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That actually sounds like grasping at straws for evidence of him having feelings for her of a romantic nature and trailing off could mean he wants to say more (I would imagine the full line he's trying to say there is along the lines of "Kairi...Sora..I'm sorry."). Although I actually never knew that he calls her name when he dies because I've never had Riku KO'd in KH2 before. Grains of salt all over this though, putting it together with everything else about their relationship it falls apart and acts as a big piece that doesn't fit in the puzzle that's put together from the rest of my observations. I'd have to devote time to slotting that in somehow, but it is a good piece of food for thought. As far as him staying close to them goes, at the end of the day they're still the two most important characters to him. That's consistent throughout the whole first trilogy of games, and all the ones that came afterwards so far. It'd be pretty unlike Riku to not want to be close to Sora and Kairi. This I can definitely agree with. Kairi, Namine, Xion, Shiki, and most recently the Limit Cut episode of the Re:Mind DLC offered up one scene where he was very gentle towards Aqua too. Yeah, the novels and manga do help with this one, so long as one views them empathizing and sympathizing with each other's loneliness and guilt as signs of more than a budding friendship. There's an essay posted to AO3 by someone that basically has its core point being that because Riku and Namine were like that in the KH2 novels it means there's a basis for them as a ship, thus the general consensus that the ship came out of nowhere and they just got lumped together in that one scene at the end of KH3 is false. I don't know how canon or non-canon the novels and manga continuities are according to the series owners themselves, so I simplified things in my head and just put everything into its own canon (the novels have their canon, the manga has its canon, and of course the games have theirs). It's just too much of a headache to try combining all three so I choose not to. There's also a distinct lack of characters acting like themselves consistently throughout all three adaptations. To mention one glaring example I'll just point to Kairi in the KH2 novels and manga. In the games I don't recall any scene where Kairi was mean or rude (save for when she's teasing Sora about being lazy/slow in the head/naive) outside of the line in KH1 where she wanted to take the raft with Sora and leave Riku behind, during a scene with a serious tone to it. The way she treats Demyx in both of the other continuities though; is really contradictory to her game counterpart and served to make me hate her more than I already do. I should probably use hate loosely as it's difficult to hate a character who only has so much life in her. All three adaptations would have to do a better job with her for me to actually like her, and it's more like hate for how she's handled than hate for her specifically because there's only so much "her" to like or dislike/hate. I hope I'm making sense. i think namine sympathizs with roxas because she too is being used by DiZ. she feels he is a vitcim like her If she does, she has one very contradicting line in the KH2 prologue "Roxas, you were never supposed to exist." It's comparable to the amount of callousness she displays when it comes to Repliku and really brings out the truth of Larxene's "Oh so cute, but beyond this pretty face, you do awful things." line from Chain of Memories. Now this could have everything to do with the way that Namine came into being, but Roxas is right to react with anger and disbelief at her line there when he retorts with, "Even if that were true, how could you ever say that?" I don't want to seem like I'm giving Namine a harder time than I should, but a lot of her prospects for romance are in the realm of one-sided. She wants to replace Kairi in Sora's heart in Chain of Memories (and takes the fact she's being coerced to mess with his memories as her chance to do so, even if she backtracks and stops trying to in the end), she wants to be close to Roxas because Kairi is close to Sora (essentially wanting him to be the Sora to her Kairi due to them being Sora and Kairi's Nobodies), she wants to be the female companion who ends up with Riku in a quartet made up of herself, Sora, Riku, and Kairi; because Sora belongs to Kairi, her Original/her Somebody (we can infer this way more than just slightly, from the drawing of the four of them she makes in Chain of Memories, where she draws herself next to Riku and Kairi next to Sora because deep down even she realizes that Sora would never choose her over Kairi). I'm really not left with anyone to ship Namine with, without feeling uncomfortable about the pairing in some way.

@yamibakura - The worlds have more or less always been just sandboxes. Even in KH3, they dolled the worlds up more than ever before, but they're still empty outside of the storytelling bringing them to life. In Chain of Memories there's a gameplay meets storytelling tragedy to Sora having to go through worlds filled with illusions of the people he met in KH1 born of his own memories of them. Aerith's self awareness is essentially Sora's brain trying to warn him of how he's being manipulated, but Sora being Sora brashly chooses to keep on going in hopes of finding Riku and Mickey, and then of course to save Namine the more she messes with his memory. This gameplay meets storytelling tragedy continues in the Riku campaign Reverse/Rebirth in a different way; as we get Maleficent playing the same role as Aerith does in Sora's campaign, but in reverse, where Aerith is Sora's brain trying to warn him of how he's being manipulated and he chooses to ignore it, Maleficent is Riku using his own brain to berate himself through the avatar most familiar to him from his time under the influence of darkness. The voice that he keeps chatting with in Hollow Bastion is another example of this. It's left ambiguous who the voice belongs to, but it's easy enough to guess that it's Ansem SoD (namely while he was just a sentient heart inside the brown robe). Then Riku goes about mowing down the versions of the villains he allied with in his efforts to get Kairi her heart back in a very blatant reflection of his private self loathing for his prior actions, as he tries to reunite with Mickey, come to terms with the darkness that still lingers in him plus what to do with it hereafter, and find out who/what landed him in Castle Oblivion to begin with. @RugratsNappiesFanatic - The sandbox worlds of Recoded actually feature a lot of design depth that helps them feel less like a collection of corridors which is actually way better than what was done for Chain of Memories in the both the original and the remake. For starters KH1 is known for being one of if not the most platforming and puzzle heavy KH game and Recoded really doesn't shy away from following up on that. Chain of Memories very much does. Particularly true for the remake where not much of anything is going on in the rooms of each world unless those worlds are story related (it really shows in Reverse/Rebirth in particular since Riku never really took any time in KH1 to bond (for better or worse) with any of the villains he allied himself with in his efforts to get Kairi her heart back (outside of Maleficent and Ansem) thus he's literally going through the memory worlds mowing down these characters he wishes he never had anything to do with once he reaches their boss room). However Chain of Memories is the finest example of hardware and game type limitations come to life. It was something of a side scroller in the original version so no real need for platforming or puzzles (outside of customizing Sora's deck) was present nor needed. In the remake we still have a gameplay puzzle element at play in that we still get to customize Sora's deck, but now we have the bare bones minimum tools for platforming and puzzle solving in a springboard here and there to jump on and an object to slide or place into specific places.

a lot of people dont like xionxroxas, terraxaqua or even soraxkairi. they say that kh doesnt need romance, its all about friendship. but romance is a good thing it adds dimension to the characters and makes them more relatable. besides, there all plenty of male-female friendships, aqua and ven, axel and xion, axel and kairi, its not like everyone is a couple.

its because people take shipping too far

Roxas. His existence was sheer happenstance and yet seen as unsuitable even to exist by some. He was manipulated and used by Xemnas for his ability to use the keyblade, Axel's companionship with him meant only to make him more self-sufficient for missions and less zombie-like (which backfired big time). Even then Xion was designed as a back-up, eventually draining his strength and meant to erase his existence altogether. He lost trust in Axel and was forced to put an end to Xion without realising until her death, and in fighting to regain his life was stripped of his memories and used by DiZ, who treated him as sub-human and expendable. His last ditch effort to get back existence led to him being forced to admit defeat to Sora, accepting his fate. Xion. Created as a puppet, a replica designed to be a contingency in case Roxas didn't work out. Her growing confidence undermined she wasn't even declared fit to be seen in a group of Nobodies, a class of being already looked down on for just existing. Going through an existential crisis upon learning of her origins and begging her best friend, one of her only friends, to kill her so she couldn't be his demise, then completely forgotten to the point not even someone who specialised in memory manipulation could do anything, and knowing this would be the case. This one may be controversial, but Terra. Raised at the Land of Departure with only Eraqus and Aqua for company as far as we know (he was in his late teens when Ventus joined them), seeing the former as a father figure. Aqua shone despite Terra being just as good as her, and he didn't have an outlet or someone to talk to about his insecurities or the growing darkness inside him, which he knew Eraqus and Aqua wouldn't understand. Taking into account one of the short stories he also lacked the sweet tooth the others had, another connection he didn't have. Take out the context and it does sound like it could be applied to real life, a favoured sibling or student and the other is afraid to talk about their concerns, making it more tragic.

Out of these Birth by Sleep Aqua is my least favorite. We're told she, Terra and Ventus are inseparable but the main story strives to prove that when there are other option this trio doesn't hold together well and it's in large part to Aqua, in how she follows the strong anti-Darkness creed of Eraqus and how she treats Ventus and Terra. In Radiant Garden she pushes both of them away, admitting to spying on Terra and not treating him like an equal. When talking to Scrooge she says she's looking for a boy when she's trying to track down Terra, when it'd be more apt to describe him as a young man. Then she talks down to Ven like he's a little boy (granted, his whole life is only four years as far as he's concerned and only involves three other people), telling him to go home when anyone who has spent time around kids will tell you that makes them more determined to do the opposite. She could have suggested they stick together so she can at least keep an eye on him. Then there's what she says at the Keyblade Graveyard. Terra admits he has a problem and wants to atone for killing Eraqus. The right thing to do would be to assure him that he would get help and support. So what does Aqua do? She gets all high and mighty like she's never met a recovering addict. Then she talks down to Ven again, not taking him seriously when he's asking them to mercy kill him. Honestly, she's ready to believe Maleficent about Terra when she's grown up with him! Did she just superglue the idiot ball on that morning?

I've already made a topic about this, but screw it. I wanna do it again. *clears throat* I think that so many people nowadays, when it comes to movies, shows and the stories of video games, are just so spoiled; like they're all critics and nitpick the crap out of everything. To me, it almost feels like they hate just for the sake of hating. Now I'm not saying that it's wrong to dislike/hate a story; it's perfectly fine. Y'know, opinions are opinions; nothing more. But it just feels like to me that a lot of people try to find the bad things of a movie/show/video game and claim that it's bad because of those things. Like as if the first 15 minutes of a movie was bad and the rest of the movie was incredible and yet people just talk about the bad constantly and claim that the entire movie is bad just because of those first 15 minutes. In my mind, I just think, "Oh shut up and just enjoy the damn movie." I constantly question why so many people have to act like spoiled critics instead of just enjoying the movie/show/video game and be done with it. The reason I feel this way is because of the way I watch movies/shows/video games, and thankfully, I finally found a perfect comparison to explain it. When I watch a movie, I simply watch and enjoy. I don't care about character development, I don't care about pacing, I don't care if a character was one-dimensional and I don't care if someone's motivations weren't clear or weren't there at all. I'm not saying I hate these concepts; I'm saying that I'm simply indifferent towards them. Here's the comparison I mentioned earlier: When I watch a movie, it's the same as when I eat food. Stay with me here. When I eat food, I don't care about its texture, I don't care how it was presented to me, I don't care who made it and I don't care how it looks. I just grab it, eat it, taste it and then I like it or not (or love it or hate it but you get the idea). The only time I ever 'criticise' food is when there is something I simply can't ignore, like if it's too hot or cold or if it just tastes awful. The equivalent of this with movies is if I think a movie is too long or I got bored or maybe I just simply didn't like it; I don't need to explain why I didn't like it; I just didn't, end of story. I used to be subscribed to CinemaSins cause I used to find their videos funny, but then it just felt like they were so spoiled and just nitpick everything. I get that it's not meant to be taken completely seriously, but it still feels spoiled to me. Thus I move to CinemaWins. I'll probably edit this later cause I gotta go somewhere now, but I think you all get my point.