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cornyregans · 4 years

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Relationship with the Rivals

Word Count: 3,965

I have been planning on discussing the birth orders for what I call the “Lear” generation and “ABC” Montys for more than a year now. As I was compiling my entries, however, I thought it would be fun to look at how the ages of these sims might have contributed to each of their eventual roles in the feud. As such, I wrote this thing to show pieces of evidence that might explain where each sim fits on the feud spectrum, and how their ages might have something to do with it.

Roles in the Feud

Before we dive into the main body of this essay, we should first look at the different categories where each sim might fit. In my opinion, these sims can fall into one of six categories. Each group is rather self-explanatory once you see what they’re called; however, there are some nuances to these roles that I believe should be acknowledged.

The first group is what I like to call the “major players.” These sims play a large role in the feud as a whole; whether it be due to their role in starting it, or because none of them are all that willing to befriend anyone on the other side. In addition to their unwillingness to cross the canal, so to speak, these sims are also loathed by one or more sims in return, though the animosity the other sim shows them is not always mutual.

Within this group of “major players,” there are two subsections that I like to call “passively major players” and “aggressively major players.” Both groups are uninterested in burying the hatchet and don’t care for making amends with the other side. That said, their approach to the feud differs.

Aggressively major players are sims who take an active role in initiating disputes between the families, and who will probably hate on someone based on their last name alone. Also, aggressively major players not only hate sims on the other side, but their aggressive nature has likely earned them some enemies in return.

Passively major players, on the other hand, are more reactionary than their aggressive counterparts. While these sims don’t think too positively of sims on the other side of the canal, they will have an additional reason for hatred other than just the whole last name thing. Finally, passively major players do not need to have anyone on the other side hold them in contempt since, as stated previously, much of their disdain is more reactionary than anything else.

The second main group is the “minor players,” these sims are more willing to befriend people on the other side than the major players; however, some also consider one or more sims on the other side to be their enemies. Another kind of minor player is one who does not consider any rival family members to be enemies, yet one or more members of the rival family do hate them for one reason or another.

The third main group is what I like to call the “anti-feuders.” These sims do not consider any members of the rival family to be their enemies and they are more than willing to befriend them as well. Unlike what I mentioned above regarding minor players, anti-feuders are completely free of enemies on the other side. That said, given the nature of the feud, anti-feuders are probably more likely to be found outside the two feuding families, though there are some exceptions.

The fourth category is what I call the “undecided” because there is no way for us to say how they feel about the feud since they lack relationships with the rival family. That said, the fourth category will not come up in any capacity later in this essay since the game either strongly implies or outright confirms that all seven of these sims had an opinion on either the feud itself or the sims from the other family.

There are two other categories I will not be covering here that deserve a mention. Both groups are exactly what you would expect upon seeing their names, “Capp allies” (sims from auxiliary families who display loyalty towards the Capps), and “Monty allies” (basically the same as Capp allies, but their loyalties lie with the Montys instead). Given the dearth of premade families in modern-day Veronaville, these final two groups no longer exist in the neighborhood unless the player decides to incorporate townies into these factions or create some new families to fill some empty houses.

Premade Roles at Capp Manor and Monty Ranch

When it comes to categorizing the individuals living at the Manor or Ranch, it is probably safe to say that Consort, Patrizio, Isabella, and Tybalt are major players. Consort and Patrizio are self-explanatory: both of them were essential in starting the feud, and neither of them seems to have any intention of letting bygones be bygones as far as the narrative is concerned. An argument could be made for Isabella being more of a minor player due to the implication that she’s getting tired of Patrizio’s anti-Capp ways; however, she doesn’t seem very willing to befriend any Capps herself, so it’s hard to categorize her as anything but a major player as a result (though, I would place her in the passively major subsection). Tybalt, whose biography highlights his Capp pride, considers both of the Montys he knows enemies, so there’s no way he could fit into any other category when the game begins. All four of these sims have a few individuals on the other side who consider them to be an enemy, so they really can’t fit anywhere else on this spectrum.

Romeo, Juliette, and Mercutio are more minor players in the feud since they have both friends and foes on the opposite side (though most of the hatred is one-sided). Romeo and Juliette are friends, which is practically a necessity for a romantic relationship in TS2. As for Mercutio, he considers Hermia and Miranda Capp to be his friends, in addition to having a crush on the former and being crushed on by the latter. When it comes to the enemies they have on the other side, Romeo is considered an enemy by Consort and Tybalt Capp, Mercutio is enemies with Tybalt, and Juliette loathes Bianca Monty. Mercutio and Juliette also aren’t all that fond of each other, though not to the point of considering the other an enemy when the game starts. The same can be said for Romeo who, while loathed by Consort and Tybalt, lacks enough animosity towards either sim when the game begins to reciprocate their feelings of hatred.

Hermia is the only sim living at either the manor or ranch to be an Anti-Feuder since she isn’t enemies with any of the Montys when you first play the manor, nor do any of the Montys consider her an enemy in return. She considers Mercutio Monty to be a friend and also reciprocates his crush on her (though, the fact that she also reciprocates Puck’s crush on her slightly complicates things).

So with that out of the way, let’s begin by looking at the five-generation four sims still alive when the game begins.

The Living Capps and Montys

Given that they consider all of the living third and fourth generation members of their respective rival families to be enemies, it seems safe to say that Goneril, Regan, and Antonio are all involved in the feud in some way. That said, only Antonio’s bios (both personal and household) and Regan’s household bio reference their thoughts on the feud. Rather than touching upon her opinion of the feud, both of Goneril’s bios instead focus on her marriage and motherhood.

Antonio’s personal bio references the feud by stating:

“…what will be his role in the family feud that may have cost him his one true love?”

By taking this quote into account, Antonio’s involvement in the feud is more of a recent development. Either that or he wasn’t much of a player until he lost his wife. His household bio says the same thing as his personal bio so there’s no need to go into detail about it.

Regan’s household bio refers to the feud here:

“…Bianca Monty’s affections for Kent have the family on high alert.”

Regardless of how you interpret Bianca’s “affections” for Kent (I’ll probably cover that at a later date), this biography is rather interesting. Though this line from Regan’s household bio doesn’t reference her specifically, the implication is definitely there when it comes to her involvement in the feud. The fact that Regan is concerned about a Capp/Monty friendship makes her a strong candidate for being a major player in the feud since such a concern would be considered silly for minor players and anti feuders.

Even though neither of Goneril’s bios specifically reference her thoughts on the feud, they may be subtly alluded to in her daughter Miranda’s personal bio:

“Miranda’s cynical and rebellious — and wants out of her parents’ crowded house. Could that explain her sudden interest in Mercutio?”

By combining Miranda’s interest in Mercutio with her being described as “rebellious,” we can probably conclude that her attraction to him might be, at least in part, due to Goneril and Albany’s views regarding the Monty family. Also, when comparing her relationships with her parents, she starts the game closer with Albany than she does Goneril. As such, her interest in Mercutio may have started to get a rise out of Goneril in particular. If this is the case, then Goneril would most likely be a major player in the feud.

Kent and Bianca are also involved in the feud, but to a lesser extent. Kent is mutual enemies with both third-generation Montys, considered an enemy by Antonio, and friends with Bianca. Conversely, while Bianca is friends with Kent, she hates Consort, Goneril, and Regan. She’s also not super fond of Tybalt either, but her negative feelings towards him are one-sided since he doesn’t seem to acknowledge her existence.

How did Claudio and Cordelia feel about the feud?

While we can get a general idea regarding their siblings’ opinions on the feud, the fact that Claudio and Cordelia are deceased when the game starts makes it difficult to decipher their feelings on the matter. That said, it’s not impossible to form a hypothesis by looking at two bios that are not immediately accessible to the player.

This line from Claudio’s personal bio implies that he was involved in it:

“…will he be able to reconcile his son’s romance with the enemy family?”

Conversely, this line from Contessa’s personal bio implies Cordelia was against it:

“…Will [Contessa] let go of her anger at the Montys and do her daughter Cordelia’s memory justice by allowing Juliette to pursue her true love?”

Additionally, there is an image of Cordelia reacting negatively to Patrizio and Consort fighting, further reinforcing the idea of her being anti feud.

Of course, it could be possible that I’m completely wrong about these two. However, the textual evidence is hidden inside those two biographies, as well as the picture of Cordelia, which are things I cannot ignore due to the lack of evidence to the contrary.

Their Ages

Goneril, Regan, and Kent’s age bars all line up with Consort’s memories. On the other hand, Antonio and Bianca’s age bars do not line up with Patrizio’s memories. While I do plan on looking into this more in the future, I will be going off of age bars here since that’s really where the crux of this argument comes from.

According to their age bars and SimPE, Antonio has eighteen sim days left until elderhood, whereas Bianca has twenty-three. Should the player use a rotational play style, then the only living Capp who would be close in age to both of them is Goneril, who would be four sim!days younger than Antonio and two sim!days older than Bianca. Not only that, but there is also a possibility that the age gap between Goneril and Claudio is small enough that she would have had ample opportunity to interact with him as well.

Regan is three sim!days younger than Bianca and eight sim!days younger than Antonio. As such, it would be easy to assume that Regan’s antipathy towards the enemy family would be weaker than her older sister’s. Despite this, two factors may have ended up making Regan a bigger player than her age would suggest.

The first factor involves the late Claudio’s age. Of the two living Montys, Regan is only really close in age to Bianca, who seems like a fairly minor player in the grand scheme of things. As mentioned above, Claudio’s bio implies that he was involved in the feud as well. If he was younger than Antonio, then Regan would have had a greater opportunity to interact with him than if he was the elder Monty brother. The other factor is Regan’s relationship with Goneril. A look at both of their relationship panels shows that each sister considers the other to be a friend when the game begins. If Goneril and Regan were close back when they were growing up, then it wouldn’t be too farfetched to assume that Regan being close to Goneril may have influenced how she saw the Montys and could have made her a bigger player than she otherwise would have been.

As stated above, even Kent’s not entirely immune to Anti Monty sentiments. According to his relationship panel at the start of the game, he considers Isabella, and Patrizio Monty to be enemies, so Bianca is more of an exception than the rule since those three Montys are the only ones present in his relationship panel. As such, Kent’s hatred towards those two Montys (possibly three if he considered Claudio an enemy as well) is likely more reactionary than due to family rivalries. A case of “I don’t hate them because they’re Montys, I hate them because they’re jerks.” Bianca is also closer in age to Kent than Antonio is when taking age bars into account. As such, their bonding over their mutual disdain of the feud would be easier than Kent possibly doing the same with Antonio provided the latter also has (or had) his misgivings about it.

Taking Cordelia and Claudio into Account

If Cordelia was the eldest Capp child, then we know she would have been closer to elderhood than Bianca before her death. That said, it is unknown whether she would have been older than Antonio and/or Claudio (at least according to their age bars).

Speaking of Claudio, SimPE states that he had twenty-three days left until elderhood when he died. If this is the case, then we know he would have become an elder sooner than Bianca in rotational gameplay. While we cannot say for sure when he died, his sons’ ages point at it being a relatively recent event. Should you use both SimPE and this timeframe in determining Claudio’s place in the birth order, then he would likely have been somewhere around the same age as Goneril.

Most people who I’ve seen interpret Cordelia as the eldest Capp child also interpret Claudio as the eldest Monty child. This is likely due to their children’s ages when the game begins. That said, their ages concerning each other is something that I’ve never seen discussed. I’ve never seen any argument stating whether Cordelia was younger than both of the Monty brothers, sandwiched in the middle of them, or older than both of them. As a result, I can’t analyze a possible dynamic between the two, let alone if one existed in the first place.

Claudio’s Age and his Role in the Feud

Claudio, the Eldest Child

The way I see it, Claudio’s involvement in the feud correlates with how much older the player considers him to be than Antonio. If he’s too far ahead of his brother in age, then his interactions with the enemy Capps would have been somewhat limited throughout the years. This would be problematic since the oldest Capp to be involved in the feud is Goneril.

While the player could view Cordelia as the oldest Capp child, the evidence we are provided with paints her as being anti feud. As such, Claudio only being close in age to Cordelia would somewhat isolate him from his generation’s major players on the Capp side. That said, this would not be a problem should the player view Claudio and Antonio as twins, since he would have had as much opportunity to interact with the rival Capps that Antonio did when growing up. If this was, in fact, the case, then Claudio would have eighteen days at most until elderhood if he were still alive.

Claudio, the Middle Child

Claudio being the middle child means that he would have anywhere from eighteen to twenty-three days until elderhood if he were still alive. As such he, like Goneril, would be sandwiched between Antonio and Bianca.

As you have probably already figured out, Claudio being the middle child would have meant that the Capp he would have likely interacted with the most would be Goneril (and possibly Cordelia, should you consider her to be older than Goneril but younger than Antonio). Claudio being close in age to Goneril could have easily played a role in the latter being involved in the feud. Of the two living Montys, Goneril is closer in age to Bianca, a more minor player, than Antonio, a more major player. If the player considers Claudio to be a major player in the feud, it may explain not only why Goneril could be a major player, but also why Miranda’s interest in Mercutio (Claudio’s son) might upset her.

Claudio, the Youngest Child

Claudio being the youngest means that he would have had at least twenty-three days left until elderhood if he was still alive.

If Claudio was the youngest Monty child then he would have been more likely to interact with Regan and Kent than either of his siblings, at least while growing up. Should this be the case, then Regan’s involvement in the feud might not be entirely due to being close to Goneril. That said, Claudio might have also had ample opportunity to interact with Goneril as well, though to what degree depends on how much younger the player considers him to be than Bianca. Should the player consider both Claudio and Cordelia to be the youngest in their families, then Claudio most likely would have to be older than Kent. The reason for this will be explained in the next section.

The Isolation of Cordelia Capp

There is a possibility that Cordelia being anti-feud could have been a result of her being somewhat isolated from the Montys of her generation. As mentioned above, Goneril being sandwiched between Antonio and Bianca (and possibly Claudio) could have played a role in dragging her into the feud. As such, Cordelia’s aversion to the feud may have been because she might not have been all that close in age to any of the Montys.

This is a theory that only works should Cordelia be either the oldest or youngest Capp child. That said, some layers to it should probably be analyzed further.

Cordelia as the Oldest

As mentioned above, for this argument to work there would need to be a considerable level of isolation between Cordelia and the three Montys. As such, Cordelia would likely have to be older than all the Montys to keep her interactions with them to a minimum while growing up.

Also, there would probably have to be a pronounced age difference between her and the oldest Monty since them being too close in age might have had the potential of dragging her into the feud in the first place. The only real exception to this rule that I can think of would be Bianca, whose Anti-Capp sentiments seem quite a bit weaker than those of her brothers. That said, the fact Bianca’s age bar lists her as being younger than Goneril makes this seem unlikely should you use the age bars to determine the birth orders.

Of the brothers, Antonio’s personality seems less confrontational than Claudio’s, so of the two brothers, Antonio would be the safer option as the oldest Monty for this theory to work. That’s not to say it couldn’t work if Claudio was the oldest, just that his two nice points might have made it a tad more difficult to pull off.

Cordelia as the Youngest

If Cordelia were the youngest Capp child, then the isolation argument is pretty self-explanatory since she would have been younger than all three of the Montys (at least as far as the age bars are concerned).

Also, the Capp who would be closest in age to her is Kent, who is less involved in the feud than either Goneril or Regan. Not to mention, Kent is on good terms with Bianca, who is the youngest living Monty as far as age bars are concerned. If Bianca is younger than Claudio, then that would further limit the negative interactions Cordelia could have had with the Montys because Bianca herself is probably the most anti feud among the Montys of her generation.

Final Thoughts

Since there are a variety of ways one can play Veronaville as far as the ages of these seven sims is concerned, the bits regarding the correlation between age and role in the feud will not be universally agreed upon. This is an idea that works better with some birth orders than others, and I will be the first to admit that.

The individuals you are exposed to during your life play a role in determining the person you become, whether you choose to associate with them or not. There are some people who you meet and become close with who you may never have known had you been any older or younger, and the same can be said with people you meet and try to keep your distance from. I know for a fact I wouldn’t have become the person who I am today had I been born a year earlier or later, so I believe that it’s worth talking about when it comes to this topic.

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Thank you so much for reading, it’s been a while since I posted one of these essays. This was originally part of a larger project where I look at the birth orders for the gen. 4 Capps and Montys, but I thought it worked well enough to stand on its own. Most of the other entries in that group focus more on looking at programming and Shakespeare inspirations with multiple perspectives in mind. This one, on the other hand, looks more at character dynamics when taking one perspective (the accessible age bars) into account.

Outside of that, this is the essay that I mentioned in my 100 followers post (sorry it took so long). While I have plans to start the Great Veronaville Genetics Project, I still haven’t found a way to extract Damon Featherlight and the Bramble couple for it. I tried installing neighborhoods, but all of them seem to be improperly deleted. The only option I have left, other than asking if anyone has BodyShop templates of the three, is to make them myself (something I will admit I’m atrocious at). So, if anyone has BodyShop templates of these three sims, I would appreciate it if you would share them with me (don’t worry, I will give you credit for sharing).

Thanks again for reading, and for those of you who followed my simblr, thanks again for following, I sincerely hope you enjoyed.

#sims #sims 2 #veronaville #capp family #monty family #antonio monty #bianca monty #claudio monty #cordelia capp #goneril capp #kent capp #regan capp #veronaville vault

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dramallamadingdang · 7 years

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Replies!

For @caticalcorrectness, @twofingerswhiskey, @alicephant, @carriests2designsworld, @nuitanantes, @penig, @holleyberry, @eulaliasims, @morphinetomichiko, and @heavensims...

caticalcorrectness replied to your photo “Will grew up hungry, so he headed for that microwave contraption. It...”

...is there really no english word for Schadenfreude? I can't believe this feeling is reserved for germans :)

No, there really isn’t. I mean, I could have written the sentence as “Napoleon revels in their misfortune,” which is of course what schadenfreude means, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it, you know? The German language seems to be well suited to inventing single words that describe or evoke a whole feeling that in English would need multiple words to describe or explain. Like Schadenfreude. Or Volkswagen’s “Fahrvergnügen” slogan from a few years back. Or at least, it’s way better than English in that way. So, of course, English just steals the German word and claims it as its own because, you know, English is a freakin’ thieving scavenger that way. :)

twofingerswhiskey replied to your photoset “After the Fire Drama, Owen became a grumpy toddler.”

YOU COULD SAY HE'S LOOKING A LITTLE... BLUE. ;)

Oh, get outta here! :)

alicephant replied to your photoset “After the Fire Drama, Owen became a grumpy toddler.”

LOOK AT HIS LIL FACE

I know! Lookit the pout! :) Of course, he’s only pouting because of the fire and everything, but stil...

carriests2designsworld replied to your photoset “I hadn’t actually planned to make this, but I was messing around in...”

Love your work, as always, llama, but I too rather tend to cringe when it comes to making walls and floors with the home crafter. Honestly, if I could find a cloning tutorial that was made for someone who has no idea how to walk and chew gum at the same time, I'd never touch home crafter again. LOL I do love your work though :)

Yeah, Homecrafter is a pain in the ass in that you have to make the files and then, unless you want to keep its gibberish alphanumeric file names, you have to go through and rename all of them. That got a lot easier, though, when it dawned on me that if I were to sort the files by the time they were created instead of alphabetically, I could do that without opening each file in SimPE to see which one it is, greatly reducing the amount of time it takes. (It literally took me YEARS to realize that little trick. I am so dumb sometimes. :) ) Unfortunately, making walls/floors/terrain paints in SimPE is even more time-consuming in that you have to go into a few lines of resources to change text strings. Which doesn’t sound like a lot of work, but it actually sort of is if you’re making dozens/hundreds of files. :\ Ultimately, Homecrafter really is the easiest way. But yeah, after making like 1000 files in it over the last week or so, I need a break from it. :)

nuitanantes replied to your photo “Screwing around with high-res’ing Jonesi’s bed blanket, trying to...”

that looks really good

Thanks! I’m having lots of fun making some new and different patterns/textures for the blanket. So much so that I might just toss most of the ones I already have.... Or not, since then I’d have to replace them in houses I’ve already built and am using. So really, I’m just making my horde of recolors even larger. Go me! :\

penig replied to your photoset “Over at Arcadia’s pool hall…Simon stole Joe’s drink. But it’s OK, he...”

Simon figures Joe owes him rent on the exercise bike.

And he’d probably be right! He certainly uses it more than anyone else actually living in the house!

holleyberry replied to your photo “Yup, Joe Oates barged in to bogart the exercise bike, for about the...”

At first i thought you were making a Harry Potter POA reference.

Well, since I’ve never seen/read any of the Harry Potter stuff (except for maybe the first 20 minutes of one of the movies, where it was the in-flight movie on a plane trip but I promptly fell asleep), that would be unlikely. :) But, yay unintentional references? :)

eulaliasims replied to your photoset “Random captioned randomness.”

Napoleon is the best cat. And so accurately named!

He is a fun cat. I totally don’t know what’s going on in my game, since he’s fully trained not to destroy stuff...yet he still does so on a regular basis, even though he has a cat condo plus a small scratching post in the house. Josephine uses those just fine, now that she’s grown up, even though she’s not yet trained to not destroy stuff, but Napoleon? Yup, he’s an asshole.

That, plus people just barging into houses without being greeted. But, I’m not complaining about either because it’s kind of fun and the latter makes it very easy to maintain relationships. ;)

morphinetomichiko replied to your photoset “Painted floors are hard. :\ Too much grain/texture and it doesn’t look...”

Your floors are so awesome I've started deleting literally all my old ones that aren't yours lol

Aw, I’m glad you like them! I’m taking a break from walls/floors due to Homecrafter Burnout, but there’s more that I need to make, so...Yeah.

heavensims replied to your photoset “Painted floors are hard. :\ Too much grain/texture and it doesn’t look...”

I really love all these colors!

I’m pretty pleased with the palette, yes. It covers the spectrum, more or less -- skimps on the yellows a bit, but...eh -- in a reasonable amount of colors. And it’s cheerful in general, in keeping with the “retro” thing.

twofingerswhiskey replied to your post “Thanks to everyone who replied about my angsting. :) I’m glad I’m not...”

TS4 boots up and will warn you before boot if something is amiss and will tell you EXACTLY what file(s) are not TS4! So I hope that that at least helps your worries. O:

Well, that’s good to know, at least! I mean, I imagined that the files would just be skipped over, same way TS2 skips over pictures and stuff in one’s downloads folder. But I imagine it’d be disappointing if you found something you really liked only to belatedly find out that it wasn’t for your game. So, I’ll just stick a little in-text disclaimer on my stuff from now on. :)

#caticalcorrectness #twofingerswhiskey #alicephant #carriests2designsworld #nuitanantes #penig #holleyberry #eulaliasims #morphinetomichiko #heavensims #replies

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bearpillowmonster · 5 years

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Kingdom Hearts 3 Full Review

Here I am 6 years later and I've beaten Kingdom Hearts 3. Was it worth it? What did I think of it? This will be an extensive review. So bare with me because I'm going to cover almost every little detail however I'm going to try and keep it spoiler free in terms of story! (I'll nod to the people who finished it with vague comments as you already know what happens) I spent a lot of time on this review so it will work out to fully explain my thoughts on this game without hesitation, I don't want to hold back from criticism even though it's my favorite franchise and the most long awaited game for me.

I will say this to both people who haven't played the games and casual fans. DON'T COMPLAIN YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN THE STORY. The negligence of some of these reviews is appalling because they haven't played the past games. Square Enix has went out of their way to go and rerelease all of the games ebfore the release of this one, put up a summary video, put nods in the intro to the game. As well as put seperate summaries in the menu of the game, so I don't want to hear the whining, if you want to play it so bad, play the other games first, that's all there is to it. Yes it is confusing, but make an effort to understand it.

There are no more pesky text boxes like the other games, this is all cutscenes baby! So it may seem like a lot but think how many text box scenes were in the previous games and translate those into full cutscenes.

Let's talk about the menu. Yes, the menu. It's BRILLIANT. I love the transition from the past games, you look at the first two games, Sora with that fish in his mouth looking to the side, then the second with Sora turning slightly but with a sea salt ice cream, and now we have Sora turned all the way around with a paopu fruit. The way the music is presented is excellent, I couldn't get enough of it. In fact a lot of the music is great, both Utada songs are top notch despite me not originally seeing why she made those songs specifically, they make some sense now. Now the actual battle themes and stuff were instant classics for me in KH2, I would unintentionally hum some of the tunes, in this game I might have to get used to them though and familiarize myself. I'm sure if I heard the theme out in the open, I would recognize it though.

I worked my way to try each of the keyblades a decent amount (about one world each and that don't need unlocked through version exclusives and Ultima weapon yet but I never get ultima weapon anyway) The fun part about that is that each keyblade has a different ability and a different form so no more drives. I especially love using all of them in the Monsters world because it changes the color of Monster Sora.

I'm not going to talk about all of the worlds but just the ones revealed through trailers because I want you to experience them blindly or to their full capacity without the knowledge of what's ahead so I won't mention anything in any particular order either. I'm going to refer to the movie they are from and not the actual world name, to make it easier on you. Let's start with Pooh since that was the shortest. The minigames are just eh, I mean I love Pooh as a character and I like the idea that he's in the games but I've never really found his actual world all that because it's just minigames, I can't really bash it because that's what they did in the past games. Also at the end of Winnie the Pooh, why was that happening? Was something made to throw us off?

Now let's talk Twilight Town. I love Twilight Town, it is my favorite non-Disney world to explore in Kingdom Hearts 2 and when I saw we would return and see the characters we love, I got all excited. This Twilight Town however seems kind of condensed because it's just a section of it. You don't get to explore as much of Twilight Town as I would have liked but they do make references to it through the townspeople such as mentioning Seifer. There's a certain group of characters we saw a lack of but after the secret ending I'm starting to understand story-wise.

Frozen. We all saw it coming and I can say to you that it's not a rhythm based world. YAY. They do sing at times but you don't play those parts. I just think Frozen is ok as a movie so this world wasn't too hyped, I did like seeing Marshmallow though, that part is fun in fact any part you fight an actual Disney character I just adore. As for the actual landscape, it's different than I would have imagined, the heartless are interesting but there's no draw back to make me want to go back to that world. This, technically Pirates, and Tangled are the two world that just follow the movie plot, the others have their own new plot.

Toy Story. I have to say that I like the Toy Story 2 game and I really like the idea of exploring the Toy Story world, even just exploring Andy's house. I knew we weren't going to see the whole house like TS2 but it was still fun to see everything there as I remember it. Galaxy Toys is a new area though, pretty cool to play through because it's not hard to navigate, there are 3 floors and you go through all the stores, interact with objects, and get this really cool and interesting mini boss. There are these mech robot things that I've come to love and each color has a different ability, making it just that much more fun to play around in. I particulary like the purple one because it's the fastest but even when you're in a keyblade form the mech will change colors with you (usually a bluish green in my experience) but that was a cool little tidbit I noticed. The story just surprised me with how involved it became with it's characters especially Woody.

Pirates. This opens so nice, it begins with Sora being excited to be brought back and then we eventually get a mini-boss (there are quite a few compared to the other worlds) where you can ride the heartless, that's really cool. We get some ship gameplay where you can shoot down other ships and basically sail around all the islands, they aren't all required so exploration is pretty vast. A really cool idea is that with the shotlock command you can shoot on over to wherever it can lock onto, that way instead of making your way all the way back to the ship then trying to find a way to climb back up it, you just use the shotlock and boom you're back!

In the Tangled world, it takes the time to show you some of its great design with Rapunzel pointing things out such as how nice the grass is and how when you use Aero on the dandelions, they fly all over the place, then you can splash in the water, it's her first time experiencing it but it's also a nod from the developers showing you the amount of work they put into it and it's well deserved.

Monsters Inc. I mentioned about how the forms change the color of your monster and I really adore that. You can actually go into Roz's place! There are some places that would be interesting to see but wouldn't do much for story, just be to explore so I can kind of see why they aren't in the game, same with Big Hero 6. This is where the railriding really comes into action and I must say is pretty fun. There is also a dive option when you get up to a certain height then it will have you free fall and you can press X to dive bomb, it's all over the place in this game but it's just another good addition.

Olympus. Not the Colessium, we saw that before. This is brand new ground and is quite a joy to explore, I would be disappointed if Greece didn't actually look like that. I beat it the first night I had the game and I've revisited multiple times for other content, this was essentially my first impression of the game as well as everyone elses and it delivers. This as well as Tangled have a town full of people. I love hearing the little conversations they have and even going around and interacting with them. There's a side mission to collect these Golden Herc dolls (I finished after the game) that reminds me of the odd jobs at the beginning of KH2 that I actually have come to love, however those were mandatory, these are optional.

The Gummi Ship system is awesome, I mean I don't see any multiplayer coming to this but it's fun. I like being able to customize my own gummi ships and unlock new parts to put on it. The only complaint I have with it is small and that's when you're creating a gummi ship, it's not always easy to know which way is up considering you can change all different angles, so you may end up building your gummi ship upside down if you don't pay attention when you start. I've saw this problem quite a bit in the community as well as experienced that mistake myself but it's nothing too major, can probably be fixed in a future patch to just have a little note pop up that says "This is the front". Big Hero 6 is the best world in my opinion. I love all the worlds in their own unique way but this has momentum. A lot of the worlds have their own original story but this one seems to use that to the best effect. This one has an atmosphere that is open and easy to navigate, it's all one big area. You can fly with Baymax during a certain part which I would have loved to do that all the time but then what would be the point in using your fly ability you get at the end of the game?

At a certain part at the end we see some of the heartless move slower, like the framerate is down. It does not affect your gameplay and the thing I'm talking about is only visible stuff, but once you reach that part you will understand why it's like that. Voice acting is pretty good, they didn't get all the same voice actors for some of the characters such as Buzz and Woody, Mike and Sully, etc but they got a pretty decent amount of the characters their original voice actors and I respect that. The ones that are standing in, do a really good job though to the point I had to actually listen to try and find faults that differ from the originals. Old man Xehanort also has a new voice actor, I mean nobody can beat Leonard Nimoy but this guy seems to do a different take on the way the character sounds so it might take some getting used to but it's nothing bad just different I guess. I think they should've given you more space in your camera because there's a whopping 90 hidden mickeys and 100 slots, so you better make those 10 extras count if you want to get that secret ending. (However you can delete pictures so I don't know if the hidden mickey still counts if you delete it but I wasn't risking it) If you try to take a picture of a character (mostly any character) they will pose or smile, I love that.

Kairi doesn't get enough. I'll be honest. We don't get enough Kairi, she was great in this game and we see her grow, in fact I'll argue we probably see her more than the other games but they could have given her more spotlight.

The final battle is interesting, I like how it turned out but I will say you take on a lot at once. I liked the change of pace, but at the very end with the final 4, I say you should have taken them one by one. I also expected a different order because (we all knew this was coming so it's not a spoiler) but I thought they were going to make us fight Xemnas and Ansem then Old Man Xehanort because if we beat Young Xehanort first then wouldn't they all disappear? I mean it does work out in a way that makes sense but I just would have liked that way too.

Also aging, we can see visible changes to Sora, Kairi, and Riku from age but what about the rest? Will it just continue like nothing ever went wrong or…I mean they left a few things open for future games but don’t think they ended it on a cliffhanger to where you feel cheated in any way. It’s not like that, it still makes you want to play future games without cheating you of the full experience. I know that’s a concern for some people. Critical mode doesn’t make an appearance but that’s fine, if they end up releasing it in a patch or something I might play it but it’s nothing bad, just some people complain about it and say that they left it out on purpose for DLC but I highly doubt that and even if they do put it in a DLC be rest assured that won’t be the only thing. I don’t know Square Enix to cheat fans, you get what you pay for and DLC is a new avenue for KH if it decides to go that way, if it does I’ll be there for it but I think it’s fine without it. Look at FFXV for example, they put out full episodes based on the side characters with new gameplay, story, and various weapons and skins, I’d say that’s a pretty good deal and if I get far enough in the game I might get it and I’m not one who buys DLC at all unless it comes with the deluxe edition. So stop complaining about that, you don’t know what will come of this game.

I love the recovery command, I never used it in the older games (inexperienced noob) but this is more or less my first experience getting strategic. As well as the kupo coin where you get one last shot after a fatal blow. I can't tell if I actually got good at the game or it's just that easy but because of that Kupo Coin, I only actually died once or twice.

I cried. Once (before all the soras ;)) and of course at the end and even just thinking about the end afterwards. They throw back to one of the most well known gameplay parts in KH2 and in my opinion made it even better. Goofy is the smartest one in this game, like I found myself surprised at how aware he was. I knew the Big Hero 6 keyblade would be my favorite the moment I saw it in the trailer, I was right, I played with it until the very end and upgraded it (The monsters keyblade is a close second along with the one you get from Classic Kingdom). However...the snowball is the most powerful weapon hands down.

Flowmotion is fixed, but the shimmer effect doesn't need to exist. The sparklies that indicate that you just hold the control stick in that direction and they'll parkour it wasn't always as functional as you might like, I found myself just jumping my way up whatever villain had it some of the time, but again it's no big deal, it gives you that freedom to do whatever you want.

The attraction flows are fun but what threw me off is that you get more or less all of them from the start, you don't progressively unlock them. This led me to think that they will get repetitive but no they really weren't, I ended up skipping some of the events from time to time just to challenge myself but I never found myself bored with playing with any of them. I will say that once the command pops up, there can be another one above it and there's a time limit for each of them, I actually didn't know that you can choose between reaction commands (using L2) until after I finished it...so that happened. As well as learning that you can change keyblades on the fly just using the D-Pad.

My favorite attraction is either the teacups or the Buzz Lightyear blasters because the train is awesome but you only get to use it in certain parts of the game. The worst one is probably the carousel in my opinion just because it's more rhythm based and overall doesn't seem to do much damage. Some of the finishers get stuck or caught and I think that's a little bit of a problem, like the Pegasus chariot that you get with the Hero's Origin keyblade; I wish you could actually control that rather than Pegasus doing whatever and you just press X but there's such a variety of them so there's bound to be a few that aren't as good.

This game reminded me why Sora was originally my favorite character. You can look at him as naive but it's part of his character, I actually want to be friends with this dude in real life. All of them really but Sora has that vibe where he'll accept just about anything and find a way to work through it. You can play as a few of the characters and they all feel different to me, I like the subtle differences in gameplay but having the same core, it's very fun which makes me wish there was more of us playing as them.

How does it stack up versus the rest of the games? Well it's hard for me to say because I love them all, KH2 is my favorite game of all time and this is actually giving it a run for it's money. I do like this better than KH1 though (KH1 is my second favorite KH game so it's better than the rest too)

The graphics are impeccable, like I literally can't say they could have made this look any better, even going farther into the game it almost looks better than the rest (given there are more higher quality cutscenes such as the end of the Disney worlds just because of their importance) I was a bit worried about a few of the characters from the trailers such as Xemnas and Young Xehanort. In the earlier trailers they looked just eh but in the actual game they look way way better. Mickey even has fuzz on the top of his head but just by the secret ending alone, I was blown away by how real it looked for a cartoonish styled game.

Speaking of the secret ending I mentioned earlier, it took a hot minute to realize what it meant exactly, until I found a post on tumblr (on reddit too) about it. I won't link it or anything but just know there's an explanation/theory out there if you end up watching it. It makes me give it more credit for what it's worth.

Now the big part...how long was it? I won't tell you how long it took me to beat but I will say it logged more hours than any of the other games. I knew this was coming, because no matter how long this game was, I was going to want more, I'm actually going back to play through some stuff since it lets you keep your stats and puts you back before the final bit, so I will keep playing it and I will more than definitley play it again. I've played the beginning of the first game so many times, just haven't beaten it as much, same with KH2 (though I always end up farther in KH2 than 1) . I want to challenge myself, I want to take on hard mode, see how far it goes since I beat standard already, collect the secret reports, get ultima weapon (first time in a KH game if I can beat this stupid Frozen minigame). I kind of see where they changed some stuff from its original state, perhaps way back from the conception in 2013 but still to see the growth and adaption makes me feel really connected to it.

I will probably post updates to the review whenever the DLC comes out or once I get level 99, ultima keyblade, etc. so take what you will with it. It is currently up there with my favorite games of all time which isn’t so easy to get to.

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