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Offline pokepal148

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Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« on: May 08, 2018, 11:16:34 PM »
I'm playing Kingdom Hearts for the first time. Now I've heard great things about the storytelling in these games (such as "Just skip the cutscenes and enjoy the gameplay" and "This **** is more over complicated than Metal Gear Solid.") so I'm going to take notes to make understanding this more easy and dump them here. Let's get started with Birth By Sleep which is apparently the first game in the series chronologically. What could possibly go wrong?


So the bald guy is Xehanort, the masked guy is Vaniatis (who also goes by the name Edgey for a decent part of this because this game drags it's feet on giving names to it's characters,) the blue haired chick is Aqua, the big brown haired one is Terra, and the spikey haired one is named Ventus.



-Bad Anime opening with pop music is bad. It takes 30 seconds for anything actually disney related to show up amd it's stained glass windows with Disney Princesses on it. No sign of Mickey Mouse in this mess either.

-Some guy with grey hair claiming that this world is too small. Now guy with grey hair is replaced by guy in black cloak holding what appears to be a giant white body pillow.

-Body Pillow turns out to be a sleeping Anime boy in a white cloak. Now he's a shirtless anime boy floating around a void.

-apparently anime boy has merged his heart with another heart. No attempt at an explanation of what the hell is going on is made whatsoever.

-"and one day, you'll be strong enough to win back the part that already did." #qualitywriting

Anime boy summons a keyblade to the amazement of the old guy in a black cloak who started smiling for some reason. also stars.

Anime boy wakes up in a bed somewhere with a shirt on. He's apparently really happy because there's a meteor shower.

Apparently we are in a place called the land of departure which is useful, but we still don't know anime boy's name and that seems more important.

In the land of departure building architecture makes no sense.

-Gameplay begins at last! Combat tutorial.

-this is the worst meteor shower I've ever seen.

WE HAVE ANIME BOY'S NAME! HIS NAME IS VEN!

Supposedly Ven is friends with a girl named Aqua and a guy named Terra. I say supposedly because their interactions are robotic and unnatural as hell.

This Lip Sync is terrible.

Apparently each star is it's own world or something like that.

Apparently Terra and Aqua have a Mark of Mastery exam tomorrow.

Aqua made good luck charms. apparently they are modeled after a star shaped fruit that represents an unbreakable connection. If I was making a good luck charm I wouldn't model it after a fruit. Just saying.

Apparently they aren't even real good luck charms. I'm glad we're wasting time with this. They do have a gameplay thing though.

Supposedly this is the last night they ever spent under the same stars.

New Cutscene. Oh hey, Mickey Mouse finally showed up. He's surfing on a book for some reason.

some wizard guy tells mickey something terrible is about to happen. Cutscene ends. What a good, useful cutscene that was totally not a waste of time.

Apparently we're doing a character select now, ala Sonic Adventure. I chose "Ven" whose real name was apparently actually Ventus.

Ventus's story starts with Terra and Aqua's Mark of Mastery exam for reasons. Some old guy named Master Xehanort who is totally not evil, I swear, please ignore the evil looking stuff he was shown doing in the anime opening. It's not important

Apparently the mark of mastery exam is just "go beat up these balls of light." But Xehanort surrounds the balls of light with darkness so now they're evil balls of light.

Apparently keyblade master guy is voiced by Mark Hamill. Also Aqua and Terra are sparring for some reason

Terra apparently failed the keyblade test thing because darkness.

Xehanort talks to some evil looking dude about Ventus for some reason.

Evil looking dude tells Ventus that Terra is about to ditch him. Ventus responds by waving around a wooden sword. I'm not making this up. He than decides to believe evil dude after a flashback of him and terra being unnatural looking friends.

Terra dons what appears to be magic keyblade armor, turns his keyblade into a magic flying bike and flys away. Ventus turns his keyblade into a flying surfboard and follows suit. I can't make this **** up

Aqua tells Ventus to wait but he doesn't for some reason and follows terra into a portal. Apparently he listens to evil dude he just met but not his friend.


Ventus emerges in a new world and is utterly amazed to see the seven dwarves. He decides terra isn't that important and follows them. The dwarves call him a diamond thief and Ventus calls them out over this. After a little gameplay they tell him to go bug people in a castle.

On his way to the castle Ventus runs into Snow White. After an escort mission and some Disney fanservice she mentions seeing someone else with a keyblade.


Well that's it folks. That's the story of kingdom hearts so far. People seem to think this is some crazy, difficult ro follow narrative but it seems simple enough.

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2018, 12:29:13 AM »
What could possibly go wrong?

You could put everything in a quote box which has a smaller font making it tougher to read.
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2018, 09:16:01 PM »
Moar story!

after a boss battle It's revealed that someone pointed a keyblade at the villian of Snow White. Terra gives up on searching the castle for some reason and leaves for another world

-Cinderella world. "Castle of Dreams."


Roxas shrank for some reason and met Cinderella, who mistook him for a mouse.

Jaq (an actual mouse from Cinderella) informs Roxas that Cinderella has a dream, causing Roxas to think about how Terra dreams of being a keyblade master.

Roxas goes looking for pieces to make Cinderella's Dress, eventually culminating in a pretty neat boss fight with a cat.

With the dress completed Cinderella goes off to the ball.

Jaq asks Ventus about his dream, Ventus reveals that his dream is to become a keyblade master. He remarks that he just has to "keep on believing" throwing stuff like hard work and long hours of study and sword practice completely out the window.

-Sleeping Beauty world, "enchanted domain"-


Ventus encounters Sleeping Beauty and decides to help her out. Who cares about Terra anyways.

Apparently Aurora is sleeping because Maleficent stole her heart. The Three Good Fairies agree to help Ventus go after her.

Maleficent apparently put up a wall of fire to keep people away from her castle.

Maleficent also apparently realized that the unversed are freaking useless and hired her own henchmen

Ventus finds Aurora's heart and has a flashback of Prince Charming and Aurora.

Maleficent shows up and claims that Terra was the one who stole Aurora's Heart. Cue Boss Fight

Maleficent continues to claim that Terra stole Aurora's Heart but Aqua shows up and claims otherwise.

Aqua tries to talk some sense into Ventus but he flashes back to that dark boy from yesterday and chooses to once again believe evil looking dude over his """Friend"""

-somewhere-

Cut to Xehanort talking to some dude. We don't know what they're saying because Nomura is a horrible storyteller who thinks having people talk but we can't hear what they say at all is a good cinematic technique but the guy he's talking to smiles.

-in the sky between worlds.-

Edgy the dark boy shows up and leads Ventus to some other place and this is TOTALLY NOT A TRAP!


Edgey summons a keyblade and they fight. It's a boss fight that Ventus is rigged to lose because that's good game design. Also edgey breaks your lock on every half a second because good game design

Edgey blasts Ventus but he is saved by Mickey Mouse, who claims that Keyblades aren't supposed to be used "Just to bully somebody around"

 The game refers to Mickey as "the newcomer" and acts like we don't know who Mickey Mouse is. They go and bully edgey around two against one, proving Mickey to be a hypocrite.

Mickey is apparently training to use a keyblade under Yen Sid (whose name spelled backwards is Disney, just like Eraqus's name is Square spelled backwards with the Q and the U flipped.isn't that clever?)

Mickey decided that surfboards are lame and travels around with a magic rock, except he can't control his magic rock and it kind of just randomly warps him to places. Great job buddy.

The Rock sends Mickey away and Ventus decides to go to a place called Radiant Garden.

-Radiant Garden-


Ventus spots Mickey here. I guess the idea is that the rock sent them both here except it dropped me off at the world select over radiant garden. Like there is no explanation of

Ventus meets some guards at a castle after losing track of Mickey and they kick him out. Then some monster shows up and Ventus runs off to bully it around with his keyblade even though it hasn't done done anything yet.

Some guy named Even shows up and says that Ventus is a special case (I agree) and then starts talking about "A heart devoid of Darkness" or some **** before saying "very questionable" and walking off.

Ventus finds the monster attacking Scrooge Mcduck and throws his keyblade at it.

Scrooge reveals he came from another world and was brought here by a wizard named Merlin. He also gives Ventus 3 lifetime passports to a place called Disney Town as thanks for saving him.

While chasing the monster Ventus runs into a wizard named Merlin who tells him about a book. Rather than do anything useful to the plot the book just unlocks a command deck.

Terra and Aqua show up and two monsters they were chasing join up with Ventus's monster to form one big super monster that they all bully with their keyblades.

Aqua again tries to get Ventus to go home but Ventus claims that Edgey is history even though edgey walked away perfectly fine. Terra says that edgey's real name is Vaniatis and tries to get Ventus to go home.

Terra claims that he has a dangerous task ahead of him. Aqua questions what this dangerous task could be, claiming it doesn't sound like something the master told him to do.

Aqua questions Terra's claims that he's fighting the darkness, saying that she's been to the same worlds he has and has seen what Terra has done. She claims terra shouldn't put himself so close to the darkness.

After Ventus gives a line about how "Terra would never!" Terra calls out Aqua for spying on him and asks if that was what the master ordered him to do.

Terra basically tells everyone to **** off and claims he's on his own now. Ventus calls Aqua "awful" for no real reason but Aqua claims that the master still loves terra.

Ventus claims that Aqua has let being a keyblade master go to her head because he apparently doesn't like that of the three she is easily the most reasonable one here. He then claims that he's going to go find Terra.

Ventus runs into some boy in a labcoat who is being attacked by some unversed. The unversed are the pointless monsters you fight in this game btw. They're kind of useless and nobody seems to acknowledge that they exist.

Even shows up and claims the boy's name is Ienzo. He also claims that Ienzo's parents "are not here" to raise him. Gee Even, maybe if you didn't mention that his parents were gone to everyone you met he wouldn't have run away.

Even claims he saw Terra in the outer garden and that they are destined to cross paths again.

Ventus sees Terra and he starts whining at him about how Terra should take him with. Terra refuses but says that he believes Ventus "will be there" when he needs him.

Ventus reminds Terra that they're friends because apparently he needs to be reminded that because of how unnatural their interactions and then runs off to find Aqua.

Ventus is sad because Aqua tells him to go home again, as if that wasn't always the thing that was going to happen

Ventus flashes back to a scene of him sparring with terra using a wooden sword. Then they sit on a wall somewhere. Terra gives Ventus his wooden sword because the one Ventus was using is all beat up. Apparently Ventus had this wooden sword with him the whole time and starts brooding while looking at it.

We run into two new characters, Lea, and Isa. Lea makes fun of Ventus for having toy swords before pulling out a pair of frisbees. Lea challenges Ventus to a sparring match, which plays out in cutscene and it's implied that Ventus went on to bully him around with a keyblade. Actually, I'm just going to link the cutscene here because it's easily the best one in the game so far and I'm getting tired.


See how Isa and Lea are acting very clearly like they are friends with eachother? Because we never see that kind of thing out of Terra, Aqua, and Ventus, ever. Like I assumed that the writers just didn't know how to write people acting like they were friends with eachother but they clearly do, this cutscene is proof of that. Like it would be easier for me to get invested in this story if they had bothered to actually properly show Terra, Aqua, and Ventus being friends instead of just constantly telling us that they're friends and not showing that friendship in a way that gets us invested in the characters.

It's really fortunate that the gameplay in kingdom hearts is as solid as it is because the story is a fucking trainwreck so far. Like it isn't that complicated so far but it's just being told in the worst way possible.

Offline ShyGuy

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2018, 09:17:26 PM »
I don't remember any of this. Isn't he named Sora?

Offline Evan_B

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2018, 11:21:48 PM »
It’s true! Kingdom Hearts is an overrated action RPG series that is widely beloved by people who either A) Love Squaresoft RPGs B) Love Disney C) never played an action RPG before.
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2018, 02:33:39 AM »
Well the combat is fun. i'll give it that.

Offline Order.RSS

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2018, 07:16:14 AM »
Please continue these succinct impressions. I only played the 3DS demo and it let you rollerblade over ziplines like Tony Hawk.

Offline Evan_B

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2018, 06:03:31 PM »
Well the combat is fun. i'll give it that.
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #8 on: May 14, 2018, 09:41:32 PM »
Unfortunately there isn't a way for me to pick up one of the other two character's storylines and go from there so we're stuck with Ventus. Since apparently all three storylines link up at Radiant garden I would have liked to take Aqua or Terra for a spin and see what makes them tick and get everyone in the same spot storywise but apparently that but apparently I'm just locked in with Ventus now.

Ventus decides to go make some new friends. Since his old poser friends ran off with his tickets to Disney town Ventus goes there on his own. After all, If his new friends already live in Disney Town he won't have to hassle them scrooge for more tickets.

Upon arriving he runs into Pete dressed in Spandex. This is the stupidest thing I have seen in a video game and I love it.

Ventus asks Pete why things look so festive around here and pete explains that there's a dream festival going on. Pete invites Ventus to take a look around town. Ventus decides he's going to make new friends there.

Ventus runs into Captain Justice again talking to Minnie Mouse and Huey, Dewey, and Louie who are less open to Pete's heroic hospitality routune. Apparently they are having trouble with an ice cream machine left for them by scrooge.

Apparently Minnie Mouse is a queen.

Despite the protests of everyone involved Captain Justice comes in to heroically assault an ice cream machine when Ventus offers to help them out instead by playing a really aggravating bullshit rhythm minigame.

Just quick rant. You have to get a perfect score on this minigame to progress. The game doesn't tell you that, I had to look it up in a walkthrough because I assumed when I got a good rating and the plot didn't progress that I had to do something else and then I couldn't find anything so I had to find a walkthrough to find out what to do next. The game also doesn't give you the option to pause and restart the minigame if you miss a beat so you're stuck having to finish the failed run which thankfully doesn't take too long.

Oh and when you fail the minigame the cursor defaults on just continue (which sends you back to the world so you have to talk to the ducklings to start up the cutscene again before you can start the game again) instead of the option to retry the minigame and more often than not I'd hit "continue" instead of retry and have to spend about half a minute to get back into the minigame.

Edit: It turns out the walkthrough I found lied and you just need to get a fantastic rating in the minigame to move on. But again the game doesn't tell you that.

Back to the point of this whole thing Pete decides to once again assault a poor, defenseless ice cream machine because he's apparently even more salty about the ice cream minigame than I am but Ventus stops him.

The ducktales trio claims that pete is not actually a good guy *gasp* and that he's actually the biggest troublemaker around. They claim that he likely just trying to win something called the "million dreams award" and that he is using the name "captain justice" because nobody will vote for him if he uses his own name in the ballot to win the Award.

Ventus decides that friends are overrated and goes to Olympus Colloseum but we'll cover that next time because that ice cream minigame left a sour taste in my mouth.

Offline pokepal148

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2018, 08:40:13 PM »
Olympus Colloseum.

We are now in Hercules world. The land of overrated Disney films.

Ventus finds Phil who is getting hounded by some guy who might be from Final Fantasy.  Final Fantasy dude claims he wants to train with Phil but Phil refuses, saying he has his hands full with Hercules. Suddenly combat. Hey game, see how I described that whole cutscene in like barely three sentences? Maybe it didn't need to be a two minute cutscene.

Phil decides that Herc and Final Fantasy dude are going to have to compete for his attention. Ventus decides to help Hercules train. By train I mean another bullshit Minigame. This time it involves riding barrels to destroy urns.

Hercules decides to tell Ventus his backstory before he and Final Fantasy dude go off to compete in some competition phil set up. Apparently Kingdom Hearts has run out of it's animation budget because we get a bunch of still images of Herc and Final Fantasy dude fighting unversed.

Now Herc and FF chap are fighting and Ventus flashes back to Terra and Aqua sparring. I noticed that all of Ventus's fond memories with his friends involve them sparring.

Phil announces that there are monsters in town and Ventus runs off to fight them so the other two can focus on the competition but Herc decides to forget the match and help Ventus out. Final Fantasy guy reveals that his name is Zack and claims that he did the seme thing.

Phil decides that the disney canon requires him to take Hercules as his hero and Zack looks really sad. Zack, Hercules, and Ventus share a surprising bit of comradery and Ventus leaves for the next world.

Offline Evan_B

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #10 on: May 18, 2018, 05:07:18 PM »
I didn't realize you were playing through this tripe chronologically. Best of luck to you.

Aqua is most certainly Nomura's Lightning, which is weird because he also designed Lightning.
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #11 on: May 18, 2018, 08:34:34 PM »
-deepspace-

Ventus fights a monster while flying on his surfboard keyblade. Monster boards a ship from Lilo and Stitch.

Stitch breaks out of his prison and Gantu corners Ventus, only to be called away to try to deal with the monster Ventus was fighting in space.

Stitch shows up and says the names of Ventus, Terra, and Aqua. He then pulls out his own version of a wayfinder (that good luck charm Aqua gave Terra and Ventus.) We might actually be getting major plot development in a Disney world. Oh happy day.

Ventus runs off to fight the monster fight through a corridor full of enemies.

Stitch is back there looking at his wayfinder when Gantu turns up, blasts it to pieces, and calls stitch an abomination.

Ventus finds his monster and Stitch, having apparently escaped from Gantu offscreen, shows up to help. Together they defeat the monster.

Gantu shows up to try and apprehend the two and be even more of a non-threatening villian than he is in the actual Lilo and Stich series (which is kind of impressive to be honest.). Ventus and Stitch escape and Ventus goes to the next world.

Neverland.

Mickey and Vanitas are here for some reason. End cutscene.

The lost boys and tinker bell show up and tell Ventus about a shooting star after waking him up because he was asleep, or something.

Peter Pan shows up and the lost boys go with him to find some treasure he saw Hook burying while Tinker Bell and Ventus keep sticking with following the shooting star, which apparently wound up in the Indian Camp. A name for a place that has aged so gracefully. We'll get back to the star hunt whenever I decide to update this.

Offline pokepal148

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #12 on: June 03, 2018, 04:34:51 PM »
So the latest update was delayed by us losing the Air Conditioning in the house and having to get it replaced. Since I'm using a launch PS3 it seemed unwise to operate it at all in a non air conditioned environment. Tomorrow I'm off and I have the air conditioner fixed so expect an update then as we return to the land of try hard anime.

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #13 on: June 10, 2018, 03:05:40 AM »
Well, you've got until January to catch up on this series before KH3 may finally release.
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Offline Shaymin

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #14 on: June 10, 2018, 03:20:40 PM »
Well, you've got until January 2024 to catch up on this series before KH3 may finally release.
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #15 on: June 13, 2018, 12:04:42 AM »
Ventus clears away a bunch of enemies in an annoying encounter I had to grind for because there are these ranged enemies in this game that are a huge pain to deal with and if they all launch their ranged attacks one after another to essentially form a combo you're probably dead. It turns out Hook ran off for a quick smoke while we were fighting because he is nowhere to be found. Ventus has a quick flashback to Terra and Aqua when Peter Pan shows up, seeming to not be particularly bothered by Tinkerbell being kidnapped by Hook.

We reach a place called Mermaid Lagoon where Tinkerbell shows up, having apparently escaped from Hook. Peter Pan has Tinkerbell give Ventus the glide ability and together we go off to deal with Hook, since unfortunately Tinkerbell couldn't be bothered to get Mickey's Star Shard on her way out.

Peter Pan goes off to Hooks ship so it stops firing cannons at us and Ventus goes off to face Hook. The crocodile who bit off Hook's hand (at least I think that's how this works) shows up as well to chase hook away.

The lost boys show up with a treasure chest but they apparently lost everything that was inside so Peter Pan decides they should put in what's really special to them instead of just filling it up with gold and dubloons. Cut to the treasure chest being filled with a bunch of wooden swords. Sorry Pete, but I'd rather have a chest full of gold instead. Tinkerbell retrieves Mickey's star shard and Ventus takes it only to be whisked away by its power.


-Mysterious Tower.-

Donald and Goofy are moping around when roxas shows up. They are amazed that Roxas has Mickeys star shower and immedietly take him to the top of the tower. Excuse me, did I say "Mickey" I meant "King Mickey" because apparently Mickey is a king in this world. I offer my sincerest apologies to the Royal House of Mouse for my lack of respect.

They take Ventus to that wizard from way back when at the beginning of the game and the wizard immediately calls out Ventus for not returning home like every reasonable authority figure told him to. The Wizard then remarks that "Mickey has difficulty following directions, too." Well of course Mickey has issues following directions. He's the fucking King.

The Wizard discerns that Mickey has been using the Star Shard to hurl himself across the cosmos, which Mickey outright told us he was doing back when we faced Vanitas together so I don't know why the game is repeating information now. Apparently now that he's figured that out he can track down King Mickey and make him go back to actually ruling his kingdom instead of saving whiny anime boys from one sided boss fights with whiny anime boys in masks.

The Wizard discerns that Mickey is back in that empty field where we fought Vaniatis. Goofy reveals that the Wizard's name is Yen Sid (see how we are three paragraphs into this and we finally got his doggone name?) and proudly declares that he is the Captain of the King's Royal Knights and Donald declares that he's the king's magician so Yen Sid naturally sends Ventus to his rescue. Ventus, sick of Donald's annoying voice, refuses to take Donald and Goofy with him. Claiming that he owes Mickey for saving him earlier. Also, apparently I earned a trophy called a friend in need. Look out Broodwars. At this rate I will soon have twice as many platinums as you do.

-the badlands.-
Ventus finds Mickey unconscious in a field and then Xehanort appears to greet him. Ventus begins to have another one of his traumatic flashback episodes. Xehanort begins talking about how Ventus 'is starting to realize what he lost.' But apparently he had to lose it to find it and now "it can all be yours again if you only reach out and take it." What I'm saying is that I think Kingdom Hearts has skipped ahead in the script without telling us.

Xehanort continues yammering on about how Ventus needs to "clash with him" and how "Pure light against pure darkness" will forge the ultimate key. The all powerful KeyBlade, except it's spelled X-Blade but it's still pronounced Keyblade so what the hell?

Xehanort decides to answer my question. Apparently X (pronounced "key" but apparently it's also spelled Kye by some people) is an ancient letter that means death. That's not how letters work Xehanort. That's how words work. letters are the thing used to spell words.

Xehanort claims that Ventus has the power to create the X-Blade and that's why Eraqus keeps him on such a tight leash (and not because Ventus is a fucking idiot who basically does and believes whatever anyone else tells him and in a universe where he has the ability to travel between worlds that's a huge liability.) Ventus for some reason believes him and Xehanort sends him into space to confront Eraqus.

-land of departure-
Ventus is returned home so he can confront Eraqus about his daddy issues. When Ventus mentions the X-Blade Eraqus has his own flashback to a confrontation between himself and Xehanort over the Latter's obsession with the X-Blade.

In flashback land, (a place that has probably gotten more screen time than the actual Disney Worlds by now) Xehanort spouts out the Kingdom Hearts Backstory. Once upon a time a billion anime boys and girls beat eachother to death with keyblades in an event known as the keyblade war and admist that crisis a precious light was found. Xehanort apparently wants to start a second keyblade war to see what happens.

Eraqus calls out Xehanort on how stupid of an idea it is to risk the apocalypse out of sheer curiosity. He then declares that he will not allow it as long as he lives. Xehanort claims that because at birth everyone emerges from darkness into a world of light that darkness is merely a beginning. Eraqus, once again, calls out Xehanort for how stupid this whole thing is and pulls out a keyblade, only for Xehanort to blast him with a bunch of darkness. Eraqus angrily exclaims "Has the Darkness taken you Xehanort?" a line that is salvaged only by the fact that Eraqus is Voiced by Mark Hamill. It's worth noting that Xehanort is voiced by Leonard Nimoy so that whole cutscene is a fun case of grade A voice actors trying to get the best they can out of broken voice acting.

Back in the real world, Luke Skywalker Master Eraqus, decides that the only way to stop Supreme Leader Snoke's Xehanort's plans from reaching fruition is murder his student Ben Solo Ventus in cold blood because Ben Solo Ventus has been manipulated by Supreme Leader Snoke Master Xehanort and he might turn to the dark side or something. Then Terra shows up to confront Eraqus and save Ventus's skin. Eraqus claims that if Terra doesn't stand down than he will have to share Ventus's fate. When Terra refuses Eraqus starts glowing in light for some reason and Terra calls upon the power of darkness because that was a thing back in the beginning of the game that's probably more relevant in Terra's story. Eraqus exclaims "Has the darkness taken you Terra?" Because that line is so nice we had to have it twice.

Terra creates a portal and throws Ventus in while he faces Eraqus and Ventus is taken to the destiny islands. I would like to point out that literally the only gameplay we've had since facing Captain Hook in Neverland is in the level select. Upon reaching the Destiny Islands Vaniatis shows up to pick a fight with Ventus. Ventus refuses to fight so Vaniatis gives some exposition about how they need to fight to form the X-Blade apparently but because Xehanort spilled the beans on his whole plan already Ventus refuses. Then Ventus starts flashbacking again.

-Flashback land: The Badlands-

Ventus is training with Xehanort who apparently summoned a bunch of enemies and begins literally preaching from the mountaintop about how Ventus needs to embrace his inner darkness to beat a couple enemies. Ventus refuses so Xehanort calls him a feckless neophyte and opts to extract the darkness from Ventus  instead. For the two people who cared this is where Vaniatis came from.

-Destiny Islands-

Vanitas tells Ventus that if he won't fight than he will brutally murder Terra and Aqua right in front of him before running off. Than Ventus hops on his keyblade surfboard and flys into a portal he created in the least dramatic way possible to reach the keyblade graveyard.

-the keyblade graveyard-

Ventus pulls out his keyblade and says "friends forever." for some reason. Than we procced to the final area and it's a mess. There are these tornadoes in the area that will lock onto ventus and if they reach you (which they will, you can't outrun them) they'll whisk you away to a battle with a bunch of enemies in this weird void thing that's really disorienting and it's hard to tell where you are or where the enemies. A bunch of the enemies can fly and because there isn't any ground here in the void space you fight them in you have to guess whether they're close enough to the ground for you to hit them. it's poor game design. There's nothing else to it.

It's 11pm now so I'll have to call it quits now because otherwise i'll be up until midnight with this.

Offline pokepal148

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #16 on: June 13, 2018, 12:06:47 AM »
Well, you've got until January 2024 to catch up on this series before KH3 may finally release.
Fixed for accuracy

Has the darkness taken you Shaymin? :smug:

Offline pokepal148

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #17 on: June 20, 2018, 01:08:36 AM »
Ventus arrives at the keyblade graveyard to find Aqua and Terra angsting with eachother. Aqua tells Terra that she read on a Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep spoiler thread that Master Eraqus was struck down and Terra confirms this to be the case, admitting he killed Eraqus. Terra points out that Luke Eraqus tried to hurt Ben Solo Ven and that he only fought to protect Ventus. He then states that after this he plans to join the Knights of Ren and then do absolutely nothing for the next few star wars films. Terra claims that Xehanort set the whole thing up to awaken the darkness so I guess that's what we'll be looking at when we do Terra's story next. Terra promises Aqua that he won't go astray again but Aqua, being the rational one, doesn't buy it.

Suddenly Ventus finally shows up and explains the whole deal about how apparently Xehanort wants him and Vanitas to fight and form the X-Blade. Terra offers to help Ventus deal with Vaniatis, claiming that the three of them can never get torn apart but Ventus instead asks Terra and Aqua to kill him so that the X-Blade can't be formed. Thankfully they all notice Xehanort approaching them to save us from a bunch of disney executives finding out that a game with Mickey Mouse in it ended with an assisted suicide.

Xehanort gives us another one of his trademark speeches which I'll probably link up above. I've probably mentioned this before but Xehanort was voiced by Leonard Nimoy and Nimoy is easily the best fit for a voice actor for a character we've had so far. His voice doesn't just fit the character but it also brilliantly compliments his musical motif. It's really good.

Xehanort starts talking about how the Keyblade Graveyard is where countless keyblade wielders fought here centuries ago seeking the X-Blade. He then claims that soon the X-Blade will belong to him. Xehanort decides to end his dramatic speech by pointing his finger at Ventus and shouting "X-Blade" like a little kid shouts "ice cream" when the ice cream truck passes by.

Our three heroes don their keyblade armor that I forgot was an actual thing they could use and not just that thing they wear when they fly. Terra charges straight for Xehanort but Xehanort responds by using his earthbending powers that I guess he has all of a sudden to raise the ground terra is standing on, seperating him from Ventus and Aqua. Hey remember When Terra said they could never be turned apart? How's that going?

The three are attacked by Vaniatis riding on a swarm of flying keyblades. After a while Ventus decides to take the fight to Xehanort but Xehanort just freezes him and drops him off a cliff onto Aqua. Xehanort begins messing with the clouds to make a heart appear.

Braig, who is one of the guys from Radiant Gardens shows up and tells Aqua to leave Ventus with him so she can help Terra. I don't think we've been given his name yet but he's kind of a big deal in this series so I'll give it to you. Braig claims that Terra will succumb to the darkness but Aqua basically tells him to buzz off and stop playing mindgames to tear the three apart. I assume that this is a thing in Aqua's story but it would have been nice to have some kind of explanation as to what's going on here. Aqua goes off to fight Braig offscreen before returning her attention to Ventus, only to be taken from behind by Vaniatis. Ventus fights Vaniatis and defeats him in the first bit of gameplay we've seen all day but Vaniatis points out that with this done they just need to merge to form the X-Blade and Vanitas summons a bunch of unversed to bind Ventus, revealing that Vaniatis is responsible for their creation.

Vaniatis then enters Ventus's mind to begin the creation of the X-Blade but explains that the X-Blade is still not completed and that Ventus needs to join him. Ventus decides to just destroy both Vaniatis and the X-Blade. When Vaniatis reveals that since the X-Blade was created by Ventus's heart that destroying it would kill Ventus but Ventus decides he's willing to take that sacrifice to save Terra and Aqua.

Ventus gives a long-winded speech about friendship and how they've become a part of him and how "My friends are my power." Vaniatis mocks Ventus about how it's always about his friends to which Ventus replies "at least I have some." It's time for the final boss fight of Roxas's story which is Vaniatis again. After that's over there are a bunch of graphical effects that were probably really impressive on the PSP but don't do much here and both Vaniatis and the X-Blade were destroyed. Than Ventus returns to the real world which is apparently him floating in space with Aqua when Mickey shows up. Except then he's floating in a black void and he claims he's been in this place before, referring to the place as "Your heart".

Yeah, that's how Ventus's Story ends folks. I assume there's some kind of Final Story that I get after I beat the other two stories but that's all for now folks.

Offline SpiritMask

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #18 on: June 20, 2018, 06:09:06 AM »
Kingdom hearts is 10% mediocre gameplay and 90% all-these-things-i-like-are-talking-to-each-other-in-the-same-game-this-is-awesome!

I have no regrets about enjoying KH1, then losing interest half way through KH2 and never going back to the series. Even after watching these pretty KH3 trailers, I get that bad taste in my mouth from all the wish washy plot tidbits and irritating anime character interactions.

"Ventus" sounds like a filthy body part.

Offline pokepal148

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Re: Kingdom Hearts first impressions thread.
« Reply #19 on: July 16, 2018, 10:28:46 PM »
man it's been a while, but let's get going with Terra and Aqua's stories. I'm going to alternate between the two so for example we'll do terra's version of a thing and than Aqua's version of a thing and try to splice them into a cohesive narrative.

I had to replay the mark of mastery thing at the beginning where Terra fails to keep the darkness in check. afterwards Terra starts brooding about the darkness within him, feeling that it doesn't matter because he's strong enough to hold it back. Xehanort appears behind him and claims that Terra is indeed strong and that the darkness is nothing to fear. Xehanort starts claiming that Eraqus is a fool for not embracing darkness and that Terra is fine the way he is.

Xehanort claims that darkness cannot be destroyed, it can only be channeled. This theory can literally be disproven by flipping a light switch. Terra thanks Xehanort for his input and than a bell rings, summoning him back.

Aqua talks to Eraqus in his little throne but before he can actually get anything from the conversation a texture of a gem starts ringing (this ringing also summons Terra from his brooding session) and Eraqus enters a brief skype call with Yen Sid, who is apparently a former keyblade master. He informs Terra and Aqua that the princesses of light are in danger from the unversed. He also claims that his attempts to call Xehanort have failed so he needs them to go find them as well. Eraqus advises Terra to not be afraid of losing, claiming that fear leads to obsession with power which beckons the darkness.

when terra leaves Eraqus advises Aqua to keep an eye on Terra and bring him back. we cut to that scene from Ventus's story where Ventus runs after Terra and Terra soars off in the sunset with Ventus in hot pursuit.