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fae-fucker · 4 years

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Zenith: Chapter 49-51

Chapter 49

So the queen of Adhira, Lira’s aunt, is, like, super disappointed with Lira and her shenanigans. Lira finally explains that while she loves her aunt, she doesn’t want to be her, aka refuses the role of planetary queen once more. I honestly have no idea what reasons Alara has for making Lira her heir, because Lira has evidently never shown any interest in politics. Why she won’t just make Lon her heir? He seems loyal and eager. Idk I guess feminism or something. Oh and we need a character conflict for Lira. Doy.

Anyhoo, Alara says that she’s been in contact with General Cortas and knows about his deal with the crew. She says she can instead offer Lira a position as a pilot for Adhira’s new starfleet. Which they apparently didn’t have before? She says they need a stronger presence “in the sky” if there’s another war, and like 1) that’s not the sky and 2) you mean to tell me that this entire planet of randos that do in fact train pilots judging by Lira’s existence ... doesn’t have a starfleet already?

Oh, but the ship Alara offers Lira is “the fastest model in the Mirabel galaxy”. The fastest model of ... what? Is it a frigate? A cruiser? A fighter? We don’t even get any made-up specs or even a general specialization, all we get is that it’s the fastest and coolest ship ever that everybody wants right now but it’s not even out on the market yet! Because that makes sense for the government that just admitted they had a minuscule starfleet to have. I would’ve accepted it if Alara tied the existence and offer of the ship back to her correspondence with General Cortas and the ship was a diplomatic gift from Arcardius, but it’s specifically mentioned to be Adhiran.

So ... these guys don’t have a meaningful “presence in the sky”, but they DO have the tech, the budget, and the marketing strategy to make the most wanted and advanced starship in the galaxy?

Oh, and this starship? Lira would pilot it as a commercial ship. So the queen wants to invest in a bigger starfleet ... except this one extra fancy ship she’s willing to throw away for regular trade? I mean I guess it makes sense if she doesn’t want to put Lira in danger but does want to sweeten the deal with a sick starship, but then I have to wonder why the previous info about the general and the lacking starfleet is even in here at all?

This whole situation is just doubt dot jpeg.

We find out that the offer only stands this once, and only if Lira immediately removes herself from her current mission and also leaves her crew to stay on Adhira. Apparently the super sexy cool new ship hasn’t even been built yet, it’s literally just a sketch, but Alara has set aside funds to start construction. But it’s also famous enough of a ship already that everyone wants it?

I’m no politician but the logistics of it all make my brain hurt. It’s just really ass-backwards, is what I’m saying. It really feels like Shinsay just wrote one word in front of the other without any consideration of the words that came before.

Oh and Lon is here also. I’m only saying this because he bites his lip and his blood is blue and I need you to remember this for future reference.

Lon and Alara tell Lira to pick them and ditch her friends because her friends are bad for her and tbh are they wrong? Are they though? Lira leaves to go mope about how uninteresting her character conflict is and finds Alfie and Dex.

Alfie sat beside him on the couch. The AI was oiling his gears while Dex oiled his insides with a bottle of Griss.

I had to read about Dex oiling his insides and now so do you.

Wait ... is Dex butt-chugging this Griss? Dex, you know that’s bad for you, bud?

Lira asks Dex if there was truly no way to save both Andi and his dad, to which Dex replies something appropriately dramatic that nobody would actually say out loud (something something tearing galaxies something), and Lira mopes out of that room as well in grim understanding of their symbolically similar situations before the chapter ends.

Chapter 50

We’re back with Andi. The girls are all “training” aka playfighting out in the open and inconveniencing the people around them while Andi angsts about how broken and sad and black her soul is and how everything is her fault including Valen’s and Lira’s pain and how much she just LOVES these WONDERFUL WOMEN she calls her crew and how HARD it was to open up to them after Kalee and Dex but now that she has she would never give them up for ANYTHING.

It goes on for literally pages and I’m not going to include it because 1) it’s pretty much a rehash of shit we already know and have seen her angst about and 2) the fact that Andi’s thoughts and character “development” is happening in her mind alone and the other girls are doing something else makes this feel really jarring and ironically disconnected. There’s nothing wrong with having emotional chapters where not much “plot” happens, but maybe have people actually, like, talk and interact with each other? Instead of just having one character think about how deep and damaged they are? Idk, just a thought.

Anyway, after several pages of pointless nonsense, Andi finally starts crying and tells the other girls that the new info from Dex and Valen’s whole deal has been taking a toll on her. She also apologizes to Lira, which, bonus points, and to the others for getting her into this. Unfortunately Lira undoes the apology and Andi’s attempt at taking responsibility and admitting to wrongdoing by saying she doesn’t need an apology and only needs to hear Andi complain so she can be the emotional sponge and fortune cookie advice dispenser of the group just like Shinsay always intended.

Now, to be fair, this section is honestly quite touching and I wish Shinsay had focused more on the friendship instead of ... well, literally everything else. Observe:

“I tried to kill [Dex]. What if I’d succeeded?”

“You didn’t,” Breck said. Her dark eyes met Andi’s pale ones as she spoke. “And now you know his side of the story, and he knows yours. You both did terrible things, broke promises, ruined a mutual trust. You can hold on to your anger, if you think that makes you strong.” She smiled a little then. “But brute strength isn’t everything, Andi. Trust me, I would know.”

Man, Breck is really wasted on this book, isn’t she? Or at least the concept of Breck. There isn’t much of her to waste in the first place, lbr.

Andi admits that if Valen tries to kill her when he wakes up, she’s not sure she’ll want to stop him. Um. Shinsay ... It’s time to close the laptop and go outside I think. You are not equipped to handle this.

The crew tells Andi that they can carry some of her burdens for her, which is very sweet, if only Andi showed the same thing in return. Right now all she’s done is mope around, think about how much she loves her crew because they’re just so supportive, and then unload her emotional baggage on them. To her credit, Andi seems hesitant and tells Lira she’s there for her too. Lira’s about to spill the blue beans when Alfie interrupts to tell them that Valen is awake. Lira says that whatever she was about to say isn’t important in what I assume is supposed to be dramatic irony? But watch this actually get forgotten and resolved without her input, making Lira some sort of prophet.

All in all, not the worst chapter, but definitely bloated.

Chapter 51

Andi is pacing back and forth and trying to hype herself up before the meeting with Valen. We find out that apparently, the entire planet of Adhira has no military, because they’re just SO peaceful? Yeahh ... no. The only way I’d accept that is if they had, like, some sort of mind-control abilities and networks of spies and agents in the governments of every other planet nation to prevent any conflict to turn on Adhira, which I doubt since they’re supposed to be the peaceful hippies of the story. It would be mad hardcore if that were the case, but alas, I fucking doubt it my dudes.

Besides, wasn’t Adhira in the war against Xen Ptera? Or did they sit it out but still celebrate the victory as if they helped? What’s going on there?

Also, it’s been four years since Andi last interacted with Valen, which I belive makes her 18-19? Meaning Dex was an older teen when he boned down mid-teens Andi. Ok ok ok ok.

Anyway, today is the day of Revalia, which the United Systems celebrate as it marks the end of the Cataclysm. Andi is not hyped. She’s also not hyped for the Intergalactic Peace Summit that’s happening.

[...] leaders from each of the four systems would be present to symbolize that peace still existed in the galaxy, and would continue to exist between the planets that made up the Unified Systems.

So ... Um. I know Shinsay probably think that “intergalactic” is a really cool sci-fi word and they’ve heard it used before so they had to put it here because it sounds science-y and official, but ... intergalactic means between galaxies. Not between star systems or planets. Given how the summit is defined, interplanetary would be more fitting because they’re all coming from different planets from different solar systems all within the same one galaxy. (Not entirely sure what fancy word would be used for multiple systems, but my point still stands.)

The secondhand embarrassment is strong in this one, y’all. Who edited this?

Gilly finds a Marketable Fuzzy Space Pet and convinces Andi to let her keep it, naming it Havoc. It’s impressive how not charmed I am.

Dex enters with Valen and Andi thinks about how different they are and how fucked-up Valen looks.

What horrors had he lived through?

Being thrown down a flight of stairs, for one. He was rotting at some point also. You know, from all the torture you know he went through for two years? Feels like you should probably know that. Oh, sorry, was that a Deep Rhetorical Question?

I should also mention that Alfie is getting on my nerves big time, which is frankly impressive on Shinsay’s part since I’ll eat up any naïve and emotionless robot character, gears and all, yet somehow they’ve written him to be obnoxious in their attempt at making him charmingly socially inept. I think the fact that I’m supposed to be finding him cute or funny is what’s making me really dislike him. Observe:

“I find the name quite fitting, Breck,” Lira added. “Every beast deserves a strong name.”

“Allow me to assist,” Alfie added, walking over on silent feet. “Havoc is defined, in the Great Universal Dictionary, as ‘great destruction or devastation. Ruinous damage.’”

[...]

Valen inclined his head at Alfie. “My deepest apologies that you’re programmed to work for my father.”

Alfie’s unblinking eyes stared at Valen. “I am detecting strong levels of distaste toward...”

“That’ll be enough, Alfie,” Dex interjected. “Why don’t you go check on the ship repairs? Memory could probably use some company.”

At the sound of Memory’s name, Alfie’s posture straightened. “I find my gears are warming at an alarming rate. Excuse me.”

Is this supposed to be cute? Endearing? What is the point of Alfie in this story? Why is he here? It feels like his entire reason for existing is to be the silly comic relief and the stereotypical weird AI with no concept of normal interactions. I’m also hardcore weirded out by how horny he is for Memory. It’s making me genuinely uncomfortable for reasons I can’t explain.

Why do we need another comic relief guy? Dex, Gilly and Breck, and now the fucking Havoc (the weird shitty pet thing) all serve that purpose already. WHY DOES ALFIE EXIST?!

Anyway, Alfie leaves and Dex suggests that they all have an “adult conversation” (lol) and the chapter ends on Andi finally greeting Valen and it’s very dramatic.

#eff reads: zenith

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teamhawkeye · 5 years

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So I’ve had a while now to reflect after finishing up the Far Cry New Dawn story

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

It...was a mixed bag overall. There were some things i liked - but there was a whole lot i didn’t like

The Good

The landscape. Hope County has always been gorgeous and it was nice to see it post-Collapse blooming and thriving for the most part

The music. Love it or hate it, it fit the Mad Max-esque theme the Highwaymen had going for them, both score and licensed soundtrack

Improvements in gameplay. Specifically with the GFH. I used Boomer almost exclusively in FC5 and two of my biggest complaints were 1.) he was not able to ride in vehicles with me and i felt bad making him run behind me everywhere and 2.) even with a ton of perks, he was very easily incapacitated by enemies. With Timber, they gave him the ability to ride in vehicles so you no longer have to feel bad about making him walk and they buffed him greatly in comparison to Boomer - he was often like a little walking tank and I greatly appreciated that they took those things into consideration and made tweaks there.

New Photo Mode. oh my god, YES. it still wasn’t perfect by any means, but my god, it was soooooo nice to be able to give your Captain life and emotion!

The Outpost system. Escalating difficulty so you could go back and still have a challenge even as you advanced your perks and weapons was a nice touch, so things never got too easy or stale in that area

Expeditions. It was fun being able to leave Hope County for a bit and see new locations and spend some time doing stuff other than milking the Outposts for ethanol

The Not-So Good

Abandoning characters from FC5. They may be dead and gone, but how are John and Faith and Jacob so glossed over? John maybe had the best fortune in nods to him and the last game, having both his ranch and bunker serve as important locations in New Dawn...but what about Faith and Jacob? Why was there no mention whatsoever to Eli, Whitehorse, Pratt, Hudson, or Dutch? And beyond the dead from FC5′s canon story, what about missing Resistance members? Jess Black, Wheaty, Tammy, Tweak...what happened to them? why were we given no closure on their stories at all? There was so little time spent reflecting on the events of the previous game or its characters - it very much felt like “they’re dead, not questions now, move on”...but the characters of the last game were a big part of what made it so great and it felt like a great disservice to the fans to have them swept under the rug like that.

Main story. I mean...what the fuck even was that last third part of the game??? The first third of the game started off on solid footing but it went off the rails well before the end. And there seemed to be a severe lack of cohesion between what we saw and learned in FC5 to what we see and learn in New Dawn. Joseph’s story about his daughter seems far less important knowing he had some bastard son hanging around one of the bunkers the whole time - why was there never any allusion to him whatsoever? He certainly felt shoehorned in as a result. And how is it one of the Big rules of Eden’s Gate was “no fornication” but Joseph can get away with it? That doesn’t line up with the antagonist we faced off with all of FC5. And what was with the magic??? Like, there was a touch of that in FC5 with the Bliss and the scope of just what it could do...but a ton of the Bliss’s power could be argued to be auditory and visual hallucinations. There was just straight up...magic to explain some of the weird things they included in New Dawn and it made that make some of it feel weak and hollow

Disservice to its villains. Mickey and Lou were done dirty, it’s just that plain and simple. Ubisoft didn’t give them much of anything to do and wasted all their potential. One of the main draws of FC5 was just how good the villains were and one of the largest complaints i saw from FC5 was just how much more interaction we all wanted with them. New Dawn gave their villains a backseat to almost everything else going on in the game. Mickey and Lou almost felt detached from the story at times. With the FC5, one of the best things about the Seeds was how connected they felt to everything you did: they met you face to face a number of times, radioed in constantly to taunt and harass you, upped the ante when you put the heat on them...with Mickey and Lou, it never felt like they actually took you seriously. Or didn’t even care, despite saying otherwise. They address you directly maybe once all game aside from when you have cutscenes with them face-to-face. Their strongest moment was in their defeat and it showed what major potential they had as antagonists - and to be sympathetic as well - and Ubisoft really blew it there and that’s one of the biggest shames

Disservice to its new characters. The new Resistance/Survivor characters got shafted too. You could easily go all game without knowing a single thing about any of the new GFH or Specialists for Prosperity - there’s just not the time to really get to know them or even like them all that much. Rush was certainly built up...to only be kidnapped and potentially left untouched for quite some time and when you go to rescue him, he’s sidelined immediately with very little interaction with him thereafter. His death wasn’t nearly as poignant as Eli or Virgil’s from FC5 - those were two characters who were constantly talking in your ear or available to talk to and help progress the story along. Rush was put there simply to die and give the Captain motivation to keep going and it’s a damn shame since he deserved better - don;t get me wrong, I liked him and was affected by his death, but the emotional impact there is just not as strong when Ubisoft gave him so little time or opportunity to really get close to him like previous installments did with characters.

Expeditions. I know i said this was a good thing - and largely it is - but it was so small and underused, it was such a letdown. They kinda touted Expeditions as being a replacement for Arcade of FC5, which made me think there was going to be a ton of locations to explore and replay...but in reality, you got like 6 maps and that’s all. Maybe they’ll add more, but that seemed like that got hyped up for nothing

Scale. I get that this was a smaller game, reflected in the time it took to crank it out and the lower price, but god does it feel small. You can almost count how many missions there are on two hands. There were so few collectibles or side missions - idk what’s supposed to be the draw after finishing the main story when you have virtually nothing left to do. And beyond the game’s play length, the map was chopped in half and it was bullshit, quite frankly. Why the hell is the Bliss so concentrated now up in Jacob’s region - shouldn’t that have been the Henbane, since that’s where it was focused and created and still polluted the water there even after destroying Faith’s bunker? It felt cheap to carve off chunks of the map under the guise of “oooh, radiation zone! turn back!” We should have been allowed to explore the remains of Faith’s and Jacob’s bunker, of the Wolf’s Den, or finally be allowed inside the Veteran’s Center! Or go back to the chopper crash site on Joseph’s compound, the truck where Hudson, Pratt, and Whitehorse died on Dutch’s Island, or the truck Burke crashed into the river in the Henbane - all were completely gone and that felt super cheap, like they made no lasting impact when they were such huge moments in FC5. I feel like the two things most of us were excited to do when we learned we were returning to Hope County were learning about what happened to the characters of FC5 and seeing references to those who were lost and then to be able to explore and investigate every corner of the map we had in the previous game to see how the landscape how changed in every place we once knew so well.

Replay value. Honestly, aside from a second playthrough to sweep up achievements/trophies i didn’t get the first time around, i’m not all that inclined to keep the game installed on my console’s harddrive and replay it. If anything, playing this game has reminded me of everything i loved so much about FC5 and made me homesick for it - i’m already yearning to return to pre-Collapse Hope County and i haven’t even been done with New Dawn for 24 hours. It’s a shame when i so love the story that spawned this sequel, but it doesn’t possess any of the heart and soul that the original has.

There’s probably more i’m forgetting, but i’ve been typing for a while now and my brain has called it quits. I just know i went in with too high of expectations and was always going to be disappointed when New Dawn didn’t measure up to FC5...but it fell so short and that is the biggest issue i have. It could have been so much more and that’s the real tragedy

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minijenn · 5 years

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Kingdom Hearts 3: Final Thoughts

Ok well not really final thoughts cause I’m sure I’ll be internally screaming over this game for the rest of time, but I figured I’d leave my thoughts about the game in a more... coherent manner than what my screaming during the liveblogging conveyed. And so, here we go with me basically talking about everything I liked, loved, and maybe wasn’t so ok with (cause the game wasn’t perfect lol) and yeah there will be spoilers aplenty so I’ll tuck it away under the cut cause I have a feelin this is gonna get long. So... here we go:

First I’ll start off wit the easy stuff, the presentation. By GOD is this game fucking beautiful to look out. All of the graphics are so crisp and clean and everything just BURSTS with color. Never before have the Disney worlds felt so alive in a KH game and now they’re JAMMED back with detail. I first noticed this while wandering around Galaxy Toys in the Toy Box and I gasped at just how many little minute details there were to be found, from price tags for toys, to sticky notes on bulletin boards, and so on. Every single place you visit in this game looks like its actually been lived in as opposed to just being another set piece. They were all so much fun to explore and I’ll go into detail about each Disney world at least later on. As for everything else, so much effort was put into just about EVERYTHING! From the ways environments are lit (Corona especially had some nice lighting effects, as did San Fransokyo), from enemy designs, to characters expressions oh god the expressions. KH games in the past tended to rely on stock expressions in some scenes because hey, its easy when ya don’t need to put your whole foot forward, I get it. But here? There are no stock facial expressions, everyone, everyone emotes in such vivid and realistic ways so that you can just see how characters are feeling/what they’re thinking just through their body language and expressions alone (Sora especially aslkdjasld I’ll go on about my son in a bit tho). In terms of other visual stuff, I LOVED how flashy this game could get in terms of attacks (Attraction Flow especially oh my god), some say it might have gone over the top, but to me, it just made me so excited to use everything I had in my arsenal just to see how things looked!

Next the music oh GOD the MUSIC. From the moment this game’s version of Dearly Beloved started playing I knew I was in for a DAMN pleasant listening experience. But what I loved even more was how this game went above and beyond with is score. Yeah ya have your basic level and battle background themes (my personal favs among those include Arendelle’s and Corona’s themes), but then most cutscenes are scored with individual little musical cues, almost like scenes right out of a movie instead of just the same theme playing on repeat in the background! That honestly added such a neat little touch to the game that I instantly noticed and loved IMMEDIATELY (this game also improved Sora’s theme SO much and used it a lot and I fucking LOVED that) and other returning songs were great too (Mysterious Tower’s theme is spectacular now, and even though they didn’t really change Hundred Acre Woods’ theme, they added more orchestration to it to make it sound even prettier!) And of course, don’t even get me started on Face My Fears and Don’t Think Twice, both of those are such AMAZING songs, probably my fav Utada songs out of the entire series (Don’t Think Twice especially lol)

Next up, gameplay. So I kinda suck at KH games but honestly? I didn’t really have THAT hard of a time with this one. I played it in normal mode (cause I aint about to punish myself with proud mode alskdjalksdja) and I only started dying towards the end of the game and even then I didn’t die that much. But don’t get me wrong, the game isn’t stupidly easy either. The enemies will fuck you up if you’re not careful. I always made sure to reserve my magic to use cure like... fucking constantly because better safe than sorry! As for attacks, I favored using formchanges a lot because I always felt way more powerful with them (I beat the game using the BH6 keyblade imo that’s a good one) and Attraction Flow was also really useful and fun to use! Summons I... didn’t really use that much lol (same old story as other KH games) and team attacks I did use pretty much whenever they were offered to me (the ones with Disney companions were always a lot of fun!). Outside of battle, exploring in this game is SO much fun! Even aside from all the stuff to look at, there’s a lot to find! From ingredients (oh god the game wouldn’t fucking let me forget about ingredients), to hidden Mickeys (laskdjalskdjsad fuckin hell could never find any when the game outright told me there was one in front of me I’m stupid as hell), to the usual chests and whatnot, searching around was always a fun time (unless it was for fucking crabs, but we’ll get to that). Plus can I just say that I adore how smooth it is to control Sora in this game? Like seriously the boy actually runs at a decent pace for a change, his jump doesn’t feel like he’s wearing goddamn cement shoes, and the fucking tricks he can pull off with the whole running up walls and shit? fantastically fun to do. Special gameplay elements in the game were also usually always welcome, but I’ll get to those for each individual world when I go through em.

But before I do that, I’ll briefly speak on all the extra stuff this game offers for you to do because by god is it packed with content. I didn’t really explore a ton of what it had to offer cause I wanted to beat the main story as quickly as I could, but what I did explore of it was a lot of fun! Cooking with Remy is adorable and even though I didn’t really use any of the dishes I cooked up I still had fun finding ingredients and doiing the little minigames for each dish. Hundred Acre Woods minigames were all kinda samey but tbh it was a fun game nonetheless. I only played one of the Classic Kingdom games but tbh next time I visit the game, I really do wanna try more of them, they’re super cute. The camera function was a delight askdjskd such a cute touch to add, taking selfies with Disney characters is my new favorite thing oh my god and... ugh guess I’ll talk about the Gummi ship here too... I never liked it in 1 or 2 but god they really fucked it up here imo. I know some might disagree with me on this, but by god this game could not get me to care about customizing my own ship. I pretty much kept with the basic ship the whole game, avoided every single enemy I could and mostly just bit the bullet so I could get to new worlds as quickly as possible. And most of the time I didn’t really mind it, UNTIL THE LAST GUMMI MISSION. The way the camera controls and the vertical and horizontal controls fuck each other up is so fucking stupid and trying to navigate that damn ship through tight and tiny corridors only for the camera to have a piss fit every time I so much as skiff by a wall made me so fucking mad why did they do this the rest of the game the missions are in wide open space plains so why force me into a bunch of tight corridors at the very last minute laskdjsldsd oh my god it was terrible

ANYWAY moving on to much more fun stuff to talk about, how about them Disney worlds, huh? Might as well talk about my thoughts on each one of them, since they all offered such unique experiences that came together SO damn nicely:

Olympus was, in my opinion, an excellent way to kick off the game. You get plenty of room to explore and see exactly what’s new in terms of gameplay and the game gives you chances to learn those moves and practice them in a nice, controlled environment. The world itself is lush and lovely and quite varied, with Thebes as an entire city environment to explore, the mountain to climb up and avoid Titans on (excellent first real bosses in the game btw I was so hype throughout that entire fight) and the beautiful environment of Olympus itself to slide and glide through). I was also pleasantly surprised in just how much the world set up for the rest of the game, kicking off Sora’s whole arc of having to get stronger throughout the game (more on that later), showing what Pete and Maleficent are up to (again more on that later), showing us that the Organization is still kickin and a threat, and basically getting us hype for everything else that’s to come! I’ll give Olympus an 8/10 I’d say if I had to score it lol

Next up in terms of full worlds to explore is the Toy Box and DAMN this world was impressive. They really did a GREAT job making you feel like a toy exploring a much larger world around you. Most of this level did take place at Galaxy Toys but I really don’t see that as a restriction since the place is MASSIVE and so much fun to navigate and pick out all those little details I mentioned above. Controlling the robots in this level as a BLAST in every way possible, and I do love all the little nods and references they make back to Toy Story itself in this world. Buzz and Woody were great to have along for the ride and I really appreciated how they were actually involved in the plot points of the world (like seriously, Woody fuckin telling Young Xehanort off will forever be one of my favorite KH moments oh my god). Imo this one was for sure one of my favorites, 9/10

After that, we have Corona and I was really excited about this world and I do think they did a great job with it. The environments are lush and absolutely beautiful (as is, again, the level’s music), and there are so many fun little moments in this level (having a splash fight with Rapunzel was PURE as was the entire dancing minigame imo adorable and so much fun). Its just... idk, for some reason i feel like I wasn’t as... engaged in this world as I was with some of the others? Its more or less just the story of Tangled imo, but Sora, Donald, and Goofy are just sorta... there. Hell, there are points where the trio just up and disappears from the Tangled plot and don’t even come into play until much later on which is sorta... why? I get that ya have a lot to convey in a short amount of time, but damn if Tangled wasn’t the perfect world for a KH game and it just felt like the story of it was... not as great as it should have been? Idk maybe I just wanted more bonding between the trio and the Tangled characters, and what we got was fine but I still wanted... more . So yeah, this one gets a 6/10 from me.

Next up I went to Monstropolis and this one was also a pretty great time. Exploring the factory is a lot of fun and though it is kind of standard in terms of gameplay, everything else here is really great. The humor in this level is especially sublime and I love how the trinity trio plays off Mike, Sully, and Boo imo its pure as can be. And once again we have the Disney characters taking active engagement in the plot of the world (seriously Sully just yeeting Vanitas through several doors like he’s the lil piece of goth trash that he is is right up there with that scene of Woody and YX) So yeah not a ton to say about it, but I liked it a lot. 7/10.

After Monstropolis, I went to Arendelle and by god this world was way more than I was expecting it to be. Seriously I LOVED how the plot of Frozen worked so naturally into this level, this was honestly much better than how Corona did it if you ask me. We actually got to see moments of connection between Sora and characters like Elsa and Anna and so on and it was great. Plus oh my god that Let It Go sequence was INCREDIBLE the animation on that was simply STUNNING! As for gameplay, I gotta say it was another fun one. The ice labyrinth was sorta meh, but exploring the mountain was a great time (and led to a lot of fun snark between the Trinity Trio imo) and the snowy environments here were just beautiful. Sledding down the mountain was a blast, and having Marshmallow to help out as a brief companion was unexpected but adorable. So yeah this was another one of my absolute favs. 9/10.

After Arendelle though... things... fuckin tanked. The Caribbean was the goddamn worst part of this game for me, and not just because I haven’t seen the movies and therefore can’t really get a ton of enjoyment out of the characters and the story. Even beside that this world was just damn tedious. I thought the whole ship thing was gonna be fun at first, but then it just turned into an absolute shitshow, with enemy ships unfairly disappearing and reappearing and then completely blasting your ass (btw the ship is fuckin slow as hell so its hard to navigate (and yes I get that its a big pirate ship, but I don’t fucking care this was supposed to be fun so why isn’t it fun???) And don’t even get me started on that whole collecting white crabs bullshit imo that was just about pretty fucking pointless tbh so yeah suffice to say I didn’t have a fun time with this one. It had nice music tho I’ll give it that. And the swimming controls weren’t that bad so yeah. That’s about all the nice things I can say bout it. 3/10.

But GOD did the game ever make up for it when I got to San Fransokyo. I already really love Big Hero 6, so getting to explore the world of it was just GREAT. The fight on the bridge was a great introduction and exploring the city was AMAZING. Everything felt so HUGE and there was SO much to see (so many buildings to run up!!!). Plus the boss battle against Evil Baymax or whatever was the SHIT in this level, seriously it was so much fun. And hey, it had a really solid original story to it too! I love how the game went out of its way to give each member of Big Hero 6 so much of their original personality from the movie, and it allowed them all a chance to interact with Sora, Donald, and Goofy to really make it seem like unique and engaging bonds were being formed. This world honestly had me so invested and I loved it so much, I’d say its probably my favorite of the entire game. 10/10.

And yeah so those are all the Disney worlds. Gonna not really talk about the last two worlds cause they’re more story heavy than gameplay heavy and speaking of which... guess its about that time.

First of all, I gotta say that one of my favorite things about this game was its dialogue. Most of the VAs did a pretty damn solid job but the main characters especially so had a lot of emotion put into them. This game has so many fun little chatty moments, and the writing here is probably the most natural its ever been in a KH game. There’s so many fun little moments of sassy banter (between Sora, Donald, and Goofy in particular, seriously I could listen to those three yap at each other all goddamn day its excellent). SO much personality leaks through every character in just about every word they say and I really appreciate it and the effort put into it all!

Now with that out of the way, the story oh god the story. So I should probably say that, for a preexisting KH fan like myself, this is the KH game that was actually the easiest to understand what’s going on in? Crazy, I know, but this game actually explains most of the off the wall things that happen in it in a way that anyone could readily understand, and personally I really think that benefits it. I think the plot only really derailed itself for me like... once (the whole explanation behind Repliku jfc what a mess). But there were still a few things that the game didn’t explain that I’ll again, talk about later. As for the story itself...

One of the things i REALLY Loved about it was the character arc Sora had in this game. Riding off of DDD, the game really does set him up as the defeated underdog at the start of it and he feels bad about that and as a result you feel bad and wanna help this sad lil twink bb son get stronger!!! He just wants to help people but he can’t because he doesn’t have the power of waking but the great thing is he forces himself past that handicap and helps them anyway just by being himself and that’s beautiful. I already loved my precious sunshine son already, but this game made me absolutely adore him like seriously, he’s skyrocketed to one of my favorite characters in any fictional medium as a result of this game. He’s such a silly dork who is clearly having fun in all these Disney worlds as he’s off makin new friends, but its clear there’s a certain... anxiety lingering behind all of that. The kid as a lot of pressure on his shoulders and eventually it breaks him and that fucking scene broke me. But in the end, he still fuckin rises above it and kicks ass and then he fuckin disappears but that’s another point to bring up later on cause oh my god but basically the gist is, Sora is my absolute precious son boyo and I would gladly die for him oh my god

Donald and Goofy are also a TON of fun to watch in this game. I may crack jokes about Donald bitching at Sora a lot but you can tell he does it out of a true place of caring. Tbh there were a few Trinity Trio moments in this game that honest to god choked me up a bit, especially near the end. Mickey is sorta downplayed in this game, which is sorta whatever, but I did appreciate Riku in this game a lot (the brief spots where i got a chance to play as him were great). Kairi was... under fucking utilized again and I can’t deny that’s disappointing, and honestly same goes for Axel, though he DID have his moments, especially towards the end. And imo It was a delight to get all the other returning KH kids. Reuniting Aqua, Terra, and Ventus was beautiful, as was the reunion between Roxas, Xion, and Axel. Kinda wish we had gotten more Namine, but I’m glad she got her happy ending all the same. I also appreciate the Twilight Trio in this game, that one scene were they annoy the shit out of Ansem was the best. As for the baddies, same old same old though the game did sorta make them more interesting here and there. Xehanort’s “redemption” is sorta whatever to me, I kinda didn’t really care about what happened to him as much as I did my kids all coming together and being happy together and for the most part that’s what i got so I can’t say I didn’t walk away (mostly) happy as a result. I really fuckin do think the game could have done more with a handful of its bad guys, like they could have maybe implied more about the whole Xigbar=Luxu thing, and imo god did poor Vanitas get the short end of the stick I was expecting so much more on that front and I was sorely disappointed. But for the most part, I liked how this really was a huge KH reunion of heroes and villains alike. In that sense, it felt like one big tribute to the series’ entire history and for that, I love it.

So I guess that means the only thing I can talk about now is the ending. Oh god that ending. Fuckin thing kept me up all night long last night and had me stressed as fuck this morning while I was at work but honestly? I think I’m over it now. Yeah it is certainly a cliffhanger (especially now that we have that secret movie which raises so many more questions but at the very least it does establish that Sora isn’t dead so I can appreciate that). And hey, it implies that more Kingdom Hearts games are to come, so I can’t really be mad about that since I’m pretty much absolute KH trash at this point. But yeah, that ending got me shook and tbh I think that’s what it was supposed to to, be incredibly bittersweet and all and imo it completely succeeded in that regard.

Anyway before I go, just a few more points of disappointment I suppose that I haven’t touched on. Pete and Maleficent might as well not have even fucking been in the game for as few times as they appeared imo and the game also sorta just dropped the whole thing with Demyx and Vexen in a similar manner, as well as the whole thing about Larxene, Marluxia, Luxord, and Demyx “unlocking their inner keyblade heritage” or whatever imo game fuckin had too much KHX baiting if you ask me (that one scene where you use a bunch of KHX keyblades to murder a fuckton of heartless was really cool tho). Tbh I feel like the game had several moments of intrigue that it kinda more or less dropped the ball on, like for instance three examples in particular include that bit in Corona where Marluxia straight up knocks Sora the hell out and yeah that’s all he does, imo why even fucking bother with that when the kid just wakes up like nothing’s happened to seconds later? (to get the Trinity Trio out of the plot of Tangled, that’s what jfc), similar thing in Arendelle during the scene where Elsa freezes Anna’s heart, Sora for some reason gasps in pain and clenches his own heart at that exact same moment and the game never fucking bothers to explain why and that’s frustrating. Same thing goes for why Sora disappeared from the cover of Pooh’s book (lol guess that was fuckin foreshadowing the ending) the game offers a non explaination for it that is just... really not that conclusive so why even bother making a big deal out of it in the first place if you’re just gonna drop it? Plus there were a lot of other... smaller moments that I thought the game was gonna do so much more with but didn’t; the moment when Ven and Roxas see each other for the first time and realize they look basically the same but at no point do we actually see them exchange dialogue; Terra and Riku actually having a fucking conversation imo; same thing with any real interaction between Xion and Kairi; or how about the game not actually fucking explaining how the organization brought Xion back at all like wasn’t she a part of Sora how the hell did you do that game you have to EXPLAIN

Sigh... but anyway, even despite those frustrations, i still absolutely adored my time with KH3. Yeah like I said it wasn’t perfect, but by god was it worth the wait. The game was pure, sheer, fun and its story got me so damn emotional that I actually CRIED at several points of it even though KH has never made me legit cry before. And really? If this stupid as hell game can make this brittle old heart do that, then you know its a good one.

TLDR: Kingdom Hearts 3 is hella good, it made me cry like a little bitch, kinda fuckin dropped the ball on some points but whatever, and kept me up all goddamn night in existential dread over my precious son’s ambiguous fate. Imo fuckin 10/10 right there I love it and can’t wait to pick it up and play it again

#there's still so much more i could say but i just cant collect myself to say it all #kh3 saved my life ya'll it was so fucking great #so fucking worth the wait #goddamn #jen plays #kingdom hearts 3 #kh3 spoilers #kingdom hearts 3 spoilers #kingdom hearts #long post

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