NinjAngel

Before I talk about KH3D specifically, I'd like to quickly mention my experience with the series. I've only been playing these games for a few months. Kingdom Hearts has been a series I've been interested in for quite a while now, but never really took any action to play the games. That changed at the end of April, when a bunch of my friends were excited for KH3D, and I decided to reward myself after finals by buying KH and KHII. Their excitement got to me, and I originally planned on just playing 3D...but then realized that this story was kind of ridiculous, and decided to play as much of the games as possible before 3D came out. And I did; I played all 6 games in about a month. So then I preordered 3D, and waited for nearly 2 months for it to arrive. There's a part of me that feels strange, believing that 2 months is a long time to wait when so many others had to wait for MUCH longer; but I can't help but feel my excitement was just as valid, after finding something new and frankly beautiful to dive myself into. It's been a while since I've found a series that captivated me this way, and it was quite refreshing. KH3D itself was crazy. I feel like my timing was perfect; playing a game that was chronologically last and tied up all the lose ends of my KH marathon was a real treat. I was taking a summer class 8-10am at the time, and I just remember the class lasting FOR ETERNITY--I was fidgeting the entire time! Getting home and having to wait for a few hours more was even more tortuous, but the game (and all the other pretty stuff in the MoM Edition) did come, and the first thing I did was get myself all relaxed and start playing. I finished in just over 2 days, and the entire last hour was one big adrenaline rush. But one of the things I really liked about the game was what it did for Riku; it was especially nice being able to play as him, and really see his story and his development, not from Sora's eyes, but from his own. At the same time, it was wonderful to see Sora challenged, as I think he really needs to be if he wants to face MX with full understanding of what's going on inside his heart. While Riku is now confident in his own abilities and his own worth as a Keyblade Master (or is at least moving very clearly in that direction), Sora is now having to find his own way and find out what it is that he's been burdened with...and I appreciate that these games can do that to its protagonists without it feeling too out of place. So, despite my very short amount of time in this fandom so far, I feel like KH3D was the perfect game to set as a goal for playing the rest of the series. And I'm really glad I did end up playing the rest of the series. I think it was one of the best decisions I've ever made, haha.