#to make this a 'remaster' and not a 'redo' the only changes i tried to make were to the source footage and audio

[marshmallowgoop]

no thoughts just Heiji Hattori (HD)

[neoyi]

I don’t think I’ll ever get to humorously commentate on KH2 piece-by-piece as I tried to do for the first two games (and god knows if I’ll wrap up Re:chain of Memories with the writing method I was doing, but I digress.) I like talking about this endearingly dumb series and replaying this game is a nice opportunity to revisit how I feel now versus how I felt back when I was a fresh-out-of-high-school Neo playing this game for the first time back in 2005.

So I’m going to surmise my current play session (this collects my thoughts up to the Hercules world) with easily containable bullet points.

*I kind of want to make a separate post about the infamous prologue and discuss how people felt Back in the Days (an understatement, let me tell ya), and ultimately what I feel it does for the game and whether I personally liked it, so I'm going to leave that in the back burner for the time.

I will say Twilight Town sounds like a nice, quiet place to live. I love the concept of a city that's always perpetually sunset. It's a beautiful place and like Traverse Town, sports an amazingly cozy soundtrack.

*I'm sure there's some bullshit reason why, but I don't get why Sora's one year absence meant some of the people he's met just....forgot him. Like why? What purpose does this serve? This especially affected Kairi, but it’s ultimately negligible because she regains her memories of him during the beginning portions of the game.

Was this Namine's doing? Was it to protect Sora from the bad guys or something? Why hasn't Riku forgotten him? Was Namine just selective on who she erased Sora's existence from? Did Kairi forget just because she’s connected to Namine? Or Sora? What purpose does this narrative serve? What was the point?

*Speaking of, I forgot, did they ever explain why Riku disguised himself as Ansem? I don’t remember if they ever explained it when I played through this game, but also I haven’t touched KHII in six thousand years, so I don’t remember a lot of the more convoluted parts of the plot.

*It is comical to see Setzer of Final Fantasy VI fame turn from a risky, gambling sky pirate who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the empire, only cares for the freedom of the skies, and enduring survival’s guilt over a tragic loss of someone dear to him into a...

Whiffle Bat Champion.

*My sheer excitement and obsession when they first announced Vivi as one of the FF cameo was astronomical. I remember keeping a DeviantArt journal detailing any news and screencaps of the little guy pre-release. Still my favorite character from the whole franchise.

Even if he suffers the same fate as Donald and has a zipper on his mage hat for absolutely no reason other than this game existing during Nomura’s Belt-and-Zippers phase.

*Someone’s going to get sued one day because these damn kids keeps sitting atop the clock tower that has yet to be grafted with bars to prevent their inevitable deaths when one of them slips and falls.

*I swear I could play a six degrees of Kingdom Hearts with all the voice actors in this game. Or at least a "Whozit" and "Whatzit" they've done in other media (like Yuffie who is voiced by Mae "Katara" Whitman here. Pre-Avatar, even.)

Also I’m sorry, Will Friedle, you’re a fine voice actor, but you’re...Terry McGinnis. Batman told me he “totally owned all you lamers.”

*I love the Nobody enemy designs. The sheer creepiness and uncanny valley of them all lends credit to their existence as, well, non-existences. The Dusk enemy design alone is inspired with its unsettling belts wrapped around its fingers, or terrifyingly sharp teeth subtly hidden inside of its mouth. I can imagine the creature unzipping its mouth to reveal a set of flesh-eating teeth and the fear is real.

I love the way it flies and circles around its victim, almost like it’s trying to wrap itself around you, but I’m especially fond of that one attack where it essentially kicks you as while it sashays over to you upside down.

The Samurai Dusk also has my favorite reaction command. It’s just unspeakably badass.

*I never liked Squall in FF8 back then (don't know how I'd feel now if I ever replay FF8) and he was just okay in the first Kingdom Hearts, but I remember I really endeared myself to his reappearance in KHII. Squall in this game is what happens when he grew up, found good friends and family, and got some therapy for his issues. He’s stoic, but always a team player, and supportive of Sora and the people around him. KHII Squall is what FF8 Squall has the potential to be once he reaches adulthood and it’s nice to see that here.

*I really love the little changes the developers inputted for Sora, Kairi, and Riku's models to accommodate for their physical growth. Riku's is the most obvious (boy clearly ate his vegetables), but I like that you can tell Sora grew not just through story observations (Yen Sid points out how he outgrew his old garbs) but by comparing his height in relation to Goofy. Sora was shorter than him in the first game, but has since outgrown him in KH2.

Along with his better skill set during combat, this is a really nice way to visually shown how far Sora has come and how much time has passed.

This also goes in the opposite direction with Namine whom I think had to redo her mod when they remastered Chain of Memories for 3D. I notice she looks younger in that game than in KHII which would make sense at the time since it takes place a full year ago.

...Well, maybe. Can Nobodies age???

*Damn it, game, don’t give me a pouch containing 5,000 munny and treat it as an in-game key item that I can’t use even though munny is literally the currency I use to buy things.

*The retooling and emphasis on battle mechanics means the platforming element of the first really suffers and that’s a damn shame. I wasn’t particularly in love with exploring the Disney Worlds in the first KH, but I appreciate the effort put into so Sora could not easily get from Point A to Point B.

Even finding treasure chests is comical and if not for sake of posterity for anyone going for 100%, I wonder why Jiminy bothers to keep track of how many you find. There were literally like three out in plain view the minute I entered the Mulan world.

*Speaking of level designs, yeesh, the layout is not optimal for the skateboarding minigame.

*Trying to design a gummi ship in this game requires a masters degree in gummiology and metaphysical engineering, as well as the ability to tap into the 4th dimensional. The 45,000 page instructional manual they give you, the odd grid map used to piece together your ship (fair, the latter was also in the first game), and finicky button controller layout means it took me a while to fully grasp what I was suppose to do and I’m still not sure I got a full handle of it just yet.

*I don’t understand why Sora had to use a physical object as a conduit in each world to open up a metaphysical gate to the next world. He never had to use an in-between to close it. What’s the exception outside of unnecessary symbolic tie-in to the individual worlds he’s in?

*Props to the developers for recreating the ballroom. It’s actually kind of majestic to look at the beautiful ceiling and chandelier design from Sora’s perspective.

*There are a couple of random gameplay elements I forgot completely existed and seemingly there for arbitrary purposes. I just find it unusual that Mulan’s world forces you to collect literal manifestation of morale. It’s like the developers decided they wanted to reuse the Struggle minigames’ balls into a repurposed Morale Ball because well shit, someone programmed these things they’re damn well going to put it to good use.

I guess if Sora and pals don’t literally collect morale, all the soldiers will be, I don’t know, sad and die in battle or something.

*I’m aware Disney villains using the Heartless as their personal army is the norm, but it’s tonally weird when it’s Shan-Yu of all characters doing it. The infamous Charge-In-The-Snowy-Mountain scene doesn’t quite have the leg up in terms of threat when his army consist of adorable Heartless bumblebees.

*You know what pointless shit I am obsessed with? The stupid puzzle pieces scattered throughout the game. This is the first time I’m playing the Final Mix game and I’m just seething at the lack of abilities I currently do not have that prevents me from reaching certain pieces.

*Auron was instantaneously my favorite character when I first played FFX twenty years ago, and his return in KH2 sent me in fangirlish squeals. How could I not? Look at this handsome bastard. He’s calm, collected, badass with a cool sword, has rugged good looks (he doesn’t have it here, but he rocks some killer shades), and a good dad. That’s prime DILF quality right there. Of course I can’t get enough of him.

Square Enix knows we can’t get enough of him; dude be all “fuck off hades” and gives the god the middle fingers and fucks off elsewhere. Auron is King Shit.

*Oh man, do I still have my old Sora figurine? I think I got him in Katsucon way back in 2009.

*So who’s done a drinking game every time the game introduces Sora, Donald, and Goofy individually to every character they meet?

*Hey, so I noticed Square Enix is finally moving their asses and bringing the Ultimania books to the US. I doubt they’re going to bring the older KH Ultimanias overseas (my kingdom for an officially translated FFIX one), but ya know. I kinda think that yeah, I might want the KHIII Ultimania.

...Just saying.

*GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK!

GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK!

[chicoriii]

Are you a music professional?

Absolutely not. I'm not even a music hobbyist. I mean someone who creates music, I am passionate about the music, but I don't create my own. If I was, I would do some covers of Miraculous music. ;)

I always liked music (like everyone, I think), but I started be more passionate about it 11 years ago, when I became a huge Queen fan (mostly classic 70's Queen with no synthesizers), to the point I was definitely too obsessed about the band. I was also fan of classic rock in general. I liked instrumental parts of music the most, like solos, and progressive rock attracted me more, because usually it includes more instrumental parts than in "typical" radio-friendly songs. In time I realized that since I prefer listening to musical instruments more than human voices (even at the beginning of my Queen phase, I was interested much more in Brian May's guitar than Freddie Mercusy's voice), I should focus on instrumental music. I also realized that jazz is more attractive to me than any other genre of music, although it took lots of time to "learn" how to listen to that, to not be bored of jazz improvisations (but still I don't like free jazz and other stuff like that). Nowadays rock is not a big part part of my life anymore, I focus on jazz and classical music (and music inspired by classical like soundtracks), which I liked even before.

So instruments is what I like in music the most, this is why I wanted trying to learn how to recognize sound of those "basic" instruments by ear.

I'm also big Pokémon fan since childhood, who likes music in those video games a lot, and around 2012 I discovered that you can rip musical notations from the games (as MIDI files) those use sequenced audio (every single main game until X/Y released on Nintendo 3DS in 2013) as well as digital samples of instruments in soundfont format. So I started having fun with those MIDI files and I tried to "remaster" music which originally uses midi-ish quality of instruments (or 8bit noises). It's not real creating music, I don't make anything new, I only redo MIDI files just for fun, but it helped me a lot, I learned some things about the music thanks to it.

Recently I made "remaster" of Central Valley, an original composition from fanmade game Pokémon Clover, that is Pokémon FireRed hack, so it uses Game Boy Advanced quality of music (a mix of proper instrumental samples with 8bit noises). It's a simple and "clean" orchestral piece, so it very was easy to do, although it's really beautiful. This is an example what you can do using only free soundfonts and a free software named Synthfont. Real musicians could do much better, but I still enjoying doing it from time to time much.

That thing is the simplest "remaster", I can also changing instruments, tempo, key (pitch) etc.

For example - in Bicycle theme from Black/White/Black2/White2 I changed string section into brass section (trumpet, trombone, alto and tenor saxophones), synth bass into acoustic bass, flute into soprano saxophone and I added a little alto sax part which isn't in the original.

The night version of Floaroma Town from Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum (my favourite soundtrack ever, I don't kidding) I turned into a depressing cello-driven piece by lowering tempo and the key (and instruments). That's an old thing and I could do it much better now, but the idea was great in my opinion. Maybe I will try to remake it later. Floaroma is a little town in Sinnoh region filled with flowers, so I image it as a piece which could play there if it was destroyed by big fire.

[praphit]

Batman, Cults, and me in Red Latex

Getting back to my roots of writing here! No movie to speak of; just pure rambling!

I started writing way back in the MySpace days. I'd get insomnia, and so stay up and ramble about stuff while drinking rum - which in retrospect is prob a lil reckless:) I found that was the way to go for me - maybe that could be the way for some  of you as well, if you ever struggle with such a thing. 

Writing and rum, baby! 

And if you're under the legal drinking age, just tell your parents that the praphit says it's ok. 

And if the police somehow get involved, tell them... 

Nah, wait, don't mention me... say some random, rambling, black dude said it was ok. And if they ask "Was this "random black dude" the rambling praphit on Tumblr, tell them "Noooooo, he actaully said to... NEVER DRINK... EVER. And that you officers are doing an ok job out there."

Writing and rum!

It works!

Like I said, I don't have a movie this time around; I'm not even sure how I started writing about movies.

I guess I could have gone with "The Lion King"

Which btw can we talk about this scam Disney is running? - telling the same story in a live-action package. And with this one it's still animated; it's not like it's done like one of those "Planet Earth" type shows - THAT would be interesting. I remember watching a clip of a lion eating a zebra, while the zebra was STILL ALIVE! The zebra wasn't even fighting back or crying out anymore... it had totally given up, as if the lion was devouring the zebra's soul and will to live with each juicy, bloody bite. Hey, Elton John, sing a song to that. #circleoflife

What if they followed real wild animals around in Africa, and watched the true circle of life. You could have the actors/team improvise the script depending on what's happening, and due voice-over. I feel like with real animals,  the "Hakuna Matata" scene might go differently.

I'm not shaming anyone for going and enjoying these movies. I had a plan to see "Aladdin", but somehow ended up seeing "Child's Play" instead 

(funniest movie I've seen all year btw). 

I might still go see Aladdin. BUT, it's still a scam. Toss in a lil controversy every now and then with the casting to inflate numbers... that mouse knows what he's doing. It's a good scam! What's next? - telling the same stories, but using puppets... sock puppets; that would be a new low.

But, somehow I feel like we'd still flock to the theatres. We love that Mouse!

I don't blame him. Kinda makes me want to run some type of scam within in music (my industry). What would be the music equivalent of what Disney is doing? I don't think that there is one. Anytime you change a song a lil bit, it's totally changed. 

If I decided to do a cover set of Miley Cyrus songs, exactly the same way that she did them, it would still be totally different. Btw, if I ever do that, please stop me. It'd be clearly a cry for help. Imagine if I started mimicking every vid she ever did as well - same choreography and outfit. 

Don't imagine that.

I guess artists put out remastered stuff sometimes, but I feel like those never sell.

...

...

Sorry, I'm distracted... still thinking about redoing Miley's vids.

I DO have a wig that matches what she has going on there (you don’t need to know why:) , and red sunglasses.

And how about me rockin some red latex??! Yeah! 

Nah, I wouldn’t do it. Only cuz I think that the chafing would be too intense, OR maybe I’ll like the way it looks and feels too much, and decide that’s simply going to be my regular look from now on... making everyone around me uncomfortable... with my intense sexiness. Don’t imagine that either; it may be too sexy from some:)

Ugh... is the fact that I'm even joking about it a cry for help?

The industry for an artist is the real scam. The music industry always wins. The game is rigged. That's why I've been thinking that we musicians should all go on strike. Everyone in music would have to be in on it though. 

Imagine your life with no music:

- no playlists (though that would have to involve some serious hacking, but imagine road trips without them) - no music in movies or shows - no sexy music to get into "the mood" - y'all would have to sing to each other -  Though I guess Aladdin and Jasmine got down like that, so y'all might be ok. New mating ritual.

- no background music anywhere you go (festivals, restaurants, strip clubs:) - we won't even sell any instruments NOTHING! Gotta go extreme sometimes to make people listen.

Maybe we'll toss people a song every now and then out of mercy. But, we'd only allow annoying songs - "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls

"My Humps" by BEP :)

It would take true power to make that happen.

I had thought about ruling the world once. I had a plan to take over the world; it was actually in motion. Yep! It would have worked too, cuz no one would have seen it coming. You would no longer call me your rambling praphit, but OVERLORD!

Like I said, no one would have seen it coming. 

Thanos... and whoever tried to dominate in Justice League in that movie. What was his name? Idk, no one cares, he was terrible. Those guys went too big. You've gotta Keyser Soze it! Play chess, not... Idk, professional wrestling.

I stopped my plans because I figured that I'd just get bored. I get bored easily. Ask anyone I work with - there are times when I'll just leave and go to the movies, or the mall, or the bar, or... on some sort of quest:) Sometimes, I'll dump a project all together cuz I'm simply not feeling it anymore.

Now, DESTROYING the world, THAT seems like it'd keep my attention. Don't worry, I wouldn't hurt the people... unless they stood in my way.

I'd make sure to ship them off to... Saturn or something... can we live on Saturn? Hmm... maybe I'll need to get help with that part of my plan. So, maybe I WILL still take over the world. Once I'm bored ruling after like a week, I'll get my man Elon Musk to ship y'all off to a planet safely, and then the fun begins!

I imagine that there'll be some resistance, though Idk why. Let's be honest, this planet is doomed anyway. We can fight about how and why, but... c'mon we all know it'll eventually burn out. So, just let me have my fun! I'll make sure that there's plenty of big screens wherever Elon sends you to for my big show:)

But, if people want to fight their first and last Awesome Master Overlord on it (I think the "Awesome Master" in the front is better, don't you?), then we can go.

You won't stand a chance though. I'll have all of the best action stars fighting by my side. That's right MY SIDE. They're used to winning; what you think they're gonna fight with you? Psssh, I'll have all of the weapons and tech... plus I'm sure I'll be some type of cyborg, mutant... wizard as well.

But, I'll also have Keanu, Statham, Denzel, Liam, The Rock... I'm realizing that the action hero world is very male dominated. I'll fix that once I'm your Awesome Master Boombastic Overlord. Which woman can I put on my team?

How about Rihanna? 

Yeaaaaaah...

I know what you're thinking - that I could have found a more... suitable pic. Annnnnd you're right.

JUST LET ME HAVE THIS! I mean look at her... DAMN!

FINE!

Scratch that. Rihanna’s not really an action hero anyway, I guess... at least not that type of action. Ooooooh! Haaaaaaa!

No?

C’mon, that’s funny

Whatever. I’ll move on.

The strongest woman in many respects that I can think of off the top of my rum filled brain is Serena Williams. So, we'll say her,

Amanda Nunes ( who doesn't get enough credit for how awesome she is btw)

Megan Rapinoe? I don't know if she can fight or not, but she's tough. I feel like if I put the arsenal of Rambo at her feet, she could save the day all day!

Annnnnnd Alyssa Milano? Idk her stance on violence or guns (though I'm sure she'd have no problem letting me know:) So Idk about her fighting, but she's resourceful though... maybe use the power of sex strikes or something.

(She’s like “Keep on joking and see what happens.”)

Where was I??

I don't remember.

I did want to address those chants from a week ago though "Send Her Back!" I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while, but those chants brought it back fresh to me.

Don't worry, I won't be getting into the politics surrounding it. - I mean what's the point? We never listen to each other anyway. I just want to say this, I have a lot of experience when it comes to cults (I know this seems like it's irrelevant, but stay with me) -

I know cults (don't ask, why let me horrify you:)

But, there are a handful of things that are foundational in cults. I'll bring up two of them:

1) Having a leader (or leaders) who is more concerned with their vision than they are about their people. So, the individuals pain, loss, abandonment, etc means nothing in comparison to their plan.

2) Having people who are all in on a person, ideal, or cause, to the point that they no longer care about the details of what leaders say, do, or sometimes don't do.

Now, the people described above aren't always meaning to be malicious. For example #1 - I've known many pastors who are good people, pure hearted, I might even call them friends in some respects, but they're blinded by their own vision (or "God's vision for them"). They're not trying to hurt others, but they do.

And #2 - they're are certainly people of admirable zeal in a variety of areas (ex. patriotism). They might not be "bad people", they might even think their position is righteous, but when we start to ignore facts, harmful behaviors... when we make ANY person (all of us being imperfect) a symbol of our "righteous cause", we've lost our way.

It's scary (especially being a minority) to see a whole nation exhibit these tendecies. And this is me being gracious (prob due to the rum I keep drinking).

BUT, enough of that... there's something else that is heavy on my heart - BATMAN (our next one that is)

Cuz... I mean... really?

Robbie P?

That's a damn shame! Nobody else wanted to play Batman? We've got the pretty boy, emo, glittery, vamp? What has he done since then? What has he done that has ever been intimidating? Even as a vamp he was lame.

And the Winter Soldier wants to play the Riddler? I don’t think that’ll happen or if the Riddler will even be in the next Batman. But, let’s say that it did. Wouldn’t it feel like they got those two roles mixed up? 

I don't even think Robbie P is intimidating enough to play The Riddler honestly. Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier) is kinda ripped right? 

He's gonna have to lose some of that muscle before he goes up against Robbie P. I can see right now - The Riddler planning out an elaborate puzzle/trap for Batman, then seeing that it's Robbie, and being like "what do I need theses riddles for?" and then beating the living snot out of Batman. It'll be a worse beating than Bane gave him. 

Filled with rage cuz he knows HE would make a much better Batman.

Now, to be fair, I was wrong about Ben Affleck. I actually liked Ben's take on the role. It made me long for a more old, grizzled, out-of-touch Batman - hear me out:

I'm thinking old Batman, but kinda hulked out. Is Stone Cold Steve Austin still around and kickin to play this Batman?

  Gimme a hell yeah!

But, this Batman I'm envisioning is stuck in the old wmindsets of misogyny and racism - stay with me, cuz this will be an awesome Batman... well, movie... and awesome Batman MOVIE:)

To balance Batman out and keep the angry Twitter mob away from him, he'll have a team of "wokeness". Batwoman will be played by AOC.

Robin will be played by Jimmy Kimmel (you know you want to see him in those tights).

And Alfred's last wish in his will (after being mauled to death by a pack of bunnies... in the first scene of this movie) was to have his brain put inside of the body of a black woman. And that black woman will be Beyonce (cuz this movie will need a kick ass soundtrack).

Think about THAT sitch!

Annnnnd Ben Carson will play himself - he'll be Batman's token black friend/informant.

Already, the best movie ever.

I could see a scene going down like (Bats and the Woke Gang are in a bar... cuz my Batman will be an alcoholic... this Bats has a lot of problems, but he'll be real and raw... YES!)

Batman (after having the waitress bring him two more shots of whiskey, slaps her on the butt and says "Thanks, Sweetness.")

WokeTeam: "Batman! You can't do OR say that!"

B: "What?! Why?!"

WT: "It's ...just awful."

B: "What? If I don't smack her on the butt, how will she know that she did a good job? I'm being helpful!"

WT: (lots of arguing)

B: "Ok, ok, I won't do that... or call her that I guess... how about lil lady? is that ok? or Sugar Plum?"

WT: "Her name is Lisa"

B: "I got it! BIG BOOTY"

WT: "What is wrong with you? - that's ridiculous! Look, we'll deal with that later. Let's hurry up and get to the crime scene. And on the way we want to talk to you about the confederate flag on the Batmobile...annnnnd the Kaepernick sticker that calls him a Son of a Bitch"

B: "Why? He hates America. And there's nothing wrong with that flag!"

WT: "Bu, Batman..."

B: "No, no, I know there isn't, let me call Ben."

Sooooo, there are scenes like that, BUT he's also out there kicking major ass! It'll be like "Matrix" action meets "Sin City" action. And we'll update the villains -

Bump N Grinder

Fyre Man

 and his side kick “The Sucker”

“The Comedian?” (that question mark is part of her name)

Keep the classics of course

Annnnd his arch nemesis Iggy Azalea 

- ruining Hiphop wherever she goes.

And in the end asses are BRUTALLY kicked, sure, but Batman also learns some important lessons... or... or simply blows his brains out. Cuz let's be honest, some of us would rather blow our brains out than try to change.

Hey, DC... call me.

My next movie will prob be "Once Upon a time in Hollywood" 

cuz of my main man Leo! - though idk about the premise. Now, if they were making "Fight Club 2" with this cast, then definitely! What if Leo and Margot Robbie (who’s also in this) are also in Edward Norton’s head; duking it out. YES! Imagine if Quentin Tarantino directed Fight Club with his typical bloody style; we’d all still be horrified). 

So maybe "Hobbs & Shaw" 

 - those two of course, but Idris Elba is in that too! I love him!

He would have been a great Batman! I bet he could have gotten that role if he had tried. He def could have gotten that James Bond role if he had tried. But, nope, instead he decided to do "Cats"

I'll leave y'all on that thought.