rest was to reenacting Disney film scene by scene line by goddamn line with absolutely no purpose or meaning to anything. 

KH2 is infamous for confusing players cuz no one knew who Roxas was at the beginning but was a fucking masterpiece - it had so much thrown in and yea, a lot of questions left over, but we actually had enough to be satisfied. We had new characters and new villains and enough interactions between them all to get a great feeling about what’s going on. KH3 simply threw together last second answers with next to no explanation other than “that’s just how it is” in order to just move on and that PISSES ME OFF TO NO END. 

KH3 also just felt like a movie - there were so many cutscenes!!! AND DURING BATTLES. SERIOUSLY???? DURING THE FINAL FIGHTS BETWEEN ALL 13 DARKNESSES?????????? 

Also something that I hated and refuse to acknowledge because to me it feels 100% like a Rowling/Snape scenario: Fucking Isa/Saix.

Not once in any game do we get the feeling that Saix is redeemable. Not. fucking. once. [not including BBS in which he was an innocent]. I’m perfectly happy with villains getting them - I love that! BuT WHERE WAS IT???? He was a cruel and sadistic bastard in all the other games he’s in - especially KH2! [and a jerk in 358!] WHERE DID THIS NEW FRIENDSHIP WITH LEA/AXEL COME FROM???????? Give us the goddamn redemption - don’t just have him show up after NEARLY MURDERING THEM AGAIN and be all “and now they are friends. weee” that is bullshit. He deserves NOTHING right now.

Frankly the whole way all of the Organization members who haven’t been given backstories died annoyed me. Larxene’s goddamn secret [why fucking mention it if it’s not gonna be in the damn game???] Luxords weird ass trump card that was useless and we never even saw what it was. Marluxia suddenly “getting memories back” - bitch what memories??? And how almost happily they all went????? What????? Now they’re totally cool with Sora murdering them????

Also Demyx...just Demyx. I love him but he was pointless in this. He did 1 thing. And they didn’t even need him for that. Vexen switching sides also made little sense as again: he had only ever been set up as a villain before. Ok- they SORTA set up a redemption arc for him and Ansem but then promptly dropped it and we never saw either of them again. SAME WITH TWILIGHT TOWN. We went through all that trouble to get the virtual world set up and then???? Never???? Mentioned???? Again???? We didn’t even get to GO to it which is what I was 30000% expecting to happen.

You know what else: where the heck were Leon and the gang. They’ve been a vital part of many KH games - including both main titles. Why weren’t they in this. In fact were ANY Final Fantasy characters even in this??????? Siefer and his change were apparently locked in the sandlot that was completely un-accessible from anywhere in Twilight Town. Cloud didn’t show up and since the Collesium was gone [I was ok with that tho] neither did Sephiroth as a mini boss].

AND

NO

HALLOWEENTOWN

EITHER

Another world that has been in almost every game and is A MASSIVE fan favorite! You were able to come up with a story line for the second game, you could have easily figured one out for this one - hell you didn’t even need Oogie you could have had fucking Vanitas as the baddie here instead of at Monstropolis. 

This entire game felt like a cop-out to just get the story over and done with to move on to other stuff and that infuriates me. I’ve put too many hours and too much of my life into this series to get such a shitty ending to this particular part of the story. Yeah I get that no matter what it would end confusing - Nomura is king at that. I get it: this game is a perfect example as to why you need to know what your ending is to a story before you dive head first in. I don’t think [if I remember correctly] anyone thought the game would go past the first one so there was no reason to add more to it which is fine. Then it went crazy in traditional Nomura fashion lol. Which is fine! But at least have SOME kind of understandable plot!!! I’m still confused as to what exactly was going on - especially since so many characters kept changing their reasoning [YEAH IM LOOKING AT YOU XEHANORT. Not sure I liked his ending either. Yay he’s gone - but really? A happy ending with his best friend WHO HE MURDERED?]

Still don’t know what the hell Kingdom Hearts really is. Or why Sora and co didn’t just use it to try and fix the worlds. Also I feel like it must be hella annoyed at everyone like the Dragon from DBZA lololol like “WHY DO YOU PEOPLE KEEP CREATING ME JUST TO HAVE SOME SNOT NOSED 15 YEAR OLD SLAM THE DOOR IN MY FACE AGAIN???” kinda thing hahahahaha

I think I need to start a second post cuz this one’s getting weird.