tutti frutti. A couple things have been bothering me about Birth By Sleep for quite some time.

 

1. Whatever happened to locating Master Xehanort and taking him back to Master Eraqus? I know that Terra had found Master Xehanort in the Keyblade Graveyard, but the idea of having him go back to the Land of Departure seemed to have left Terra's thought. Also, to me at least, it seemed that Aqua had abandoned that mission altogether. Yeah, Aqua was given the second mission of keeping an eye on Terra, but again what about MX.

 

2. The second thing that has been bothering me was Aqua not giving Terra the benefit of the doubt surrounding the events that went on in BBS. With this I mean that when she was given the mission to keep an eye on Terra, she kind of went overboard. When Aqua was informed of some of the incidents that occured in the worlds, and was told of a man doing the bad things in the worlds, this MAN could have easily been ANY guy, more so MX and Vanitas doing those things. Much like how Ven points out, I think that attaining the level of Mastery had went to Aqua's head.

 

3. I find Terra being bag of mixed emotion. This stems from Terra believing a number of things that MX told him: from darkness being good (which is debateable since Riku had solid control over the darkness), to believing that extracting Vanitas from Ven was to "save" Ven, to believing that he had no place to call home from being exposed to the darkness. Yeah, Terra has made some mistakes, and in general I don't believe anybody is perfect, but Terra could have gone to Eraqus for help, and to confirm that MX told ME the same story instead of immediatly believing someone he hardly knows.

 

4. Why didn't anybody really communicate on what was going on? Starting with Ven, from the start of his scenario, Ven seemed to want to inform Terra about Vanitas. Yeah, Ven did do this slightly when they met in Radiant Garden, but not the message of when Terra would be a different person. Aqua could have informed Terra of what she was told in the various worlds she's been to instead of just accusing Terra of the things that went on in the other worlds. There is more than one guy in the galaxy in the KH series: Mickey, MX, ME, Vanitas (just to name a few). Terra could have informed Aqua on where he had been meeting MX, let alone that he found MX. Also, Terra could have informed Aqua and Ven about the Unversed and that Vanitas was the one creating them. Lastly, none of the trio really informed ME on what was going on, with the exception of Ven confronting Eraqus about not traveling to other worlds.

 

These were some of the major topics that had been bothering me about BBS. Just thought I would put these out there. What are some of your thoughts about these subjects?

I always thought it was odd how in KH2 Goofy said that Mickey banished Pete from Disney Town, but Minnie really did in Birth by Sleep.

 

Just another off thing...

1, It was no ones job to bring MX back to LOD. Terra went looking for answers, therefore going after MX. Aquas first mission was to get Ven and bring him back, never to bring MX back.

 

2, The thing is, she knows Terra very well. When she encountered him a couple times, he acted kinda shady, (to my memory)

 

3, I don't understand what you're trying to say here http://kh13.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/smiley-confuse.png

 

4, Ven wanted to go with on an adventure, and not left behind because he was too "young"

I got back to my second answer. He was acting rather shady from my memory.

Terra did not want to tell Aqua anything, due to her being a keyblade master, and himself, not.

The game overall was something that you had to look between the lines to understand.

I always thought it was odd how in KH2 Goofy said that Mickey banished Pete from Disney Town, but Minnie really did in Birth by Sleep.

 

Just another off thing...

 

Apparently, in Japanese, titles don't have an inherent gender. In the scene you're talking about, they say 'His majesty' when in the japanese version it would have just been 'majesty' (obviously this would sound better in the language it was intended for)

So basically, the translators saw a word that referred to a royal person banishing Pete to another dimension, and came to the logical conclusion that it was Mickey.

 

To the topic on hand. Really the plot of BBS is quite stupid. The problem was the story had to be condensed so much to have 3 stories. You mentioned Ventus saying that he thought Aqua's mastery status went to her head. Did you notice he never brings this up again? Or that Aqua never reflects on this? BBS has so many plot elements going that it can't actually develop any of them. Instead, the characters make some idiotic choices, and ensure that they never communicate properly, all as a means to get the plot where it needs to go. It's like how Aqua says she knows ll the bad things Terra has done, yet he only really did one bad thing, steal Aurora's heart. And she was there when Ventus got it back, so it turned out fine anyways. Now, a thing to note is that if you DO try and go back to the Land of Departure Castle, you get messages from Terra and Aqua saying they're not ready to go back. This makes sense for Terra, since he has had a falling out with Eraqus, and feels he needs to really prove himself. Basically, he wn't return until he's done something amazing that will make him a master. Aqua says something similar, and all I can come up for with that is she is some sort of workaholic who needs to have her work done perfectly, 100%, otherwise she feels like she can't return. She does seems quite studious.

Speaking of Aqua. I personally think her story is the worst offender. I played through Terra and Ven's stories first, as per the 'proper' order, so when I saw Aqua acting all condescending in their stories, I figured it would all make sense when I played through hers. It didn't. Her logic always seems to fall somewhere between 'Because I have to' and 'Because I feel like it' she never really has any proper motivation or evidence to say the things she does. I thought this might just be her character arc, but even at the end (Spoilers obviously) when Terra says he was tricked by Xehanort but that he'd do better from then on, rather than encourage him or have any semblance of hope, she just says he'll fall to the darkness again.

I don't feel like I'm getting my point across as well as I want, but basically, while Terra and Ventus actually have understandable motivations Aqua just sort of seems to act out of the blue. In fact, at the end of the first three worlds in BBS, she always talks about how she won't lose faith in Terra, or she sees something that tells her he'll be fine. She stands up for Terra when Maleficent confronts Ven. Yet when they meet up, all she does is complain about how horrible of a person he is.

Bad writing perhaps?

But yeah, I agree with you, a lot of the problems in BBS could have been solved by basic communication skills.

tutti frutti. I pretty much agree with your statement Hatok. There are a number of thing that seems awkward about the plot in BBS. Aqua does more or less seem like a perfectionist when it comes to get things done, also it seems that she's more so right about things now that she's a Keyblade Master. To me, BBS doesn't really seem consistent in terms of plot and story.

 

Compared to KH: CoM, which had Sora and Riku playable separately like BBS, I think that KH: CoM was more consistent in the story. Those sent to CO were more so assigned to do memory based assignments, although they were there to use Sora and Riku to overthrow the organization. I thought that it was a good plot from both Sora and Riku's perspectives. At first I wondered as to how the entire plot and story would come together by having each world split into three major segments, though by doing this I found that a good chunk of the game was hard to understand. More so how you stated that there were so many elements that the entire story couldn't develop, I thought that this was something that could have been worked on a bit more.

 

In turn, Terra was controlled by Maleficent, when Aurora's heart was taken, so I more or less find that incident a given since he didn't have any control over himself. But in general, other than the whole heart ordeal with Aurora, what bad thing has Terra done? Terra going into the darkness was more planned and put into motion by MX, which is the closest thing I can think of right now.

That's something I've had a problem with in KH since the start; the separation between the story and the worlds. The fact that they are so independent from the story, and referenced by name only anywhere else. I really think KH needs some element to tie the worlds together. Like actively chasing a villain through each world, or something. Ideally, SE would embrace the crossover nature of the series, and we could actually see the worlds interact. Personally, I think it'd be interesting to see different Disney villains dealing with a world they are not from, beyond just Maleficent and Pete. But I'm getting off topic. KH is disjointed. It feels like there are so many ideas there, so many stories, that the game can't focus on one. It's interesting that you mentioned CoM, I've personally sen Riku's side of CoM as the reality of what KH is; your keyblade hero goes to a world, and fights a boss, but all the real story happens in between, or in original worlds like Hollow Bastion or Twilight Town. That's part of the problem, because the stories in the Disney worlds start to feel like colourful distractions. I wish the Disney worlds would be more embraced, so the next KH could have a consistent plot.

 

Apparently, in Japanese, titles don't have an inherent gender. In the scene you're talking about, they say 'His majesty' when in the japanese version it would have just been 'majesty' (obviously this would sound better in the language it was intended for)

So basically, the translators saw a word that referred to a royal person banishing Pete to another dimension, and came to the logical conclusion that it was Mickey.

 

To the topic on hand. Really the plot of BBS is quite stupid. The problem was the story had to be condensed so much to have 3 stories. You mentioned Ventus saying that he thought Aqua's mastery status went to her head. Did you notice he never brings this up again? Or that Aqua never reflects on this? BBS has so many plot elements going that it can't actually develop any of them. Instead, the characters make some idiotic choices, and ensure that they never communicate properly, all as a means to get the plot where it needs to go. It's like how Aqua says she knows ll the bad things Terra has done, yet he only really did one bad thing, steal Aurora's heart. And she was there when Ventus got it back, so it turned out fine anyways. Now, a thing to note is that if you DO try and go back to the Land of Departure Castle, you get messages from Terra and Aqua saying they're not ready to go back. This makes sense for Terra, since he has had a falling out with Eraqus, and feels he needs to really prove himself. Basically, he wn't return until he's done something amazing that will make him a master. Aqua says something similar, and all I can come up for with that is she is some sort of workaholic who needs to have her work done perfectly, 100%, otherwise she feels like she can't return. She does seems quite studious.

Speaking of Aqua. I personally think her story is the worst offender. I played through Terra and Ven's stories first, as per the 'proper' order, so when I saw Aqua acting all condescending in their stories, I figured it would all make sense when I played through hers. It didn't. Her logic always seems to fall somewhere between 'Because I have to' and 'Because I feel like it' she never really has any proper motivation or evidence to say the things she does. I thought this might just be her character arc, but even at the end (Spoilers obviously) when Terra says he was tricked by Xehanort but that he'd do better from then on, rather than encourage him or have any semblance of hope, she just says he'll fall to the darkness again.

I don't feel like I'm getting my point across as well as I want, but basically, while Terra and Ventus actually have understandable motivations Aqua just sort of seems to act out of the blue. In fact, at the end of the first three worlds in BBS, she always talks about how she won't lose faith in Terra, or she sees something that tells her he'll be fine. She stands up for Terra when Maleficent confronts Ven. Yet when they meet up, all she does is complain about how horrible of a person he is.

Bad writing perhaps?

But yeah, I agree with you, a lot of the problems in BBS could have been solved by basic communication skills.

 

I don't quite see the situation as that. The plot was supposed to be tragic, and the trio's flaw of communication among other things lead to their destruction. Every character was doing what they thought was right, Terra assisting the villains not seeing the greater good, Ventus chasing after Terra and disobeying orders to ensure his safety, Aqua being as speculative as possible, but I'm sure you know that. It never came across me that all Aqua did was complain about how horrible he is, but I do agree she could have been a bit more sympathetic and tried to figure out what was going wrong, but hey, its supposed to be tragic.

 

I don't quite see the situation as that. The plot was supposed to be tragic, and the trio's flaw of communication among other things lead to their destruction. Every character was doing what they thought was right, Terra assisting the villains not seeing the greater good, Ventus chasing after Terra and disobeying orders to ensure his safety, Aqua being as speculative as possible, but I'm sure you know that. It never came across me that all Aqua did was complain about how horrible he is, but I do agree she could have been a bit more sympathetic and tried to figure out what was going wrong, but hey, its supposed to be tragic.

 

yet if any of them had actually said anything to eachother Xehanorts whole plan would have fallen apart. Terra helped the Disney villains because he had to stand in for various semi-evil Disney characters. There was no greater good we wasn't seeing or anything, he just had to be the guy who did bad stuff in this game. Ventus DOES have reason enough to disobey orders, but what's his logic in not talking freely with Terra and Aqua? Especially Terra, since that was the whole goal of the first arc of his quest.

See, a good tragedy is when the heroes do all they can, and still fail, and get screwed over. Not three idiots stumbling into every problem. That said, I forgot to mention that I personally find Eraqus more to blame than anybody else in the game. His communication skills must have rubbed off on TAV, because he acts downright moronic in the game. Ventus is a danger in that he can recreate the X-Blade? Kill him! Don't, say, TELL him this, and maybe make a plan with him on how to avoid the fight. Heck, if he had simply gone with Ventus to fight Vanitas this whole thing could have been resolved. Terra shows signs of darkness after meeting Xehanort? Must be Terra's fault. A person who betrayed you to try and restart the keyblade war shows up later, apologizing, and bringing a child who Eraqus knows is part of creating the X-Blade, the key to MX's plan? Nothing suspicious about that. Terra tries to defend his friend? Kill them both! Hell, look at Eraqus' decision to send Aqua to spy on Terra, Ven being more of an afterthought, despite Ven clearly being the more important of the two. For that matter, why did he give Ventus the armour if he didn't want him leaving the world? Why does he stay in the LoD Castle throughout the whole adventure? Why doesn't he consult with Yen Sid, who has met all three?

This has actually got me thinking. Why was the first thing Eraqus taught Aqua as a master 'In case of danger, transform the castle into a whitewashed, memory based castle that only you can traverse.' surely that's not the most important thing about being a master.

Also, another mention of TAV's idiocy; even after all that happened, MX's plan would have failed if they hadn't gone to the Keyblade Graveyard. And for that matter, they were all lured there at the threat of their friends being hurt, so why didn't they leave when they met up there? They clearly got there in time, since MX doesn't show up until after they all talk about their problems.

I'm sure there's more.

I don't quite see the situation as that. The plot was supposed to be tragic, and the trio's flaw of communication among other things lead to their destruction. Every character was doing what they thought was right, Terra assisting the villains not seeing the greater good, Ventus chasing after Terra and disobeying orders to ensure his safety, Aqua being as speculative as possible, but I'm sure you know that. It never came across me that all Aqua did was complain about how horrible he is, but I do agree she could have been a bit more sympathetic and tried to figure out what was going wrong, but hey, its supposed to be tragic.

 

tutti frutti. Honestly, I don't see BBS as being more of a tragedy if anything. MX seemed to have so much control, and everything went so precise to his plan, it was more so like he new EXACTLY how everyone would react to the events of BBS. Yeah, he's a schemer, but how can things go that well in a person's plan. The only time that I've noticed MX having to change his plans was in the meeting with Braig about Terra still having light in his heart. The plan to steal Terra's body seemed pratcially flawless. Much like how Hatok mentioned, having all of the worlds in the KH spread out as they are does seem ot be a way of having chunks and pieces into a game based on the disney movies. BBS doesn't really seem have a solid plot, more so by trying to have Terra, Aqua, and Ven having their on part in the story.

 

yet if any of them had actually said anything to eachother Xehanorts whole plan would have fallen apart. Terra helped the Disney villains because he had to stand in for various semi-evil Disney characters. There was no greater good we wasn't seeing or anything, he just had to be the guy who did bad stuff in this game. Ventus DOES have reason enough to disobey orders, but what's his logic in not talking freely with Terra and Aqua? Especially Terra, since that was the whole goal of the first arc of his quest.

See, a good tragedy is when the heroes do all they can, and still fail, and get screwed over. Not three idiots stumbling into every problem. That said, I forgot to mention that I personally find Eraqus more to blame than anybody else in the game. His communication skills must have rubbed off on TAV, because he acts downright moronic in the game. Ventus is a danger in that he can recreate the X-Blade? Kill him! Don't, say, TELL him this, and maybe make a plan with him on how to avoid the fight. Heck, if he had simply gone with Ventus to fight Vanitas this whole thing could have been resolved. Terra shows signs of darkness after meeting Xehanort? Must be Terra's fault. A person who betrayed you to try and restart the keyblade war shows up later, apologizing, and bringing a child who Eraqus knows is part of creating the X-Blade, the key to MX's plan? Nothing suspicious about that. Terra tries to defend his friend? Kill them both! Hell, look at Eraqus' decision to send Aqua to spy on Terra, Ven being more of an afterthought, despite Ven clearly being the more important of the two. For that matter, why did he give Ventus the armour if he didn't want him leaving the world? Why does he stay in the LoD Castle throughout the whole adventure? Why doesn't he consult with Yen Sid, who has met all three?

This has actually got me thinking. Why was the first thing Eraqus taught Aqua as a master 'In case of danger, transform the castle into a whitewashed, memory based castle that only you can traverse.' surely that's not the most important thing about being a master.

Also, another mention of TAV's idiocy; even after all that happened, MX's plan would have failed if they hadn't gone to the Keyblade Graveyard. And for that matter, they were all lured there at the threat of their friends being hurt, so why didn't they leave when they met up there? They clearly got there in time, since MX doesn't show up until after they all talk about their problems.

I'm sure there's more.

 

I'm sorry but I had to laugh when you said three idiots stumbling into every problem possible. I don't quite get what you mean by for it to be a good tragedy they need to do all they can, because in my mind they did, kinda like a mental person having to solve a rubrics cube to save their life (ehh... bad example oh well), they will tried their hardest and still fail. Couldn't agree more about Eraqus. Aside from being an idiot in the game, his role in the game feels on par with Maleficent's. When it comes down to it there are a million what if's that would have solved the problem, and a lot of them are Eraqus's. There's a couple things I disagree on with the inconsistencies of the plot such as Mx's plan falling apart had the trio just left the Keyblade graveyard before Xehanort showed up becuase it was Terra dragging them all into it or Terra just being the "stand in for various disney villains" but its enough to say bbs's plot is flawed.

 

This is reminding me of an interesting editorial I read a while back (here:http://www.khinsider...nt/view/1876/1/). Yet another critique of the plot and addresses the flaws in this trio's story.

tutti frutti. Overall, I think that the plot and story could have been done a bit better so that the story in general could have been brought together as a whole as opposed to being inconsistent. To me in a sense, though not insanely big, the story section of the game more so seems rushed, but what's done is done.