Kingdom Hearts, anyone?

Sadly, Nomura has confirmed that the mobile games will impact later KH games. I'm not playing hundreds of repetitive missions just to get a story update every few months.

I thought the plot was okay, until Dream Drop. Then they had to add time travel into it. Seriously? I cannot express how frustrating it is when time travel is introduced into a setting out of nowhere. Even setting designed around time travel can go utterly stupid, as evidenced with the Terminator reboot. I'm almost convinced that the script is being written on the fly. I know that this is the same director responsible for the FF VII Compilation, and he likes to add things constantly (Genesis in Crisis Core,) but I think someone needs to rein him in.

It's bad enough that Xehanort is basically an unkillable wanna-be Voldemort, with the most obvious villain name I've ever seen. Even Seymour from FFX was more subtle. They had the decency to give him a boring name and semi-goofy Nomura crafted appearance. Throughout BBS I was yelling at my TV, "Terra, look at the old coot."

But no, Nomura just had to go and put in time travel in the middle of all of that. It was a real sour note in 3D,, which I otherwise thought is a fantastic game. Well, the whole "I'm already half Xehanort" line was pretty bad too, but at least it was from my favorite troll from Organization XIII.

Here I was trying to figure out exactly how Sora "fell into sleep eternal" after the fight with Xemas and now I'm trying to wonder exactly how time travel works. Like how Sora and Riku didn't appear to give up their bodies to go back to Destiny Islands at the beginning of 3D. Or how the Timeless River fits into that. And how many times Ansem SOD is going to say the word darkness in one paragraph.

I have fallen in love with this series though. Thinking about it, it's amusing. The kid from the Sixth Sense team up Goofy and Donald. With his best friend, one of the guys from 7th Heaven, he closes a magic door to Heaven with Mickey Mouse after defeating Billy Zane who keeps saying the word "Darkness:* Beats any fanfiction I could come up with.

*Kingdom Hearts 1, more or less.

Afterthought:  I played KH1 and KH2 when they first came out.  I hadn't even heard of CoM and I was too broke at the time to afford a GBA anyhow.  I was a little confused at the beginning of KH2, but got into the swing of things.  By the time Roxas' story was over, I was a little teary.  After that though, I was under the erroneous assumption that the handheld games were not important to the story and merely spinoffs.  I may be late returning to the KH party, but I'm excited at what's to come.  Plus, since Tangled has been confirmed and shown as a KH3 world, I finally get to (hopefully) beat the crap out of Mother Gothel.  Also, Toy Story World!  Toy Story World!  That's got me all sorts of excited after seeing the D23 trailer from last year.

I'd love to be able to play as Kairi and/or Lea as a small party. Poor Lea. He kept telling people to remember the name Axel for (probably) about a decade. Well, they got it memorized for sure. I cheered when I saw his keyblade.

In regards to Kairi, I do think she's got potential as a character, so long as they don't make her a damsel in distress again as well as a living plot device. It would also be neat to have a DLC that shows Riku and Mickey's journey to go get poor Aqua. I was so happy at the end of 3D when she meets Ansem the Wise. At least she isn't alone anymore and is in a slightly less shitty place than the Enchanted Kingdom.

I'm not sure if we'll get to play as Ventus. Don't get me wrong; I adore the kid. He reminds of me a younger Sora (duh,) only with a bit more maturity. Ven accepting his death in BBS for the greater good choked me up. He was my favorite to play in BBS as well. I'm just concerned that Vantias would return when Sora is able to return Ven's heart.

Speaking of which, I hope that Van does show up. It would be a nice mind screw for Sora. He's fought his shadow, he's fought his Darkside in Coded (well Data Sora did but close enough,) so why not more or less an evil twin? If the leaked screenshot about Monster's Inc is legit, we could be facing Unversed.

An Aqua DLC would be awesome, but unlikely after BBS and 0.2. At this point, I'm hoping she'll be the fourth member of our party when the crew goes to Castle Oblivion. They have confirmed that you won't have to replace Donald or Goofy just to get the party member for that world. When they showed Olympus Colosseum, Hercules was in the party along with the three.

Yeah, I do agree I could see them going the FFXV route and I'm fine with that. It would be a great chance to dive deeper into the motivations and feelings of the current Keyblade wielders and Guardians of Light. I also want to see Yen Sid open a can of ass kicking and unleash his magic all over the place.

I hope Roxas will return, and that Xion will be remembered.

Nice! I think this is my favorite:



Oh, some general fan questions for ya.

Top 3 favorite characters?
Favorite game and why?
Favorite Disney World?
Favorite Disney Party members?
Favorite person to play in BBS?

Top 3 Favorite Characters:

1) Riku. He has a fully-fleshed out character arc and I grew to love him as the series has gone on. So far, to me, he seems to be the most 3D out of the cast. I can also relate to his struggles with inner darkness.

2) Roxas. Much like with Riku, I felt he became a solid character and had some awesome development as a person. He also is more mature than Sora and seems to deal with things better. If nothing else, I hope Sora gaining Roxas' memories will help him grow a little.

3) Sora. I love the kid. It is hard not to smile around him for the most part.

Favorite Game: I'm going to cheat a little bit here. For gameplay, its been a tie between KH2 (drive forms baby) and Dream Drop Distance (Flowmotion is addictive.) For story, I'd say that CoM is my favorite so far. The only thing I really don't like about it is that Sora ironically has some awesome character development that has to be completely reset. Plus, this gave me a chance to get to know my main man Riku.

Favorite Disney World: Space Paranoids in 2 and Symphony of Sorcery in 3D. No joke, I finally played 3D just for the Fantasia based worlds. It's one of my all time favorite Disney movies period.

Favorite party member: Tron in KH2. I enjoy his personality and he's way overpowered in combat. His limit is disgusting in a good way. Pack some ethers will you and that world goes by fast.

Favorite BBS character: I'm with you on this one. Aqua has the better storyline and a more rounded characterization. But Ventus is my favorite, due to one ability. Faith is one of the most broken abilities in the series. I ran circles around Van with that spell and when I replay it, I'm using him to go after the Unknown (aka Puberty-Nort.)

I need to try to get back into that series. Kind of fell out of it after the second game more of a lack of money and info than a lack of interest.

Only played three of the games but only enjoyed two of them. I could not stand the gameplay in 'Chain of Memories' probably because I was horrible at it😅

I have the collection on ps4, and I haven't played it much. It's probably cause I played them all originally, and game husbando's distract me terribly-but it just feels good knowing I have all the games there when I need them. Though I still haven't gotten 2.8. I'm thinking I might just watch birth by sleep .2 online since I have 3d's already on 3ds.

So I just watched the trailer with Monsters Inc! OMG, furry Sora is just adorable

I feel like Kingdom Hearts has grown stale, but it left such a huge impact on me when I was still a kid, artistically. To see it drawn out and become so convoluted... well... I remember shipping Riku/Sora so hard back then. But obviously these days, I won't get invested in something unless it's canonically gay- which SquareEnix (or most any JRPG, for that matter) won't ever pull off.

Top 3 favorite characters?
I can't decide on a top three, but I'll just pick Riku. Been my favourite character since day one. And I was a kid who had just realised how gay he was, so... my favourite character for the most superficial of reasons as well.

Favourite Game?
Kingdom Hearts II. I think that should've been the end of it, and if they wanted to continue it, it could've been a new cast with the same concept, but, I digress.

Favourite Disney World?
Not so much Disney, but Hollow Bastion had the best aesthetic, I think.

Favourite Disney Party member?
Toss up between Beast or Mulan.

Favourite person to play in BBS?
I haven't played that game, whups.

Finally got caught up on all of the trailer stuff. Life's been crazy and Diablo managed to completely distract me for a bit.

Vantias: While I wasn't surprised to see him around, I was surprised that he directly confronts Sora. From interviews I've been reading, Monster's Inc is fairly early on in the game. It does make me wonder what he's doing walking around. Obviously Ventus' heart has healed and is just waiting to go back home. However, how did Trollanort bring Van back? Was he able to sense Ven's heart healing and tap back into that darkness? Just please don't let it be time travel...

Marluxia: This I was excited about. He appears to have his own agenda completely separate from both the Norts as well as Pete and Malficent. His whole arc in CoM was to overthrow Xemas and work to get his heart back. Yet, as we saw, he was soundly defeated by a confused but pissed off Sora. Either Marl's heartless is still running around, or he's just sticking with the name. Since he's been known as Marluxia for at least 10 years, he might have just kept the name.

Riku and his new Keyblade: My very first thought about his keyblade was, of course, car key. My next though was that it reminded me instantly of the World That Never Was. That is the most "modern" of any of the KH worlds. There is even what appears to be a crashed delivery truck next to the first major Skyscraper in KH2. The hilt looks like Terra's. Then I saw the collector's model with the Mickey keychain and that sealed it for me. I think that Riku got the third major key, the Keyblade of the Realm Between. It fits his arc well.

As far as the fate of The Way to Dawn and the "other me" remark, I think that Riku-Replica is still alive. Rewatching his "death" scene, it looked more like when Terra-nort was about to fall into the Realm of Darkness before Aqua saved him. The Replica could have ended up near the End Meridian and somehow The Way to Dawn shattered due to some encounter. I could see the other Riku being alive and being torn between finding his own path and becoming a Seeker of Darkness.

Oh and I had to chuckle. Apparently flannel is the new leather; if you look, Sora, Mickey and Riku all have black/white flannel patterns on the cuffs of their legs. Those are supposed to be the new clothes to protect them from the darkness. Well, at least flannel is more practical and easier to keep clean.

Still wondering when/if they'll reveal Lea and Kairi at all before release. I'd love to see new footage of the two of them.