#anyway namine is my favorite character in the whole series

[kayzero]

“Need another reason why Marluxia fits in perfectly [in Kingdom of Corona]? How about the fact that he kept Naminé locked away in a single room in order to abuse her powers, the same exact way Mother Gothel did to Rapunzel?

And now the sort of protection that Marluxia suggests for Rapunzel aligns exactly with Mother Gothel’s goals.”

—“Kingdom Hearts 3 Is Great and I Will Die On That Hill” (https://youtu.be/pytjUj-ciJw)

[snowflake-of-destruction]

✨vani boy✨

Why I like them: Besides the intriguing backstory that they keep adding onto (Hello Darkness my old friend and all), and the fact that he is introduced as a sympathetic villain, not built into one--and if anything he goes the opposite direction from abused adolescent, who we can physically see in the form of some of the Unversed is depressive and anxious as well as angry, who only knows darkness to embracing that and denying rehabilitation or learning to be whole by himself UNFORTUNATELY-- he is refreshing when he comes into the series because of the level of irreverent snark he’s allowed to show. With the exception of some Org members, nobody, good or evil, is allowed too much sass or they must be toned down or taught a lesson by the next game. Let’s hope Vanitas is one of the immune. Plus, he’s just got so much potential and so many options of where his story can go if he sticks around/comes back.

Why I don’t: This may be an unpopular opinion, but, although the ancient Darkness with a capital possibility is interesting, it’s also disappointing if it does end up as a retcon. It diminishes his (potential) humanity, and ability to grow, though I wouldn’t be surprised if even Darkness itself can develop a heart. Plus, I think he would only be one aspect/facet/remnant of Darkness, not the entirety--and I think this is supported--so who knows. The only thing I know is that I now want to talk about/think about other clouds of Darkness taking human shapes...and connect it with cameo from the OG Cloud of Darkness herself from FFIII….but this is a different conversation.

Favorite scene: There are probably several deeper scenes that I would like to choose as a representative if I thought about it, but damn if I don’t love to chuckle over him being picked up and thrown through the door in Monstropolis.

Favorite game: Birth by Sleep

Favorite line: Hmm, I don’t know. I kind of like his knowing “By the time you catch up to [Teraa] he’ll be a different person.” A prophecy and a joke that flies over your head the first playthrough.

Favorite outfit:He has limited options, so I’m going to say bodysuit, not the cloak, and mask cracked/half his face showing

OTP: I don’t have one that stands out as “the one,” but I am partial to Vanitas/Namine or Van with Kairi or Riku (though mostly when the ways he’s different from Sora and provides different things/relates to them differently are what makes the ship rather than a “substitute” situation)

Brotp: I’m going kind of wild card and say Axel, because I feel like Axel would be able to relate to him better/speak his language than most other characters

Head Canon: He was one of the more talkative members of the “real” Organization and buddied up with people, learning all he could about them and about the changes in the universe since the last he knew of it, and he was forging his own plans for betrayal after the Keyblade War

Unpopular opinion: I’m not sure what is unpopular for Vani. With any “take” I can think of, I feel like opinion is split anyway. Perhaps, the fact that, while I am sure if he comes back in the games he will be grouped with the Wayfinders, I don’t think he should be and not just because I wince at the type of cheap reconciliation might happen to say they are all fine with him now? If he was to be rehabilitated, let him train with others and bond with others. Even his “other half” Ventus should keep some distance. 

A wish: I really want him back, and, though antagonist would be great too, I’m one of those people who want him joining the Guardians of Light...if it’s done well.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I just don’t want him forgotten.

5 words to best describe them: rebellious, irreverent, humorous, hidden conflict 

My nickname for them: Vani or VanVan like most people

[revengerevisited]

Maddie rambles about Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road

Let’s just get this outta the way: Xehanort is my least favorite character in Kingdom Hearts. Now there are certainly more boring and underdeveloped characters but as far as evil deeds go, it doesn’t matter how ‘cute’ or ‘relatable’ Nomura tries to make Xehanort. I will never forget that he tore Ven’s heart in half, tortured Vanitas for four years, killed his own best friend, possessed Terra’s body for a decade, possessed Riku’s body as Ansem, unleashed Heartless on the worlds resulting in countless deaths, manipulated Organization XIII for years, and experimented on Kairi as a child and eventually murdered her in front of her best friends. Any attempt to make me sympathize with him just ain’t gonna work.

Also, I’m not taking any of these ‘Character X is secretly Character Y’ theories too seriously until they actually happen. Yes, it can be fun to speculate that Bragi or Odin is secretly Luxu or the Master of Masters, or that Brain is Eraqus’s ancestor, or that Demyx is the MoM, or that Ava or Vor is Kairi’s grandma, or whatever other theories are out there. But until there’s conclusive evidence that’s all they are, speculations and theories.

On that note, I don’t know why Xehanort is having dreams about the KHUX Player’s adventures but I don’t think it’s because Xehanort is the Player’s Nobody or a reincarnation of the Player. Reincarnation has never been a concept present in the KH series, and honestly it just sounds like bad fanfiction. Plus, if Xehanort does turn out to be the Player, then I feel bad for everyone who spent a lot of time creating their own unique character only to have it be replaced by the generic default Player in KHDR’s opening cutscene and then re-replaced by Xehanort of all people. Perhaps Xehanort simply has a unique, unexplained power to see into the past like Namine’s memory manipulation or Terra’s precognition.

Either way, this past-sight just makes it harder and harder for me to believe that Xehanort wanted to learn about the Keyblade War in BBS, since it seems he already knew all he needs to know. Xemnas knows that Luxord, Marluxia, Demyx, and Larxene are from the past, young Xehanort lives in Scala ad Caelum which was built over the ruins of Daybreak Town complete with a huge machine explaining Daybreak Town’s demise, Eraqus talks about the Book of Prophecies like it’s common knowledge, the list goes on. Also, I don’t like the implication that Xehanort chose Ventus as his vessel and later as material for the X-Blade only because he knows him from the Player’s dreams. Then again, if his dreams of the Keyblade War end before the Player meets Ven and Lauriam, then Xehanort wouldn’t know about them and would instead be more familiar with Skuld and Ephemer.

I will say that one thing I do like is Xehanort comparing himself to a starfish laying on the beach, both for the humorous imagery and also just a bit of that islander backstory flavor. Xehanort being the outsider of his friends group and not telling the whole truth of how he ended up in Scala is also an interesting Kairi parallel, although him being found unconscious in the middle of a city is kinda overused. I do like that the surrounding cities around Scala are all uninhabited, since trying to wrap my mind around these huge mountain-sized cities with potentially millions of people in them was a little too much for my brain to handle.

I do however find it quite bizarre that it’s taken some worlds so long to recover from the Keyblade War. Not only that, but apparently people just appear out of thin air once their world is restored. Like, how? It just feels weird and uncomfortable, almost like these people only exist for the protagonist and audience’s amusement rather than being independent living beings in their own right. I dunno, there’s just something deeply unsettling about those implications. It also makes me wonder how long ago the Keyblade War was, if places like Agrabah still aren’t finished only 75-ish years before KH1. The characters refer to it as a legend, so it must’ve happened a long time ago, right? Some fans think it’s only been 100 years since the Keyblade War, but that would be like the equivalent of calling World War 1 a legend.

The worlds all being on different timescales is also extremely headache-inducing, both as analyst and a fanfic writer trying to keep track of the plot. Couple that with time travel and the whole thing just falls apart. Of course, if each world runs at a different time, then perhaps this is why Xehanort looks so much older than Eraqus, or rather why Eraqus looks so relatively young when he’s supposed to be 80-ish years old. And if that’s the case, then do any of the characters’ ages really matter? I’ve already proven that their ages have been retconned before. Also, this renders timecodes such as ‘75 years later’ and ‘one year later’ from Re:Mind and other parts of the series completely meaningless. The timeline is broken.

Anyway, I’m not sure how much Norse Mythology will play into the story, but all the new characters have Norse names with two that stand out the most. The first is Master Odin, named after a Norse god who sacrificed one of his own eyes for knowledge, which is an interesting parallel to the MoM. The second is Baldr, the as of yet unseen seventh student who has a missing sister, because evidently Nomura likes recycling his previous plots before they’ve even finished. In Norse Mythology, Baldr is the god of light whose death kickstarts the events of Ragnarok. How this’ll be relevant in KHDR remains to be seen, but after seeing those four gravestones in the timeskip/flashforward, I can’t imagine this ending well for anyone not named Eraqus or Xehanort. 

Now, as funny as I find it that the new characters have all been killed off this quickly, I’m not entirely convinced that those are Urd, Hermod, Bragi, and Vor’s graves. They could actually be the graves of the missing upperclassmen, if some of them turn up dead. Speaking of the upperclassmen, I would hope that Yen Sid is one of them, but I have a feeling he won’t be allowed to show up simply because of Disney’s stranglehold on its own IP. It’s pretty sad and ironic seeing as this series used to be all about Disney, but I assume that’s why Nomura is straying further and further from the brand.

About the four new student characters, I don’t have any particular attachment to any of them, beyond Vor’s name being hilariously unfortunate. I find it a bit eye-rolling that fans continuously snub Kairi but will instantly latch onto any new characters like Yozora and these four despite barely knowing anything about them. It doesn’t help that, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that any of the four who you choose to be in your trio will have the exact same dialogue in cutscenes no matter who you pick, meaning that these new characters don’t even get much of a chance to develop their own personalities because all of their dialogue has to be generic and bland enough to fit all four of them.

Young Eraqus is probably the best character so far, simply because he’s the only one with any personality. Granted his supposed cowardice has yet to be seen, but it’s mentioned so often that I assume it’s gonna be an important plot point later. However, I’m finding it hard to relate young Eraqus with his adult counterpart seeing as their personalities are just so different. I’m aware there’s a 65-ish year gap between this Eraqus and older Eraqus, but there better be some major character development to explain this, especially since even standing in front of his presumed classmate’s graves he still seems fairly chipper.

On that note, as humorous as ‘Tardy Fleetfoot’ is, just like with Xehanort, don’t think I’ve forgotten that this guy caused Terra’s insecurity and self-doubt with his overzealous anti-darkness stance, probably heavily influenced Aqua’s black-and-white anti-darkness keyblade-first-ask-questions-later thinking, was also probably the one who told her to lie to Ventus about always living with them, and attempted to straight up kill Ven and Terra. Eraqus’s actions aren’t as bad as Xehanort’s, but they certainly aren’t acceptable in any capacity.

Something odd I noticed is that Eraqus knows what the Heartless are called, and even the difference between Pureblood and Emblem Heartless-- well, part of the difference; I’m assuming he doesn’t know that future Xehanort created them. But anyway, my point is that Aqua doesn’t know what the Heartless are called until Mickey tells her in BBS 0.2. Before that she simply calls them ‘dwellers of darkness’, and even mistakes one for an Unversed. Does this mean Eraqus never taught his students about the Heartless? Why? Perhaps after his classmates died, he decided to shelter his own students from the worlds, hence why their Mark of Mastery was so simple? I’m just guessing at this point. Of course, there’s still no real explanation as for why the Emblem Heartless are here in the past. My best theory is that someone used the Book of Prophecies to summon them... somehow. It really just seems like an excuse to gloss over the corner Nomura wrote himself into with the whole ‘Emblem Heartless were made by Ansem’ thing, but we’ll see.

Honestly this whole series is just one big endless death-spiral of constant retcons and nonsensical plot twists and at this point I’m just exhausted. My view on KH has become one of mild and morbid curiosity, rather than expecting anything truly great. Is that cynical? Yes, but I’ve watched other once-great series (Star Wars, Voltron) worsen over time to the point that they just fizzle out and die, and I’m afraid it’s the same deal with Kingdom Hearts. I don’t think I’ve truly enjoyed a KH game since BBS, and if the series just continues down the path of introducing bland new characters every time Nomura gets bored rather than developing the already established ones, I don’t know how long I can stay interested. The Dark Seeker Saga is over and he really needs to let Xehanort go.

To end this on a positive note, I am tentatively hopeful about Melody of Memory. The gameplay looks cute and fun and the story looks like it will have more development for Kairi and her backstory, which is something I’ve been wanting for a while now. Focusing on the original cast is definitely a step in the right direction, and I hope this series can keep moving forwards rather than backwards.

[spirit-of-creativity16]

A friendly reminder to myself that despite not being frequent in the Kingdom Hearts fandoms as I used to be. There are things that I still enjoy from it.

Terra, Riku, Sora, and Namine are my absolutely favorite characters in the whole series.

TerraxAqua, NaminéxVentus, and GulaxAva are my favorite ships to this day.

I still ship RikuxOc(especially written from my good friend @hinataoc).

I have more fun making a bunch of ocs, headcanon, and Au for my personal Kingdom Hearts fics.

Still wishing Lightning Farron will be added or make a cameo.

Overall, Kingdom Hearts is still one of my favorite despite how scary the fandom can be. I'm glad to be part of it throughout the years. Though I have to admit, I glad to step out from it so I can expand more.

Though, I did fall too deep in the Fire Emblem: Three Houses. XD

Who knows how far I'll go, but I just gonna enjoy the ride anyway.

[nadziejastar]

I definitely like and agree with the post. Thanks for sharing! It’s a shame that these types of criticisms are often dismissed as “political” when there’s plenty of criticism to be had simply from an artistic standpoint. Riku and Sora’s friendship did get shafted. I didn’t like that since I always enjoyed it since KH2. My sister was heartbroken that Riku was playing on the beach while only Kairi mourned Sora’s disappearance. It felt extremely OOC since Riku was always fiercely protective of Sora. The whole ending felt like a slap in the face. No closure at all. I was pissed that Kairi was reduced to being a damsel in distress yet again. I think Subject X was forcefully inserted into Lea and Isa’s friendship because higher ups thought a close male relationship without a girl present was too threatening.

I will say that I think it is probably unfair to place the blame squarely at Nomura’s feet. I’m not saying he’s above criticism, and I’m not making any excuses for the valid criticisms of the series. But Nomura is still at the behest of Square, as well as Disney. He is not the sole arbiter of every decision (look at FFXV). He said himself that he doesn’t feel like KH is really his series anymore, since KH3 had so many more people involved. He used to feel like it was more obscure and Disney let him do his own thing. I think Nomura did TRY to make Lea and Isa step outside of traditional gender roles. If that were not the case, he would have created Skuld as their friend from the start. But no, she had to be retconned in at the last minute. And he never would have made 358/2 Days focus on their relationship as much as it did. So, I give him credit for trying.

I think it’s far more likely that since KH3 was such a big budget and high profile release, it was subjected to far more limitations than its predecessors, not only in terms of plot, but gameplay as well. 358/2 Days was on the DS and Birth by Sleep was on the PSP. If KH3 had been on the 3DS or something, it most likely would have had the same creative freedom that the older games had, without having to squash anything that might be perceived as “too gay”. Japan is definitely a problem, but the West is, too. Ultimately, I don’t even think the problem with KH3 came down to East/West.

I personally know people who refuse to play the series because they said it was “too gay”. One guy actually wound up liking the series, but he’d be pissed if any of the characters (like his favorite character Axel) actually WERE gay. It sucks, but large corporations still want to cater to people like that, so we end up with boring characters who fall back on tired tropes. It’s safe. Stale, but safe. While I’m confident that the vast majority of diehard KH fans (and JRPGs in general) are not homophobic, TONS of casual gamers are. And I think that was the main difference between KH3 and the older games. Older KH games were targeting the niche nerdy JRPG/anime crowd. KH3 had much, MUCH more of a push to appeal to casual gamers and young kids than something like BBS or DDD.

As for Kairi and Aqua, that’s a great discussion. The setup was perfect for Kairi to step outside of her usual role. She was training to use the Keyblade so she wouldn’t have to wait around anymore. She saved Sora with the power of waking. A big deal was made before the final battle that she’d be the one to protect HIM. To ruin all that and have her fridged again…at that point, it doesn’t even seem like merely incompetent writing. You can’t ruin something that perfect by accident.

Maybe I’m just crazy, but this is what I think: Nomura’s handling of Kairi was done out of spite. He put all this work in to make her a more well-rounded character. But now he’s gotta bring Xion AND Namine back. Now Xion has to fight Saix, too, which leaves Kairi with nothing to do. The story was always planned to have 7 Guardians of Light and 13 Darknesses. That’s it. But Roxas, Xion and Namine had to come back for fanservice, so now we have “reserve” darknesses, who only join the organization to get replicas for the extra lights. It’s dumb. Nomura knew how dumb it was.

He probably hates KH3’s script. A while back he said he hated Sora, even though in 2013 Sora (and Noctis…lol) was his favorite character. BBSV2’s cancellation already ruined the story. Nomura got fed up and just decided to say “fuck it”. He didn’t give a shit anymore if Kairi sucked, if Sora died, if Isa’s scar never gets explained, or if Xehanort’s actions made no sense. It was out of his hands and he’s bitter at Square and Disney. The story he had planned for a decade was ruined anyway. At least, that’s the only explanation I can think of.

[u23art]

A Look At Kingdom Hearts 3.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is an epilogue. 

         Kingdom Hearts 3, is sadly not the resolution we, or at least I, had hoped for. I wanted this to be a celebration of all the things that made Kingdom Hearts great, instead we got a Kingdom Hearts title that frankly is missing a few pieces.  Though there were elements in this game that I adored, it sadly doesn’t overtake Kingdom Hearts 2 in terms of the quality the best titles of the series can achieve. 

         The wait was long, the wait was arduous while fans of the series were drip fed morsels of information about the game. I counted down the days until the day of release, and on the day of release I counted the seconds until Gamestop open while I waited beside the door in below zero temperatures. My excitement didn’t cease as in addition my preorder for the limited edition PS4 Pro arrived the very same day, and since I had no internet due to extreme cold conditions I sat myself down for 3 days and played through Kingdom Hearts 3.

The gameplay, is smooth, I had my worries after 0.2 with its overly speedy movement through stages and at times “lumpy” action, but in 3 though Sora moves fast but the stages are wide and vast, and action inputs are responsive and attacks can be sequenced together with ease from keyblade swings, magic and shot lock commands. My only complaint was that I wasn’t given an option like in Kingdom Hearts 2 to turn off some of these activation commands, cause I could have done without Attraction Flow attacks popping up as often as they did.

  One cool additional feature however, was the ability to upgrade keyblades, rather than just switching to the next new keyblade after each world, each keyblade has a unique play style and you can power it up if it suits your approach to combat. I primarily found myself switching between the Shooting Star and Favorite Deputy keyblades.

The best stages to me, were Olympus, Toy Box and Monstropolous, they were wonderful to look at with tons of spaces to explore. The weakest worlds on the other hand, were Arrendale and San Fransokyo. Arrendale is white, Arrendale is covered in Snow, this is annoying when trying to differentiate areas and either find your way or find lucky emblems. San Fransokyo, is a city block, with grey buildings the blur into one another and it’s ESPECIALLY hard to find things like treasure chests. And then there’s Twilight Town, we are allowed ONE area of Twilight Town to mingle about in. Perhaps they should have put resources into making Twilight Town bigger instead of rendering music videos for "Let It Go" and......"Do You Want To Build A Snowman"......

Story wise, Sora is tasked by Yen Sid to achieve the power of waking in order to bring back Ven. Instead of being a teacher, he sends Sora out guided by his heart to various Disney worlds to get stronger and get the power of waking. Riku and Mickey on the other hand, are tasked with dropping into the world of Darkness to find Aqua.

Addressing this first, I was disappointed with the Riku segments, I expected brief adventures but instead we get two fights. I would have accepted reusing stages and assets from 0.2, we’re looking for Aqua anyway, why not go through places she did as we retrace our steps.

Going back to Sora’s story, it feels far too much like a straight line though points A through B and ect. Kingdom Hearts 2 worked as well as it did thanks in part to Hollow Bastion, a world with an expanding narrative to unravel after beating certain numbers of Disney worlds. On top of not having Radiant Gardens available to visit here, there wasn’t a single Final Fantasy character to drive its plot anyway.

I mentioned earlier that this game felt like it was missing pieces, there were signs that this would be the case when it was evident the first world would be Olympus and not an original world for the narrative to revolve around like Traverse Town, Twilight Town or Radiant Gardens. Upon starting up the game, my fears were further affirmed when I played through the entirety of Olympus’s narrative and Phil hadn’t said a single word. After visiting Olympus a second time, I was further saddened that there was no Hades cup or tournament. There are multiple instances of this throughout the game, this gnawing feeling that something is missing. Kingdom Hearts has always been known as an amalgamation of Final Fantasy and Disney, and to not have an FF character beyond some mentions of Cloud and Auron makes the whole experience feel disingenuous to what Kingdom Hearts is instead of celebrating what makes it great. There are MENTIONS of FF things, like some of the gummi ships, a cactuar and Leviathan from Final Fantasy V, but sadly the restoration committee is a no show.

One of the main selling points of this game was that the worlds are vast and seamlessly interconnected with the exception of a few points. This is cool, however without having separate areas and no brief pauses and transitions between them, the campaigns feel like they just breeze on by despite the fact that each one is a little under 2 hours. This creates a similar sort of problem that Final Fantasy XV had, where there was a focus on making vast open areas but sadly there’s no meaty substance to fill them with.

On a personal note, this game could have been fantastic-ish had they just replaced the shallow Frozen and BH6 worlds with worlds from Pocahontas and Treasure Planet.

The story should have enforced the story of Kingdom Hearts 2, which was immensely fun to play, INSTEAD it enforces THE MOBILE game which is not fun to play and personally I had quit after being sick of road blocks that kept me from progressing. Heck, this game actually undoes a lot of good KH2 did for the overall narrative. Union X stopped being especially fun since it had a habit of creating more and more questions without providing answers, a quality that has been passed on to Kingdom Hearts 3. 

Here is a list of questions that this game created without answering them.

What keyblade information did Larxene, Luxord, Demyx and Marluxia divulge to Saix?

Luxord and Demyx had Keyblades?

Axel and Saix became apprentices to Ansem to Wise to find and save a girl? 

Who is this girl, WHO are they talking about?

If Riku’s inner Riku whisked away Replica Riku to heart heaven, how could Xehanort still have the right amount of Darknesses.

When did Roxas leave Sora’s body to enter the replica body?

How did Roxas fly into battle from the sky?

How did the Norts get Xion’s heart from heart heaven to put into a replica?

How did Ansem the Wise get Namine from heart heaven into a replica?

How did Ansem the Wise conduct experiments on children and keep that hidden? That happened?

Where did Xehanort learn about the stupid requirements of 7 lights and 13 darkness to make Kingdom Hearts appear?

Where the H did Demyx go after he dropped off a replica and Ansem the Wise?

Why did Kairi shatter from Xehanort’s strike?

How did Sora save Kairi?

Where is Sora?

What rock are the Final Fantasy characters hiding under?

And most importantly, why was Phil not allowed to utter a SINGLE words the whole 2 or so hours I was at Olympus?

Ultimately I am happy that I finally got Kingdom Hearts 3, but I have a theory that higher interference kept this game hindered from being truly great.

Consider for a moment, have you notice that Kingdom Hearts 3 was announced in 2013 yet Big Hero 6 didn’t come out until 2014? 

HMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

[themattress]

Wow. Tomoko Kanemaki SUCKS!

I decided to be masochistic and read back through the KH2 novels by Tomoko Kanemaki. And I just have to say: that there are actually people out there who like her writing and consider it to be in as good or superior to the games astounds me. These books are awful.

When they just straight-up adapt the game to text like the KH novels and the COM novels (except for the R/R one, but R/R sucks anyway), it’s fine. They even do the visits to Land of Dragons, Beast’s Castle and Olympus Coliseum better than the KH2 manga does, plus swaps in Agrabah for the far more important Port Royal. But that’s the only good thing I can say about them. In literally every other regard, the game and manga are infinitely superior.

The main problem is simple to sum up: Kanemaki is a fanfic writer. A pretty stereotypical KH fangirl. This in of itself wouldn’t be a problem if she weren’t adapting the games, but she is, and when she combines the game adaptations with her own fanfic based on what she wants to see, there is inevitably going to be a clash between them. The story written by Kazushige Nojima that she is adapting to novel form does not gel at all with what she writes, and as a result she has to either change that story (to the detriment of both it and its characters) or she neglects to change it even when it directly contradicts her own writing. This happens so much that it really makes for an excruciating reading experience. So let me list all of my problems with these novels point by point, to clarify just why Kanemaki’s writing fails so hard.

- I’ll get the biggest one out of the way right off the bat: Kanemaki is obsessed - and I mean obsessed - with the existential plight of the Nobodies, which includes the Draco in Leather Pants treatment to Organization XIII (”Is it really wrong to seek what you’ve lost?” is asked at one point, as though it’s a profound question. Um, when you’re doing so by inflicting that exact same loss upon millions of innocent people, yes it is!) The worst part is that characters (usually Namine, but Axel, Riku, Saix, Xemnas and even Ansem the Wise get on it at some points) are constantly repeating the exact same angsty inner monologues and internal (and sometime external) quasi-philosophical debates about Nobodies. I’m not kidding, it’s usually word-for-word. “Is it right for Nobodies to exist?” “Nobodies have nowhere to go or call home”. “Do Nobodies really lack hearts?” “What defines a heart?” “If Nobodies don’t have hearts, then why do they feel such-and-such?” “Why were Nobodies even born?” “Nobodies aren’t meant to exist, but does that still mean...?” And so on and so on, blah, blah, BLAH. Hearing this over and over and over and OVER again throughout my reading of the novels doesn’t make me more sympathetic of the Nobodies, it actually makes me less sympathetic and want them to go away so I don’t have to keep reading the same damn woe-is-me grade school-level existentialism! I want to keep reading about Sora, Donald and Goofy, damn it!

- Three characters who were mostly on the sidelines in KH2 somehow get a majority of time and focus here: Riku, Axel and Namine. They are even forced into an apocryphal trio together. They are basically treated as the de-facto secondary main characters next to Sora, Donald and Goofy, with their actions and development being given equal importance. Actually, that’s a lie - Riku, Axel and Namine are honestly given more importance. There is so much wrong about this - not only does the trio not feel organic and reek of bad fanfic, but each character in it isn’t well portrayed at all compared to the game or even the manga.

- Riku had the most potential, since he’s always a major character and a more talented writer could’ve come up with more feasible things for him to have been doing off-screen during KH2. But what Kanemaki has him do is ridiculous. If it’s not just stalking Sora, Donald and Goofy as a silent protector (which is the least interesting thing you could do with him), it’s bullshit with Axel and Namine, or fighting Saix midway through even though Kanemaki still keeps Saix’s later line of “Didn’t Roxas take care of you?”, or having him fight Xemnas in the Old Mansion only for Ansem the Wise to show up and Xemnas then just...retreat for no reason, letting Ansem live and thus ensuring the later destruction of his Kingdom Hearts like a dumbass!  And through all of this, she frequently makes Riku default back into snarky, arrogant asshole mode, which doesn’t fit his character at this point at all. Also, while I saw no deliberate yaoi bait in the writing of the KH2 game, it’s definitely present in these novels.

- Axel. Oh my God. Anyone who hates what was done with him as Lea in the games, you should blame Kanemaki, since she actually ran with that kind of writing and characterization for him in these novels long before that happened in the games. He is treated as a totally trustworthy good guy who is a great friend to Roxas, Riku and Namine. The one dick move Kanemaki has him make is quickly backtracked on and then swept under the rug. His whole villainous role is whitewashed at every turn, from both what he intended with Roxas (legit deciding to kill him is changed to attempting a murder/suicide so that he can die with his best friend) to everything concerning Kairi (no, he didn’t kidnap her at all, that point is hammered in frequently, he was going to take her to Namine and they’d then see Sora together! And he didn’t want to turn Sora into a Heartless, that was a wrongful assumption on Saix’s part! And Saix summoned those Dusks on Destiny Islands, not Axel! Axel is chivalrous and heroic and does everything possible to protect and save Kairi! Gag me.) It’s so obnoxious, and beyond removing all of the character’s edge, it’s a blatant case of giving a character a major role in a story that they aren’t supposed to have one in just because he’s a favorite of the writer.

- Namine is an equally blatant case of this, but her case might be even worse. Not only is she THE source of the repetitive woe-is-me existential Nobody monologues and debates, with her whole character arc being changed to revolve around this which honestly makes her unintentionally unsympathetic and annoying, but this portrayal of her has a negative effect on her in both fandom and canon. In terms of fandom, a cult of bad apples (usually yaoi fangirls who already hated Kairi) arose around Namine following KH2, declaring her as superior to Kairi in every way and worthy of being the real main heroine of the KH series. Not only is this false, but it arguably got started because of these novels (translations of which had made their way online long before they were localized), where a character who literally only got 10 minutes of screentime in the game literally gets transformed into the main heroine and one of the most frequently appearing characters in general, even if her “character development” is horribly written and amounts to her being a mouthpiece for Kanemaki’s views. Then again, maybe they just projected onto Namine due to her introverted, fond-of-drawing nature, and Kanemaki was just one of them and thus produced something that kept them going. It’s a Chicken/Egg type of thing, I guess. But whatever the case, what it did in canon was worse. Kanemaki was the first to write for Namine after KH2, in 358/2 Days, and her characterization of her translated in game form to the stagnant caricatured plot device that Nomura then realized was easy to write for and convenient for making other convoluted plot turns happen. 

- Come to think of it, Kanemaki’s partnering up with Nomura for Days probably did a lot more harm than just with Namine. Because her obsession with the “What Measure is a Non-Human?” trope never truly leaves the series after Days. It doesn’t pop up in BBS, since that was being worked on before Days, but everything afterwards is sure to feature it in some abysmal way or another, whether it be Nobodies, replicas, data copies or beings of pure darkness. The “Nobodies have hearts after all” comes straight from her writing (even if she had it as a needless overcomplication of the original idea that strong hearts can share feelings with those without it and thus serve as a heart for them too, while Nomura’s retcon is just “Nah, the body can regrow a heart, Xemnas lied”.) A lot of KH3′s worst writing might have not existed had Nomura not picked up on Kanemaki’s fixation with woobified “non-beings”.

- Sora honestly feels like an afterthought for Kanemaki. She’s so eager to write new fanficcy material for other characters, but not for the actual main protagonist, who only gets straight-up game adaptation. Oh, except that some of his lines that were “mean” to the Nobodies (and thus “OOC”, as both KH2-hating anon and Kanemaki seem to think) are changed or cut out.

- Y’know how the KH2 manga made Kairi even better than her game portrayal? Yeah, well this novel makes her far worse. First off, her defiant “you’re not acting very friendly!” to Axel is cut because Axel is whitewashed in that moment (he even readies himself to defend Kairi from the Dusks which Saix summons). Later, she does not get away from Axel because he was never kidnapping her to begin with here. She then realizes that he’s really a good person before Saix kidnaps her, with Axel desperately trying to protect her. She then only shows up toward the end when Axel once again comes to be her hero (again thwarted by that dastardly Saix), with her moping about how she can do nothing to help the brave, noble Axel. (I feel sick just typing this...) In the finale, not only does Kanemaki not take advantage of the potential Kairi development that the game relegated to optional text boxes, but she actually destroys Kairi’s entire arc long before BBS did by making one of her few additions to Kairi be an inner monologue she has on the shore of Destiny Islands alongside Mickey, Donald and Goofy just before Sora and Riku make it back, where she’s just wishing with all her heart that they’ll come back because “We’re here waiting for you. We’ll always wait for you.” BULL-FUCKING-SHIT. Kanemaki, just like Nomura and Oka, clearly has no interest in Kairi as a character on her own. She is used here as a plot device for the character development of Axel and Namine, characters she is interested in, even though Kairi had more significance and screentime than them by far in the actual KH2 game. Geez, even Nojima tried with her!

- Roxas is written just fine during the prologue, since his scenes are just lifted from the game. But when he resurfaces in the final novel, added material make Axel be the most important thing on his mind. Even his final thoughts as he makes the full merging with Sora is that he hopes to meet Axel again. More deliberate yaoi-baiting, and more shoving Axel down our throats. Hell, that last novel is even named “Anthem - Meet Again / Axel Last Stand”. God damn it, Kanemaki, Axel was not important to KH2. It’s not his story. Get over it already!

- Hey, remember how in the game DiZ/ Ansem the Wise did a total character 180 due to offscreen reasons when he came back after the prologue? That was dumb. The novels add new scenes for him, so Kanemaki could actually rectify this issue....OR she just repeats it, since the first new scene she gives him also has him in 180 mode due to offscreen reasons! 

- Xemnas and Saix both have their levels of menace neutered thanks to the existential angst of the Nobodies affecting them too, with none of their inner monologues bemoaning their fates really adding up with their actions. The game let you make up your own mind as to whether you found them sympathetic despite their monstrous behavior, but Kanemaki is clearly trying to force the sympathy angle, and it really lessens them, especially Xemnas. 

- Really, only Xigbar, Xaldin, Demyx, Luxord, and the trio of Hayner, Pence and Olette were written completely accurately out of the KH-original cast. Nothing felt out of place with them.

- Other nonsensical fanficcy events besides what I’ve already mentioned include bringing stuff from COM (like Repliku) back up frequently instead of keeping focus on the story at hand, a totally different version of how Namine and Axel split from Riku following the prologue (one that continues making Namine unintentionally unsympathetic), Riku having Mickey make the promise after the prologue before Kanemaki’s own 358/2 Days retcons this to happening before it, Riku meeting with Maleficent in Hollow Bastion, Mickey meeting with Axel in Hollow Bastion, Axel being the one to wake Goofy up after his “death”, Axel having a sort of odd friendship with Pluto, Ansem the Wise being the one to provide the box of clues for Riku to give, Axel pretending to betray Riku and Namine so that he gets let back into the Organization and thus be able to rescue Kairi, meetings between the Organization where they talk about totally different and less interesting matters than they did in the game, and having Namine stalk the group throughout the finale as she thinks her last pretentious inner monologues. Also, given its subject matter and how it plays during Days’ opening, I swear to God that Kanemaki created the Axel/Roxas ghost scene that Nomura added to KH2:FM. That it shows up in the last novel, word-for-word, a month before KH2:FM’s release, proves this.

- The misplacement of Disney Castle. This one REALLY bothers me. She places Disney Castle between Beast’s Castle and Port Royal in the third novel. This makes no sense whatsoever, since not only was this meant to be Maleficent’s re-introduction to Sora, Donald and Goofy, but now it comes after Maleficent already made an alliance with Sora and his friends at Hollow Bastion! And then all of a sudden, she’s no longer keeping the Nobodies at bay and is back to self-interested villainy! And there isn’t any dialogue explaining this away or anything!  We still have Maleficent saying “If it isn't the wretched Keyblade holder and his pitiful lackeys!” as if she hadn’t agreed to temporarily join forces with said wretched Keyblade holder and his pitiful lackeys! Way to ruin one of the best Disney world visits, Kanemaki!

- The whole finale and especially the ending itself, which were so powerful in both the game and even the manga, has no power in the light novel style of writing Kanemaki uses. Part of that isn’t Kanemaki’s fault, since so much of the finale’s greatness is visual and that obviously can’t be recaptured in text form. And yet she still makes some baffling pacing decisions, with stuff like the aforementioned Namine stalking passages throwing the whole thing off, LOL moments such as Riku himself outright admitting that he has no idea where he got Kairi’s Keyblade also breaking the immersion, character alterations like to Xemnas and Kairi ruining the effectiveness of things they do, and a truly WTF-inducing final chapter where the entire Secret Ansem Report is put before a novelization of both the credits scene where Sora sees Kairi’s drawing in the Secret Place and the epilogue scene where they get the King’s letter.

Overall, these novels just don’t feel like Kingdom Hearts II to me. Even the KH2 manga, the middle of its first half notwithstanding, felt like it. This does not. And that’s because whatever the faults in its narrative, KH2′s story was first and foremost a fun Disney/Square crossover adventure starring Sora, Donald and Goofy, with angsty existentialism merely being one of its themes and meant more for players to think about and discuss rather than the characters. The novels tell a story about angsty existentialism starring characters who think about and discuss it, with Sora, Donald and Goofy’s adventures being a passionless afterthought. That there are people who honestly think that Kanemaki doing this “fleshes out the characters” is shameful. Constant angst and grade school-level philosophical circle-jerking is not character depth. It is pretension of depth, hence the word “pretentious” which fits perfectly here. It takes a lot more than talking and expressing feelings at length to constitute character development. It requires meaningful actions, and it requires some form of growth and change. Kanemaki’s characters are largely static, simplistically characterized beings who spin their wheels in terms of both actions and growth. Riku does not change: you can barely tell he has any kind of depression or has experienced any kind of humbling. Axel does not change: he’s a great guy from the start and has no internal problems to overcome, only the external one of being separated from Roxas. Namine does not change, she goes through the same questioning and angsting over her existence and the existence of other Nobodies until the last minute where the answer just suddenly comes to her (in fact, it was apparently in her all along and she just forgot it. Shades of Sora’s dumbass “Power of Waking” arc in KH3 here...)  Any actual development that happens with some characters (like Ansem the Wise) comes straight from the game...and Nojima didn’t write that all too well either!  There is just very little that’s enjoyable about the KH2 novels to me, and Tomoko Kanemaki’s writing is to blame for that.

In the words of Lemony Snicket: I highly advise you to not read these books.

[khdiscussions]

i've been so looking forward to roxas and namine's possible interactions for kh3, and i must admit it felt lacking given that they've really established their connection/romance in kh2 and even included them in the romance montage for kh2.8 credits. i guess the romance was too focused on sokai so they weren't as showy for rokunami. tho they did get cute moments, like showing how roxas misses namine in the game. how do you think Square, or Nomura in particular, will handle it from this point?

Slow burn.

Or I hope slow burn.

Slow burn romance is my favorite.

*shot*

Anyways, I think it’s going to always be a background ship if it does go in a romantic direction. SoKai having all the attention makes the most sense of the ships. Sora, Riku, and Kairi are the three main characters of the game, so Sora and Kairi would have their romantic moments more in focus simply by definition. And with Kingdom Hearts being so focused on friendship, the romantic moments of the main cast are few and far between to begin with (There’s four in KH1, I think five or six in KH2, and three in KH3 and this is spread across the whole series.) it honestly just makes it incredibly unlikely for side pairings to get much focus, and at the end of the day, even pairings between the secondary protagonists are not primary relationships in focus. And this includes both ships and friendships.

That being said, I do think we’ll get more bonding moments between Roxas and Namine in the future. I think any romantic implications will be more subtle than the ones between SoKai, which is saying something because those are far from beating you over the head with it, and I hope they take the time to develop their relationship, be it platonic or romantic, that it deserves. I think, given the story of KH4 we’re leading into, their main focus will be working together to rescue Sora for the time being. Where it will go after that now that the plot has room to breathe, I’d love to see.

[ivanaskye]

So I finished KH3.  Some thoughts, in a bullet-point list, because my brain isn’t quite working well enough for connected prose:

There… wasn’t a lot of signaling to the audience about when the game would start ramping up to end.  Specifically, there was no middle game—there was plenty of low-consequences world-hopping and gallivanting, right up to the point where suddenly we’re rescuing Aqua and then everyone’s talking about a final battle and then oh heck it’s over.

Lots of things could have made this better, but the most glaring omission was an actual *final checkpoint* before heading onto the last battle.  Previous games had huge doors you had to pass, which would actually say “there is no turning back from this point, do you want to proceed?”.  This game didn’t, and it really could have used it (especially since there were some false endings before the actual final ending.)

Similarly, keyblade power levels didn’t ramp up quite enough as the game went on—yeah, there were some pretty powerful ones, but there wasn’t really an equivalent to Oblivion as an actual late-game keyblade.  There also didn’t seem to be a lot of form-changes with minor teleportation abilities other than Rage Form—and since those were the most powerful form-changes in BBS, it’s what I would have expected as a signal for “okay, we’re almost at full power, the game will end soon.”

Actually, just… the transition directly from a disney world to the freaking Keyblade Graveyard was.  Not a good idea.  A full location in between as buffer would have been really nice.

ALSO, some of the final -ga spells, and freaking glide, only got obtained in the Keyblade Graveyard!  That really implied that either the Graveyard would be larger than it was, or that there’d be something after it, or… something.

Pivoting thoughts here, the treasure chest situation was the best the series has done since the very first game—you actually had to work to find some of these, which was always one of my favorite parts about the first game.

The lucky emblems added to that a lot too.

Although every single time I found a lucky emblem, I screamed and/or groaned.  “REALLY?  THAT PILE OF BARRELS IS MICKEY TOO? HE’S EVERYWHERE!!”

Ratatouille is adorable and I love him.

But cracking eggs is apparently not one of Sora’s skills.

Actually, Sora pretty much has no skills other than hitting things with a big key.  Literally everyone teases him for this.  All of Sora’s conversations seem to end in him getting ROASTED, which is hilarious.

But of course, the best roast in the game was from Woody to Xehanort: “You’ve never had friends, have you?”

As always, there are just so many Xehanorts.

But unfortunately, despite that one speech about how if the world starts over maybe there’ll be less darkness(???), his motivations are still pretty unclear.  “Yeah I time-traveled a lot and recruited a bunch of people and created all these heartless and put in decades of work…. because uhhhh…. there will be more light in the world if it starts over!”

Meanwhile, Eraqus: “lol dude, #AtItAgain I see, you should probably stop trying to end the world, but then do you wanna hug?”

Speaking of characters, THE WHOLE GANG WAS HERE.  Literally basically everyone made an appearance.  Which I really liked!

But… the villains who had whole worlds to introduce their return in (Larxene, Marluxia, Evil!Riku, Vanitas, Luxord) didn’t have full-scale battles in those worlds.  Which would have been fine if they had them later!  They were, each of them, set up to become a bigger deal as the game went on… and then barely re-appeared between their introduction world and the Keyblade Graveyard, in which you didn’t even fight them one at a time, but three at a time, like each was suddenly inconsequential or something?  TBH, Luxord probably got the best deal of the bunch, because at least you kinda do fight him one-on-one in the carribbean.

Poor Demyx, though…. dude only had two scenes…

Even/Vexen was also kinda sidelined, but in a way that worked better (especially since he’s had plenty of spotlight earlier in the series)

HOWEVER, as a general thing, the return of LITERALLY EVERYONE was super cool!  I screamed in excitement when Ienzo showed up.  NEVER had I even DARED TO HOPE that he might get a moment in this game, and here he was with several!

THE IENZO + EVEN + AELEUS + ANSEM THE WISE (+ DEMYX???) REFORMED EVIL SCIENTIST CROWD.  I LOVE THEM.

See also: Xion’s return, THE SAIX THING, pretty much everything to do with Axel, Namine…

On the other hand, I kind of wanted more content for most of these groups.  I didn’t really expect it, but come on, if this game can’t throw me the bone of EXPLAINING IT’S MAIN VILLAIN’S PRIMARY MOTIVATION, it can at least distract me with more drawn-out side goodies…

I haven’t even talked about the gameplay yet

Bullet lists are hard

ANYWAY THE BATTLE SYSTEM WAS GREAT, and basically had everything I wanted???  Good motivation to use a LOT of magic, frequent form-changes(!!!), other cool/weird ways to do damage (focus lock, attractions), and of course the usual attack mechanisms.  Some form-changes even gave ways to attack at range!

(I ended up using ranged combat whenever possible, wearing three cufflinks at once for ALL THE HIGH MAGIC.  I avoided using cure pretty much always so that I could keep up the magic, lol.)

(On that note, I used a LOT of aero and water in the early game, because I got those cufflinks first, but unfortunately, like always, Thundaga eventually replaced almost all other magic as the clear most powerful.  Sigh.)

Also!  Wall-running and flowmotion!  Those are pretty much literally just The Things Sora Did In The Final Battle of KH2, but now he can do them All The Time, which really shows the character power progression even though due to video game mechanics, he had to start over at level 1, lolsob.

Speaking of Sora progression, he kind of has character development now!  I sort of finally care about him!  And then he just disappears forever lmao

Having ALL the characters back together really highlights KH’s tendency to have, basically, RECURSIVE TRIOS, which is kind of cool even though I kind of wish that maybe ONE of these trios could have two+ girls instead of one or none??? Please???

Speaking of sexism, Aqua saying “it’s my time to shine” and then immediately getting thrown across the room for Ventus to save her was… uh, classic.

Otoh Anti-Aqua was one of the coolest villain designs of the series

There were Not Enough worlds.

HOWEVER, The Caribbean in this game was the best KH world in the franchise’s history, IMO.  GORGEOUS underwater scenery, also gorgeous above-land scenery, AND SO MANY ISLANDS TO EXPLORE.  Completely non-plot-relevant islands!  That you could just go to!  And look for treasure in, like a pirate!  (There was a lot of treasure… that one sunken ship had, what, five chests in one place?  It was the ideal pirate aesthetic.)

Also the Caribbean had the best BG music.

Sora DEFINITELY has a crush on Jack Sparrow.

…On the other hand, if I’m gonna mention worlds I DIDN’T like, the plot in San Fransokyo was so cheesy I almost died.

Olympus was great though!  It had such good design!

Corona made me desperately want it to be summer, it was great.

IT’S TOO COLD OUTSIDE FOR ARENDELLE, ESPECIALLY WHEN SORA DOESN’T HAVE A COAT— but it was really, really pretty.

Axel’s “Don’t you know how popular I am?  I have tons of fans rooting for me!” was one of the funniest lines of the series.

There is not enough Winnie The Pooh content and that makes me really sad.

It’s even WORSE in that Sora actually SAYS, “oh, I’m losing my connection to Pooh, and I think I know why,” and then just… leaves, like that’s fine??? IT’S NOT FINE, SORA.

IT’S NOT FINE

Also idk if that cat plushie is a character from some FF game, but they’re the Worst Possible Version of Mandos.

(Cute, but. Hmmmm.)

ALL THAT SAID…

I have yet to mention the most important part of the game.

WHICH IS THE FLANTASTIC SEVEN.

They… are pudding.

They wiggle!

They ask you to play games with them!

They’re so cute!

They’re into vore!

I LOVE THEM!

.

Tl;dr: The game felt like it ended too suddenly, which made me sad because it was doing so much to fight my depression.  But I loved playing most of it, and I really need a flan plushie now…

[slowbladed]

here it is folks. my kh3 review/rant/thing

im gonna disclaimer and say that i try my damnest not to compare games to another, but in this case I am (at least SE made titles) because for as cool KH3 was I felt it took a few steps back.

First off, I enjoyed the game. It is not my favorite game for miles, and not my favorite KH game (Re:CoM), but I had fun with it. 

The environments were amazing, I had fun looking through them and just taking in the scenery. I had some fears of KH3′s models looking weird but they did a pretty good job (sometimes it does look like clay though). The enemy designs were clever, and I love how the Nobodies look weird. Though the Unverse were not too good design wise. Bosses were ok,. However the ending boss fights was.. underwhelming.

I understand expectations tend to be different than what is given, but in this case my expectations for the boss fight was shattered then stepped on. Should have I expected each Organization member to have a cool transformation sequence? No, but for characters like Xemnas? Ansem? YX? Marluxia? Maybe. For Xehanort himself? Yes, I think I am just to think so. And I think Xehanort’s boss fight was underwhelming and frankly I was very disappointed in it. In fact, I thought we were going to have four forms, one the multiple armor battle (which I thought was cool), the normal armor battle, then Xehanort turns into some dragon or whatever, then a good on head to head battle. Well. No turning into some monster. Ok, thats fine, as long as his ending battle has some cool movesets and stuff you have to get out of based on all the Org13 members that would be coo- oh I’ll just go rage form I guess. It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t even that fun. I think I tuned out as soon as I went to the underwater section. Keep in mind, I went into this thinking that Nomura was going to crash my PS4 with the amount of big he was going to make Xehanort. I mean, Ansem turned into a ship, Xemnas turned into a LITERAL DRAGON which you fight THEN you fight his armor formed merged with the dragon AND you run to him getting buildings tossed to you AND you-- well you get the point. On a purely gameplay point? Come on. Even Marluxia had a cooler boss. I mean, even BBS had a bigger build up to Xehanort which was literally fighting Xehanort THEN YOURSELF??? IN TERRA’S STORY?? but KH3 just.. was that.  i guess.

Which brings to... HOOO the story. A few parts they did good. Those parts? Sea salt Trio. Thats IT. FUCK wayfinder trio, FUCK the organization, FUCK everything. There was NO build up to the new organization. I was expecting to fight them in these worlds, as you do in KH2 to build up the hype and make you think WOW these guys mean something! but instead we are all thrown a boss rush and for PLOT reasons I GUESS but at the same time it felt so.. bland. There were no stakes! You fight Vanitas ONCE and then he goes “ok im out” to fight later. Which would have been a cool build up if they did that with the other members but instead we see them once? They say something weird? Ok bye??? I’ll fight your Nobodies now???? I guess I’m racing Luxord now??? eeehhhhhhhhhh??? Overall the story felt so disjointed. I mean in KH1 it made sense you tried to protect the princesses of light, they came back later for the story. It made sense you went and beat up the Org in KH2, they were trying to bring people to darkness. But in KH3 it felt like they were just there to be there? Ok we are getting the power of waking OH it doesn’t matter anymore I’m just going to go to the realm of darkness anyway. And yes, I know that disney worlds tend not to be the biggest points in the series but in BBS? Hell I never would have thought to ship Cinderella/Aqua but you know what Nomura did it. And he did it Well. There was no build up to the final boss, there was nothing that connected everyone together, it felt like everything was there to be there. What happened to Demyx? What about that data twilight town? Some things were NEVER brought up ever again! If you’re not going to bring it up or have an overall meaning to the story then DON’T PUT IT IN YOUR STORY. I feel like if they just cut out explaining a bunch of stuff that was already established in past games then the game would have been better. And, yes its FF14 YES I KNOW, but FF14 does a better job in explaining past events that happen via just mention or actual dramatic sequences that has bearing with the plot. 

Characters? Vexen had the most character development in that entire game. Hands down. I mean, I really don’t know what else to say. I felt like Sora took a few back in what was already established in previous games. I mean, you go from Sora screaming and yelling at Xemnas for lying to Org13 for lying to them about having no hearts then you turn around and call Marluxia a has-been? We spent an entire game, the entire KH2, talking about how Nobodies just wanted their hearts back, how they wanted to be whole, how they wanted to BE SOMEONE, you slam that nail in the coffin shut with DDD, then you make Sora turn around and say “well you work for xehanort even though you probably are being forced haha!!” YIKES! It kind of made their deaths a little disjointed? You go from Sora not caring or even trying to reach out to these Nobodies to ‘so those emotions huh?’ I’m not even going to get into Kairi being just a damsel in distress, or Namine coming in for .2 seconds at the end.. but man... you done did it.

Gameplay? uhhh hhhgeeeh ghgughghghgg. it was fun? I felt overwhelmed with all the stuff happening though. You put everything from previous games into one and... it worked out but it didn’t? I don’t know. I think its fun but it wasn’t hard. There was no real tactics in it. It really became a press X to win game. Ariel Recovery and defend are busted which makes me REALLY salty but hhh . Overall it was ok, I think KH1 still is the best with battle mechanics, but that’s just me (please bring Goofy’s old stats I’m begging you SE). 

Can I say I’m happy with some of the plot? Sure. I guess. I’m glad Xemnas had his moment. I’m glad Marluxia had his. Same with RepliRiku. I’m happy marlar became canon bay bee. But uh, as far as Vanitas goes? mmmmmmmm yeah.... not... really. As far as Xehanort being a good guy all along? I can’t really say what I feel about that. I’m conflicted. If nomura was going for that, good on him. 

overall? 7/10, maybe 6.5/10. Not my game of the year but hey, it was fun.

[xiiishadesofgrey]

Kingdom Hearts III: A Long Time Coming

As we’re about a month after the release of KH3, I wanted to get out my thoughts on the game (there are spoilers below). I might be talking into the void, but hey, that’s what fandom’s all about. Anyway, let’s rock.

First things first: I loved the game. I’m biased, because I’ve been in love with this series ever since I saw the first trailer on tv all those years ago. I have some criticisms, but please never take those to mean that I don’t love this game because I do.

Story

My main issue with the plot of KH3 is that I think pacing was a weak point in this one. Now, I’m used to playing through mostly irrelevant Disney worlds the whole time and then getting a plot dump at the end. I know how this series works; that’s not my issue. The problem is that there are a lot of characters who would pop in to do something pivotal, and then make an equally swift exit without any real closure. Demyx and Vexen come to mind, but even the non-benched OrgXIII members didn’t do much besides serve in the boss rush and make their goodbyes (while the other fighters politely waited before continuing to rough you up).  We knew there was going to be a huge cast of characters, but for the ones that served to move the plot forward, in a lot of cases I was left feeling like I didn’t have an answer for why the roles had to be filled by them in particular. (Connections to KHUX were blurry at best, though that’s more of an issue with series planning than with this game on its own. I’m okay with using Luxu as a cliffhanger, though, since that’s more of an intentional setup.) Motivations weren’t explored and many of the characters ended up just where they were before: lost, floating in the void.

I was also a little put out with the game’s treatment of the main heroes.  Riku and Mickey spend 5/6 of the game throwing themselves against a wall, staunchly refusing Sora’s help.  Meanwhile Sora (aka the player) is supposed to just wander around until the Power of Waking comes to him all deus ex machina style? That’s not a plan, and it makes for a meandering plot. And when you finally do get to the Realm of Darkness, lo and behold, the power was in him all along, meaning that we’ve all wasted a lot of time in what we’re supposed to believe is a pretty urgent situation. If I’m considering this within the framework of the KH universe, it means we should probably never take direction from Yen Sid again.  If I look at if from a real world perspective, it’s a rather poor excuse for the player to visit the obligatory worlds while the main plot gets compressed to a cutscene movie at the end of the game.  Either way, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

And finally, I was truly disappointed with KH3′s treatment of Kairi. I try to be understanding. I get it, she’s not the main character. But here’s the thing: the writers set Kairi up to be in a position of agency, if not power. She has a keyblade, she has the benefit of legitimate training in no less than a genuine hyperbolic time chamber (more than Sora has ever had the benefit of, mind you), and she has a history of being eager to pull her weight as a Guardian of Light.  Plus, she’s a Princess of Heart.  You’d think this would lead to her being able to contribute to the fight in more ways than just believing in Sora enough to keep him from keeling over when he loses his cool (another thing I took a bit of issue with, but I won’t digress here).  But no, Kairi is demoted very solidly to damsel in distress when the plot finally sees fit to release her and Lea from their bubble. To be blunt, I call bullshit. I think she deserved better as a character, and I think if they weren’t going to do anything with her having a keyblade, they shouldn’t have wasted all that time making it happen. In the last fight, she and Lea were more liabilities than anything. I think they both deserved better than that.

End(?)

Obviously, the end of the game contains a culmination of the complaints I’ve mentioned.  I’m overjoyed that my favorite characters get their lives back, but a lot of that takes place without direct player contribution (for example, Roxas showing up by himself, having melded with a replica body offscreen, or Namine being a footnote in the closing scenes). I acknowledge that the player character doesn’t need to (and shouldn’t) be the sole instigator of action in a game, but for some of these instances, having these points basically narrated to me felt like things were coming together because they had to for the plot to resolve, and not because our own actions had led to an optimal outcome. I didn’t feel like we had earned all of the pieces falling into place the way they did.

I mentioned unclear motivations before. All I will say about Xehanort is that I don’t quite see the connection between the story they’ve been selling us for him literally this entire time and the story he painted for his motivations at the very end. I don’t feel one way or the other about them trying to redeem him, but I don’t feel that that was a well-established path to try to take with the character they’d built. It’s important to give evidence throughout if that’s the final claim you’re going to stand on, and nothing in any previous game has ever hinted at the “noble reset” MO.

And then, there’s Sora. My precious sunshine child. They damseled Kairi so hard that Sora died got lost in an alternate universe. I had two problems with this: 1) it just made me sad, and 2) it was like...completely unaddressed. I get it, you’re leading into the next saga, and that’s admittedly an excellent hook. But like, I feel like a plot point as pivotal as the main character functionally disappearing warrants some sort of ... visible reaction from his friends and comrades??? To have that emotional fallout completely unaddressed makes me feel like the story wasn’t complete. And not to make a somewhat unrelated gripe, but I feel like if they had space to make us watch the entire Let It Go song, they had space to let the audience know that Sora’s disappearance actually had some effect on the people he’d saved.

Experience

So, given all that grumbling, what did I feel about the overall experience of the game? I actually thought it was very positive. The gameplay - both exploration and combat - was very smooth and exciting. The worlds we visited were well-executed and fun (though San Fransokyo felt deceptively small, somehow). The graphics were awesome. (I’d been concerned that the new engine would lose some of the Kingdom Hearts feel, but I think they really nailed it.) Yoko Shimomura triumphed as always with a stellar soundtrack. (I found myself humming along to the Arendelle and Corona themes for hours.) The plot, obviously, was great despite my issues with the execution in this particular chapter. I think that most of the problems that I mentioned earlier with pacing and details stem from there being what I consider to be too many plotlines to handle in one ~40 hour game. I wouldn’t want another side game of course, but I think that the telling of the story might have benefited from the Dark Seeker saga continuing into a KH4. The plot is sprawling, as we all know, and it just needed a little more space to resolve everything cleanly.

(Side note: I missed my FF friends, but I understand why they weren’t present. Like I said, there was too much going on as it is.)

Aside from that, I personally got to spend a lot more time with my brother than I have ... probably since KH2 came out, to be honest. We promised to only play together, and we took turns with the controller just like we had to do in the good ol’ days when we were kids. And we’ve always played the main games together, so this was a really nice throwback. Closing this chapter of the story was impactful for us as individuals, but sharing the experience was just as great. After several years of being pretty closed off, I feel like this reminded me how to be a kinder sister. So, I thank the KH franchise from the bottom of my heart for that.

All things said, I really enjoyed the hell out of playing this game. At the end of the day, I think that’s all you can ask of a game, really. This one did much more than that, though. It largely followed through on my hopes for the characters, and definitely fulfilled my technical expectations. Most importantly, it felt like it came through on my immense emotional investment in the series. I cried (a lot), like I knew I would. Heck, I might even play it again sometime. lol  ...Maybe not right away, since I still have to heal emotionally. But yeah. Thank you for the ride, KH. I won’t make this sound like a goodbye because you still owe me some closure. But thanks.

Here’s to the next half a lifetime. :)

[angel-with-a-pipette]

So...Uh... Can I say why I'm happy the series is giving Roxas the chance to be his own person? It's because any time KH2 looked at Roxas' situation from any perspective but his own, it always treated it like it's a good thing Roxas was assimilated into Sora against his will, and because he's not a real person, he should be glad that he got the chance to exist even though he doesn't deserve to. It's disgusting. Particularly when Namine losing her selfhood is treated as a happy ending.

Oh, you can always come forward and speak your mind! I’m always happy to engage in a conversation about my fandoms :)

I definitely see where you’re coming from there. Everything is depicted as a happy ending, but it wasn’t necessarily the happy ending people wanted to see for them. But for their perspective, it was.

Naminé never had a free will of her own, first she worked for Marluxia, then DiZ got her and she was pretty much always a tool that could be disposed of any time. Especially DiZ’s words were harsh (please excuse my lack of accuracy here, I only played CoM one time because of THAT CARD SYSTEM and I might have forgotten a lot that happened there) and made her truly believe that she was an abomination. She was called a witch earlier anyway, so she basically believed it and I think she did long for returning to her actual somebody, to end this kind of existence. She speaks to Roxas about being whole again and I think she very much meant it. That was what she learned during her existence and I honestly believe that it was a happy ending from her point of view. She was back where she supposedly belonged. She made peace with that and while obviously the audience could picture her living her own life, it’s likely she couldn’t (to be fair though, we never see her think about anything like that because the game doesn’t focus on that).

With Roxas it’s kind of the same except that he is struggling with the fact that he’s a Nobody a lot and it first takes his inner fight with Sora to come to peace with the fact that he is a Nobody and supposedly only able to exist with Sora. He somehow finds peace after that fight, with himself and with Sora, and again, it is shown as a “good” ending, but I understand when people aren’t satisfied with it and wish for a truly good and happy ending for both of them.

And I see that a lot of that games paint the Nobodies to be horrible creatures, but that was the point.The audience was supposed to thing they were abominations, but we were also supposed to see Demyx, who didn’t want to fade, Axel who gave his life to give Sora (Roxas) a chance and Roxas himself who was so desperate to live, who we had seen making friends, being happy, being a normal human being. We were supposed to question DiZ’s hard words and even Sora’s attitude - the boy who normally makes friends with everything and anything the world throws at him.

We also gotta be fair here that while DiZ and Sora both were wrong, they not only had valid reasons to be angry (DiZ because his apprentices cast him away and allowed for their home world to be destroyed, Sora because they a) keep making trouble for the worlds which leads to Riku still missing and b) kidnap Kairi as leverage over him and refuse to let him see her), but they both corrected their views. Ansem the Wise saw that he was wrong in harboring so much hatred and Sora got to see the other side.

I think they did transport to the audience that what happened might have been better for the worlds since Sora is the one who keeps the light safe, but they were also supposed to see that a lot of wrong things were going on and the Nobodies were treated wrongly. It might not have been executed perfectly, there is a lot glossing over and short deliveries.

So now onto your second part (I thought I’d break this up a little)

There's also the fact that Riku never apologizes to Roxas, or shows regret for ABDUCTING him and seemingly learning nothing from kh1 (and this is from someone who considers Riku his favorite character), even BOASTING about defeating him in kh2. And while Riku gave Xion a chance to say no, he never gives that same choice to Roxas. Heck, Roxas seems to view himself as being subhuman in DDD and I'm so, so GLAD that that's not depicted as a good thing.        

I think Riku’s oppositional treatment of Roxas and Xion probably stems from the fact that 358/2 Days has been released after KH2 :/  Riku had already reacted the way he did with Roxas, they couldn’t take that back and I guess to avoid a repeat of the same story line, they made him go another way with Xion? I can only speculate there, maybe they did realize that his treatment of Roxas doesn’t fit his character arc, maybe they wanted to spice things up, maybe Riku was hesitant to do anything but as soon as he got all of Sora’s memories in one place, he felt forced to finally act, maybe Riku actually had a hard time to do something about Xion because she looks like Kairi and Roxas doesn’t look like Sora (although we are led to believe in KH2 that they are basically twins with different hair, so I don’t really know).

But there’s also the fact that with Roxas, Riku is forced to take action immediately. Roxas was basically on a suicide mission, he wanted to free Kingdom Hearts and go after Organization XIII which would’ve let to his destruction. Riku wasn’t aware of the fact that this would’ve led to the restoration of Sora, so he captured Roxas before he could do so. Though I think we can actually doubt Roxas’s destruction would’ve helped Sora become whole again as his Heartless technically has never been truly defeated.

Aaaanyways, again, I see where you come from and it would’ve been interesting to see Riku react for the first time in one and the same game to both Roxas and Xion. Like it is now, I really find it hard to compare because 358/2 Days messes with a lot of KH2 and frankly, I have huge issues with that.

I do however very much agree with you that I’m glad Sora doesn’t view Roxas (or ‘good’ Nobodies) as subhumans anymore and wishes for Roxas to exist on his own. Hell, I would’ve loved to see the fight and actual struggle between Sora and Roxas from their KH2 fight, Coded and the Dream Drop Distance moment in a separate game actually. I mean I’m glad as it is that it has been addressed (AND THANKFULLY NOT ONLY IN CODED), but... I would’ve preferred that over 358/2 Days? :X I’m sorry, I have too many issues with being underwhelmed with it as a part of the series, as a standalone game, the story would’ve been fine for me xDDD

I hope my ramblings have been somewhat understandable? I do understand the other side too, though, and I am very much on the fence whether or not I want Roxas and Xion (and Naminé, let us never forget about her) to be Somebodies in KH3. I do think that their storyline is finished and all of them found peace in their own ways, but I also see and understand that people wish for them to have more, to have a real chance at life.