FUNGoodbye

@Iscreamer1 I think the retracing Aqua's steps by traveling to worlds she'd been to could actually have helped out from the standpoint of giving Riku and Mickey more to do as a gameplay duo than we got, but for that they'd have to have committed to making worlds Aqua visited feature in more than just cutscenes. The cramming Kairi in there I think wouldn't work so well. What we needed from Kairi (and Axel) for the game (outside of the reunion with Roxas and Xion and reconciliation with Isa on Axel's end) was for them to show us them actually training even if it was only them sparring with their keyblades or beating up animated training dummies in a cutscene or two. This was where their stories were headed at the end of Dream Drop Distance and I don't think doing a 180 for Kairi would've benefited her. Like honest to gods, just seeing Kairi training would've taken so much of the sting off of the way they handled her in the Keyblade Graveyard because at the very least we'd get to see she's made progress and it just didn't prove to be enough. With Axel a lot of people point out he was just as disappointingly handled, but Axel had been entrenched in good handling since his introduction to the series in Chain of Memories thus there's a lot less sting at play with him than with Kairi, especially given the heartfelt reunion with Roxas and Xion and the reconciliation with Isa. Even the critiques that he was reduced strictly to comedy relief don't add up because he's had a habit of maintaining a balancing act between being serious and being funny since day one and that didn't cease in KH3 or lean in one direction more than the other to the extent that some people pretend it did. That's not even mentioning that Kairi is the series female protagonist, which by default means she should be handled better than supporting characters even the elevated ones. I know people want Kairi to finally get in on the action at the front line really badly, but if they took their time to do a character arc for her correctly it would be a lot more rewarding than rushing her from point A to point B to point C like they have. And they even appear to have realized it between KH3, the Remind DLC, and Melody of Memory. I.E They took the heavy backlash on how Kairi was handled in the KH3 base game to heart for the Remind DLC responding in the easiest way to appease the critics, but the worst way for Kairi's character arc, making her way beyond a BAMF in a battle against a keyblade wielder as long lived and experienced as Xehanort; then come Melody of Memory they back pedaled, having her turn into Sora momentarily in a battle with a Phantom Memory of Xehanort. About the only thing they did do well in Melody of Memory was make her acknowledge that she needed to continue her training rather than having her insist on going with Riku (which she shouldn't even be able to do because she lacks the Power of Waking). The Power of Waking being a power that sleeps until you need it was a very disappointing way of going about Sora's journey through the Disney Worlds in KH3, but the power itself is so poorly defined that in Dream Drop Distance they don't even formally call it that. I think that was one thing that might've been destined for poor handling from the very beginning. Heck at the moment the Power of Waking's rules and what it even strictly is has been so poorly properly defined that it may as well be in the same league as the mysterious deus ex machina powers of the Princesses of Heart. Both of these are among the things that make me go "if you're not going to care to keep track of your own lore and rules why should the audience?" when it comes to Kingdom Hearts.

That's not quite accurate IMHO. Things don't exactly cap off happily in KH3's Pirates of the Caribbean world given that Will and Elizabeth are left forced to mostly be apart and Sora's definitely the type to have wanted to fix that for them somehow, but he doesn't get a chance to from the devs. IMHO if a world is meant to have a less than happy or even a tragic conclusion they're going to let it happen regardless of Sora and co being inserted into the equation.

It's really not about the IPs themselves, more about how they're incorporated. The worst thing for me is them using the IPs to insult the audience's intelligence by pretending that they matter more than they do or at all to the overarching story. I.E the whole mess of placing hearts in vessels of their choosing on the Organization's end with Toy Story (there is a wealth of attention to detail regarding the Toy Box world itself and the world's environment interacts very well with the gameplay, but aside from some meme-worthy one-liners the story is passable at best and redundant at its worst) when this is something Xehanort knew through Riku's gambit in Monstro and Pinocchio via Ansem Seeker of Darkness's possession of Riku as far back as the vanilla release of KH1. Or Sora Donald and Goofy doing Disney Shenanigans in some worlds out of mere obligation because of how famous an IP happens to be like with Kingdom of Corona and Arendelle where they end up insulting the audience by pretending Sora has learned something revolutionary about love/hearts/bonds.

Yes actually he could. They've done stuff where they cover multiple points in time for a world. I.E Beast's Castle (After the events of KH1 we see what Beast and Belle are up to in their homeworld in 358/2 Days (there is a reconnaissance mission with Roxas and Xaldin in this game where Xaldin first gets the idea to turn Beast into a Heartless so the organization can recruit his Nobody) and then we get the aftermath of the events from 358/2 Days in KH2). Then there is the absolutely blatant example of how they couldn't be bothered to care about jumping around timeline wise featured with Pirates of the Caribbean where they skip an entire film between KH2 and KH3's takes on that world. Also this is a series entrenched in time travel and world line shenanigans at this point so it wouldn't even be surprising if Sora ended up meeting both a young and old version of someone. Heck Xehanort himself says hello many times over on that front.

As someone who has never been much of a Star Wars fan I'm not going to care one way or the other if we get one or more Star Wars world(s) or we don't. Whether I end up liking them will depend on how well they implement them.

I'm in agreement about them finally giving us a game revolving specifically around the Destiny trio. I am not in agreement with Riku and Kairi as Sora's main party members though as I would want to get to play as both of them in addition to Sora. Also Sora, Donald, Goofy is too iconic to not have it and I can't imagine Mickey not eventually defying Yen Sid's order to refrain from following Riku into Unreality. He was just way too ready to go after his son in the post credits scene of Melody of Memory. On the Kairi front, assuming they actually aren't just using her training off screen some more as a way to fridge her for the foreseeable future we're probably going to keep getting damage control on their handling of Kairi by way of her completing her training off screen and taking the Mark of Mastery exam off screen to get the Power of Waking so she can go join Riku in Unreality. It'd be nice to see KH4 feature a campaign for each member of the Destiny trio with Sora/Donald/Goofy, Riku/Mickey/Someone New, Kairi/Someone New/Someone New. Heck if giving us fixed Disney or Square Enix mascot party members for Riku and Kairi to fill out their trios is too much to ask for I'd settle for solo campaigns for Sora, Riku, and Kairi where Donald, Goofy, and Mickey just join temporarily like the numerous world specific party members do in prior entries.

TBH the only thing I'm strongly hoping for from KH4 is a properly playable Riku again like in Chain of Memories and Dream Drop Distance. I will never not be disappointed with what they gave us for him in KH3 and Remind.

With the 25th anniversary being in 2027 I'm honestly expecting them to capitalize on it. Either by taking advantage of the anniversary month itself for the release or releasing it during the 2026 Christmas/Winter Holidays season so that the first six months of people playing the game will coincide with the 25th anniversary and they can try to boost the sales with anniversary events tied to KH4's release. It feels like too much of a golden opportunity for them not to aim to release it between December 2026 and March 2027 is all I'm saying. Before that with FFXVI being another big project on the table my guess is that's the big title we could expect for 2023-2025. Along with FF7R Part 2. I actually wanted to vote for 2026 but since that wasn't an option of its own I had to choose Beyond 2026.

RIP man. Another one gone too soon.

I don't hate it, but it was certainly a bit jarring the first watch of the teaser trailer. Having had a bit to mull it over I actually like a few things about it. The fact that Sora's babyface features have been amplified for this version is nice and adds a whole new level of cute to him. I also like the way the hair was done. I look forward to seeing what he and other familiar characters will look like once KH4 actually releases (which I'm kind of expecting to happen for the 25th anniversary (2027) or the Christmas/Winter Holidays season the year prior).

I was less disappointed that Riku didn't play a role and more disappointed that Terra mostly saved himself. There was a minor assist from Sora in there (especially without the Remind DLC factored in) but for the most part Terra really saved himself. It was pretty embarrassing to see how hard they over-complicated things for the sake of honoring Sora being the one who saved everyone instead of just letting certain plot threads reach their natural conclusions though. Aqua keeping her promise to Ven, Mickey and Riku actually having a proper role in Aqua's rescue (Sora didn't even necessarily not have to be there just make it a team effort and Dark Aqua a tougher boss) and involve Riku in saving Terra even if you keep Sora involved.

Well that's some disheartening news to say the least. My condolences to her loved ones and may she rest in peace.

I distinctly remember that in the Days video game when they send everyone out on missions with Roxas to essentially show him the ropes of the ins and outs of the Organizations daily dealings Larxene actually treats him alright when its her turn. She treats him almost like an older sister with a kid brother she's not necessarily happy to deal with but not unhappy to have to deal with either. Also the way that Axel kills Vexen especially in ReCoM is super brutal. I don't think there's that huge of a stretch to friend material between him and Larxene especially if they started to explore the Elrena side of Larxene's personality early in Days vs in Union Cross which I don't know nearly enough about given I could really care less about Union Cross but I doubt she was also a Sadist back then. Also a question about the replicas themselves. They look like store-bought mannequins in their vessel form and all we have to go off of for how they then become proper replicas is that they get data inserted into them that serves as the heart and that data allows them to take on the form of the person their source data came from. None of this sounds like it requires any kind of higher education or special degree. And I'm still banking on someone being able to do it better than Vexen without any so called experience in any special field just because of plot reasons because this is KH where plot contrivance is very very real.

Let me ask you something then, the character of Axel as we knew him in Chain of Memories did he make you think he was friend material for Roxas? He was pretty messed up too. The rest of what you said that mostly makes sense as laid out within unfolded canon. Although I don't buy into no-one other than Vexen being smart enough to figure the replica data out and consider it more of KH3's over abundant plot contrivance than anything else that only Vexen knew how to make them. And I'm actually waiting on KH to pull something just for plot's sake where another character randomly knows how to make replicas (likely even better than Vexen). At this point nothing will surprise me about this series.

Days definitely could've worked without Xion. Primarily because if what they wanted was to tell a story of another two boys and a girl trio they already had a female in the Organization to tell the story with in Larxene. Imagine how much depth the story could contain if they had to write Roxas coping with the death Larxene after the Castle Oblivion mission if she had been in Xion's place in the Seasalt trio instead of Xion. This would also have added more weight to Axel having to ensure the traitors to the organization didn't come back from the Castle Oblivion mission in that he'd be having to ensure that Larxene, now a friend wasn't coming back even if this would ultimately be helping another friend Saix/Isa out (as we now know from information revealed in KH3). On the front of keyblades after Vexen's death they would still have had Repliku's data available to mess with, essentially being able to make as many copies of him as they wanted. He could then wield a Kingdom Key for them en masse and even if he for some plot contriving reason couldn't wield that every time Soul Eater is used against a heartless it does the same thing a bonafide keyblade does releasing the captive heart so the organization could still have used him for collecting hearts for their artificial Kingdom Hearts.

I'm just gonna reiterate that feeling the need to make a separate thread drawing attention to a dark skinned/"colored" character is the exact opposite of taking pride and celebration in it. If it's really that great a thing you shouldn't feel the need to treat it like the elephant in the room otherwise full of cats. You should just be happy to let it exist and continue on with your life, not suddenly stop to acknowledge it like something revolutionary occurred. We are all human, all people. These are the kinds of life lessons your homeroom teachers are meant to have taught you in kindergarten or first grade for crying out loud. We all look different in some way or another, but we're all people in the end.

You mean aside from anyone having to point it out at all instead of just the character's existence being left to simply be a thing instead of him being treated like an elephant in the room. Because aside from it being pointed out here someone made an entire separate topic "The first African American KH Character" https://www.kh13.com/forums/topic/129544-1st-african-american-kh-character/?do=getNewComment or something to that effect. And all I could think is; Would you like fries with that virtue signal sandwich? I imagine that in times of segregation and more recently in the immediate aftermath of the events that led to the Black Lives Matter movement Blacks walking into establishments with mostly white people who just stared at them suspiciously must feel much like the fictional character in this game would feel if they were real and that topic was a literal sign not a forum topic on the internet (and vice versa for any whites who happened to be walking into establishments filled with mostly blacks it goes both ways). I hope you can see why I find this all just a little bit ridiculous of a talking point. The character's skin color is irrelevant. The fact that the character is a person is relevant. Representation for the sake of representation, or just to cover your bases (tick off all the boxes) is also just another form of the long time used in various ways thing known as tokenism, which is another thing to keep in mind. We don't know if this KH character is an example of this or not anymore than we know if the character is meant to actually be an African American, but considering what Disney's doing outside of KH right now it wouldn't surprise me. Truly people, do we want to go backwards instead of forwards. Do we want to keep putting emphasis on what makes us different instead of what makes us all the same human beings? I remember when zombies bled every color of the rainbow in video games instead of just red like real life humans. I remember when character skins in video games could be every color under the sun because your skin color was irrelevant. Now everything has to be hyper realistic and nothing can ever be fun for long because politics this, agendas that. Please no more.

I wasn't trying to make it out like African American representation would be something bad or something not to be celebrated, but I still don't know if the character is meant to be African American. Saying dark skin = African American would be like saying I should suddenly consider Mihoshi Kuramitsu from Tenchi Muyo an African American just because of her skin color. Since when in a Japanese IP does dark skin = African American representation is essentially the question I'm posing here. And while representation is important, making a big deal out of it only makes people come off as insecure. That doesn't even just apply to African American representation. Other cultures/minorities are the same way. It can get pretty cringey seeing people get ecstatic over devs addressing "diversity"

Wait, is that meant to be an African American character or is that just another deeply dark tanned character alla Ansem Seeker of Darkness who for all we knew back before he was revealed to be a heartless and not the real Ansem could've also been an African American due to his skin's shading/color selection? And why does it even matter at this point? Are people actually invested in something like racial diversity when it comes to KH that this is a talking point or is it just because it's 2021?

@JTD95 - Is it not Paul Saint Peter voicing Apprentice Xehanort here (KH2FM scene in Ansem the Wise's study) with a softer edged voice than the one he uses for Xemnas? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXVZ4AWrxuE And I distinctly remember that in Birth By Sleep after everything goes down we get Richard Epcar and Terra's VA voicing the warring for control Terra and Ansem Seeker of Darkness that make up Terranort, then Paul Saint Peter voicing the "amnesiac" soon to become Apprentice Xehanort when he's found in Radiant Garden after Aqua opts to stay in the realm of darkness and send Terra back to the realm of light; these voice changes essentially marking the difference between Terranort and Apprentice Xehanort as more than just cosmetic.

If one connects all the dots available it is possible that Riku was being groomed by Ansem Seeker of Darkness for much longer than just the time he knew him in KH1. He knew that Riku was Terra's choice for a successor from having the memory of Terra bequeathing Riku. We learned from Coded/Re:Coded that while the Robed Figure Ansem was new to Sora in KH1 Riku was already long familiar with him due to the memory that showed up in the journal that originated from outside the journal according to Data Riku. This is a memory in which Riku smiles serenely while a dark portal opens up behind him to take him off Destiny Islands on the Night of Fate courtesy of Robed Figure Ansem, putting into question if Riku actually left the islands before or after Sora (and we can surmise that this is the incident being referred to when Robed Figure Ansem comments about Riku showing no fear when jumping right into the darkness, not the scene between him and Sora where Sora first gets the Keyblade, speaking of which, if Riku did leave before Sora was the Riku Sora saw during the Night of Fate in the scene he gets the Kingdom Key just an illusion?). If Riku was also using that stance as a kid while play fighting/sparring with Sora how long exactly had he been under Xehanort's thumb in some way or another before the events of KH1? It really is up in the clouds, but we can certainly surmise it had been going on for at least several years.

Ansem Seeker of Darkness - Richard Epcar, Billy Zane Terranort - Richard Epcar Xemnas and Apprentice Xehanort - Paul Saint Peter Young Xehanort - Benjamin Diskin Master Xehanort - Lenard Nemoy, Rutger Hauer, Christopher Lloyd It takes a little observation but they have the respective changes in voice to show you who is who. In essence the first body to give Ansem Seeker of Darkness form was Terra in the form of Terranort. Terra's heart ended up scattering into multiple vessels though. Into his armor turning into Lingering Will, merging with Xehanort's released heart into what became known as Terranort eventually being power struggled out into the Guardian or the Boy in the Back (Ushiro no Shounen) as it is known in Japan, as well as into Apprentice Xehanort aka Xemnas.

In the case of bloodybizkitz isn't their main criticism towards Birth By Sleep that it's super easy to cheese it even on critical mode due to just being able to put multiple of the same over powered ability into the command deck and spamming it? If that's solid evidence for BBS being bad I hate to be the one to break it to you @yamibakura but Chain of Memories can be cheesed just as easily. Easier even since you don't have to grind as much for the over powered commands. In Sora's case the moment you have the Sonic Blade sleight everything can be defeated easily by spamming it even if you're not playing on Beginner or Standard. In Riku's case just spam the sleights with Mickey where he and Riku dance around the battle field shooting balls of light and darkness at enemies against the mobs when you're grinding levels out in the worlds and switch over to not even bothering to think about what cards you'll use when you duel once you've managed to start one just spam cards till you've won the duel because the timer runs out way too quick if you take the time to think. If you think the dueling system is broken then fine ignore that, but there is no way around getting put into dark mode; even if you're not trying you'll take enough damage to end up that way at least once in every boss battle before you get killed, and then all you have to do is spam Dark Firaga, or use the bosses like they're the foundation for your keyblade that is suddenly a pogo stick (Dark Break). Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing. Pressing triangle sure is fun...and hard, yes; definitely hard.

Comments below were taken from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQi_dW0XP1A (Part 41 of YouTuber Relle's KH3 Abridged) "Fun Fact KH3 fixed Xemnas's character. KH2: I don't care that what I'm doing is wrong I just can't stand the pain of not having a heart. Dream Drop Distance: Lol I had a heart all along and I'm evil because I'm evil. KH3: A Heart is nothing but pain. Also you're right about Nomura." - Horrible Mistake [@Horrible Mistake - It's not really correct to say that KH3 fixed him. He was essentially going through an arc over those three games much like how Ansem Seeker of Darkness went through one with Riku. In Xemnas' case it was essentially an arc of discovering that just because he was Xehanort's Nobody it didn't mean he wasn't his own person. An exceedingly important and often forgotten piece of dialogue from Xemnas comes from KH2. When Mickey calls him Xehanort in Radiant Garden and he responds with "How long has it been since I abandoned that name?" that is the first hint that Xemnas wants to be acknowledged as his own person and it becomes apparent through subtle nuances in the writing for him in The World that Never Was in both KH2 and Dream Drop Distance that it isn't just in the eyes of others that he wants to be acknowledged as his own person, he himself wants to reach that point. Then KH3 he seems so solemn in his goodbye because he realizes his mistake was seeking that individuality in such a detached and cold manner. If he had been honest with the rest of the Organization members about the nature of the experiments that led to them being nobodies he would have probably found his answer to existence as his own person much sooner and easier. PS: It's misleading to say he had a heart all along. Like all the nobodies he needed to regrow a heart. In his case he was created when Old Man Xehanort as Apprentice Xehanort split himself into his Heartless and Nobody creating Xemnas and Ansem Seeker of Darkness so at the very least much like the rest of the organization Xemnas was lacking a heart until Dream Drop Distance. He even has a very good line to show it off in the game "The heart will try to reconstitute itself the first chance it gets." - Sylvia Delaney]

Is there really more detail to the worlds in Re:COM? Also to be honest BBS's gameplay is something you need to learn to understand. Yes you level up your abilities, but maxing them out is not enough. You also need to learn the attack patterns of the bosses you encounter and take advantage of their openings to fell them. BBS is one of the few games in the series where mash x to win just doesn't work out. Especially so if you don't just pick a lower difficulty. Beyond that the capabilities of the PSP were not exactly any lesser than the PS2's, in fact being somewhere above that of the PS2 and bellow that of the PS3. And lastly 99 is the max level in almost every RPG, but the maximum level you should need to be for most RPGs regardless in order to 100% them is Level 50. BBS falls well into that range.