Hero of Light XIV

Could have done without the language, but I'll let that slide. Look, it's your opinion if you think there's nothing more to be done with RR, and I can at least agree that his arc was pretty solid. But that doesn't mean I don't see more potential for it, so I'm sorry if you don't share my views on this. I don't disagree with Nomura's decisions in things like this as much as you seem to, so I'd be fine with RR coming back the same way I'm fine with Org XIII being repurposed. I'll say this though, the way it's presented in DDD and the fact that Nomura has not commented on it in any capacity leaves it pretty open about whether or not that was indeed RR or not. Personally, I find it much more interesting that it is RR instead of some pointless facsimile that doesn't really go anywhere, but that's just me. If Nomura doesn't end up using him for the new Org, fine, no big deal. I'd still be a bit disappointed as I can still see some interesting character interactions and story possibilities with his inclusion, but the fact that his current story was handled decently enough on it's own would act as a decent consolation. Either way this is over something that hasn't even been confirmed to happen yet, so let's not keep barking over something pointless, yeah?

Um, how about better RNG, or absolutely guaranteed advertised medals in each deal, or at least more deals like the current one? More jewels for less money? Higher medal library capacity? Lots of things that aren't listed here.

I don't know, I doubt Pluto would follow the whistle of just anybody. The only times he would would be if it were from Mickey himself or Riku, who he recognizes as being a friend of Mickey. I mean, he is still kind of a silly dog, maybe he could have been mislead, but I don't know, it's left too open for me.

Ah, so we'll get videos of those voiced recordings with subtitles at the concerts? Well, I guess that works with me. I can't wait to see them in LA! I also can't wait to learn more about these two other Union Leaders and about Ven's role in all of this, as well as just who the Book is supposed to go to. At this point, it could be anyone...though my bets are lying with either Ephemer, Skuld, or Ventus, since we've already got investment in them as characters.

But see, they already used him. It's too late. You'd just make that cameo pointless if you didn't go through with it. Plus, I don't agree with you, I think there's still more that could be done for him. If Roxas, Xion, and Namine deserve a chance to become their own people, who's to say that Riku Replica can't have that as a story arc either? Yeah he'd start off as a Seeker for the same old story, hatred for Riku, but it makes sense to do that because he would have been ripped from time before he was destroyed and given peace by Riku anyway. Maybe he doesn't necessarily have to be destroyed like any of the other Seekers, maybe he can finally learn how to find acceptance within himself towards the end and actually use his power to fight ALONGSIDE Riku rather than try to end him. He can finally be finished being the fake by letting himself be something more. In the end of CoM, all he really did was accept death, he didn't come to any resolution other than it was okay for him to fade away into Darkness, even if that means that he'll just end up where Riku will one day anyway. It's beautifully executed, but it's far from a complete fulfillment of his character and in my eyes far from a satisfactory ending. No, there's plenty of room for him to have a place in KH3's story, he's still a loose end that can be tied up. He might not be in as desperate need for character advancement as Vanitas is, but it's certainly not unwelcome and there's enough there to justify it. Plus, that whole "manifestation of Riku's guilt" thing? Sorry, I'm calling bull on that, Nomura never bothered to go into any detail on that, there's nothing to suggest that it was an illusion, and Pinocchio was clearly being led by someone who both he and Jiminy could clearly see as well as Riku could. If it really was supposed to be a "reminder" of Riku's dark past, it would have looked like him in his KH1 attire, or him in the guise of Ansem again, or him in his Dark Mode, something explicitly familiar and iconic apart from a different hairstyle. The image of him with that look in a black coat could only represent him in 2 ways, either him during the period where he just learned to embrace both the darkness and light in his heart, becoming better than he was before he even showed up in Castle Oblivion, or Data-Riku, who he never even got to meet anyway so there's no reason why he would ever see him in the first place. There's just no other way this whole setup can work without it being the actual Riku Replica. Nomura never stated that it was an illusion, there's no in-game evidence to support that claim, Vanitas was much more explicit of an illusion (with dark aura, distorted imaging, double-voice, and everything) and yet we seem to agree he has just as good of a shot of being brought back. In fact, you could argue that he "fulfilled his purpose" the same way that Riku Replica did. You might not have been satisfied with it, but he was. So why does Vanitas get to come back and Riku Replica is left with a tragic ending when we're getting major hints that all of our other characters who's stories have ended in tragedy might get a second chance? If you want Riku Replica's tragedy intact, keep in mind that anyone taken out of time for the XIII Seekers of Darkness will still have to return to the time they came from anyway, so Riku Replica would still be going back to where he meets his end. The end of his story doesn't change, it's just the the middle part get's extended, and what better tragedy is there than having finally found peace and acceptance within yourself, without having to even be on the brink of death, finally accepting Riku as an equal, maybe even greater, and then having no choice but to return to the destiny that you could never escape and forgetting you ever had that acceptance? There's plenty of room to justify his inclusion, and if it's plausible for Vanitas to come back then the same goes for Riku Replica. Plus, honestly, I also just want to see him and Vanitas team up in a two on two battle against Sora and Riku, and I'm really curious as to how their characters would interact with each other. There's such interesting possibilities here, they shouldn't be shot down just because "his ending was okay tho...".

Oh no doubt, I'd love for them to bring him back as a Seeker of Darkness. It'd give them plenty of opportunities to further his character with interactions with the other Guardians of Light, particularly Sora, Riku, Aqua, and maybe even Roxas...mostly cause I want to see their reactions towards each other. I mean it kind of feels like that's what they were hinting at with bothering to feature him at all in DDD, even though that was Ven's heart reacting to seeing Young Xehanort. If you weren't going to tease his return, why else would you bother with a cameo like that? Same goes to Riku Replica, cause logically speaking that's the only character Riku could have encountered in Prankster's Paradise (cause if it really was him from when he was controlled by Maleficent and Ansem, then YX wouldn't need to bother with trying to recruit present-Riku). So if he wasn't due to return as a Seeker, then his cameo also would have been pointless. So it makes much more sense that Vanitas and Riku Replica are going to be revealed as two of the unidentified Seekers.

Actually it's more of, he failed the test because he let himself become vulnerable to or nearly fell to Darkness, not necessarily because of his own Darkness, which is not a lot if his transformation into a Shadow is any indication.

Nnnnnnno, Nomura explained this a long time ago in an interview back when Birth by Sleep came out. Vanitas only looks like Sora because Ventus connected his heart with Sora's. Vanitas was still connected to Ven in some way, so if Ven had connected his heart with anyone else, like say Riku for example, Vanitas' face would have resembled them as well. It has nothing to do with any future-vision Keyblades or Xehanort time travel or any convoluted stuff like that. Just pure simple "the heart shapes the body" type stuff.

Man, they've been pretty liberal with these Jewel Quests lately. Keep it up guys! X3"

LA for me! I can finally witness that Powerline Kingdom Hearts concert I've always dreamed of! X3"

momo_krys is still going to translate the Aqua lines in full, right? I mean I know it's probably something we're used to hearing from Aqua by now, but it's still just as important as the others, especially considering how you could argue the same thing about Xion's lines. Besides, it's still Woman's Month, so it's only fitting that we get to read everyone's lines! I have a feeling in a proper English dub it would be read as "Don't know. Guess I just couldn't get it memorized." I mean, this is still Lea we're talking about, he's always gotta find a way to work that phrase into everything. "Committing to memory" just ain't gonna cut it, lol.

Except those pods likely came from Castle Oblivion, and the Organization may have been experimenting with how they could be used. I mean, Vexen loves using living test subjects and all that, it wouldn't be that surprising. Besides, maybe that's where they were originally storing the Replicas before they ended up using any of them.

Wow, are you doing this for the other locations as well? Cause I'm going to the 2nd LA concert, it'd be great to do something like this.

At this point, it's really hard to say, we're literally in uncharted (or unchained, lol) territory here. Before we just had the plot of the original X to rely on, even when we knew that we were going to diverge at some point. Well, it's diverging time, so everything from here on out is going to be unfamiliar. Heck, there's only a month's difference of progress between the American and Japanese versions, we're practically at the same pace almost. So even if we get the scenes of Japan's UX translated, in another few weeks we're going to get them ourselves anyway. It's certainly going to be interesting to see how this plays out, as it isn't going to be as predictable as it may have been before, even if we're certain it will end up with Ven having something happen to him that takes him to the age of Xehanort, there's still lots of other events that could happen around that that we could never guess up. What I DO hope for is that there will be some way we can experience or witness the events of the Keyblade War even if we're on a different path, like, I don't know, more dream cutscenes or something. Our character has had dreams before, maybe they can have dreams of the events that they took place in "another place, another time" as they slowly start to piece together just what happened to them and why they're perfectly fine now as if nothing had happened. Of course I could also see it going in a past and future thing like RikuFangirl suggested, as some sort of way of having the rest of X's story alongside the new developments of UX's story.

Wow. On the plus side, it's nice to see how Kairi is regarding the training and to actually hear her talk to Sora again. Still, the idea that the other concerts might not get something like this bugs me. Unless each one get's its own thing, but I'm not sure if they'd be able to grab a hold of the English voice actors for any lines they could give. Guess we'll have to see how they handle the other concerts.

Doesn't seem fitting to me in the slightest, but it's whatever Square and Nomura want to do with it I guess. I just can't think of any way it would work.

Pretty sure they're going to patch it anyway, 2.8 got a patch within it's first week in Japan, and that was just for some minor opening cutscene details and some 0.2 gameplay lag issues. It's more than likely that they'll fix this one too, with or without spamming.

Okay, I'm not as familiar with some terminology among the "Pro crowd", so I can only half-understand some of these things (revenge value? Corner loop? DM skip? I thought I was playing KH, not source-code simulator). Simpler things though like the tornadoes and that Quick Run thing do make sense though, I can see why that would be a problem. I mean, I hardly ever skip those Tornadoes, but then again I guess that would be a pain for some people. Plus, yeah that Quick Run does look like it covers significantly less distance (but to be fair, the uploader never bothered to clarify if that was the same level of Quick Run for both videos, so I'm a little on the skeptical side now...). Again, I am pretty confident they will patch this, since they did with 2.8 and it really seems like developers are much more comfortable patching games on the PS4 these days compared to the PS3. Not to mention some people have claimed that some of these issues don't seem apparent in the demos for the English version, so it's also likely that the version we're actually supposed to play will have at least most of this stuff fixed already and then a patch will follow shortly after for both versions that fixes everything that hadn't been addressed yet. If one or two months go by and they don't patch any of this however, then I will be worried.

Plus, I get pretty tolerant when it comes to these sorts of things. Really it's aesthetic errors that peeve me more, like the whole Ven's Station of Awakening thing (don't ask, you'll just get another paragraph from me)...which I really hope they rectified this time.

That moment when you use a picture of Xemnas when you meant to talk about Young Xehanort. X)"

No. For one thing, this looks like a younger Ven, this is before he ever got the Keyblade Armor from Eraqus. He was roughly around 11 years old at the time he was Master Xehanort's apprentice, and Luxu doesn't really come across to me as that young. Plus, I feel that'd be a really weak plot twist, it's confusing enough that Ven and Roxas already look like each other, do we really need Ven to be revealed as a different character as well? I think the sheer fact that he's in Unchained X at all is more than enough of a twist. I think it's more than likely that Luxu is his own character, considering how he is meant to pass that Keyblade down to his apprentice, than that apprentice to theirs, and so on, until it eventually reaches Xehanort. He can't do that AND stay behind in the time that Ephemer and everyone else is in, especially if he, as "Ven", would still have to go through whatever happens to cause him to meet Xehanort and become his pupil while looking that young. There's too many inconsistencies and holes in that theory for it to really work, they really only can be two separate characters.

Sooooooo Oswald confirmed for KH3/KH4/KH Whatever? X3"""

I am curious as to how a connection can be made between the unicorn-decorated Haunted Mansion and Master Ira, but I'm not so sure how sold I am on this being the possibility yet. I mean him having a mansion with tech in it isn't too far fetched, he did seem to be the scholarly sort out of the whole group. As to him trying to do this with Keyblade wielders...eh, I'm not getting that vibe from him. I'd probably have to actually witness and be shocked by it unfolding that way within the game itself before I buy into what feels like such a leap in character. Plus the impression I was getting from the trailer was that the Foretellers may no longer be present for some reason (I mean, why else would you need 5 more?), so if Ven is out and about just fine, then none of this would get to work out, not in the way you've described it at least. Still, the fact that those pods must have been used by...somebody for...something at...some point is curious, and it would be strange to not touch up on that detail if we're willing to go back and explain how Castle Oblivion came to be anyway. And it's not like DiZ had any other interests in anyone other than Sora anyway, so he wouldn't be gathering up random people to experiment on himself (he wasn't that far gone), so it couldn't have been him. Of course, you could just explain that all those pods came from Castle Oblivion itself and DiZ and Namine simply transferred them over. DiZ might not have experimented with other people using those pods, but who else could have if not him or Ira? Organization XIII, that's who. Specifically Vexen. I mean, they did all sorts of experiments in that place, what with messing with memories, making replicas, putting memories in replicas, etc. For all we know they probably messed around with those pods too. Maybe they used them to store or experiment on the failed replicas they used or other specimens like Heartless or lesser-Nobodies that were deemed useless for anything else. Maybe they wanted to see if they could be used for other purposes. Plus, Donald and Goofy were already inside 2 of them already, and it seems likely that you'd wake up the moment you're out of them or it opens up, so they couldn't have been moved out of whatever CO pods they were in into those Mansion ones. They must have been in those same pods the whole time, and if Sora wasn't taken out of the same pod even when moved to Twilight Town, then neither were Donald and Goofy, so those pods must have come from CO too. My point is, it's very tempting to try and find a way to tie Ira into the Mansion some how, but I'm not sure if the pods themselves are the way to do it. Not when you could just as easily argue that they came from somewhere else.

Personally I think some other plot-related thing will happen to this Ventus to send him into whatever world/time Xehanort first comes across him on, with no memory of his past, and that's when he takes him under his wing. I'm almost convinced this is a younger Ventus, considering his hair length (I know Nomura cut Riku's hair on a whim, but Ven's would just seem too random for me), plus he doesn't have any of his Keyblade armor. This leads me to believe that over time he will grow his hair out to a Roxas-length and then whenever the as of yet unexplained plot-thing happens he will end up the way he is when Xehanort and he first cross paths. I still refuse to believe that Master Xehanort would have any direct hand in any of the events that happen in X/Unchained X/X Back Cover/Union X because that would essentially ruin the most essential component of his character, his desire to see what happened during the Keyblade War. What would be the point of that when he literally has a means of going back to witness it himself? If he could go back to kidnap Ven or whatever, he could go back further to when the war actually happened, and that would just break everything we've learned about him up to this point. I also don't believe that Ven is "dream-time-traveling" or whatever people are calling it because for one thing, that's just way too much convoluted stuff to mix together. The best use of time travel in a story is a very limited use of it, if it's over-relied on it becomes cheap and has almost no weight to it, unless it's handled properly and is an essential part of the whole story it's centered around. And again, this Ven seems to be slightly younger anyway. We never get an exact age of what all the players are, not even named ones like Skuld and Ephemer, they're just kind of young-teen-ish looking. And Ven as an 11-year old looked about roughly the same as he does as a 15-year old (mostly cause making another model for Ven would have been tedious I guess...?), so for all we know this could still be him at an 11-year old state with shorter hair. With all this in mind, it makes much more sense to assume that this Ven is actually a younger Ven from the past. How he ends up in BBS's time we'll have to wait and see.

Still not enough to kill buying it for me. I barely ever came across any of the complaints people had with the PS3 versions, so for all I know I may not get these issues at all when the English version comes out, and it sounds as though they may have already addressed some of those issues already in the English version of the demos are anything to go by. And I think it's pretty obvious a patch is imminent at some point, especially since those are apparently easier to arrange for the PS4 compared to the PS3. Plus most of these terms I'm not familiar with, it sounds like you only come across most of these whenever you try to go all "Pro-Mode" on the bosses, and I kind of follow my own unconventional play style so I'm far from attempting anything that's even close to these strategies. And I already save way more times than I reasonably should in KH anyway, so I'm pretty much set up to take any issues like these in stride, if not outright avoid them in some cases. Also, I pre-ordered from Square anyway, so I can't exactly impulse-cancel out of pure rage and disappointment, if I was ever even considering it in the first place. I'm fairly confident that most of these issues will be addressed in due time though.