Well, before everything, for those who haven't played Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded, this might come as spoiler for you, so if you don't want to get spoiled, I suggest you stop reading now...

 

 

OK, so who might this be?:

 

 

(Riku in the trailer) WHO IS ME???

 

There are two clues in the picture that will made you think who this is, first the hair, different that Riku himself, secondly the background, the world is Monstro.

 

 

Okay, here is what I thought that might be him:

 

 

 

I will call him Journal-Riku for now.

 

 

Yes! Jiminy Journal Riku from re:coded! It would really make sense to me that Journal-Riku will appear in Monstro world as it is where Jiminy is. How did Jiminy's original journal came in the world? I don't know. But something tells me, that Journal-Riku is going to tell the real Riku about the 'hurting', about the trio (Terra, Ven and Aqua) and the stuff that has been happening.

 

To have a better view of Journal Riku, here:

 

 

 

Simply put Coded was a filler designed to squeeze an extra $30 out of diehard fans with nothing to do. Nomura didnt have anything to do with Coded so I highly doubt that we will ever see Data Riku again.

 

I will honestly say, I was never expecting to see Riku Replica again, but then again I wasnt expecting Axel either. I dont care, revive whoever you want, as long as you explain it and it isnt Larxene.

 

As far as an explaination goes, my best guess is one of two things. The first of which is that Ansem pulled the Replica back from the Realm of Darkness. The second and most likely guess, Xehanort is taunting Riku with a physical manifestation of the darkness that he seems ashamed of in the previous trailer.

 

The bigger question that comes to mind is more about Riku himself. For some reason Riku seems to be getting all worked up and emotional about his darkness. This plotpoint seems moot at this point. I could have sworn that Riku had embraced his darkness and decided to weild it for good. That was my favorite part about Riku, I liked the fact that he could weild all of the powers of a villain but still remain a hero.

 

Dark Heroes are great and they always make for fun characters. But the second they start second guessing themselves and acting all emo, we end up with shootoff games like Shadow the Hedgehog that ruin the character and end up forever labeling him as the grumpy OP friend rather than the Dark Hero that they are supposed to be.

> Explores the hidden data inside Sora

This was taken from KH3D Nomura Interview on Famitsu.

 

I know that the statement is very vague but this is part of the reason why I theorize that this might be Data-Riku.

I feeling it'd be data riku cuz of the clothes, setting, etc.

BUT when I first watched it I thought it was like the real riku, just in his memories. I know I put that totally bad, but like this is about dreams and memories and stuff. So it could be possible that he was talking to his past self...

but really, it's probably data riku. Not whatever my brain came up with

I think it's probably Riku replica because of what Xemna said "Even within a heartless doll, a heart resides". He said heartless doll, now who else was called a doll in the series Xion. Xion was created in Castle Oblivion, so was the Riku replica. THe riku replica also had doubts about whether or not he had a heart and RIku said he probably did have one. SInce the Riku Replica was not a quite a member of organization XIII, it would make a lot more sense if the guy that looks like Riku, right across from him, is the replica because of the reference to to the doll. All nobodies are said to lack hearts and I think that Data Riku probably possesses a heart. I know they might not necessarily be related but that is what I think.

At first I thought it would be repliku, but then in the short trailer I noticed something. Maleficent demanded for their world of data which would involve data Riku. I might be leaning towards data riku now.

well i was thinking since its a dream world maybe it is an incarnation of rikus darkness that represents his old self,the boy who used darkness to leave his island and opened his heart to the darkness,so maybe riku will fight this incarnation to prove that he has accepted darkness and he will use it to fight for the safety of the worlds,i think since its the mark of mastery exams sora and riku will have to prove they are strong enough to become keyblade master,so in the dream world they will have to face their greatest fears or something like to defeat them and become strong enough ot receive the title of keyblade master

I don't know, I feel like it is leading more to Data-Riku than Riku-Replica, maybe it's the coat or the fact that he was annihilated in COM *shrugs*.

 

But I agree with Nikolasvanitas and XXkera if it's a spirit of his past self (which would be interesting since he is trying to be a better person than he used to be) or it is just Xehanort messing with him, which would be funny "trolled yet again riku"

 

Who knows, we'll eventually find out later