FUNGoodbye

I might actually get this. For as much as I trash-talk Kairi it's precisely because I wish she was better handled and had more life to her. Something I've wanted for ages (as I would hazard many KH fans have) is a game where Sora, Riku, and Kairi can go on adventures together. It's depressing that this is the closest we've gotten so far into the series run where that's a possibility. This'll be a nice Christmas present to myself.

Wait, what? I thought they were co-owned. Especially since Nomura was the one who drew them. actually, ansem SOD, used riku's body as a base so he looks like an aged up riku albeit with xehanort's haircut. notice how SOD looks different than apprentice xehanort and xemnas because of that Yeah, ironically though outside of the darker skin color Ansem SOD doesn't look that different from the other non-elderly Xehanorts when overlayed with them. It'd be interesting if the series goes on long enough for Riku to get to an age where he's around Ansem SOD's age if Nomura actually gave Riku a design that made him look anything like Ansem SOD.

That actually sounds like grasping at straws for evidence of him having feelings for her of a romantic nature and trailing off could mean he wants to say more (I would imagine the full line he's trying to say there is along the lines of "Kairi...Sora..I'm sorry."). Although I actually never knew that he calls her name when he dies because I've never had Riku KO'd in KH2 before. Grains of salt all over this though, putting it together with everything else about their relationship it falls apart and acts as a big piece that doesn't fit in the puzzle that's put together from the rest of my observations. I'd have to devote time to slotting that in somehow, but it is a good piece of food for thought. As far as him staying close to them goes, at the end of the day they're still the two most important characters to him. That's consistent throughout the whole first trilogy of games, and all the ones that came afterwards so far. It'd be pretty unlike Riku to not want to be close to Sora and Kairi. This I can definitely agree with. Kairi, Namine, Xion, Shiki, and most recently the Limit Cut episode of the Re:Mind DLC offered up one scene where he was very gentle towards Aqua too. Yeah, the novels and manga do help with this one, so long as one views them empathizing and sympathizing with each other's loneliness and guilt as signs of more than a budding friendship. There's an essay posted to AO3 by someone that basically has its core point being that because Riku and Namine were like that in the KH2 novels it means there's a basis for them as a ship, thus the general consensus that the ship came out of nowhere and they just got lumped together in that one scene at the end of KH3 is false. I don't know how canon or non-canon the novels and manga continuities are according to the series owners themselves, so I simplified things in my head and just put everything into its own canon (the novels have their canon, the manga has its canon, and of course the games have theirs). It's just too much of a headache to try combining all three so I choose not to. There's also a distinct lack of characters acting like themselves consistently throughout all three adaptations. To mention one glaring example I'll just point to Kairi in the KH2 novels and manga. In the games I don't recall any scene where Kairi was mean or rude (save for when she's teasing Sora about being lazy/slow in the head/naive) outside of the line in KH1 where she wanted to take the raft with Sora and leave Riku behind, during a scene with a serious tone to it. The way she treats Demyx in both of the other continuities though; is really contradictory to her game counterpart and served to make me hate her more than I already do. I should probably use hate loosely as it's difficult to hate a character who only has so much life in her. All three adaptations would have to do a better job with her for me to actually like her, and it's more like hate for how she's handled than hate for her specifically because there's only so much "her" to like or dislike/hate. I hope I'm making sense. i think namine sympathizs with roxas because she too is being used by DiZ. she feels he is a vitcim like her If she does, she has one very contradicting line in the KH2 prologue "Roxas, you were never supposed to exist." It's comparable to the amount of callousness she displays when it comes to Repliku and really brings out the truth of Larxene's "Oh so cute, but beyond this pretty face, you do awful things." line from Chain of Memories. Now this could have everything to do with the way that Namine came into being, but Roxas is right to react with anger and disbelief at her line there when he retorts with, "Even if that were true, how could you ever say that?" I don't want to seem like I'm giving Namine a harder time than I should, but a lot of her prospects for romance are in the realm of one-sided. She wants to replace Kairi in Sora's heart in Chain of Memories (and takes the fact she's being coerced to mess with his memories as her chance to do so, even if she backtracks and stops trying to in the end), she wants to be close to Roxas because Kairi is close to Sora (essentially wanting him to be the Sora to her Kairi due to them being Sora and Kairi's Nobodies), she wants to be the female companion who ends up with Riku in a quartet made up of herself, Sora, Riku, and Kairi; because Sora belongs to Kairi, her Original/her Somebody (we can infer this way more than just slightly, from the drawing of the four of them she makes in Chain of Memories, where she draws herself next to Riku and Kairi next to Sora because deep down even she realizes that Sora would never choose her over Kairi). I'm really not left with anyone to ship Namine with, without feeling uncomfortable about the pairing in some way.

Roxas and Olette was the way I leaned too in the KH2 days. Who cares if the Olette he knew was made of data? Definitely not me. Roxas/Namine is one I've never quite understood. They barely interacted in a positive way so I couldn't get behind them in the early days of them being shipped together and I still can't really get behind it now. It also feels like Namine very much feels a connection to him, but Roxas doesn't feel that same connection towards her. And I can't really tell if she wants to substitute Roxas for Sora or is actually drawn to Roxas. The scene on Sunset Hill that was added to KH2 through the Final Mix has her looking at a drawing of those two and talking about how there's someone she wants to see, but much like in Chain of Memories where she gives off a yearning to replace Kairi in Sora's heart she comes off like she's hoping for Roxas to be the Sora to her Kairi in this scene from KH2FM. Incidentally this is also why I can't really get behind Namiku, another popular heterosexual ship born circa the days of KH2. There's the whole can of worms that is Repliku in this equation, plus Riku ending up with her comes off as lumping Sora's best friend with an alternate version of Sora's girl (and I don't even like Sokai so it's extra awful to have Namiku as a possible endgame ship after that one scene in KH3). Like I'm not going to cry over spilled milk if they pull the trigger on them after the tease at the end of KH3, but the more blatantly implied sympathizing and empathizing with each other's loneliness and guilt over their past actions towards Sora in the novel and manga continuities do not a romance create IMHO. End of the day the priority for both is still Sora. If anything they went from acquaintances working towards a common goal to budding actual friends working towards a common goal off screen during that year between Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, and the KH2 prologue. Roxas and Xion feels more appropriate, but their friendship is so beautiful that I would fear for how a romance between them would be written by someone who does romance as badly as Tetsuya Nomura does. There are little scenes here and there in the 358/2 Days game itself that are not in the cutscene compilation movie that help this one along in being a friendship that could evolve and tip over to romantic seamlessly if handled with the right care though. Then we have the elephant in the room: Xion is also popularly shipped with Riku and I just can't understand that one. He treats her kind of like a little sister in 358/2 Days after their first meeting on the bridge of Beast's Castle (heck even then he's kinda doing it, warning her to find a new crowd to hang with because the Organization's bad news). It really reminded me of how he was with Kairi. In KH1 they keep trying to push this idea that Riku also has a crush on Kairi, but he comes off more like an overprotective big brother over the course of the game. In the prologue on the Islands he's trying to urge Sora into earning the right to share the paopu fruit with her by pretending to want to share one with her himself, and evidently he's become so suffocating in some way or another to Kairi that she wants to take the raft and leave with just Sora (she wants to get away from an overprotective and overbearing Riku). After he realizes Kairi didn't end up where either he or Sora did once the Islands fell he resolved to find her and then to get her heart back for her. In Hollow Bastion during the climax of the story he urges her to run again showing the depth of his protectiveness for her. And we get another hint at Kairi not really liking this side of him (of him expecting her to do as he says/wants like an overbearing big brother) in her body language before she agrees to run. Of course at the end of the game we get him telling Sora to take care of her (an unspoken "because I no longer can" lingers in the air here). It bleeds over to KH2 where he has Pluto watch over her for him in the open and watches over her himself from the shadows then goes to rescue her when she gets kidnapped by Saix who he shows a great deal of aggression towards (We see a repeat of this aggression towards her kidnapper(s) in KH3 against Old Man Xehanort after she gets shattered). It's also in KH2 where we see Riku make a shift in how he sees Kairi. He gives her a keyblade to fight with because he's stopped seeing her as someone who needs to be coddled and kept away from the potential dangers of the adventures he and Sora have become so caught up in (when they were younger everything about how he treats the older Kairi in KH1 has echoes to him wanting to make sure she doesn't involve herself with dangerous things; she races with Sora and Riku but is significantly slower than them and later plays referee for them instead of racing with them; an implication that she doesn't often race with them at all), and she's also the only kid on the Play Island who doesn't engage Sora in practice combat/sparring (Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie are positioned as NPC set pieces/supporting cast members at best for Destiny Islands and yet they all fight Sora where Kairi, a main character, the female protagonist, does not), so it's not a far cry that as little kids after she washed up on Destiny Islands Riku took on a role of keeping her from getting involved with more dangerous forms of play. Anything that could've gotten her bumps and bruises, or cuts and scrapes he would have objected to her joining him, Sora, and the others in. But in KH2 he's willing to let up a little and let her fend for herself. This is nicely brought home in Dream Drop Distance where he's the one sent to bring her to the Mysterious Tower to begin training as a keyblade wielder, and again in 0.2 where he's encouraging about this development as opposed to condescending and also not trying to convince her not to do it. They fall back on showing his overprotective nature towards her in Melody of Memory though, when he reacts poorly to her expressed desire to come with him to save Sora, but you can see the shift in their relationship with each other in how she responds; she takes it for the concern it is instead of an elder brother's condescension and lack of faith in her, admitting she needs to stay behind and focus on completing her training. Looping back to Xion as I've gotten way off base, but it all still works to support what I was aiming for as my point: Riku approaches Xion with a great deal of gentleness after their initial meeting. He could have incapacitated her and taken her back to the mansion in Twilight Town at any time but explains to her what's going on, doesn't react violently to her incredibly harsh line "So, do you hate me for keeping you from your friend?" although he'd be perfectly justified to be, is even honest about how he feels in response to that question; "Nah, I guess...I'm just sad." he tells her, and then chooses to let her decide what to do and gives her time. Time Sora realistically doesn't securely have because there is no guarantee the organization won't find where he's been hidden. All of it combined makes me wonder where people got romantic vibes from these two in order to birth the Rikushi ship.

Don't forget about Repliku. He might be a clone but he's still very much a real person. Also Vexen.

@yamibakura - It's not just KH2 Riku it's Riku from the very first game through to the present. Originally he had a very Young Sephiroth look and feel to him, there was even artwork of Riku with wings something that didn't end up becoming a thing in the games until he could merge with Dream Eaters in Dream Drop Distance. Between 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage and KH3 Riku got a redesign that shifted him from looking like a Young Sephiroth to Noctis Lucis Caelum from FFXV. There is also this old theory video somewhere on YouTube which covers the theory that Riku and Xehanort are the same person because they have the same facial structure. Like if you overlay them on top of each other in the various forms of Xehanort when he wasn't an old man they line up scarily perfect. Of course this didn't turn out to be true, but it is still very eerie how his face overlayed so perfectly with that of Ansem Seeker of Darkness, Xemnas, and Young Xehanort; before his redesign between 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage and KH3. Story wise Riku's always been the more Final Fantasy of the Destiny Islands trio though. Sora and Kairi slot perfectly into the Boy Hero Who Always Saves the Day Somehow and Damsel Female in Distress leading men and women Disney is so famous for (especially during its Renaissance era), Riku is the wild card that aligns more with characters like Cloud and Squall from Final Fantasy and Vegeta and Sasuke from Naruto and Dragonball. Although he's never gone quite as far to the dark side as those last two because of him (and KH in general) being co-owned by Disney.

Wendy is one of the Princess of Heart candidates that got rejected in favor of the cardboard box that is Kairi so it's not exactly surprising that her brothers got left on the cutting room floor.

@yamibakura - The worlds have more or less always been just sandboxes. Even in KH3, they dolled the worlds up more than ever before, but they're still empty outside of the storytelling bringing them to life. In Chain of Memories there's a gameplay meets storytelling tragedy to Sora having to go through worlds filled with illusions of the people he met in KH1 born of his own memories of them. Aerith's self awareness is essentially Sora's brain trying to warn him of how he's being manipulated, but Sora being Sora brashly chooses to keep on going in hopes of finding Riku and Mickey, and then of course to save Namine the more she messes with his memory. This gameplay meets storytelling tragedy continues in the Riku campaign Reverse/Rebirth in a different way; as we get Maleficent playing the same role as Aerith does in Sora's campaign, but in reverse, where Aerith is Sora's brain trying to warn him of how he's being manipulated and he chooses to ignore it, Maleficent is Riku using his own brain to berate himself through the avatar most familiar to him from his time under the influence of darkness. The voice that he keeps chatting with in Hollow Bastion is another example of this. It's left ambiguous who the voice belongs to, but it's easy enough to guess that it's Ansem SoD (namely while he was just a sentient heart inside the brown robe). Then Riku goes about mowing down the versions of the villains he allied with in his efforts to get Kairi her heart back in a very blatant reflection of his private self loathing for his prior actions, as he tries to reunite with Mickey, come to terms with the darkness that still lingers in him plus what to do with it hereafter, and find out who/what landed him in Castle Oblivion to begin with. @RugratsNappiesFanatic - The sandbox worlds of Recoded actually feature a lot of design depth that helps them feel less like a collection of corridors which is actually way better than what was done for Chain of Memories in the both the original and the remake. For starters KH1 is known for being one of if not the most platforming and puzzle heavy KH game and Recoded really doesn't shy away from following up on that. Chain of Memories very much does. Particularly true for the remake where not much of anything is going on in the rooms of each world unless those worlds are story related (it really shows in Reverse/Rebirth in particular since Riku never really took any time in KH1 to bond (for better or worse) with any of the villains he allied himself with in his efforts to get Kairi her heart back (outside of Maleficent and Ansem) thus he's literally going through the memory worlds mowing down these characters he wishes he never had anything to do with once he reaches their boss room). However Chain of Memories is the finest example of hardware and game type limitations come to life. It was something of a side scroller in the original version so no real need for platforming or puzzles (outside of customizing Sora's deck) was present nor needed. In the remake we still have a gameplay puzzle element at play in that we still get to customize Sora's deck, but now we have the bare bones minimum tools for platforming and puzzle solving in a springboard here and there to jump on and an object to slide or place into specific places.

The thing of it is the secret episode of Birth By Sleep set things up for Sora to be the one who'd rescue everyone before DDD made Riku a Keyblade Master and 0.2's ending set Riku and Mickey off on the mission to specifically save Aqua. Then KH3 spent all that time having Riku and Mickey try to save her only for Sora to show up and do it in the end (after having Riku make a badass speech about not needing her sorrow and such because he had his own and doing a clear hero's walk towards her and even engaging in a battle with her that proceeded to be interrupted in the dumbest way possible with "press Triangle to Sora"). The whole thing made Riku and Mickey look like such chumps and honestly up until KH3 these two are some of the best written characters in the series. Sora still was going to have his moments as the hero in that yes Aqua is the only one who knows where Ven is, but his heart is in Sora and Sora ultimately needs to return it to him. Plus the whole thing with Roxas and Xion needing their hearts back from him too. It's less a matter of the games set us up for Sora to save everyone and more a matter of the narrative of the games refusing to make the changes that made sense after it had set up a different course from the one laid out in the Birth By Sleep secret episode in DDD and the ending of 0.2 and throughout KH3. And these times where the writers don't want to change the narrative accordingly apply to other things as well, not least of which is Kairi who is her own massive can of worms, but then they do a pretty good job of conditioning us not to expect anything of Kairi just from her KH3 character design (why cutesyfy her so much if she's supposed to be a warrior now? I admit to initially not catching on because historically I enjoy JRPGs where the cute ones are the most dangerous I.E the 'Tales of' Series, but it was sort of a huge red flag in retrospect) and the way we never see her and Axel actually training (another red flag). For me I would've even forgiven the game for Riku and Mickey not saving her by themselves if we played as Riku for the battle with Mickey and Sora as his party members. Just give Anti-Aqua another 20 health bars and we'd have been fine Squeenix. After that let Aqua beat Vanitas' face into the ground in the battle she wins in fight but loses in cutscene and Sora return Ven's heart in a way that doesn't include the Power of Waking being a 'power that sleeps' which was also dumb with a capital D. PS: I can't submit a vote for the poll because the options are lacking "Both" as a choice.

Overall I was indifferent. I mean this is one game that I only cared about in a cursory fashion, but some interesting stuff certainly happened over the course of it. I will say that together with Melody of Memory and KH3 it's one of the trio of games in the series that have ultimately made me get less interested in the series and where it'll go though. Mainly because a lot of the characters in the spotlight within the series right now aren't ones I care much about and I don't care for what's being done with said characters I don't care much about.

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 fell 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 waking 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.