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star-shapedfruit · 5 years

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A sort of KH3 review.. thing

Well dang that was a wild ride wasn’t it? It’s been about 2/3 weeks since I finished the game (took me 5 days which is record time for me considering it was a pretty big game) so I’ll try my best to condense my thoughts on it below

Please note this is my opinion so you may agree or disagree with me on some parts and that’s totally fine!

And it’s gonna be long

Alright let’s get the bad out of the way:

-The pacing

I’m not the first and I definitely won’t be the last to complain about the goddamn pacing. Kingdom Hearts in general is pretty bad when it comes to a well balanced pace and this was the same. Everything felt rushed and crammed towards the end with it feeling like ‘quick let’s wrap this up ASAP!’.

It was literally Disney world after world with bits of important story in between and then the actual plot of saving everyone kicked in and probably made up of about 3 hours of the whole game. It could have been better if we’d have rescued Aqua and Ven earlier then towards the end save Roxas, Xion and Terra (and Namine) but nah.

Even the ending itself felt rushed and half assed at times. We didn’t get to see Sora save Kairi it was just Keyblade Graveyard ending- everyone being happy at the beach- credits. That was... kinda dumb? Also when you’re wrapping up a 17 year old saga you don’t tend to end it like that. You know what I’m talking about.

-Characters

They gone did Kairi dirty again. AGAIN. How many times are we gonna do this? My poor girl got shafted right at the end just to fuel Sora’s anger and then didn’t explain how she got back to the islands anyway but who fucking cares y’know.

She was hyped up after being confirmed to be a guardian of light and in training with Lea and they did fuck all with it. It’s like you’re so excited to see Santa and you get up on his knee to ask what present you want this Christmas only for Santa to laugh and smack you in the face.

I could go on and on about Kairi but I’d probably be saying what everyone else has already said. I was expecting more character interactions ie the famous Roxas and Ven one we’ve been looking forward to for years but we got a funny glance and that’s it. Again, probably due to pacing but there was so much potential for some great new friendships to blossom and they just... didn’t.

-Worlds

Ok this is mainly Twilight Town being so teenie weenie. Come on, in KH2 we had TT, Hollow Bastion, TWTNW, Yen Sid’s Tower but for 3? Two sections of TT that’ll do. ??? Why??? It looked gorgeous and I couldn’t wait to explore the whole town but for some reason we were reduced to it being two rooms. Also missed out a good opportunity to have RG playable again but nah.

I get the feeling Disney we’re very pushy with this title? Like they had more input than usual and Square couldn’t really argue with them which would explain why the OG worlds were kinda dull? Idk I hope they learn to butt out a little and let Square do their thing. I’m not saying get rid of Disney god no. I just think there needs to be less Disney and more OG in the next title.

Alright the good stuff now!

- The graphics

Holy shit this game was BEAUTIFUL

Everything was gorgeous to look at and Unreal Engine made all the worlds look unique and specific to their Disney world. Like o can’t fault how this game looks it’s just that pretty

-Voice acting

Hayley, Hayley my man you did fantastic. I was getting worried that he’d sound off like in DDD but the man delivered. Everything was spot on and his emotions came across so much better? That scream? The crying?? The joy?? Beautiful. And Vanitas sounded so goddamn evil and Hayley sounded like he was having a blast voicing him 👌

Jesse did amazing as always with Roxas and Ven making them sound different. Just wish they coulda talked to each other xD I really liked Alyson’s Kairi too! I miss Hayden but for the most part Alyson pulled it off great along with Xion.

Like everyone sounded so much better I could go on and on. Can’t really fault much of the voice acting tbh. Xehanort grew on me but Nimoy will always be the better Nort

-Minigames/side quests

I absolutely SUCK at the cooking mini game but I still found it loads of fun. The only one I could do properly was the salt and pepper shaker one 😅 The 100 Acre Wood stuff was very samey samey but still cute and fun regardless.

I only did one flan mini game (the one in Toy Box) and that was awesome too! Hunting for ingredients and lucky emblems was tricky in parts but I loved the satisfaction when you finally find the damn thing! They were just a nice little touch and even though I only got 17 out of 90 I enjoyed looking for them.

Also that Tangled dancing game. My FAV IDK HOW MANY TIMES I’VE PLAYED THAT ITS JUST SO WHOLESOME AND GOOD

-Attraction Flow

LOVED this gimmick. What can I say I absolutely love Disneyland and being able to use the rides to fight in battle was a blast. I especially loved the mad tea cups (“Bring it in!”) and the pirate ship they were loads of fun :D shame I only got to use Thunder Mountain twice because it’s one of my favourite rides xD

-The gummi phone

Who doesn’t love this. Finally I can take selfies with Disney characters! It was so cute I’m glad they added it. I’m definitely gonna use it more on my next gameplay at inappropriate times during the final battles 🌚

-Final battles

Being able to fight alongside Riku, Mickey, Aqua, Ven, Kairi, Lea, Roxas and Xion was at the top of my wish list for 3 and it finally happened ;-; Ok we’re with Kairi and Lea for two minutes but I ENJOYED THOSE TWO MINUTES. Kairi actually does some decent damage too so she can fight. You did amazing sweetie. And how OP is Roxas? You can just sit back and let him do all the work while you and Xion chill out. Granted they weren’t difficult bosses but I don’t care I got to fight with my sons and daughters by my side <3

I’m nearly done now promise. Just wanna say my favourite worlds ❤️

Corona: Gorgeous and (mostly) tranquil. Rapunzel and Eugene make great partners and the hair swing thing was awesome to jump to different areas. Also the little quests with Rapunzel were adorable and made the world feel more alive.

Monstropolis: I think what made this world for me were the character interactions and the music. The world itself was just inside the factory but the way everyone played off each other and dealt with Vanitas at the end was amazing. And Sora doing his funny face again. You little treasure <3

Toy Box: YOU. ARE. A. TOYYYYYY. Everything was so gigantic and interactive and gsjsksksla it was just loads of fun! Loved Woody and Buzz as partners and the whole world was such a treat- nothing like we’ve ever had in a KH game before. Can we also talk about Woody absolutely wrecking Xehanort though? Iconic.

Well I think that’ll do me for now. Overall I’d give it an 8.5/10 with the major issues being plot pacing and lack of character development. Also the camera sometimes did this weird thing in attraction flow mode where it’d just zoom into a rock or a tree :/ I really enjoyed KH3 despite its flaws and what was done well was done really well

Maybe get some more new writers and let Square properly take the reins for the next one yeah? And let Kairi finally have her time to shine. You’ve set up a rescue mission after all, Square 👀

#kh3 spoilers #kingdom hearts #kh3 #god that was... long. sorry

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tamgerines · 5 years

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KH3 First Impression and Complete Thoughts

BACKGROUND: i've played kh1, com, kh2, bbs, 2.8, and a bit of khux. i've watched coded and 3d on yt, so i know the story relatively well. this is an impression of my first playthrough. i did my run on standard mode and watched the secret ending on yt. i mostly did this for story, so this will have my initial impressions based on my run that will not cover extra content like the phone mini games and cooking. my opinions are subjected to change if i ever do any later playthroughs. pls, feel free to disagree w/ me.

!!! WARNING: THERE WILL BE A LOT OF STORY SPOILERS!!!

AUDIO:

Music: utada is queen!!! that opening song!!! also i kept noticing how lit the songs are in each world esp frozen??? and aqua's. worth a replay just for the soundtrack alone.

Voice Acting: everyone sounded great for the most part. sora’s va have certainly improved and sounds less strained. his vanitas voice has suffered significantly though lolololol. i think i read that someone called it a wannabe dark knight voice? the organization sounded incredible, w/ my fav being xemnas, marluxia, and larxene. the disney and pixar va’s are incredible w/ my fav probably being randall in monster’s inc.

some ppl did not get vas like xaldin and laxeaus. and phil in hercules. which were all very disappointing bc in the scenes that they were in, they would just stand around woodenly, and it’s very noticeable.

VISUALS:

mostly a+. environments are beautiful. water and frost textures are amazing!!! you can really feel that waterga and blizzaga. fur textures in monster's inc. could use some work. little details like the sails moving in potc rly make the worlds come alive. this could be a me prob, but environments in certain worlds make it very hard to see map markers, treasure chests, and disney emblems (which are supposed to be hard to find, but still). mostly in tangled.

strangely enough, this is the only game where i prefer in game graphics to cgi. it's already highly expressive and there's something creepy and uncanny about the cgi esp in the final fight. and it's mostly bc sora's thin chapped lips throughout the entire game suddenly becomes full.

DESIGNS:

i don't love everyone's outfit or sora's outfit changes in this game besides toy story. this is something i alrdy knew going in, but i've always felt like the outfits in kh1 and 2 rly suited each of the character's personalities. and this is not just destiny trio but even chars like roxas, the twilight town kids and the hollow bastion crew. the move towards a uniformed look makes no sense to me like is it to unify the key bearers as one force against the organization? i could understand why destiny trio was wearing plaid but why the twilight town kids also? by the end of the game, almost everyone was wearing black and it's just boring to me. like there's a right way to do uniform while retaining characters' individual looks, and that's the wayfinder trio in bbs. in this game, not so much.

an aside, but i'm sort of disappointed in the hud moving to 3d too. the 2d portraits have always been part of kh so it's kinda a bum to see it go away.

i don't love the lvl designs but it might also be due to a narrative and pacing issue that i'll expand on. any case, vertical maps are a challenge to figure out. i don't consider myself bad at directions but there are so many moments, esp in hercules and tangled where i would be like where the heck do i go next (and i have the map) only for me to look up and find a shotlock teleport point (and this isn't so much a thing that heightens the difficulty but a time waster).

lvls and bosses in previous kh games have always been known for their gimmicks and mechanics, but in this game particularly i found it to be more tedious? and this mostly applies to frozen: who the fuck designed frozen? who the fuck thought it's a good lvl design to have sora climb a mountain, get kick off it twice, and climb it again as good lvl design? who?

all the disney bosses started blending together for me bc they're literally all giant monsters and rly easy. i think the mistake here is the fact that the disney worlds are put back to back whereas in kh1/2/bbs you have the interruption of original worlds and an actually playable important parts to the main story, in this game all the important storyline in radiant garden are locked in cutscenes interspersed throughout the game between finishing disney worlds.

a lot of ppl might disagree w this, but i miss the cinematic reaction commands and limit attacks. we still have them but i find them to be on a much smaller scale in the form of drive finishers and situation commands, but i find them to be less imaginative in kh3 in order to be less """"disruptive""" to the gameplay. i've always found cinematics charming in previous games as a way to show sora interacting with his party members during combat. little things like beast putting a hand on sora's shoulder, aladdin leaning on him, or riku bumping his fist have a way of making the friendships he forms feel organic. outside of link commands/ summons, in this game, he........just throws a lot of ppl around or is thrown around?

GAMEPLAY:

already sort of went through parts of it in the previous section, but overall combat was smooth. i love how mobile sora is in this game. the improvement to his running speed and addition of all the mobile skills like dodge roll, super slide, flow motion, blizzard skating, etc. makes combat feel fast paced and juking so easy.

magic is super improved on ever since 2.8 and feels satisfying to use esp bc i feel like ur given a lot more mp now and with the ability to save the last of your mana for cure, it feels like you're not always budgeting your magic.

underwater combat was smoother than i expected.

it's a mistake putting almost all the commands on the triangle button. there's so much options you can do in combat and you'd mean to activate one thing, but then an attraction flow comes out and you just want to die. it gets a bit easier as i went on and got more used to the controls, but in general, i still think it's a mistake to not to have an ability or something to disable certain features like in kh2 fm.

gummy ships continue to be a thing. why. i don’t like how i have to turn the camera myself now ;;;.

i'm not a speedrunner or anything, so i can't say too much else about fighting. the physical combos to me did feel like he was spinning a bit too much tho.

STORY: oh, fucking boy.

i'm not mad, i'm not disappointed, and i'm not even surprised. i already knew that post bbs, kh has already departed far from the franchise i loved as a kid and still today, at least story wise. but let's walk through it.

Disney Worlds: the disney worlds was literally a retelling of their movies. and unlike in kh2 and bbs, where visits to disney worlds were split into two parts, with the first part following the disney story and the second part being heavily tied to the main kh story and thus having original content, the disney worlds in kh3 only get one long visit. and the integration of kh into disney was just done so poorly. remember how kh villains used to kidnap princesses? remember how they used to actually conspire to take disney characters' hearts and turn them dark? remember, you know, when they were still evil and actually interfered with the worlds? in almost every world in kh3, an org member just comes says vague menacing things to sora, calls him stupid, and then leaves. yeah. and oh, maleficent and pete looks for a black box only to not find it, and leaves. AND THEY DON'T DO ANYTHING ELSE FOR THE REST OF THE GAME.

the pixar worlds + bh6 were the only ones with any actual new content and they feel so fresh. i esp loveeeeeeeed toy story omg. the script was so good, funny, and heartwarming. the pixar consultants should have helped kh all the way tbh.

like previous games, there's an attempt for each disney world to thematically tie into the main kh story. in this game, it was as heavy handed as ever, probably even more so.

Original Worlds: onto the meat of kh, the main story was rushed up until the end. you have a slew of disney worlds, then bam, they slam you with all the human bosses and the important story stuff.

the ‘awakening’ of roxas, xion, and ventus were very rushed. you literally have one moment they’re no there then two seconds of white screen and all of a sudden they’re there.

there’s a shit ton of shoehorned character redemption arcs: vexen, demyx, saix, eraqus, xehanort, xemnas, ansem. all were done either offscreen or by some miracle, they reached an epiphany after sora beat his keyblade into their heads.

the only death scene that i actually liked, that a lot of ppl complained about, was vanitas bc yes, although i thought his character had so much potential, it was at least a consistent and sympathetic death. bless him, born a villain die a villain. same with xemnas bc i loved his last speech.

xehanort was a shitty villain through and through. no one understood his motivation; it’s like nomura took a page from thanos’ guide of how to write villains, gave him some stupid ass goal to have a keyblade war to restart the world, and then just have him...get everything he wanted? his estranged friend comes back in ghost form for whatever reason and is just like ok we’re cool man even tho u took my student and indirectly murdered me and then gets taken up to heart heaven, like O K. and like what’s the most frustrating is that it’s implied they’re keeping him as a villain??? bc fucking ymx is like ooohh imma just go back to my own time via time travel. it’s too late for u sora hurdur.

and the younger members of the organization, the ones that we do know were in khux. we don’t get to know how they became nobodies and they don’t get a redemption??? really???

you can tell they tried, TRIED, hard to give everyone closure. and they miserably failed to close plot points. they actually opened more. who the fuck is the unnamed girl in lea and isa’s storyline? why the fuck did you mention her if you were going to play the pronoun game and not name her??? what the fuck was in the black box??? why are they looking for it when no one know what’s in it??? why the fuck was repliku inside of riku the whole fucking time??? why have org members be norted if they can still have agency and choose to betray xehanort??? why the fuck was BOTH sora and riku in different worlds in the secret ending????? ? ? ?

and tho i’m very glad that wayfinder and sea salt trios get their happy ending, the destiny trio had their characters assassinated. kairi was teased to become an independent character of her own and fight alongside sora, only to get shafted to become a damsel in distress, again, literally replaced by xion in one of the last battles, AND referred to as ‘motivation’ for sora by xehanort lol. sora, the guy who’s always going my friends are my power, ONLY grieves about losing kairi, accrediting all of his strength ONLY TO HER. riku, who spent the first game desperately trying to get kairi’s heart back, and who protected her from saix in the second, suddenly doesn’t give a shit about her and is just there as sora’s moral support. it’s so frustrating that nomura has the audacity to say that this series is primarily about friendship and then pull this shit lol. it’s transparent.

CONCLUSION:

i think for me, the quintessential kh trilogy has always been kh1, com, and kh2. as far as i’m concerned, the story should have ended there for destiny trio. and it’s like nomura said, how he feels more sympathetic towards villains now, i think nomura’s ideas have outgrown his main character.

sora’s journey worked in 1, com, and 2 because he had an overarching goal to find kairi and riku and return home. not everyone has to understand heartless vs. nobodies or dark vs. light but at least, anyone can understand the desperation of saving your friends. when that framework is taken away, sora’s goals and motivations become unclear; he’s a kid and has little reason to be caught up in xehanort’s plans, the keyblade war, or the organization’s agendas. and his failure to grow with the increasing complexity of the plot, to investigate for himself the bigger picture or even come into a similar realization of his own darkness/ balance like riku, makes him unfit; he’s a reactionary character instead of an active one. that’s why this game, being experienced from his point of view, felt mostly like a catch up to speed for sora and a set up to nomura’s next big thing instead of a genuine ending. i honestly don’t think nomura knows what to do with him and with kingdom hearts anymore.

kh3 is a game wrapped in nostalgia and promised something bigger than it could fulfill. and aside from better graphics and improved gameplay, the story wasn’t worth the wait.

#kh3 spoilers #my thoughts #i didnt mean for my ramblings to get so long but #yeah im im sad

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hashtagkairideservedbetter · 5 years

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My main issue(s) with KH3

Spoilers abound, so please don’t read if you haven’t beaten the game or don’t want any negative opinions influencing how you see the ending/ the game. I did enjoy several parts of KH3, but this post is focused on things I had issues with, and if you don’t want to see criticism of your media please look elsewhere.

This is how I interpreted the game as someone coming into KH3 with KH2 being the last game I played, and a playlist of youtube videos spanning lets plays, summaries, and humorous deconstructions as a codex.

Here’s the thing. I’ve seen several people already break down how KH3′s story and pacing could have been handled better. Specifically, to more comprehensively tie in the 10,000 plot points that needed to be covered in a way that actually helps connect the main characters. I’m not going to get into all of that, because frankly I can’t fake knowing enough about the background lore of Kingdom Hearts to know how to better juggle all of the intermediary games into KH3.

Most of my grievances honestly lie with the handling of the Destiny Trio and the Disney Worlds.

I’m going to do a read more on this because it’s gonna be a long one. (Also very much a train of thought, so disorganized, sorry).

So. Sora. Protagonist of the game (mostly. kind of?).

A cheerful ray of sunshine.

A Keyblade wielder who has overcome traumatizing ordeals that tore him away from all he loved and knew at least twice now for over three years.

A continuity disaster stuck being pinballed back and forth between happy goofs and hollow tragedies every thirty minutes in between busywork battles and off-scene disney films for 85% of KH3.

I understand that Sora’s greatest power is supposed to be his optimism, as it’s sort of the prerequisite for going through disney worlds where people sing about their problems. I get it.

However, there’s a difference between, “I’m naive and happy and oblivious and that’s why I’m a guardian of the light,” and “I have battled true darkness and felt true loss and decided that choosing to be kind, choosing to embrace joy in new experiences and relationships, is a bigger middle finger to the darkness than anything else.” Guess which one I prefer. Guess which one I was thinking would finally be Sora’s character arc. Instead he’s happy, happy, happy, happy... and then suddenly in the eleventh hour having a mental breakdown.

Sora is written into a loop every game of kind, naive, but unchanging (”Don’t ever change, Sora”). That was endearing when we were both 14, but after almost twenty years it gets tiring to watch Sora get hit with a reset button every time you meet up with him again. There’s a scene in the gummi ship early on in the games where Donald asks Sora to “take this seriously,” and Goofy remarks that they seem to be stuck in a rut as Donald and Sora have the same conversation over and over again before entering the first series of Disney worlds. Sora knows he needs the power of waking in order to help his friends and free those trapped in his heart, but seems content to just drop into various worlds and wing it, and hope that it all sort of works out.

And then when it does work out, and Sora uses the power to save everyone, he’s immediately told he’s doomed now? Like, what was the point of him being able to use this to connect with people if he’s doomed. Why did they want him to have this. What’s the point then of Sora having these strong connections.

Each world makes a big scene about the friendships and connections that Sora makes so easily, but in KH3 there never seems to be enough time for Sora to actually pay them any attention unless the person is right in front of him. Sora seems to make connections for the sake of making connections in KH3, and the ones he has, he does very little to advance or reconnect with.

Like, the whole point of 100 Acre Wood this time was apparently that Sora’s connection to Pooh was weaker for some reason. I honestly didn’t understand the reason or how it was magically resolved just from Sora showing up and saying hi? But whatever.

My two least favorite worlds were Corona and Arendelle, for the same reason. There was no believable connection between Sora and the characters there. For fuck’s sake, the combat ally you get in Arendelle is the snow monster, not even a main character.

Sora is like the living embodiment of the B99 clip of Rosa with her dog. He just met Elsa and spoke a whopping five sentences to her, but damn if he won’t climb a mountain five times just for her to save herself without ever talking to him again. Like, literally that is the only interaction Sora has with Elsa. Same thing with Anna, and in her case I literally had to mute my tv so I could track what she was actually saying since they decided to shove two songs from the movie into this game.

You spend the majority of your time in these worlds trying to play catch up to the leads as they have their movie play out around the bend in the road in front of you, out of your sight. Props to Disney’s ego that they think I remember the beat by beat plots of their films when they came out 9 years ago (Tangled) and 6 years ago (Frozen). I actually had the thought of going and watching Tangled just to remember what Flynn and Rapunzel got up to while Sora wandered around a marsh and had a pointless conversation with Marluxia.

(Also, getting real tired of the “Good to see you Sora” “Who the fuck are you?” “Oh that’s right you don’t remember that game haha it’s fine it was a gameboy game nobody even knows what those are anymore.” That shit was getting old midway through KH2.)

To be fair, the PoTC world suffers from the same problem as the other two. Sora shows up, sees everyone for thirty seconds, gets separated, and while we’re dicking around trying to find white crabs on the islands there’s a whole movie going on that we don’t see or participate in. I feel really bad for anyone who did not keep up with that franchise because I only watched the third movie the once and I was confused as hell. Also, the whole time I was finding the crabs in Port Royal all I could think about was this ProZD video.

I just. I’m 26 years old. These movies hold no nostalgia for me, and maybe that’s the problem. I already had a connection to Aladdin, Peter Pan, etc, so I was maybe more willing to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the interactions. But those Disney worlds also felt more tied in to the plot. You can make the argument of Marluxia and Larxene putting pressure on Sora to find the Wayfinders so that six princesses of heart aren’t used as backup... but where are the other three? Anna, Elsa, Rapunzel, and Kairi make four. Where’s Merida, Tiana, Moana? Mulan or Pocahontas even, since Moana was probably too recent. (But probs not, as it was probably starting development in 2014). If that’s going to be yet another subplot, shouldn’t you at least see it through?

My point is, I can distinctly recall prior games mostly keeping to the established script in the disney worlds, but still letting Sora really get in there and interact with the characters. The heartless, nobodies, etc were a real wrench in the works for the plots, and had an actual effect on how the story was told and the order of events. Sora felt more involved in cutscenes and was an active participant in the world’s events instead of just a bystander.

In KH1 and KH2 there was a dialogue happening between the villain of each world and a greater evil. Hell, in KH1 they were a unified council! In KH3 they’re puppets who don’t even talk to the bigger bad like Randall or Mother Gothel, or are there for a whopping thirty seconds like Hans. It makes it more and more obvious that the Disney worlds are just being shoehorned in as a contractual obligation than for any real purpose anymore.

The only world that’s appeared in all three games, Olympus, was especially jarring. Like, you could tell there was a lot of corners cut on what VAs they could get for this game, as Phil does not speak once. Meg spends more time making eyes at Hercules and nodding than showing any of the sass she has from the film. (This was a thing in KH2 as well tho so I can’t complain about them continuing to drop the ball on even background women characters-- Oh wait, I can, because they’ve had T H I R T E E N YEARS to get it right.)

Which I guess is as good a segue as any into Kairi Time.

Listen. Did I mention I’m 26? Yeah. I started reading fanfic on livejournal. I was there when AO3 first got its start. I’ve seen the shipping wars. I know the dark past of Soriku vs Sokai.

I couldn’t give less of a fuck.

These characters are still 16 and I am now 26. I’m fine with them trading noogies and maybe being able to kick back and play some Mario Kart. Kairi would wipe the floor with both of them because she had time to get good enough to beat Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie combined between KH1 and KH2.

The point is, I don't care one way or the other about shipping. If my 15 year old self were here, they would be horrified I wasn't over the moon when Kairi and Sora finally shared the paopu fruit. As it is, I kind of stared blankly at my screen and went 'huh, there's gonna be a lot of fanfic fixing this moment.' From both sides, I think, because even if you're into Sokai you gotta admit that moment did not feel romantic. It felt forced. Like "Oh hey, we've been putting this off, huh. Welp, here we go!"

It doesn't help that I really, truly, don't like whoever Kairi's VA is in this game. Like, she sounds so ditzy and soft. Get that shit out of here. The dialogue and voice acting in this series has never been its strength, but honestly, I cringed my way through every interaction between Kairi and Axel because of how stilted and bad their conversations were! I’m definitely not saying that Kairi’s voice was stellar in 1 and 2, but at least her voice was clear, and had personality, and by the end of 2 was actually fairly strong. She sounded strong, and determined to be fighting with Sora and Riku, green as she was then, in the World That Never Was.

Whenever she talked in the third one I just sort of grit my teeth and wondered why someone on the production team wanted Kairi to sound so weak.

Then they killed her at the labyrinth and I said, ‘Ah, that tracks.’

I played FFXV, so I guess shame on me for not seeing the signs when the girl love interest is about to be capable and not needing the hero to save her. She gets taken! And killed. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I actually saw people excited about that Verum Rex thing and after seeing the Noctis ripoff reaching for the Luna ripoff covered in purple light I laughed, and laughed. And then sighed and reached for a stiff drink.

All this to say that while I’m angry but not truly surprised that Kairi was once again shafted, I’m all the more pissed that they did it in the laziest, most insulting way possible by hinging it all on Sora needing a reason to fight Xehanort. Like, really???? Really. That’s your angle. The man-pain trope is so painfully overdone. Please. It’s 2019. Come into the future with us, Nomura.

And I feel bad that all of the stuff I just wrote mostly revolves around Kairi being Sora’s romantic interest. But that’s because that’s all this game allowed her to be! Princess of light what? Bequeathed Keyblade wielder in her own right who??? Every battle she and Axel share with Sora they get their asses kicked in 30 seconds flat, so maybe Merlin should have left them suspended in time a little longer. Maybe long enough to convince someone out there in the universe that these two deserved to be competent.

Hell, not just competent. Amazing. Kairi deserved to be able to stand on her own two feet and hold her own. To be running alongside her boys and not just be an object for them to tussle over or save. As Aqua’s somewhat successor, she deserved to be a terrifying wielder of battle magicks and flurries of light magic.

To be replaced by Xion was just insult to injury. Like, I’m very happy that Xion got her heart back and was reunited with Roxas and Axel, but she didn’t need to be brought back at Kairi’s expense. The world won’t implode if the replica and actual person inhabit the same space.

Which is leads us to our third member.

Riku. To be fair. Riku got the most growth as a person out of the three of these kids, easy. We finally see a Riku who is confident in himself and his journey, and willing to take everything he learned along the way to help Mickey, Aqua, and even his own replica. However....

He doesn’t seem to give two shits about Kairi anymore? Did they even talk, like, once during the whole game? I can’t recall a single instance where Sora, Kairi, and Riku were in the same place together where it was just them, and they held an actual conversation. Hell, where they even said “Hi, how’s it going? What have you learned, had any good food lately?”

God, even when Kairi was taken, and then when she was killed, Riku had one moment of anger, and then was completely, like, chill again, and back to talking Sora down. Like, what? I don’t want any love triangle bullshit, but Riku and Kairi were friends as much as Sora and Kairi and Sora and Riku are friends.

And that’s what bothered me the most about the disappearance of Kairi introducing this bullshit narrative of Sora abusing his power of waking. He spent two games trying to get him, Riku, and Kairi together. But he doesn’t want Riku to help him get Kairi back? And Riku’s just going to let him go?! After all Riku has done and learned about falling to darkness and clawing yourself back to light and peace, he’s just going to let Sora do the same?

I call bullshit.

And this is why when Sora suddenly faded out of view on the beach next to Kairi I slowly leaned back in my chair, dropped my controller into my lap, and flipped off my tv screen with both hands.

#vent #kh3 spoilers #kh3 #writing criticism #give these kids the happy ending they deserve #they can be paired in any combo you want #but let them be happy

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lia-snow · 7 years

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My 10 Fave Babes of All Time

Tagged by @faecakes. Thanks! (I loved your selection btw~).

I think I did this one a while ago but I took the chance to make this my first drawings of the year :pp to start warming up again ww. These are in no particular order.

1. Horokeu Usui (HoroHoro) / Shaman King.

Horo was probably my first masive 2D crush. I obsessed over him like a psycho lol. I learned every single little thing about him (and I mean trivial stuff like... the exact numbre of frame, page and volume for his first appearance xd), the meaning of his name, the name of his techniques (which were in Ainu). Oh, and also, SEIYUUS! Horo started my obsession with making seiyuu connections x) (I was never really fan of Ueda Yuuji, tho). And I really admired Horo... I felt he was like my soulmate, my perfect husbando. So, based on priority right, he should be like my #1 bae :')

2. Hinata Hideki / Angel Beats! & Kuga Aki / Kamisama Dolls.

I'm putting them together because they're both special characters to me for the same reason: I knew Kimura Ryouhei because of them, and I loved him from the very beginning. Coincidentally, I started watching Angel Beats and Kamisama Dolls at the same time, and the contrast between these two characters, voiced by the same seiyuu, made me fall in love completely. They're both so different. Hinata is a bright, loyal, energetic boy while Aki is this manipulative, rude, meticulous, violent guy (though he's also super calm and indifferent about certain things). Hinata had me loving his voice changes whenever he was put into ridiculous and funny situations while Aki got me melting becasue of his manic laugh. I love Hinata & Aki both as characters, not just because of Kimura, but they're the perfect examples of why KimuRyou is my fav seiyuu <3 <3

3. Kise Ryouta / Kuroko no Basket.

Oh boy..... my love for this man burns like a thousand suns bursting, ISTG. He's too pure too good to pretty too shiny too precious for this world. Ok, I admit... Kimura Ryouhei is partly at fault here lol. Kise actually reminded me a lot of Hinata and I liked him from the start too, but soon I started loving every single little thing about him. He's introduced a little as an arrogant dude but soon enough comes to change after his loss against Seirin (I loved it when he cried sddsffg). He's like the cheerful, carefree member of the group, but he also shows so much determination, strength, and even selfishness. But I really think he's the most admirable of the Generation of Miracles. And he's so pretty I wanna cry everytime I see him, sob.

4. Judal / Magi.

Yes, the Kimura Ryouhei syndrome continues... but I swear it's coincidence(?). Judal caught my eye since I saw him in the opening (that sequence when he's falling, grabs a white rukh and turns it black it's mesmerizing), but when he was finally introduced in the show, I WAS DOOMED FOREVER. Goddamn, I loved his personality. Even if he's a little bit of a psycho, I loved his childish arrogant attitude. He's like my twisted son ♥ Except... not really a son, because... he makes me feel things 6//6 (???). Aahaahgsdjhk yes yes ok, I love his design, really, L O V E I T ♥ ♥. His long braid, those beautiful ringed eyes, the makeup on them, the necklace and bracelets, that crop top, those abs, DAT WAISTLINE aksjdhjkashdkjhgasgasd ⁄(⁄ ⁄ ⁄ Д ⁄ ⁄ ⁄)⁄ He needs his own manga, there's just never enough Judal in my life.

5. Nozaki Umetarou / Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun.

I've said this before, but it me. Nozaki is me, I am Nozaki (except I'm not tall and handsome lol). Looks cold, mostly serious, suuupr dense in some subjects (specially about love and romance), zero experience in love... but somehow still makes love stories! His shoujo manga is terrible haha but he's surprisingly popular as mangaka in spite of that x) I bet if I were to draw a manga it would be as ridiculous as his (or if my comics serve as an example... well, there ww). He has this stoic aspect, but he makes the most idiotic faces when he gets excited too~ I think Nozaki is more socially skilled than me but we're both awkward anymway(?) xD. He's my spirit animal ♥

6. Netherlands & Finland / Hetalia.

Ah, my time in the Hetalia fandom... feels so distant :') Italy was my fav at first but then I started roleplaying Fin (the first chara I ever roleplayed) and my love for him kept growing from there. He was just too adorbs <3 I got to know a lot of super nice people, both on the internet and irl, because of him. Also, back then I listened to lot of metal music, and I always pictured Fin as a secret metalhead xD And then Netherlands... I don't remember exactly how I started liking him, I remember they released the chara design, stuff happened, and then there I was cosplaying the dude. Hahaha ah, even though I loved Fin, I couldn't identify with him cause he's super cute, happy and lovable; but Netherlands was more like me~ Stoic, cold, tsundere. Over time, Netherlands became my favorite over Fin, but they're both special.

7. Furukawa Nagisa / CLANNAD.

My precious child. The purest girl ever created. A National treasure, istg. She's not the type of female characters that I usually like, but somehow she got me from the start. She's too adorable, sweet, innocent and good. She's just too good!!!!!!! She's always caring for others, always supportive of her friends, and tries her best even though she's phisically weak and lacks confidence. She's so strong and admirable, she makes my heart melt. CLANNAD made me cry rivers and hit me hard when... well, when After Story happened. She's the type of character that I want to protect from all evil. I also LOVED Nakahara Mai's performance as Nagisa, btw. I kept watching her scenes over and over just to listen to the cutest voice akjshd <3 I really love this child ;//;

8. Licht Jekylland Todoroki & Lawless / Servamp.

Well, as you would expect x) It's probably obvious that I love them both so hard. And I want to clear up for the records that it's not just because I love them together, or the homo hints flying all over the place between them. I love them both as separated characters. I really admire Licht. His resolution, his unbreakable spirit, his attitude, the hard worker he is, his strength, his pure innocence about the things he loves, his vision, his badassness, his frankness, his creativity... He's a gem, the type of person I could never be :') ALSO, HE'S HOT AF. Lawless is so beautiful. He deserves the universe. I feel him more in a spirital way. How he lost faith in everything, how meaningless lives seemed to him, the vicious cycle he was in. But the fact he's able to change that (with Licht's help) is truly touching and praiseworthy. He made a deep impression in me. Ah, and of course, his flamboyant personality! He's such a dork ahah xD I love his nerdy side, his energy, even his bragging. And the fact that he can literally go from hotdamn vampire to cute hedgy in no time is amazing xD ♥ Also, his voice.... yeah, you know this by this point, but the fact he's voiced by Kimura Ryouhei makes him even more perfect than he already was (everytime I listen to the Drama CDs, I literally have to go back and listen to his lines again because kjahsdjkg perfection in my ears). So yeah, I love my boys ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

9. Morgiana / Magi.

Ah, Morgiana ♥ ♥ The ultimate example of the type of female character that I like. She's strong, kind, determined, tough, has a strong sense of justce, needs no one to do shit for her, BUT she's not arrogant, aggresive or extravagant herself. She's quite, starightforward and helpful. But she's also soooo adorable and cute!! The way she puffs up her cheeks when she's mad, her smile, the little tears on her eyes when he was encouraged by Hakuryuu, her happy face, the way she dances around wearing that exotic outfit... man she is gorgeous, she's amazing, she's a goddess. And dem kicks, THE KIIICCCKKKS, god she's a BADASS. She seriously became like a prototype of my perfect gurl. No kidding, after her, everytime there's a badass fem chara that I like, I call her "a Morgiana". And I know she's probs being "controlled" by Sinbad in the manga right now, but I cried when she said she has come to love herself because of all the time she's been with Alibaba. I'M SO PROUD OF HER <//333

10. Special mention to: EVERY KIMURA RYOUHEI CHARACTER.

Agh, I just.... it's amazing how without a miss, characters voiced by Kimura always become my favourite. I always love them, for one reason or another. I mean, I have other seiyuus I love too (Kaji Yuki, Nakamura Yuuichi, Ishikawa Kaito, Sugita Tomokazu, Kamiyan....), but I don't always like their characters. But with Kimura, I ALWAYS do. I don't know all of his roles, obviously, but here's some that I absolutely love:

- Special mention 2: Jorah Mormont, Eddard Stark, Jon Snow. Because I love GoT, and these are my favs, but I can't draw real people ww.

I’m tagging @pastenaga, @stars-glow-for-you, @adeslowmoqueen, @rhomilch & @reimeijennoir~ Feel free to do it if you want uvu/ Don’t worry guys, you don’t have to draw the charas to do this www Actually, you don’t have to write anything about them either lol my hand slipped(?)

#Personal note #meme #long post #sorry about that #didn't feel like putting everything under the Read More tag #tl;dr #horohoro #hinata hideki #kuga aki #etc....(?)

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