FUNGoodbye

^Kingdom Key D also keeps me theorizing based on some in game happenings. I wonder if Riku and Sora weren't somehow destined to claim both Kingdom Key and Kingdom Key D on the Night of Fate. Stands to reason that given the location of Kingdom Key D in 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage Riku would've come across it when he opened the door to the heart of Destiny Islands, but rejected it in some way much like he rejects the Kingdom Key later; thus leaving Kingdom Key D unclaimed and open to be found by Mickey and Aqua and Kingdom Key moving on to the person with the next strongest heart, Sora. It appeals to that sense of best friends doing everything together and especially the ongoing narrative of Sora following where Riku leads and vice versa like a perfect yin and yang circle. Here would begin a narrative of Riku giving up one Kingdom Key to Sora and keeping the other and both starting a journey to the outside worlds together rather than what actually occurred. Some of Mickey's dialogue even sort of hints at the fact that they weren't supposed to just get one of the keys in 0.2, but that's clearly retcon if ever the series has had any that is easy to point out considering KH1's own narrative by Mickey in his letter and the whole "there can't be two keyblade masters" thing which is quickly outdone even in the vanilla release of KH1 because if that's true what does that make Mickey if Sora's meant to be The Keyblade Master rather than A Keyblade Master. Still it is a very interesting thing to ponder over. Much like how Riku got his hands on Destiny's Embrace to present to Kairi in KH2.

KH3 Critical Mode will probably be more worthwhile when the Re:Mind DLC launches. Right now there aren't enough bosses worth your time on Critical Mode and the regular enemies are just no fun at all. I honestly feel looking back on 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage like Osaka Team turned into a bunch of overachievers after the change from Unreal 3 to Unreal 4 and it did more bad than good. The combat as Aqua in 0.2 is very fluid and even though she's overpowered because her default level is 50 the game mechanics available to her feel more balanced than everything they offered to Sora for KH3 even after nerfing some things to be less obnoxiously OP for the launch of Critical Mode.

Honestly I think a lot of the reason why people call them spin off games is because of how the games themselves were marketed. Square Enix and Disney put a lot more stock into Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, and 3 when it came to marketing thus giving off a sense to the Kingdom Hearts series fanbase that the rest of the games are either not important or not as important. Had they been more consistent with their marketing with each of the other entries not only would they have sold better right out of the gate upon their original release (except for the obvious issue of Coded being an episodic mobile game release), but the fanbase wouldn't have felt the need to label everything outside of 1, 2, and 3 a "Spin-off" or "Side Game". It shows a lot in that the GBA version of Chain of Memories exceeded a million sales worldwide. A fine feat in its own right, but only half of what Kingdom Hearts 1 managed worldwide in vanilla release before it, and far less than half of what Kingdom Hearts 2 managed in vanilla release worldwide after it. Both of them having gotten much bigger not to mention longer marketing campaigns. It's not just an issue of GBA vs PS2. At the time if you had a PS2 at home you most likely had a GBA too for on the go gaming. It's the lack of devoting the same effort to marketing the handheld title launched between them that left Chain of Memories as the black sheep of this first trio of Kingdom Hearts games. They would repeat the mistake with 358/2 Days and the Re-issue of Coded on the DS line, with Birth by Sleep on the PSP, and with Dream Drop Distance on the 3DS. It was honestly their own actions that conditioned the fanbase. I would also like to mention that they put a huge amount of marketing into Kingdom Hearts 3 like it was any kind of necessary at all. The game had been an awaited and anticipated title for 5-10 years depending on who you asked. All the money that went into the marketing for it should've been going into making the game better or long since been used up on marketing for all the games between Kingdom Hearts 2 and 3. It is the single biggest waste of time that went into Kingdom Hearts 3. The game would have become a best seller with similar total sales figures as it currently has with a literal quarter of the marketing that went into it.

Soul Eater was an interim keyblade that evolved into Way to Dawn (as shown over the course of Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, and KH2) and could be devolved back as shown by Riku (in Dream Drop Distance) and as Soul Eater has no chain. It also had no chain as Way to Dawn the first time we see Riku use it as such (against Shang in a Land of Dragons cutscene) so basically imagine any existing keyblade but without the keychain.

Well as far as we know Sora was never bequeathed a keyblade of his own and the Kingdom Key has throughout the series on a few occasions still answered to Riku even after choosing Sora over him in KH1. I.E At Memory's Skyscraper under the guise of Oblivion. Because the original form of the Oblivion keyblade Roxas loans Riku to fight off the heartless together here is Kingdom Key it for all intents and purposes should reject Riku, but it doesn't. And this was before Soul Eater had evolved into Way to Dawn. Then in Dream Drop Distance after the battle with Armored Ventus Nightmare Riku uses Kingdom Key twice without any trouble. It's like Sora is Kingdom Key's primary user, but secondary owner.

Oh dear. When thinking about it Old Man Xehanort was a great mastermind for the rest, but the others were far more interesting and memorable than he was IMHO. Maleficent was cool with the whole villains council in KH1 and even though she's been reduced to a comedic relief villain since then she's still always fun to watch. Then there's Ansem Seeker of Darkness and Xemnas who had such nice arcs devoted to them in the saga. I voted for Ansem Seeker of Darkness. That arc with Riku was really just something special and their final goodbye in KH3 reduced me to tears. Honestly he and Xemnas were a treasure whenever they were on screen and even when they were just being talked about.

What bothers me about the Kingdom Hearts manga is probably the fact that it's so inconsistent with major events in the games. For example Demyx doesn't fade for good in Hollow Bastion instead getting used to try making Kairi look like a better character in The World that Never Was by having her convince him to let her go since they place him as her guard while she's captured at the castle. And then when he begs her to go back to her cell so he doesn't get in trouble she hits him. That doesn't make Kairi look like a better character at all. It actually makes me hate her more than I do in the games where she's nothing but a plot device and poor love interest Sora only remembers he cares about when the plot demands he remember she exists at all. The rest of the time he can't say Riku's name loud enough or enough times. And the series wants to keep insisting they're not gay for each other.