#for context the character designer of this game is basically a massive freak

[nanjokei]

this is a post of me shitting on intsys for what happened to engage, i honestly feel bad for mika pikazo, basically thrown under the bus by intsys from the start, was given very little instruction on what to do and what the mood of the game (engage) will be and it seems like there wasn't much of an editing down phase either. i feel bad she was just handed the paltry descriptions of 40 characters (being instructed to draw "older woman" and then the character turning out to be 30 sticks out in my mind) with not much direction.

im not a big fan of her style these days, more of a 2018 mika pikazo appreciator, but i question why they hired the artist who most commonly draws album covers, magazine covers and alt designs for already existing characters like hatsune miku. i do think the onus falls on intsys for hiring someone who seemingly doesn't fit the job, but i think if they actually gave real direction the designs would not be in the state they are now.

ofc being the nerd i am i object to her art being pejoratively labeled as "vtuber art" because i never understood that label and also frankly i think it's insulting to reduce the style of an artist who has been around for a long time to just one thing. i keep seeing that post explaining it and its like buddy... sorry you keep seeing personalityless twitch indies who overcompensate by overpaying for ugly overdesigned models but saying "vtuber style" is surmountable to "too anime". what does it mean?! i read that post over and over and i feel like the influence of "vtuber" (incredibly vague term that means nothing and changes between whoever uses it because its convenient) and "genshin" (im not a genshin fan and i dont care for the designs in it but is it really that influential as OP claims?) is very overstated... if anything the design in anime and games these days is increasingly influenced by subculture, shit like jiraikei which i actually dislike because THAT'S repetitive and generic. how many times have you seen a design in recent years that's structurally just this to the point of being boring to tears

im seriously not saying this as a "vtuber fan", given the vtubers i watch most often are "elf guy in a suit", "guy in labcoat", "girl in very normal school uniform" but i find that kind of criticism an oxymoron. is it because i don't really interact with twitch stuff? like, whatever. i know being an oldhead who usually just sticks to what ive liked for years impacts my point of view. my point is that mika pikazo is a talented artist, the designs she put out for engage were a massive miss but 1) was she the person for the job 2) did intsys give her adequate instructions and support and the answer to both is no. i think it's fine to dislike the designs, i don't like a lot of them either now that i've seen all of them. but at the same time a lot of people are just extra rude about it (seen in replies to redesigns) and usually i wouldn't find any issue but knowing the context that intsys screwed pikaZ over really really stings. i remember when engage was revealed people were harrassing her for weeks which sucks, she's been nothing but a really positive presence online.

i was gonna say "anyway hire someone who fits" but then i remembered how kusakihara is one of the most overbearing control freak art directors in any game company i've ever seen, hiring chinatsu kurahana for fe3h and then not letting her draw any of the in-game sprites despite being an artist who is familiar with the workflow of visual novels and the like... and yes i can tell it's kusakihara imitating her style. i know the way he renders, especially the way he makes tits look disgustingly oiled up.

interestingly, kozaki was always thrown under the bus in a similar way to pikazo, making similar remarks about how fantasy designs aren't his forte and how he's not sure why they hired him (we now know it's because they wanted hidari for awakening but he had other obligations). kozaki even got the blame for some of the worse designs like camilla, even though that was a kusakihara design. i'll lay my cards on the table: i think kozaki's designs, given he is not a fantasy artist, i feel comfortable in saying that they're bad. he's a comic-like artist that does well with modern day stuff. you let him onto fire emblem and he makes the insane armor designs in fea and fates. and of course all my respect to him, but like pikazo he is not the right guy for the job.

anyway i hope you guys are ready for them to hire kishida mel next and for every girl to be an infantile school girl cause LOL. they really gotta stop hiring super specialized artists (like pikazo who does one off illustrations best, and kozaki who does western movie/comic book inspired realistic designs best). even when they hire "the right person", intsys and the art director and overall director kusakihara are overbearing and take over too much (as seen with kozaki and kurahana, according to the echoes artbook there were hints of him trying to influence hidari as well but hidari was not shaken + hidari was there on a favor so they probably couldn't pressure him more LOL)

but yeah i think people should be blaming intsys way more

#rambles #long post

[iguessishouldbethankful]

Sly Cooper 1 Review:

As in, I recently completed the game and since I was asked to, I will give my review on it. I’m a little nervous because this is the first time I’m doing this, so hopefully I’ll get this right.

KEEP IN MIND: I did not grow up with this series, and I am going in after @oroanillado gifted me the entire series for the PS3. I am a new fan who basically grew up on Nintendo products, so my views might come off differently.

ALSO: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Onto the review.

0. Initial Reaction:::::::::::::::::::::::::

I was pretty surprised how the game collection required no download or installation. So that was a good little bonus as I could immediately sit down and play it without much of a wait. As for the starting point on top of the roof... lemmie say that Sly is adorable at first glance. His movements are fluid and it’s very satisfying to control him--especially the fact that he has a bass sound to his steps that is beyond addictive. I love it.

Not to mention the music is nice. Not exactly as memorable, but I can listen to it and it does give the area a feel.

And then Bentley opened his mouth. Whew boy. Okay. Rok heard my live commentary every time he opened his mouth, so it’ll be a theme. It wasn’t that bad at first though so it’s mostly me wanting to explore the Police Station. It’s mostly a tutorial level so it’s nothing impressive, just giving the feels.

When Carmelita showed up, like expected, I was stunned by two things: she owns an extra fancy taser gun, and that slow as fuck taser gun is able to cause the destruction of public and private property as a massive scale. Ma’am, can we talk? Can you not blow up the cars?? LADY-

As for the comic style animation? Yes, perfect. I was looking forward to it and was not disappointed. I love the cartoony look it gives to the whole world. Which is something else I noticed--the feel and look of the game is very much like the love child of Banjo Kazooie and Psychonauts. The colors and collectathon.

Also the character motivations for Sly, Bentley and Murray are believable. All are orphans, and Sly saw his family get killed but the bad guys and the family book of thieves stolen. Carmelita? Eh, wish I had more context to her but good cop trying to catch the robber is good enough.

Note: I had no idea Carmelita was actually someone that worked for Interpol. My dumbass thought she was just a French cop. The more you know.

As for the hub safehouse area, it’s simple and direct to the point.

Okay. We good? Now onto the levels.

1. Tide of Terror:::::::::::::::::::

Sly dies in one shot.

Sly dies in one shot.

Sly dies in one shot.

No. This was okay. I was determined to find out how I could get around this. I explored the initial open area, collecting the coins and trying to get the bottles because I knew that the point of the games was to collect all pages, right? So I needed the bottles to get the clues so Bentley could give me the code. Thing is, I ran into a few problems on the get go. BESIDES SLY BEING A ONE HIT WONDERBOY.

I didn’t know I could pimp whack enemies with the cane. So I see this walrus looking mofo just hammering away on a boat and I’m like... How do I not aggro this dude. Keep to myself, reach areas I new I could jump to, and... OH FUCK THERE ARE BOTTLES ON THAT BOAT GOD DAMN IT! Fine. Let’s sneak in. By sneak I mean run around the walrus and realize that the guy just sees me and hammers harder. What? Okay then he doesn’t chase me. Get the bottles, realize after 5 minutes that Sly’s pimp ass cane can in fact obliterate the ship’s pole to get the last bottle, before trying to confront the walrus.

So I died the first time. Then I smacked him. You know, for a one hit wonder as Sly is, I appreciate that the enemies are the same as well. That balanced everything out and not made it a colorful furry version of Dark Souls. So off I go. Up the ladder and jumping right into the second area where there are search lights. I’m like okay, let me go around these and--

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE ROSE BUSH KILLED SLY?!

GOD DAMN IT!!

Yes, a lot of this happened. It has been a while since I played a colorful game like this and I a lot of this is simple designing that is obvious, but I am also someone that enjoys finding other ways to get around them. So many choices in the game seems nonsensical. A raccoon unable to brush by some thorn bushes was rather hilarious. I was basically fussing at full volume while Rok was laughing at me. Which was good, I meant to be hilarious.

I discovered the wonders that were the search lights and that they are easily turned off in the small sections. That I could in fact dodge most attacks from the minor enemy characters. Realized that this damn raccoon cannot swim to save his damn life. LITERALLY.

kjsdbkjsd And then I realized that I was missing quite a few bottles once I got to the end. I was frustrated. I wanted to get them all already. So I went back and tried figuring out how to get them and I SWEAR TO GOD I CANNOT EVEN LOOK AT THE SAFE WITHOUT BENTLEY GOING “YOU DON’T HAVE THE BOTTLES NEEDED TO OPEN IT U-”

Bro. Bro I know. Bro please.

Shut the fuck up.

Got the bottles and moved on. Found out that I absolutely adore Sly being in a barrel and wanted to take that barrel with me everywhere but I couldn’t. Realized that Sly puts come paper cuts outs of his emblem in opened up safes and--can we talk about this? Does Sly just sit in his room with colored craft paper and cuts these out every night? Does he redo them if one comes out funky? Does he get glittery paper or is it like the kiddy kind? Does he do them in the van? Is it with scissors or an x-acto knife?! How do you make these bro you don’t simply walk into a FedEx’s Kinkos to print these out!

Anyway, I’m learning more tricks as I go along, getting all of the keys and bottles and I do go back to each stage to get all of the damn bottles because I am not leaving one behind because I really want all of the pages. I am also seeing all of the death animations Sly does and honestly, the humor in each of them is not lost on me at all. I adore them. The first time I saw him just realizing he’s gonna fall to his death and he just-

I busted laughing so hard and Rok got to hear me lmao oh my god-- But for real, most of his death animations are strangely adorable in my opinion. Especially when he just falls and his little leg twitches. They never made animations like that for other games I played so far (not even for Banjo Kazooie). And the lightness of everything makes it less frustration in my opinion. As though I had no problem if Sly died along the way. Whereas I would get way more frustrated with how Mario or Banjo would die.

Anyway those are my tidbits. But lemmie tell you something.Once I got to the last stage where I needed to get the 7 keys to access the final boss? There’s a treasure chest with crabs mini games.

FUCK. THAT. GAME.

The only reason I got through it was because I’m stubborn and I distracted my frustrations in my chat with Rok as I had this damn raccoon swim around in a submarine, killing about 100 crustaceans just for 40 chests!! 40! Not a normal number like 20 or 25. No. 40. That drove me nuts for some reason.

Anyway, finally got to the final boss after I collected all the horseshoes and lives around the main hub of the level, and then yeeted Sly from the canon ALA Wind Waker style.

Raleigh is freaking gross. Not in voice, but his animation made me feel really nasty with looking at him, which in my opinion was a good visual design and motivator to get rid of him faster. It was also easy to sort of find out what the boss fight was requiring from me in the end--making it so much easier as well. I guess for a kid it’s a bit more difficult and I can understand that. I just enjoyed the fights for having a repetitive nature that was satisfying. Like even if I died many times, the game didn’t throw me all the way out of the level at all. It restarted the fight from the beginning and that, to me, was a good way to introduce me to the entire function of a Sly Cooper 1 boss fight.

I felt happy when I defeated Raleigh. And of course, Sly isn’t a “killer” so froggo dude is still alive, just in prison after “HOT LATIN FOX LADY” caught him. Of course. Can someone tell me where Carmelita is from? Is she Spanish or Mexican or..? Like was that defined by the games or was it thrown up in the air?

Anyway, onto the next level.

2. Sunset Snake Eyes:::::::::::::::::::::

Lemmie just say that I actually enjoyed Mugshot’s backstory? It made me feel really sympathetic towards him in a way.... Despite him being a murderer but you know. It was a nice touch.

Okay so, are any of you familiar with the whole “Mickey Mouse is taking his dog Pluto for a walk” dilemma? Well, I had a moment like that as well in this section. Why? Because Mugshot has feral dogs all over his turf and that messes me up a lot for some reason. Like I always wondered how, evolutionary wise, can an anthro dog and a feral dog look so similar? I had a moment like that as well when reading Farewell, Beloved Falco. There was a feral pig in that comic and it bother the fuck out of me. But it didn’t impede me from playing the game.

The look was very much classical American desert wasteland in the middle of nowhere. Possibly southwest USA if I were to guess, and I liked the feel of the casinos and run down RVs, trailers and cars. However it made me question why this place was a junkyard almost if he kinda has a functioning casino. For Raleigh I could understand because it was a hideout, you do what you can right? Even if you have a fucking floating metal blimp over your hideout, like that won’t catch military attention at all, nooooooo--

But like, an abandoned casino suggests that it was once owned by the mafia or a mob, and just--Okay. Police regulations and gun control. Etc etc, I’m rambling on about things that have nothing to do with the game. Back to the design.

Again, collecting all the bottles like a desperate AA member that needs a hit for old times sake and running back to open up the safe. Can I just say that the names of each Cooper ancestor is rather amusing? Like some have the most dumb but adorable names. Huckleberry Cooper jfc--

And once I got into the main hub, I got my first taste of the “Murray can’t think without his stomach thus gets himself in trouble and needs to race his Moon Rover turned into a Van to win one of the keys” mini game and “Bentley told me I gotta keep you alive as you run through this area full of trigger happy criminals, Murray, plEASE STOP RUNNING IN FRONT OF MY BULLETS MURRAY-” mini game. Nice. Not as bad as the 40 treasure chests crabs.

Also, why would Mugshot or his minions just leave a red sports car running on reverse for days on end?? Anyway.

The inside of the casino was a nice section to play ngl. I enjoyed that a lot. The platforming too, despite some of the bottles being utterly difficult to get without having to die and do the entire section again to get them. And then comes the level when Carmelita decides to destroy private property because she’s after this dumbass raccoon. I wonder how she felt seeing him jump around back and forth breaking bottles and dodging her SLOW AS FUCK TASER GUN.

“Could you stand still?!”

“Nope. Not my fault you couldn’t get a license for a firearm.”

Finally I got to the Mugshot boss fight and like the first one, it was a very satisfying fight. Mugshot had me in stitches because he walked around with his long ass arms instead of his legs at first like lmao! Also once I got to the final third stage, I was all cautious and excite to jump around the wires. Yessss.

Defeated, all bottles collected, Carmelita caught this villain as well, and off we go... stealing shit from the USA before coming back to the Safehouse? Alrighty then.

3. Vicious Voodoo:::::::::::::::

Let me tell you something about myself. I have an intense love for Voodoo in video games. Started with Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father, Princess and the Frog and I had an intense call back to one of the swamp areas of Banjo Kazooie in this level.

So basically, this is my favorite level.

I think it’s also the level where I argued the most with Bentley as well. Or at least the second one because, since the very first game, he keeps repeating the same obvious commands all the time with a constant reminder of press the O button. Sly? Sly?? SLY! PRESS THE O BUTTON! Bentley? You’re cute, but you gotta stop my dude.

The sliding effect on the long branches was a lot of fun, the tree enemies that had more than one hit kills were also satisfying to beat the shit out of. I also enjoyed the general murky color of the level in general. Just the spooky was definitely my aesthetic. You know what wasn’t my aesthetic? The first mini game I ran into, which was the candle mini game where Bentley would repeat himself all the time right at the start of if you had to restart the level. I muted the entire thing and had Sly mindlessly killing the fishes to turn on the candles while blabbing to Rok on the phone so it was easier for me not to get nervous about the time limit or the amount of candles I had to turn on. It was the same thing with the Chicken Gumbo mini game, but I didn’t mute that one. Because Bentley stayed quiet.

Also, @oroanillado​ is the biggest troll. I was on the beast section of the game and they did not describe to me what it was like. So I’m honestly not expecting much at all, just wanted to grab my bottles and go. Once I’m halfway though, and I already saw the water moving around I’m having Amnesia the Dark Descent flashbacks like OH SHIT OH FUK O Shi- But no. No. What got to me was... This intensely huge serpent coming out of the water and chasing me and my camera kept pointing BACK instead of pointing forward so I could navigate Sly out of that mess while also getting the fucking bottles along the way!!

I was shrieking!! I have an acute fear of things that are larger than normal (it’s connected to my Agoraphobia). I have that with whales and sharks and fish, so I usually avoid big mobs if possible in any game. Yes, including the 3 mythical dragons from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. @thekursedone-lylat​ was present when I was freaking out about saving Naydra and how huge it was. But at the same time I have a big fear of these sorts of creatures, I was laughing and cursing at the end of the level because honestly, Rok was having a good time and so was I.

Oh yes, also the other mini game where I had to navigate the same speed boat thingy and shoot down the on coming ghosts and flaming rocks was pretty annoying until I figured out I needed to destroy the pillars where the ghosts came from. Then it was easy.

But my absolute favorite section of this whole level was the Green Water Full of Body Parts and Bones. Bentley was losing his shit at the beginning of the level and I would accidentally yeet Sly into the water of decomposing bodies like yeah, yeah the turtle won’t like the smell of this. It was just a well designed level, so I had no problems having to redo it to get all the bottles again and again.

Now, the boss fight? I was warned about this ahead of time so I had to unfortunately put Mz. Ruby on mute so I would concentrate on her attacks but apparently they were supposed to go with the rhythm of the song and the Sly Cooper Collection messed that up? I think she was the only Boss I was really wanting to listen to as she talked because she was giving me good “yeah I’m bad, probably not the best one in the group, but I don’t care I’mma own up to it so try to dodge my attacks as best you can” vibes. It was also entertaining to see Sly go Neo with some of the commands.

All bottles collected and onto Winter in China.

4. Fire in the Sky::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Oh hey look, fireworks!

.....oh.

Surprisingly, this entire stage was rather meh to me? It worked like the others, felt like the others, but I really wasn’t as wowed by it. It might also be just the fact that I mostly saw white in general due to the snow, and spent most of my time looking for a few bottles on one section that really irritated me. Like I legitimately got mad in one section and didn’t want to deal with it because of the noises some of the monkeys were making.

This section. I hated it so much because I thought the bottles I was missing were in here and 2 of them were but I needed hints for it. Argh... Everything else in this section was pretty much a blur for me besides the two mini games with Murray, and the one level where Carmlita came back again, destroying more private and ancient property with her taser gun--and the main reason I remember this was because:

Carmelita saying she was going to catch criminal scum Sly and Sly just went “you really need to get woke, I’m not the bad guy here.”

I collected all the bottles but Bentley told me I had to defeat Clockwerk before I could open this damn safe, and it was the only one requiring this!!

Carmelita went down with the dragon statue, into the hypothermia levels of cold water while shaking her fist into the sky.

I will say the part of Sly and Bentley discussing the whole mechanics of Sly taking the rockets into Panda’s lair was pretty funny tho. Just,

Bentley: Hey you might be able to reach the top of the tower before these explode.

Sly: Okay but what if they explode before I get there?

Bentley: Then I guess you’ll blow up into many pieces.

Sly:

As for the Panda King boss fight, it was okay. I just kept running in circles around the arena while approaching the dude. Defeated him and was like okay, I really need to go and defeat Clockwerk now so I can open that safe.

5. The Cold Heart of Hate:::::::::::::::::::

Look.

I get Sly probably weighs next to nothing, Murray, but could you at least break once Sly gets knocked off the top of the van? Or when the rocks are falling down towards us, maybe also step on the breaks so not everyone is being driven to their ultimate death?

No?

Okay.

I will say, I headcanon that both Bentley and Sly were getting an intense case of whiplash when Murray was driving that van around at 120 MPH collecting all 60 computers because... Bentley needed those to hack into something??? It wasn’t as bad as the 40 crabs and treasure chests but man. And then of course there’s the section where, oh surprise surprise, Carmelita is in an obvious trap, slamming her fist on the glass, needing to be saved. Bentley warned Sly it was a trap. But of course Sly is like:

OH THANK GOD THE BARREL IS BACK.

Anyway, obvious trap is an obvious trap. Carm just bitches at Sly right as he gets stuck in the glass chamber and is sprayed with RAID. So Bentley has to save his ass. This is possibly the mini game I dislike the most. I just put Bentley on constantly circling mode as he shot down the targets.I died about 9000 times before I won.

Carmen is all Oh I was wrong about you the whole time Sly!

Sly: Duh.

And off we go to the next section where Sly lost his cane and he needs to recover it with Carm’s help. So I’m controlling Carm’s taser gun. Guess how many times I purposefully killed Sly? Many. For funsies. Because the gun magically got faster once I was behind the trigger.

Next section was the whole climb up the beam tower as it’s being consumed by lava! I very much enjoyed this whole climbing bit. It was fun. Again, died a lot and I actually glitched through the walls because I jumped somewhere I wasn’t supposed to and had to kill Sly along the way. But still very fun.

FINALLY.

CLOCKWERK.

Are we serious? Are we actually serious right now? Clockwerk had absolutely no motivation beyond ultimate hate? WHAT?! That’s just... not a satisfying reason ngl. Anyway, the jetpack flying section was probably the easiest thing ever and I loved it. What I didn’t like was the laser section that came after it... I kept dying. Again. FUCK. THOSE. LASERS.

Clockwerk speaking random little words while malfunctioning was super cute those. I don’t why, but I loved it. I was shrieking by the end of everything though because once I got right at the back end, where I’m supposed to jump on this mad owl, I was not expecting the head to jump on me. HHHHHHH!!!

Anyway, I killed Clockwerk dead. Back into the lava you go. Witnessed Sly give Carmelita the slip of the tongue and handcuffed her onto a railing over an active volcano before yeeting himself. Classy. Then back to his old tricks again with the gang. End credits.

NO WAIT.

The last chest. In the Panda section. Yeah I went back for that and got the extra ending.

0. MY RATING::::::::::::::::::::

Honestly, 8 trashcans out of 10. If Clockwerk actually had a believable motive besides hate, I’d give it a higher rating. But the game is satisfying and I love the mechanics of it.

Bentley just needs to chill the fuck up tho. God.

#sly cooper #sly cooper reviews #peep peep #long post

[themattress]

This is my final response to the toxic waste of space that is intotheventures, aka the KH2-hating anon troll who is literally insane over the fact that KH2 is the most beloved game in the franchise. I didn’t want to pollute the KH Trinity blog with more of his nonsensical bullshit.

(BTW the REAL trinity is Birth By Sleep + 1 + Chain of Memories).

That makes no sense whatsoever, because that leaves a blatantly incomplete story.

What is natural about Sora falling to his knees for Riku? Nothing. 

He wasn’t doing to “for Riku”. He did it because he thought Riku was dead, all the evidence he was getting pointed to Riku having died, and he was overcome with relief that Riku, his best friend, was actually still alive after all. It was not an intentionally-written yaoi bait scene, no matter how fans took it.

What did the added AkuRoku scenes in Final Mix add to the story? Nothing. 

I’m not talking about Final Mix, I’m talking about the original KH2.

But yeah, that scene had no purpose being there.

Also “he made me feel like I had a heart” is cringy.

“Cringe” is the new, ill-defined buzzword this clod throws around to bash KH2.

And how is it cringy? It is quite literally saying what Roxas did for Axel.

Have you looked at a single reaction command? Sora chopping a building in half isn’t a shallow “badass” presentation? It’s all style, no substance, it’s more blatant than anything in any other KH game.

Except in KH3 where you get Keyblades that transform into new weapons of ultimate power, can summon fucking Disney World rides to inflict massive damage upon your foes, has Sora running up walls and even jumping on falling boulders, new reaction commands that feature more flashy “badass” moves, shotlocks where there are even MORE “badass” moves to be pulled off (something that was also in BBS), Flowmotion where you’re flying all over the place...literally everything about KH3 is more “all style, no substance” than KH2. It’s right there in front of everyone’s eyes, and you’re only denying it because you are a hypocritical, intellectually dishonest freak.

Sora became more idiotic (he wasn’t this dumb in DDD, contrary to popular belief, he was just blissfully unaware and let his guard down) and hostile, constantly taunting and insulting his opponents for little to no reason (contrary to popular belief, he was not like this in the other games)

“Contrary to popular belief”, and then you don’t back up your claims. Yes, Sora WAS that dumb - no, much dumber -in DDD, and even in KH3 there were more “lol, Sora’s stupid!” moments than in KH2, with his friends constantly mocking him about it. He was also just as hostile toward opponents in KH and COM, including to the point of killing them, and that’s not even factoring in Roxas combining with him at the start of KH2. There is nothing remotely OOC about Sora in KH2, you’re just whining about him not being the pure, positive soul you want him to be

Kairi became a shallow love interest

And yet she had a shit-ton more mitigating qualities than in KH3, which you deny.

Riku was more sullen

Because behaving exactly like the cocky asshole he was before would’ve indicated that he had no remorse for anything he did and had learned nothing, had suffered no consequences. You say “sullen”, I say “human”.

Namine only appeared for brief scenes and had little personality

How is that a problem? KH2 was never meant to be a big Namine-focused game.

Roxas’ angst was really overdone.

Again, no explanation as to how/why.

Personally, I think his angst over being completely fucked over was proportionate.

Too often he just magically solved the problems of various Disney characters, like Simba.

Yes, which he also does in the other games, including KH3. By this logic, he was a Gary-Stu in the original game because he trapped Jafar in the lamp and not Aladdin.

He’s not a Gary-Stu in DDD because he ended up failing the exam after Xehanort rigged it, and his idiocy cost him greater than in KH2.

I’ll give you that one. Riku was the Gary-Stu of 3D, not Sora.

KH3 connects all of the worlds and is better at not having filler.

Again, how/why? You cite no examples, and can’t defend against the MANY examples of people in their reviews of KH3, both text and video, saying how the Disney worlds are probably the biggest case of them being filler yet, as Sora has literally no reason to be messing around in any of them, and what the Organization gets out of them is incredibly nebulous and ultimately doesn’t really matter either. 

 A lot of things are just brought up and either resolved too quickly (like the “I can’t use the Keyblade!” scene or just dropped (”While you’re there, the nature of that world may tempt you to do something dark. You must resist that temptation at all costs!”).

Again, just like almost every other KH game, including/especially KH3.

None of the rest of the cast really contribute anything, most are just plot devices to pad out the character count. Kairi didn’t do anything better than she did in 1, Riku’s screentime was mostly spent lamenting about his very existence, HPO did nothing anyone else couldn’t have done, same with Namine, their roles are mostly interchangeable and obligatory. Plus KH2 had a much larger cast of OCs than KH1 + CoM so it’s a much more glaring flaw.

Kairi, Riku, HPO, Namine, etc. all do things that Sora absolutely could not do and would have failed in his quest without. You are confusing “screentime” with “contributions” - none of them have the screentime Sora does (because he’s the fucking main character), but they all play the roles they are supposed to for the story. Again, not that different from most other games, including KH3 where there’s an even LARGER cast of OCs, and yet you’re constantly defending that game despite it doing the exact same things you perpetually cry about KH2 doing, and usually doing them worse.

Submit your own character: The Organization.

How the fuck are the villains a case of “Submit your own character”?

Sex scene: Obviously none, but Kairi’s panties are close enough. In no other game was she used for fanservice/sex appeal.

The panties weren’t an actually thing you were supposed to see in-game, and if you think she wasn’t used for fanservice/sex appeal with her equally titillating short-skirt design in KH3, you’re fooling yourself. 

“That was undeniable proof that we totally owned you lamers!” (This sounded outdated in 2006)

He’s part of a computer simulation run by an old man. This is how said old man thinks that teenagers actually talk. It’s actually pretty brilliant.

“Sorry, “Mommy”, your poopsies are toast!” (Cringe)

How?

“Hmph, maybe you should have kept some to yourself.” (This maybe fits Riku, but NOT Sora!)

Again, how? 

“You gonna cry?!” (OOC, and doesn’t make sense in context. Frustrated Jacob even made fun of this line.) ”I guess you think you can psych me out by saying really random stuff!” (Like the above, FJ made fun of it.) “Tough talk for someone who stood on the sidelines while his Nobody flunkies did all the fighting!” (WTF)

Basically “Waaah, Sora’s a meanie-head to the poor Nobodies!” Gag me.

“[Maleficent]’s toast.” (Cringe, doesn’t sound cool in the least.)

So “badass presentation” is bad, yet you hate a line if it doesn’t sound “cool”. Got it.

“Lowlife.” (OOC)

HOW? DEFINE your goddamn TERMS, you utter twat!

“I bet you can’t even fight!” (OOC, just sounds like a prick)

“Just give it a rest! You’re Nobodies! You don’t even exist! You’re not sad about anything!” (He says this after meeting Axel, Roxas, and Namine. Plot hole + OOC)

“Then stop moping and DO something!” (later) “Why stick around if he’s not even gonna try?” (later) “C’mon, Goofy.” (This is too OOC to be Sora.)

Again, you want Sora to be perfect and nice to everyone. Got it.

In short, your ranting and raving means nothing. Not to me, not to anyone. You can keep up your insipid KH2-hate posts on your fringe blog, you can keep spamming the same messages in people’s ask boxes when they dare criticize other KH games over KH2, but KH2 is always going to be the most beloved entry in the franchise, KH, COM and KH2 are always going to be the real KH Trinity, and you aren’t changing people’s minds on that. Ever.

And now, to quote the great Ansem the Wise:

We’ve said enough! FAREWELL!

#Disney #Square Enix #Kingdom Hearts #Kingdom Hearts II #Fandumb #Stupidity #Too Dumb to Live #Objection #Correction