Kingdom Hearts

I don't want to regurgitate the argument that has been had endlessly all over the internet the last two months. It's really tiring.

However, I cannot see it in myself to consider the multiple 0/10 scores brought by mindless hype and warped fan-expectations as anything other than self-inflicted and mostly not worth the consideration.

Needless to say, I am very certain that Kingdom Hearts III.X Re:Union Epilogue - or whatever it will inevitably be called - will also sell well within Square's expectations - as will Kingdom Hearts IV.

Nomura's hatedom has been screeching for years - and he has only been more prolific than ever.

I agree. Nomura could release a game that is sixty straight hours of him reading entries from Wikipedia, call it "Kingdom Hearts 3.5 Liturgical Intermission", and it would have record-shattering sales figures. After all, people would only find out what it was after they'd already purchased and popped it into their console.

That's the strength of a popular franchise, and it's precisely why sales figures are a measurement of hype more than quality. Kingdom Hearts III broke franchise sales records by shipping 5 million copies, but Star Wars: Battlefront II shipped 7 million.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who will agree with the statement, "Star Wars: Battlefront II, which became controversial for introducing gambling to children resulting in actual legislative attention and Disney threatening to pull the license, is a better game than the entire Kingdom Hearts franchise has ever been."

Battlefront II, incidentally, is sitting at 68% on Metacritic and 1.1 userscore. But strictly by sales figures, it blows Kingdom Hearts out of the water, because sales figures are not a measurement of a game's quality. They are only a measurement of what people who have not yet played the game think of it.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 15th 2019 at 1:42:00 PM

Battle front shipped over 7 million over its entire holiday lifetime.

KH 3, however, shipped that much by its opening weekend.

And we're back to the plot!

Axel tries to abduct Kairi as part of his plan to restore Roxas somehow and Saix comes to her rescue. Saix even gives Sora the courtesy of warning him about Axel's machinations, because Axel going rogue is bad for everyone. It's in Sora's best interest that Axel not murder him or some shit, and it's in Xemnas's best interest that Sora keep releasing Hearts from the Heartless with his Keyblade. Gotta keep that stockpile going until Fake Kingdom Hearts is complete.

I like that it's Saix that has to do it, too. Remember when they made Axel kill Roxas to prove he's still loyal? Because Roxas is Axel's best buddy? Yeah, Axel is Saix's best buddy. Consistency, thy name is Xemnas.

Through Terra, Xemnas remembers exactly how strong the bonds of friendship are. He will tolerate no conflicts of interest in his Organization.

So, y'know, friendly diplomatic meeting. Saix is like, "Yo, heads up, Axel's out there gunning for you so you might keep an eye out for that. You may have to fight him." And Sora's like, "Or I could just beat the shit out of you right now, that's an option. Like, what's one black cloaked dickbag over another, y'know?"

And I once again love the f*ck out of Sora 'cause, like, he doesn't really do this whole Enemy Mine thing. Sora is a firm believer in the philosophy, "The enemy of my enemy can kiss my ass too."

Saix knows when he's not wanted and goes to leave, but Sora's like, "Bros. Bros. If we leap into the swirling vortex of doom, we can find all of them. And then I can hit them all at once."

But Saix hears him talking about this terrible plan to plunge face-first into the Realm of Darkness with on idea what he's doing, because Sora is terrible at whispering. And he's just like, "Dude, you're being a total Riku now," and then takes off while Sora's having a mental "DID HE SAY RIKU" breakdown.

Remember in Captain America: Civil War when Crossbones made Cap f*ck up just by saying Bucky's name? Saix does that to him. Only instead of blowing up a bomb in his face, he just uses the opportunity to leave without letting Sora make terrible life choices.

Like. Worst case scenario, Sora gets eaten by the Darkness or some shit. Best case, the Organization has to beat the shit out of him and bring him back to Twilight Town and that's a lot of work, yo. It's best just to get him to stay out of the Corridor, let him keep on killing Heartless, etc. This could have gone a lot smoother, but Saix severely overestimated the amount of f*cks that Sora had to give.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 15th 2019 at 2:26:17 AM

KHIII has been highly divisive in certain sectors (I know of at least one forum where a singular false-flagging poster was attempting to create an appearance of general unified backlash against the game), which spurs 0/10 reviews and stuff like that. Of course, Four-Point Scale aside, it's hard to come up with an objective measurement in which 0/10s are dismissed but 10/10s are accepted, and yet I very much feel that the hyper-low scores given by Hype Backlash-ridden fans, trolls and perhaps new players who'd never touched a KH game and had no clue what was going on contribute to KHIII's comparatively low rating. It is, after all, the most mainstream-accessible title since I and II, and the series' popularity and cred has increased massively since then.

Also, pistols at dawn from me for anyone who rates DDD above III.

>People rating DDD over 3

what the fuck

XD Axel successfully abducting Kairi is amazing. She was with the Twilight Town kids for like two seconds before he was just like, "Hmm, if I was Saix, what would I do with her? GRRRR I AM AN X FACE MAN AND I HATE FUN. AXEL HAS A STUPID FACE. HE'D NEVER LOOK FOR HER IN HIS FAVORITE ICE CREAM PARLOR."

Like. Saix knows Axel well enough to know exactly what his favorite place ever is and Axel knows Saix well enough to know that he'd try the most obvious hiding place because he thinks he's sooooo clever and that Axel would never look somewhere obvious. It's hard to outsmart your bros.

Either that or Axel just got a hankering for some sea salt ice cream after finding Kairi became work, so he popped by and oh look, there she is!

So either Axel knew Saix well enough to outfox his attempt at outfoxing him, or Axel just got that sweet tooth craving and Saix outsmarted himself. I'll honestly accept either explanation. They're both plausible.

Either way, this was a very bad call on Saix's part. I love Axel outfighting Pence and Hayner with the slightest movement of his hips in the middle of his Implacable Man strut. A for effort, guys, but lolno.

Then Saix reports in and Xemnas, uhhh....

ACTUAL DIALOGUE

"The poor fool. How long will he keep chasing the illusion of friendship when he himself lacks emotion? Trying so hard to retrieve what he has lost when it may never have existed in the first place. He deserves nothing more than our pity."

Xemnas is a creature of two minds. One part Terra, one part Xehanort. Compelled to seek out Aqua and Ven, to try and recapture what it was like to feel them in the black empty void where his Heart is. Here, we see him disdaining that very practice, under the guise of shitting on Axel.

Like. This is the Xehanort side of him going, "Why do I do this? What value does it even have?" If he could just stop caring, he probably would. But he can't. Because he isn't Xehanort. He's not even Xehanort possessing Terra. He's Xehanort and Terra, two parts of a two different wholes that is simultaneously both and neither of them.

Xemnas was never friends with Aqua and Ven. He doesn't even really want to be, I don't think. But he's burdened with inherited memories of their companionship. And he's conflicted by the pull to relive a life that was never really his to begin with, and he doesn't even really understand why he cares so much.

Like, I'm just picturing him growling at Aqua's armor like, "Why do I miss your stupid butt face?" Also, I want everyone to imagine the words "Stupid butt face" in Xemnas's sweet, smooth, silky voice because it is amazing.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 15th 2019 at 2:56:31 AM

I'll be your second! Though, Keyblades would probably be more thematically appropriate.

In seriousness, I'm getting recommended the usual outrage videos about why 3 sucks and such, so I am inclined to believe that at least some of the negativity is not in good faith. Not that there are not good reasons to dislike 3, but that the usual bad faith actors are back at work. Hell, the KH board game already has several 2/10s on Board Game Geek despite not having even been released yet.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Mar 15th 2019 at 4:59:15 AM

Fandom in general has become so negatively tinged and honestly kind of nasty. I've seen a lot of people who seem to take the attitude these days that if you don't accentuate the negative, you're a "company man" asskisser who has no criticisms at all and is totally blind to any flaws the work may have.

DDD is the best game ever

Eh, I prefer Ansem from Kingdom Hearts.

KKKKKIIIINNNGGGGGGDDDDDOOOOMMMMMM HHHHHEEEEEAAAARRRRTTTTTTSSSSS! FILL ME WITH THE POWER OF DARKNESS!

Edited by fredhot16 on Mar 15th 2019 at 2:03:18 AM

I'm now wondering if it has anything to do with the obsession around 'irony', where anything is okay if you do it ironically and you're not allowed to like anything without it.

I like them equally in terms of delivery, because either way, they're both hammy as shit.

I won't even pistols of dawn anybody who rates 3D over anything. I'll just shank them.

x4 Grrrrrr.

DDD is the best game in series

I maintain that "Play as Fan Favorite Riku" probably inflated DDD's userscore. If you asked me in high school if I would like to play Riku in a game, I'd be like, "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY." People like Riku. Not as much as Nomura wants them to, but they do.

Chain of Memories having the same userscore as Birth By Sleep is probably another beneficiary of the "Playable Riku" factor.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 15th 2019 at 3:12:15 AM

....dammit. Now I can't unheard it...or won't. whatever.

x3 Either you are expressing that opinion because you genuinely believe that, in which case you are entitled to that opinion even if its wrong, or you are trying to get a rise out of people. Which, while perhaps fun, is not conductive toward the mid term stability of the thread.

Really though, if you like DDD its all good.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Mar 15th 2019 at 5:13:33 AM

I forgot that YRP were working for Maleficent. I remembered that they showed up in Radiant Garden as faeries, but totally forgot they were Maleficent's faerie spies.

I would love to see the conversation where Maleficent somehow convinced them that she is not pure concentrated evil given a face and a really cool staff.

"Watch. How I pet this puppy. Without crushing its skull, its tiny tiny skull, in my sinister claw. It's. So. Easy. Grrrrrrr."

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 15th 2019 at 3:17:12 AM

It probably went like this.

Grumping and evil aside, she's a pretty decent boss!

YRP?

Yuna, rikku and paine.

Who are so irrelevant i forgot they were in the game for years.

I mean. Unless you get fired. Because then you become a Heartless. But she is pretty generous with verbal warnings and mentoring sessions prior to that.

Benefits package is pretty sweet too. Do you know how much time I could save by traveling via Dark Corridors?! And what a health plan! Ask Oogie Boogie what the company medical care managed to do for him. I mean, he squandered it, but a solid effort was made.

Unrelated:

So apparently Tron did the same thing as Pixar and Big Hero 6. Space Paranoids is a sequel, not a direct adaptation. When Sora meets Tron, Tron tells him that the original version of the system and the Master Control Program were destroyed. Ansem's version is a copy of the program; it's not the actual one from the movie.

I remember Tron: Legacy being adapted in a later game. I want to say Dream Drop Distance? I don't remember. I wonder if they remembered that this isn't the real Tron datascape?

In any case, I think whenever discussing things like Fake Twilight Town, it's important to keep in mind that Tron is in this game and basically set the rules for digital worlds. The Tron matter data converter thing demonstrates that it's possible to physically travel in and out of a datascape. A data world is still a world, so to speak, and real people can come and go from it. The mansion in Twilight Town uses the same principle.

It's not that far of a stretch from there to allow Dark Corridor passage in and out. We know so little about the fundamental principles behind Dark Corridors, after all, but they can allow transit between worlds in the Realms of Light, Darkness, and Between. Even accursed places like Castle Oblivion. So if you know where it is and how to find it, then why not a datascape?

Taking into account that the mechanics in question for entering the normal way don't just create a digital avatar for your consciousness, but actively move your physical body into the datascape, mind you. Is Darkness-Portaling into a digital world any less plausible than Kairi going, "Shit, the world's ending. Lemme just cram my soul inside the nearest warm body!"

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 15th 2019 at 3:32:57 AM

Fitting,they literally play the whole of tiny people

Edited by Ultimatum on Mar 15th 2019 at 9:32:31 AM