FadedSparkle

Considering just how much of Melody of Memory is reused assets they could definitely have afforded to do that though so I fail to see your point; and well, let's be honest here, with the way Nomura likes to go back and over explain things so much or re-contextualize them it's not as if they're never going to get around to explaining those bits of Kairi's past. Money definitely wasn't the issue here. And time likely wasn't either considering that again, the game is mostly just reused assets. Not even a full hour of brand new cutscenes are included in it.

Re:CoM was originally a PS2 game. The version on the 1.5 and 2.8 collections for PS3 and PS4 respectively are high definition ports of the PS2 version. If what you were trying to say there is that you think it should've been a Wii game in addition to having already been a PS2 game I'm sorry for misunderstanding you, but the way you worded/wrote it out didn't come across like that so I figured I'd mention it'd already been a PS2 game for reminder's sake if nothing else.

If I'm not mistaken what they added to the scene is a very deliberate "drop" sound effect from DDD. A very prolonged one. Are they trying to tell us that Kairi had succumbed to another layer of sleep? That could explain why Kairi took on Sora's appearance later on when battling Xehanort. In DDD the more layers of sleep Sora feel under the more trippy things got for him. And depending on how far buried in Kairi's subconscious her memories of Radiant Garden and Xehanort were it would make sense that she'd end up deeper and deeper in away from the surface level of sleep. And when Kairi wakes up she's not attached to any machines in the lab is she? That could be explained as a result of Ienzo, Ansem the Wise, and Even shutting down and unplugging her from whatever she was connected to that let them analyze her memories while she slept. Might even explain one of my biggest gripes with Melody of Memory, why are Kairi's memories of her past so basic; she never gets to the point where she remembers even a little bit of what might've happened to her grandmother for example, and presumably while running from the heartless she should've also had some vague memory of the Final Fantasy gang from Radiant Garden trying to defend the city from the heartless when they invaded. Depending on if Kairi's dive into her memories for a clue about Sora actually got deep enough we really should've gotten more about her past out of it all than we did.

It's not just the situation of Ven's awakening that was handled poorly. Most of the crucial moments the game had coming were handled poorly. It makes Riku and Mickey look like chumps that both are keyblade masters in perfectly fine health but couldn't save Aqua on their own the second time they went in to look for her. The issues with the way Aqua's rescue was handled are exacerbated by the fact Sora doesn't remember her, but Riku does, plus out of the lot Mickey was the one with the most motivations to save her given he was forced to leave her behind then banned from going back in and leaving her there to rot by Yen Sid. Things could have been leveled out a little if when Sora showed up the battle against Anti Aqua was not a solo one by him. They even gave Riku some badass lines before the fight between them that gets interrupted by the Press Triangle to Sora command (this wouldn't have been too bad had it turned into a scenario where Sora and a recovered Mickey became Riku's party members for the fight with Anti Aqua after the entrance by Sora) and it's doubly depressing they did not apply such logic to the version of this battle featured in the Re:Mind DLC after mucking it up in the base game. Following all of this up with Aqua insisting on saving Ven immediately then being completely uninvolved in actually awaking him up was awful. I get the whole Ven's heart is resting in Sora's body thing, but it just feels awful given how much finally being able to wake up Ven meant to Aqua, it undoubtedly was one of if not her biggest motivation for staying alive in the Realm of Darkness all those years. Someone else doing it was just cheap. I feel like Vanitas being there was appropriate given his own motivation was to rejoin with Ven, but making Aqua so prideful while not remotely recovered from everything she'd endured in the Realm of Darkness that she blocked Sora, Donald, and Goofy from helping her against Vanitas was beyond frustrating. About the only thing I think was handled correctly was Ven's desire to protect Aqua essentially giving him the will to push his body beyond any realistic limits that should've come with him being asleep in that chair for over a decade. Later on in the Keyblade Graveyard the fact that Riku was not involved in saving Terra at all and that Terra practically saves himself after a very minor assist from Sora was a super bitter pill to swallow. This particular rescue should've been a situation of the student saving the master and I have no idea how they mucked that up so badly. I'm not even sure I buy into the idea that it was too hard to shift the playable character from Sora to Riku to Aqua at the appropriate times that Nomura fed us in one of the interviews after how they "fixed" that issues in Re:Mind by adding a character selection option to certain battles. Like, did none of them actually think it would be appropriate to have that feature by default? Really? I rolled by my eyes so hard. I even think that in this particular rescue Riku didn't have to get involved fight wise, that still could've been Aqua as her other motivation to stay alive in the Realm of Darkness was getting out and saving Terra, but they could've had Riku involved in some way during the cutscenes after the battle concluded. Sora would still have his moment of importance there given the "Vanitas has my face" situation. It really just felt like they went the easiest and laziest route of MC Does All the Important Stuff Shounen or Shoujo Anime/Manga style.

And every Soriku fan died a painful death. Sokai fans must be so happy right now. I'd get a pair of these if they were engraved with Sora and Riku's combined keyblade.

This theory makes me wonder. Back when they were little kids in Birth By Sleep Riku sounded like he was talking from experience when he told Sora "Maybe there's someone out there who's really hurting and they're waiting for you to help them." "Hm, maybe they just need you to open your heart and listen." Is it possible that Yozora had been with Riku since he was that young? We don't have a lot of context for how long the Nameless Star and Yozora's plight has been going on after all. If Yozora's heart has been to Riku what Ven's was to Sora all kinds of things could've already happened or be waiting to happen. Also if Yozora is more of a malevolent heart than a benevolent one possession or attempted possession could be in the cards. Might explain attacking Sora. Riku's heart wanting to save Sora while Yozora's wants the opposite for whatever reason. Yozora also doesn't seem to recognize Sora for who he is. If he's seeing Sora as someone else or believes him an imposter that'd definitely explain attacking him to "save" him. "I can't save Sora with You (whoever Yozora might be visualizing in Sora's place)/Fakes (imposter wearing Sora's appearance) in the way." thus striking them down/immobilizing them.

Two issues with that is that the Princesses of Heart are just there to be plot devices and as one of a group of seven Kairi doesn't feel special. Made all the worse by the fact that the others who originally filled the remaining six slots and whoever the incoming six replacements for them turn out to be, are all iconic characters in media who you would love no matter what label was placed on them (on the front of the old six Kairi was grouped with) and modern beloved ones which most people already love and will continue to love no matter what label is placed on them (on the front of the incoming new six). By stark contrast to their established and rich history (especially in regards to the OGs, but their replacements are likely not to fall too far behind on that front) not a lot of time was invested in why we should love (or really bottom line even care for) Kairi. The most special thing about Kairi regarding this status is that she never passed on her power which doesn't exactly amount to much tangibly as far as feeling special or unique. "Oh she did something off screen and things are now good." is weak writing. And of course externally we all know why she's a princess of heart and never passed on her power thus staying one. Disney's classic formula of a princess and a prince (even if one or both in the couple are not royals at all). She's not a princess because there's anything princess title worthy about her she's a princess because our boy hero with a crown necklace he never takes off needs a princess for a love interest because a commoner just won't do.

Sora and Riku are often used as the origin for many staples of the series that then get used for other characters which leads to them no longer feeling unique for those things. For example Sora goes from "The Keyblade Master" to one of three prospective Keyblade Masters in the very first game thanks to Riku and Mickey. Sora (and Xehanort) also both feel less special the more they introduce new versions of them. By the time they introduced Ventus and Young Xehanort the whole idea of a new Sora or Xehanort felt stale and it was easy to just stop caring about their newest versions. Kairi especially suffered from that thanks to Namine and Xion, but she never felt special to begin with creating the opposite problem (just because the devs insist on calling you special doesn't mean you are they need to do something with her that makes it clear she's special for her to feel special) in that Namine and Xion felt special and unique while Kairi still felt like someone "special because the devs say so" instead of because she had actually done something to construe her as actually special. Apologies to those who like Kairi I'm just telling it like it is. Riku has his whole Warrior of the Dawn arc going on which would be a lot more special if Terra hadn't come along in Birth By Sleep (though it's partially alleviated in that they're different enough that they still feel special in other ways). The Recusant Sigil can also be traced back to first displayed on Riku before it was ever a thing within series lore. Also it could have been one off artistic design choice, but I always wondered about Riku having wings never really coming to fruition in KH1. Merging with a winged dream eater in DDD felt like they took an opportunity to resurrect a long dropped idea of winged Riku. Then there's the matter of Xion evolving from a special replica to a nobody to a somebody which made her progressively less unique and special although in that case it's what most of the fans wanted for her. Same applies to Roxas having to merge back with Sora. As perfect an execution of a tragic tale as Roxas having to merge back with Sora was none of the fans wanted that to be his end, but Roxas becoming his own somebody instead of Sora being his somebody took what actually made Roxas a unique nobody away. All the others are their own somebodies rather than someone else's. To quote SuperButterBuns from her DDD for Beginners "Axel who is not Axel, but low-key is still very much Axel."

Don't mind the coat, but would certainly enjoy seeing it more if they gave everybody a custom one like how Xemnas in KH2 had a custom one for the final battle with him and the one we got to see prior to the battle with Armored Ventus Nightmare in Dream Drop Distance.

While having Sephiroth back as a boss fight would be nice and very much welcome I recently played FFX-2 again and thought to myself that it'd be fun to fight a Mega Tonberry, Cactuar, and Chocobo in a Kingdom Hearts game. I can envision the challenge of trying to stay alive against a Mega Tonberry quite nicely. The beautiful stuff of nightmares. One that hopefully would conclude in a Summon Donald for Zettaflare reaction command.

So I went looking back on what I missed out on here and people were talking about the voice acting in the games. For KH3 I noticed nobody pointed out the thing that made some of the voice acting sound just a little off or poorly paced at times. It wasn't actually an issue of matching lip flaps or awkward dialogue with KH3 as this one was mostly well scripted in its English translation. Even Riku's "What?!" when Mickey says "But Aqua, she's like Sora." makes sense coming off of Dream Drop Distance and how Riku had to make the dive and use the power of waking to save Sora. Riku's "What?!" is in context an appropriate expression of concern that Aqua is in the same level of danger Sora was in and he is appropriately relieved when Mickey says "No no no no no, strong like Sora!" What throws off some of the voice acting in KH3 is the audio mixing for the voice acting. Anime dubbing studios like Bangzoom are a testament to how bad audio mixing can ruin good voice acting. Casein point their dub of Card Captor Sakura is far more accurate to the source material, but if you want to spare your ears you're honestly better off with Nelvana's more kid friendly watered down Cardcaptors instead. If I am honest about the voice acting in Kingdom Hearts I think KH1 takes the cake for both the best and the worst voice acting. On the one hand you have some excellent performances by the original Alice, Billy Zane's now iconic speech as Ansem, and a lot of the voice work for Maleficent and her villains council. On the other end you have the absolutely atrocious voice acting by Hayden for Kairi in this game. At the time it didn't seem bad, but when I look back and especially listening to her in the 1.5 and 2.8 collections which reuse her audio in cleaned up form it becomes really apparent. Hayden was a much better Kairi in KH2. And I only wish it was just Hayden that was bad. A lot of the rest of the cast outside of the villains, Riku, and Sora were just okay. Donald and Goofy have some scenes where they are absolutely wonderful and some where they're absolutely horrendous in this one. A lot of it was cleaned up for the collections, but ho-boy vanilla KH1 is rough. Of course much like FFX I need to acknowledge how new to including voice acting in their games Square was at the time. Having Disney's help certainly was a plus as KH1 turned out much better on the voice acting front than FFX. In KH2 while Mena's Aerith was quite flat that was literally the only problem I had with her. There were times where I was more underwhelmed by Namine's VA in KH2 than I was with Mena's Aerith.

Consider this: What if Kairi dying by Xehanort's blade was one of the events destined to happen that time travelers "cannot" rewrite (as stated by Young Xehanort back in Dream Drop Distance) and Sora disappears because he forcefully rewrote an event that was destined to happen thus paying the high price Young Xehanort warns of in the Keyblade Graveyard. The ultimate price really; in the form of his life for hers.

Speaking of beaches it would've been nice if they showed us Twilight Town's beach. Just another way in which that world was disappointing.