#Because a lot of the charm of KH1 is still there even with the shift into a more plot-driven story

[astro-b-o-y-d]

'Oh KH1 is not as good as KH2' DO YOU HATE WHIMSY?? SILLINESS?? FUCKER??

[smartzelda]

An Essay (mostly for Soriku shippers looking through the Sokai lens)

So first, before you read this, I would suggest checking out my post on the Sokai vs Soriku lenses (https://smartzelda.tumblr.com/post/189934176949/trying-on-different-lenses)

One off, honestly from what I've learned this year, multiple Sokai scenes aren't as romantic as they seem to be either on the surface or because of mistranslation, and there's not much Sokai in any of the games really. The Sokai really comes up and hits you in the face, and it's because Sora will just not mention it even think of Kairi for length at a time, and then suddenly there's a parallel made in Sora's head (looking at you kh2), but even then, after kh2, that doesn't happen anymore. Kh1 is praised as the best game for Sokai, and that's valid. There's Sora wanting to share a paopu, Sora and Kairi promising to see each other again, Kairi giving Sora the lucky charm as a promise they would find each other, and even Kairi finishing the paopu drawing and crying when looking at it. Though, I would not go as far to say that Sora is completely in love with Kairi. First of all, it's because Sora confirms that he doesn't know what love is in kh3, and two, there's not much suggesting Sora's in love with her, and I'll explain why. After destiny islands falls to darkness and Sora lands in traverse town, he spends a couple worlds asking people where Kairi AND Riku are. Throughout the game, except for a parallel or two (though I can't remember if there are any or not) maybe, he expresses his concern for both Kairi and Riku. He doesn't start to switch gears on that till Riku proves he's on the side of the enemy, but even then Sora tries to reason with him so he can get his friend back. Sora does not care for love in this game really. If anything, he cares for his friends. Now, you're probably wondering why I didn't include a few scenes, and it's simple. I didn't include Sora stabbing himself in the heart because it can easily be taken as something different than "an act of true love". As I stated, Sora makes it clear that he cares a lot more for friendship in this game. Riku's possessed by Ansem, and he wants to save Kairi, so it's no biggie that he sacrifices himself for a friend because he would do it for any of his friends. We know that. You probably wonder too why I didn't add Kairi hugging Sora as love on Sora's part, and that's simple too. It could have been on Kairi's part, but Sora confirms in Twilight Town in kh3 that it was the light from Donald, Goofy, and Kairi and their wants for his return that brought him back. It was not simply Kairi's love that brought him back from being a heartless. We could say that Kairi's in love with Sora, but based on the evidence, there's no way Sora's in love with Kairi at this point of kh1, and even if he was, he could not identify it. But because of a couple scenes and the fact that Kairi is Sora's light in this game, I would say he has a crush on her. Also, I'm going to add that he easily could've hopped the gap and gone with Kairi to destiny islands, but because he cares about having his friends all together over just being like "yeah I love you" and going with Kairi, he decides to go find Riku because what he wants is for the three if them to be together again.

Now onto Chain of memories. This game is also attributed to being a Sokai game because people look at it and go, "Well, Naminé replaced Kairi in Sora's memories and Sora is in love with Naminé at the end meaning that he's in love with Kairi", which is not the case. At the beginning when Sora is let into the castle, Sora answers Marluxia's question of who he misses with Riku. We can argue on that forever on why he said that, but I'm still arguing that he can miss Kairi whether she's safe or not and still miss her, even if he misses Riku too and is looking for Riku. He has been apart from both of them for nearly the same amount of time, and if he was in love with her, he probably either would've said both their names, or just Kairi's, but again, that's just my argument. So, continuing on, I admit that during the worlds, Sora does look at the lucky charm and talk about Kairi. However, the beginning of this game still keeps Sora's goal of finding Riku and bringing his friends back solid. Even when Naminé enters Sora's memories initially, his want to find her is because

1. According to his memories she just disappeared

And 2. He can't believe he forgot a friend and wants to find her and make it up to her.

Then, even when Naminé does replace Kairi in Sora's memories initially, he just has a want to find her because she's in danger. When he talks to Repliku and Repliku pushes him away, he acts a lot like kh1 Riku did. Repliku pretends like he loves her and that he's gonna go find her because he wants to drill into Sora that now he's gonna be alone. Initially, Repliku does this to get his feelings across that he feels like Sora left him alone (leftover from Riku's memories) and never cared about him or his feelings. This is where it takes a turn for the different though. Obviously, just switching Kairi with Naminé in Sora's memories does not make him in love with her. No, there's a very specific memory mentioned that marks a sort of turning point for how Sora acts. This is a key memory that relates to why Sora is in love with Naminé (and Riku, but I'll explain). Before this, Sora's trying to get Riku back as his friend. He tries to spur Riku (repliku) to go with him to save Naminé because he wants them all to be friends again. Things don't escalate further, make any idea of bringing Repliku over to his side unattainable, until the meteor shower promise memory comes up.

So anyways, the meteor shower promise is a key memory. Before this memory comes up, Repliku is much like kh1 Riku. He uses Naminé to get to Sora. To get his feelings of being abandoned and left behind by Sora across, he says stuff like "she doesn't wanna see your face" or "you never cared about her feelings", then it slips out that he's probably talking about his own feelings under the guise of Naminé's feelings because he says "you never cared" and "you're always trying to worm your way into my heart". So obviously, he's mad at being abandoned by Sora and is trying to get all that across, but is also trying to get Sora to feel alone cause "look, now you're alone because Naminé and I are together." This is basically what kh1 Riku does with Kairi, and Nomura confirms in the kh1 ultimania that it's not due to love that Riku tries to save Kairi, but because of his feelings of guilt. Kh1 Riku also uses Kairi to get Sora to feel alone and, get across how he feels about being abandoned, and to get Sora back onto his side, thinking about and focusing on him. There's a switch between Repliku's attitude when the meteor shower memory comes up, and neither of them are in love with Naminé until this memory enters. Maybe Sora has a crush on Naminé before this, but as with in kh1 he cares more about friendship than anything else, and he's not in love with her until the meteor shower promise is a memory of her and him. Same with Repliku, after the promise comes up, his attitude changes, and it's clear that he really could care less about Sora (again, I'll explain more of Repliku's side later) and only wants to protect Naminé. There's something interesting, funny even, about this promise, and it's because there's no way this is a memory where Naminé simply replaced Kairi. It's not because Naminé created the memory completely because when she expresses how terrible she feels for what she did, she assures Sora that she didn't create any new memories. The reason that this memory that spurs Sora and Repliku to love Naminé can't have been one with Kairi in it is because the promise was the night of the meteor shower, and Kairi arrived that night. And it can't be that Riku and Sora met her that night because kh1 brings up a memory of Riku and Sora's where they discover the secret place for the first time, and in this scene, Sora asks if he's heard about Kairi, the new girl, the mayor's daughter, wondering if Riku's heard anything about her because they've only heard of her. They knew she came the night of the meteor shower, but had never seen her. This means that the meteor shower promise had to have been between Sora and Riku. Funny that it's not just Naminé replacing Kairi that gets Sora to fall in love with her, but her finally replacing Riku in a key memory. Maybe he has feelings of love from his memories, but even though he knows it's fake now, he still uses that promise to assure her that he'll protect her, and after she does confesses that, he also shifts back to his more friendship approach. He wants to bring Naminé AND Repliku out of it safely, no matter what's happened (don't get me started with Sora telling Repliku that he's his own person with his own heart and feelings and Repliku telling him that he can tell Sora's feelings are genuine and that he can feel them). Sora probably doesn't remember the meteor shower promise after CoM because of the whole memory thing, but because Sora doesn't remember much from when he was so little, it's safe to say that the meteor shower promise was a memory stuck down in his heart and that he has more important memories stuck in the darkness of his heart like Naminé said. Now, it's safe to say that after a symbolism thing, Kairi is still Sora's light cause they do a light tunnel where Riku's to the side and the light shines through Kairi, however, I again would say that his feelings for Kairi are not of love, but a crush.

So, back to Repliku's side, it's obvious at the beginning that Kairi is replaced in his memory with Naminé as well, but he doesn't actually love her, doesn't switch from kh1 Riku acting towards Sora till the meteor shower promise. Basically, he doesn't love Naminé until Sora is essentially the Kairi of his memories and Naminé is the Sora of his memories. Riku has been shown in the future, time and time again, to put others aside, do bad things to people, for the sake of keeping Sora safe or bringing him back. So when Sora is replaced by Naminé in this key memory of Riku's original memories, Repliku could care less about Sora as long as Naminé is safe, and this is illustrated by his switch in not acting like kh1 Riku towards Sora anymore. After this switch, he makes it clear he does not care about Sora and even goes to attack him, fight him, for Naminé's sake before Naminé puts him down with her power. So, again, it's telling that to finally get either one in love with her, Naminé had to replace the other in a key memory of Sora and Riku's

So, now we got days. I'm giving Kairi a pass on not remembering Sora for a year because she at least knew that something was missing. She knew that there was someone besides Kairi and she didn't completely forget. However, it is also telling for Riku how even though he doesn't completely remember Sora, he holds onto his memory of him and his want to protect and bring him back so hard that he remembers that. He still has memories of Sora. This game is also hailed to be a "look a Sokai game" for a couple reasons. First, people take when Riku says that Kairi's most important to Sora. They take it as a "look, even Riku confirms he loves her" when in fact that might not be exactly what's going on. Sure Riku says that, but if he has no hope at all of Sora liking him like that after kh1 and thinks he's in love with Kairi based on his own anxiety of what he did to Sora and what he saw with Sora putting her over him at times and knowing he has a crush, of course he would say that. He would have no hope of Sora liking him and would think he could only love Kairi. He would even suggest that at that point because it's his dark period and he feels like his own presence is bad to Sora and Kairi and Sora deserve each other after what he's done. We also know that you can't take everything a character says at face value because in kh3 Sora and Riku think and even say that Dark Riku IS Riku from when he's possessed by Ansem before it actually comes out that they were wrong and that Dark Riku in the keyblade graveyard is another version of Repliku. So really, it's not that far fetched to think that Riku saying Kairi is Sora's most important person may be a misled observervation or even something he says based on his own anxiety rather than the complete truth. Another is the existence of Xion. Naminé says in com that Sora has to recover memories most important to him to wake up. All these memories involve Kairi, hence Xion's appearance. However, I would argue that these memories would be important to Sora whether it was Kairi or Riku or someone in them. Many are likely important because he lost them and some are for key development (Imma touch on this later again). Not all of these memories are strictly Sora and Kairi only memories since Naminé implanted herself in every instance of Kairi in those memories. Naminé has Sora hold onto the idea of Kairi because since Kairi is the thing missing in most of those memories, thinking about Kairi will return them to normal with Kairi in them. This has nothing to do with whether Kairi is Sora's most important person, so it doesn't mean too much that Xion looks like Kairi. The last reason people attribute Days as a Sokai game is because Rokushi. Yes, I'm serious. Don't get me wrong, I ship Rokushi, but they are not a Sokai clone. Roxas may be Sora's nobody, but he barely shares memories with him at that point and becomes a completely different person with different memories, a differentish personality, differentish motivations, and his own heart. Roxas doesn't care about Xion as much as he does because "she looks like Kairi and he's Sora". He cares about her because of their memories together. And on Xion's side, besides looking like Kairi, she's nothing like Kairi. If anything, she's a smarter Sora and based on Riku's observations in the days novel, she bears similar personality and anxiety stuff to Sora. Then, even then, as with Roxas, Xion is also her own person with her own heart. Whether Roxas and Xion get together or not have nothing to do with Sokai.

Now for kh2. It is indeed true during the Roxas section where Sora's memories are returning to him, they show memories with Kairi in them. Again, I would say it's because these memories with Kairi are the ones he lost due to Naminé's meddling, and it can't be because he's completely in love with Kairi because of one reason. During the tutorial, there's one last memory or memories Sora needs to wake up. We get through all the memories with Kairi, but that's not enough to wake him up. It takes one last memory that we don't see to wake him up, and based on CoM, I would attribute that to be the meteor shower promise between Sora and Riku in which Naminé messed with that memory and replaced Riku. Again, this is a key memory for Sora based on how it's the memory Naminé had to mess with to get Sora to love her and the final memory Sora needed to wake up at the beginning of kh2. In other words, you can say that those memories Sora needed to wake up are all Kairi because he loves her, but that doesn't take into account that Sora needed a key memory between him and Riku to finally wake up, and I doubt a Sokai fan would like to use Sora's important memories being of the person he loves if one of those memories is strictly a key one between him and Riku, so this further goes that Sora probably holds onto most of those memories because they were the ones that were tampered with and he lost because if the meteor shower memory wasn't a key memory and if Naminé hadn't messed with it, it would not have been a key memory to wake Sora up.

So, Sora wakes up and to his knowledge Kairi is safe on the islands. Now he just has to find Riku. So of course, he asks around, and you can tell this want to find Riku gets more and more desperate as it seems like he's not there and Mickey won't tell him what he knows. Every time he comes upon evidence that Riku's alive, he gets incredibly happy knowing that Riku's okay. Now, this is the game where Sora will bring Riku up, but it takes someone else bringing up a parallel or reminding him of Kairi to remember she exists. It takes being told that Kairi's in danger by the Twilight Town squad for him to try to look for her, and that's valid cause he thought she was safe before, but that still doesn't explain him barely mentioning her. That's why all the Sokai moments such as halloween town and potc are such a slap in the face because he doesn't mention her and BAM a love parallel. Even with these parallels though, it seems he's more holding onto the idea of her and his crush on her, rather than who she is now (I'll bring this up again). In Halloween town, yes he only knows her as a child, but he makes no attempt to age her up, showing he's holding onto and remembering her as who she was, not knowing who she is.

Okay, so now onto a very big attributed Sokai scene. The infamous begging scene. Usually it's attributed this way because on the surface summary, Sora begs on his knees before the enemy, begging to return Kairi, telling him that she's very important to him. That scene is very romantic, however, if you disregard everything about Sora. Again, Sora has shown multiple times that he cares more about friendship rn than a crush. Really, there's a couple things that bother me from that scene by just taking it as romance. First, is the way Saïx puts it to Sora. It's a common trope for villains to ask the hero how much they care about something, and the hero takes it as them needing to show how much they care when the villain is just going to hold onto the person/object the hero is seeking in the end, having meant it as the more the hero cares about the person or object, the more incentive the villain has to withhold that person or object. Sora cares deeply about each and every one of his friends, so it can very well be true that this isn't a romantic Sokai confirmation. It could be Kairi, Donald, Aladdin, or Goofy, if Sora thinks that Saïx isn't going to return a friend safely if he doesn't show that they mean the most to him, then he's going to beg his little heart out in hopes that it'll give a better chance of Saïx returning them safely, and I believe it's possible that that's what happened rather than "he begged because he loves her so much."

Okay, so say you don't believe me on the begging scene. That's fine. That's valid. I simply presented another way of looking at that scene. Now, I'm bringing up another infamous scene. It's the subject of many Sokai vs Soriku arguments and a lot of confusion. It's the kh2 reunion scene. So, as I discussed, under the Sokai lens this scene doesn't make a lot of sense. Sora hasn't seen Riku or Kairi in over a year and they are both his best friends, so why is there such a huge difference in his reactions to both of them in the reunion scene, especially considering those love parallels and the begging scene? Under that lens, Kairi is Sora's crush/he loves her, so why does he react that way? Some argue that Sora's reaction to Kairi is cute and Sora's flustered, but that probably isn't it. Kairi hugs him and Sora reacts like he did when Tron hugged him, uncomfortable just because he's not used to that, but as that hug continues, he never leans into it, comfortable, smiling. That uncomfortable look stays, and as Kairi's into the hug, smiling, glad that she's finally with Sora, Sora hesitantly brings his arms around her to hug her back. He nowhere near looks as comfortable and happy as Kairi does, squeezing him. Then, his reunion with Riku. He cries on his knees, and fine, you can say that it's just because they're best friends. I'll take it I guess. It is valid considering he could've been dead and Sora barely had evidence that he was alive and was holding onto that evidence very hard. But through this lens, an uncomfortable hug vs a heartfelt cry on the knees? Some fans have said it's because knowing Riku was there overshadowed his reunion with Kairi, but that's not true. He only knew Kairi was there during his reunion with her and didn't know Ansem was Riku until Kairi made it clear after his reunion with her. Some fans have said it's because Kairi's simply a crush and Riku's his best friend or that Sora knew Kairi was safe on the islands while he basically had no idea whether Riku was okay, but that's not true either. Kairi is Sora's best friend too, so "just a crush" is not an excuse. Also, he knew Kairi wasn't safe on the islands the whole time. He knew she had been in danger and had been captured by the enemy from the Twilight Town game and Saïx. So that's no excuse either. Some looking through the Sokai lens would rather just put it off as bad writing on Nomura's part because if Sokai is meant to be canon, then there's no other explanation. But, I'm going to take a different approach, look through a different lens. Remember before when I talked about Sora being "in love" with the idea of Kairi and who she was? Because Kairi's changed now, she grew up a whole year without Sora and Riku, and Sora's not much different than he was. So my explanation for the sudden shift in Sora's reaction to Kairi for this scene is...the whole time, Sora's been holding onto his crush, onto Kairi as she was, so when he sees her again and that hug ensues, he's shocked, uncomfortable, because this isn't the same Kairi. Kairi's changed. And I believe this is a turning point for his and Kairi's relationship through the series because now Sora has to cope with having to re get to know someone he used to know. He doesn't really have a crush on her anymore because he doesn't know this version of her, and this has to rebuild that friendship in a way. So, even if that begging scene is romantic, or even taking the romantic parallels into account, how he acts in the reunion scene shows that he was holding onto Kairi was, not taking into account that Kairi may be or is different now. And, this is not the first time a "sokai moment" has a different meaning, a more character growth and friendship oriented meaning if you don't look at it with the pretense that Sokai will be canon(Also, for anyone who's thinking about Donald anf Goofy's teasing, they will tease Sora like parents anytime about whoever they think his crush is. They tease Sora about Naminé on CoM, about Kairi in kh2, and Riku in kh3)

And after the reunion scene, there isn't any romantic parallels between Sora and Kairi in kh2 or even Sora seeming to have a crush on her. After this, there's like 3ish "Sokai scenes" I guess. I'll go in order.

First is the RokuNami = Sokai canon parallel that was done with Rokushi in days. There's a scene where Roxas and Naminé emerge from Sora and Kairi's hearts and have a talk. This is normally attributed as a romantic tragedy scene because people look at it as "oh gosh they'll never be human again but at least when Sora and Kairi are together they'll see each other again". But really, it's not that romantic when you look into it? Like, Naminé and Roxas talk about how at least they'll be able to see each other again as long as Sora and Kairi are together, but they kinda became friends sorta during before Sora wakes up and they're the only nobodies left. Naminé is Roxas's only living friend at this point. Roxas doesn't remember Xion, and Axel "died". Of course they'd wanna get to see each other again. They're the only ones. It really doesn't have to have a romantic meaning. Plus, there's no way Roxas and Naminé fell in love. Yeah he spent some moments with her in the beginning tutorial of the game, but it was a bond forged over Roxas wanting to know his past and what it means to be a nobody and Naminé wanting to make up for all the hurt, help him, and fulfill her promise of promise to Xion to protect him. Them becoming friends is plausible, but a few meetings isn't enough time to fall in love. People argue that Rokunami is canon because Sora and Kairi are in love, and that because Sokai is canon Rokunami is canon, and it doesn't make sense. The circular reasoning runs off the assumption of one pair being canon when neither have been confirmed canon by Nomura. Also, again, Roxas and Sora are not the same people. Roxas is "a Sora" but he's got a different heart, motivations, memories, etc like I said earlier. Similarly, Kairi and Naminé, although Naminé is closer to being Kairi than Roxas is Sora, are still their own people, with different hearts, and even Kairi mentions this in kh3. So like Rokushi, even if Naminé and Roxas happen to get together, it isn't a Sokai clone and it doesn't confirm Sokai.

The next one is sorta a Sokai scene? It's during when Riku and Sora are in the RoD on the beach and they receive Kairi's letter. I mean, it could be love on Sora's side? It really more shows the love on Kairi's side, especially since she wrote it while barely remembering Sora. I mean, it's true that after reading it, Sora's heart opens a door to the realm of light to the play island where Kairi, Donald, Goofy, and Mickey are. What's interesting though, is that that whole scene isn't framed as a Sora returning to Kairi thing really. Before they return to the realm, it puts focus on how Sora is taking Riku back with him, framing this as a finally Sora's with Riku and Kairi, together again. This whole thing is framed as a group reunion, not a "finally Sora and Kairi can be together". Then, they focus on Riku and Sora together dropping down into the ocean, then it focuses on individual reunions. It frames Sora and Riku by themselves before stepping through the door, then Mickey and Riku, then Sora, Donald, and Goofy, then Sora with Kairi, finally giving her back the good luck charm (effectively closing off the charm thing where Sora had to get to Kairi to bring it back, also symbolizing that Sora doesn't need it because now he, Kairi, and Riku are together again), then finally Roxas and Naminé, going back to them being able to see each other through Sora and Kairi and still be friends. Again, it's fraimed as a whole group reunion and Sora and Riku coming home, the trio being together again, not a Sokai reunion.

The last Sokai attributed scene is in the credits of kh2 when Sora returns to the secret place and sees the finished paopu scene drawing. It's hard to know exactly what Sora was thinking, but I still doubt it shows Sora being in love. Again, as I argued before, at this point since Kairi's different, him reacting or smiling at the action of Kairi having finished it as he does probably incites a reaction like that because the Kairi that did that is the Kairi he knew and had a crush on. The Kairi that did that is not the same Kairi he has to get to know now. Also, I think the fact that he smiled further shows that it probably was just a crush he had on her and not full on love in kh1. When Kairi sees that Sora did the paopu drawing and completed the drawing more at the end of kh1, she smiles and cries and it's heartfelt. When Sora sees that she completed it, he just kinda smiles after putting his hand on it. But then again, the fact that he traces his hand over it means he's probably reminiscing because before he finds that particular drawing, he traces his hand over other old drawings in the cave. Plus, reminiscing can also be attributed to him not having a crush on her anymore. I can look back to moments with my first crush and reminisce over old moments and even remember how it felt, but it doesn't mean that I still like that person that way. Also, I'm gonna add that after Sora bounds out of that cave, he goes over to where Riku is on the paopu tree, and they basically end up switching spots and watch either the sunset or sunrise for a moment together, not to mention that Riku would sit up there in kh1 and look at the sky alone, but Sora coming up there means he's not alone anymore and that their relationship has shifted to be closer than it was in kh1.

Okay, so there's basically one Sokai attributed scene in bbs since Sora and Riku are childhood best friends and they haven't met Kairi yet. It's when Aqua and Mickey save Kairi from the unversed. Aqua puts a spell on Kairi's necklace. Most take it as Aqua meant the spell to take her to "the person" meant to protect her as in someone who would be "her" true love. That's not what Aqua says. Aqua just says that it would lead Kairi to someone's light so they could keep her safe. Based on what Aqua says, this person is effectively any person with a heart of light with the power to keep her safe. Then, according to the Ansem reports, he set Kairi out in hopes that she would lead him to the keyblade weilder, which technically Riku was before Sora temporarily gained use of it in kh1. That means that Kairi could've been lead to the light of either Riku or Sora since they both had a strong light and Riku technically was the keyblade weilder, and based on what Aqua says, it doesn't have anything to do with love.

Recoded wise, Kairi appears like once I think? Really, there's no Sokai in this. Kairi's not present, so Data Sora's fretting over Data Riku like the real Sora does starting with CoM and Data Riku acts like days/prereunion Riku. Data Riku constantly apologizes, and when taken over by darkness/the bugs, tries to get Data Sora to leave him be. He'd rather take it all and alienate himself from Data Sora because, like days and prereunion Riku, thinks Data Sora better off without him. If anything, it shows how different things would have been if Kairi wasn't there.

DDD wise, Kairi literally appears like 3 times, and during blank points when Sora decides he's gonna leave with Riku to go to the tower, Kairi gives Sora the good luck charm again as a promise that he and Riku will come back, but unlike in CoM, he doesn't mention the good luck charm the whole time. About the times when Kairi appears, she appears once when Sora says "my friends are my power" while in the presence of Xigbar and Xemnas, and she appears along with the rest of the weilders and people Sora's connected too out of Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and the main cast of original characters. Another time, she and Riku appear, and Sora tries his hardest to catch up to both of them. Another time, she appears so young Xehanort can explain that the robed guy was there at the right time at that moment in kh1 when Kairi flies through Sora. Then, the final time, she appears in the secret ending so Nomura could reveal that her keyblade wielding was gonna be important for kh3. Besides those times, Kairi is not mentioned the whole time unless Riku happens to be talking about a time with Sora and Kairi or unless Sora happens to be talking about Kairi and Riku, and I can't remember a single time like that where they mention Kairi by name (though I could be wrong). They pretty much just refer to the other. Also, there are plenty love parallels in DDD, especially the hearts in tune scene, and none indicate Sora and Kairi. Every parallel you can make love or relationship wise in that game parallels to Sora and Riku. And, in the end, we don't even see if Sora brings that good luck charm back to Kairi. It's just not important or brought up in that game

So now, we're to kh3 territory (I skipped 0.2 because Riku and Kairi are there, and the only mention of Sora is Kairi telling Riku that he's more like Sora). I get how this one also seems like Sokai the game, but I would attribute that to the Eng version and its mistranslations. Also though, there's not many Sokai scenes in kh3 anyways, and many I could breakdown as not really being romantic as everyone says.

Literally, there's basically no Sokai the entire game until the paopu scene. So, the paopu scene. The first problem I have labeling it romantic is the framing of the scene. The scene starts out with Sora focused on Riku, even when Kairi says that they should leave him be and that he said he wanted to be alone. It takes Kairi shoving a paopu in Sora's face for him to shift his focus onto her. So then, similar to the reunion scene, Kairi shoves the paopu in his face and he moves back with a look uncomfortablility on his face, and that's valid because that's a valid reaction to having something shoved in your face, but like the reunion scene, that uncomfortable expression stays. Sora looks at the paopu and to Kairi uncomfortably until (in the jap version because the eng version mistranslated it with an obviously romantically slanted line) she just puts it off as a good luck charm. Because of bbs, we know that sharing a paopu can be a romantic or platonic. Based on Sora's knowledge of the paopu though, it's likely he sees Kairi handing him this paopu as a romantic advance. But, when faced with this romantic advance, again, he keeps that uncomfortable look until she just puts it off as something else. And when she puts it off as just a good luck charm, that's when he decides he's gonna share the fruit. If this scene was gonna be romantic, his uncomfortable face would've disappeared into comfortability and a smile after he processed looking at Kairi and the fruit. He would have easily been receptive off the bat. And again, it's not like he's flustered. That look, just like in the reunion scene, is a look of uncomfortablility, not being flustered. So, when Kairi puts the sharing off as something else other than romantic, a simple sharing, he becomes receptive, and they share the fruit, just like in the cave drawing...almost. During the creation of the cave drawing of the sharing, Sora was the one to share first, showing that at that time he wanted to share a paopu with Kairi. But in this scene, Kairi's the one who makes the move, and Sora's not interested in it till he knows it's not binding as a romantic sharing. Also, though they don't take a bite of the paopu in the cave drawing, if you look at that scene closely, Sora's the only one who takes a bite of the paopu. Kairi doesn't take a bite, and no matter how you look at it, if she had taken one, it would be clear to see based on how every point of the paopu is a curve. Now, relating back to the kh2 reunion scene, Sora hasn't had the time to reforge his friendship with Kairi. Maybe they get a week after 2 because in 3 the Twilight Town kids are still on vacation, but not enough time to get to know each other. So really, there's no way Sora's in love with Kairi during this scene because he still doesn't really know who she is yet. My vote is that the real significance of the scene is it's supposed to be a key point showing that now Sora and Kairi are going to rebuild their friendship (because Kairi loves Sora and Sora doesn't really know her anymore), and I'm gonna come back to this later. Also, I forgot to add the fact that the scene can't be a Sokai romance confirming because Sora just states a few worlds back that he's got a lot to learn about love, and I doubt he figured out enough to know whether he's in love with anyone in the span of a few worlds

So, the next scene is the scene where Sora hugs Kairi when Terranort goes to attack her. On the surface and out of context, this seems like, "Oooh how romantic. It's a true love sacrifice", but again, I'd argue that it's really not. First, in context, before Sora does this, Lea goes to protect Kairi, holding up his keyblade to block Terranort's attack, and it does no help because Terranort launches Lea back and goes to attack again. So, Sora could've gone to block the next attack, but he likely realized that wouldn't work because of what just happened to Lea, so he didn't do that. Again, Sora has been shown time and time again to be self sacrificial for his friends, so if blocking the attack doesn't work, and Sora really wants to keep all his friends safe, of course he would just be a meat shield, especially if that's the only option he sees that might work. Also, it can't be an act of true live for a couple reasons. The first is that there's no way he figured out love yet (it definitely would've had more of a focus if he had figured it out) and next is cause of the framing and emphasis of the scene. Acts of true love in kh3 such as Eugene and Rapunzel's and Elsa and Anna's are given emphasis, they feel climactic, the shot is directly focused on it. Sora's sacrifice in that moment doesn't seem much like that. Yeah there's some focus on it, but the focus and framing is put more on Goofy saving them both with his shield. Heck, emphasis and shot wise, Donald casting Zettaflare got more of the attention of a true love's sacrifice. Based on the way this moment is framed, if Sora had died for Kairi like that, it would have just felt pitiful, and definitely undeserving because Kairi just didn't fight back. It wouldn't have felt like an impactful true love sacrifice. Really, after looking into it, this scene is more of Sora being desperate to keep his friends all safe and being lucky Goofy was there to save him

The next scene attributed to being a Sokai moment is just before Riku's sacrifice (which has all that dramatic, climactic, true love sacrifice framing btw). Kairi gets swept up in the demon tide originally after meat shielding for Lea (again showing that meat shielding doesn't necessarily mean romance, especially if you're trying to keep all your friends safe), then pulls around again, reaching for Sora before getting swept back and Sora reaches for her too. Again, a moment that's like, "omg so romantic,"  but really, no? Sora just watched all of his friends, all the other keyblade weilders besides him and Riku get swept up and he reaches for Kairi in hopes that he can at least save somebody

Okay, so next is the light tunnel scene.  This is taken as another Sokai confirming moment cause on the surface it's like, "See! Kairi has been Sora's light all along! She saved him! They're holding hands!" I believe that's not how it is though. First off, Kairi does have a part in saving Sora so he can end up in the final world because Naminé does say that it was due to Kairi he endured, but that's not all. Sora's heart and body both endured in the final world, he just needed to piece himself back together to be whole and have a whole form. Now, we know that Sora's enduring was due to an act of true love, so Kairi must have performed one (even though there's no focus on what it was, so it's probably less important that Kairi did it and more important on who else), but who else may have allowed Sora's heart to endure? Who performs an act of true love for Sora, framing and all? Riku does. Riku's sacrifice has a lot of emphasis, focus, especially considering it happened twice literally, and a third time symbolically for the Final World world title screen (you can check the SRT for more detail on that). So, it's safe to say that Kairi held Sora's body, his form together, but it was because of Riku's sacrifice, telling Sora he believes in him (jap version cause in eng it's mistranslated to "you don't believe that"), that Sora's heart endured. So yeah, Kairi helped save Sora, but it wasn't all her. Now, as for Kairi being Sora's light (as in the light for Sora versus a light), I don't think so. There's more detail on this in the SRT, but after CoM, there's no symbolism for Kairi being Sora's light, and there are plenty of parallels, including exact ones, where Riku is shown to be Sora's light (such as on Sora's station of awakening at the beginning of kh3 when they do an exact, frame by frame, parallel of Riku=light with kh1's opening). You may say that she must be because Sora decides that (but again as with Riku thinking Dark Riku is him from the past taken over by Ansem, character's original thoughts can be wrong, and Kairi also never approves or denies Sora's statement of her being the light) or because she's there in the tunnel, but in the first instance of Sora's tunnel of light the person who is the light is not in the tunnel because they are the light, and they are the one presenting flashbacks, or the person who was the light was presented with the light shining through them. Kairi is in the tunnel with Sora, so that knocks off what happened in the first instance, but in the second instance, the light shined through Kairi. In kh3's tunnel scene, Kairi is spotted off to the side from the light and purposely has to eclipse the light to get Sora's attention. Then, I doubt Kairi gave Sora those visions cause of how she reacts. When Sora receives the visions of the true love sacrifice, she reacts to his reaction as if she had no idea he's getting the visions. To Kairi, she just feels Sora jolt, but when she looks back and sees he's fine, she just smiles, showing she's unaware. If she had purposely given him those visions, she would've probably expected his reaction to seeing the visions and would've initially looked back with a smile instead of concern. Sora also gets these visions from looking deep into the light, not at Kairi. Further that Kairi can't be the light is that she's in the tunnel, and besides when she eclipses the light, she doesn't have the light shining through her like that at all, instead, she's to the side, leading Sora to the light, but if that light IS Kairi, then there's no way she can follow herself, taking Sora with her. Kairi may be helping lead Sora TO the light, but there's no way she IS the light (again, this whole scene is detailed further and better in the SRT and I would suggest taking a look). Also, I would say that Kairi can't be Sora's guiding light rn, because he still doesn't know her as she is yet and still has to rebuild that friendship. About the handholding in that scene though and Sora's reaction to finding her though, first of all, she is leading him, she was the one who initiated the handholding, not Sora, and simple handholding doesn't automatically mean love (no matter how much heteronormativity drills into you that a girl and a guy holding hands = relationship, while two people of the same gender holding hands always equals friendship), and second, Sora wants all of his friends back, together, and alive so when everyone is saved but Kairi, and he can't find her, and finally finds her again, of course he's happy because he finally found her and all of his friends are okay and safe now.

Now, onto the scene where Xehanort kills Kairi. First, I'm going to add that Sora has a hero complex. Whenever a character is presented in danger and/or has a history of that, his reaction is to decide to protect them. Example A is Aqua. Aqua calls Sora out on it. Sora sees her weak, she had fallen to darkness, and his kneejerk reaction is to do all the work, to protect her and fight Vanitas when he shows up. Then, although Nomura has Sora show up for every battle in the keyblade graveyard to drive the story, it can also be telling of Sora's personality. Sora shows up to every battle because as Kairi says, this is their toughest battle yet, and just before he lost everyone in one fell swoop, so if he's there for every battle, he can protect all his friends and make sure he doesn't lose any. This also reaches back to example B, which is the paopu scene. Sora promises to keep Kairi safe. It could be attributed to him "being in love with her" (even though there's no way that's possible at this point), but it could also be his hero complex taking over. If there's anyone who's been kidnapped the most, shown she needs saving, and hung back during fights, it's Kairi, so his hero complex says that now that she's fighting, he needs to be ready to protect her so he doesn't lose one of his friends. Her telling him she would keep her safe is almost a parallel to Aqua telling Sora that he had seen her weak and her going to fight Vanitas because it's her telling Sora's hero complex that she can protect herself and that she can save him too. So, with all that in mind in the scene where Xehanort kills Kairi, it's probably not like "Sora's in love with her and that's why he's so sad and angry when she is killed! It's soooo tragic!" So, really, Sora and his hero complex have gone through all this trouble to make sure no one dies again, to make sure everyone of his friends are safe, and then Xehanort summons Kairi, Sora goes to save her, and Xehanort kills her, effectively ruining Sora goal (since one of his friends got killed), and causing all the stress and desperation he built up trying to keep everyone safe to burst out. So Sora's terribly angry, "Why her?!", because out of anyone who gets to die in the war, why does it have to be one of his friends? After all his hard work, why does one of his friends deserve to die? It's similar to when the Demon Tide killed everyone but him and Riku. He breaks down because despite everything he cares about and has worked for, one of his friends is killed again, and there's nothing he can or could do about it.

Okay, so the next "sokai" scene is the scene after everyone returns to the keyblade graveyard after Sora defeats Xehanort. I'm going to redirect you to a post by @blowingoffsteam2 on tumblr because they do a great job of explaining how the mistranslations in this scene make all the difference on how this scene and Sora's feelings are perceived. The post: https://smartzelda.tumblr.com/post/189913559229/at-the-ending-of-kh3-sora-decides-to-go-save

Now, there is one final Sokai scene in kh3, and it's in the ending. In the ending, Kairi and Sora are on the tree, holding hands, and Sora disappears. First, this scene is a direct parallel to Pooh's story book in kh3 and where I talked about how Sora needs to rebuild his relationship with Kairi as seen by the kh2 reunion scene and the paopu scene. In kh3, pooh's storybook is shown to have Sora missing from the cover, and when he sees pooh again, he figures out that it is because their bond weakened. Then, when talking to Merlin, Sora learns that when that happens, those friendships simply need to be reestablished  and rebuilt. It's obviously a lesson Nomura wanted Sora to learn if it is directly focused on by Sora and explained by Merlin, so it's not far fetched to think that this lesson may be relevant in kh3, and I'd attribute it to Sora and Kairi's relationship. Kairi and Sora's positions on the tree in that final "Sokai scene" and Sora's disappearance are a direct parallel to Pooh's storybook in which they are in the exact same positions, and in both Sora disappears. This may also symbolize that Sora needs to rebuild his relationship with Kairi as Merlin discussed. Kairi being paralleled with pooh doesn't stop here though, and this is better discussed in a post by @fandomoverflowThe post: https://databoyreekoo.tumblr.com/post/188351277667/kairis-grand-adventure-an-analysis-of-kairisWe won't know more about this scene till remind comes out probably, but from what we have already, the fact that they are on the tree holding hands is not a confirmation of romance. In the end, after kh3, there's no way Sokai's canon because Nomura never stated it himself and all of these Sokai scenes either aren't romantic at all, or can be taken as not romantic (at least on Sora's side).

So really, based on all this, it's safe to say that although Sora thinks Kairi is his light rn, she is not, and that going forward, Soriku has more chance of being canon if we're not going off the assumption Nomura's a bad writer (which it's pretty sad that to make sense of writing choices through the Sokai lens that you have to put Nomura off as a crappy writer for so much) and that Sokai will be canon in the end. I would probably attribute any romantic tension between Sora and Kairi after kh2 to Kairi being in love with Sora and making advances while Sora isn't at that point. I'd say rather than leaning more towards a Sokai confirmation, knowing some of the mistranslations and all the Soriku parallels people have found, Soriku has a bigger chance rn, though Nomura left it open ended at the end of kh3 in a way because we don't know for sure how Sora feels yet because he doesn't know love yet (we'll just have to see). If there's anything you learn from reading this or take back, I hope it's not that "I'm right and you're wrong blah blah". Instead, I hope that especially the Soriku shippers looking through the Sokai lens learn to question, look past the surface, and look for other explanations for Sokai besides taking it for romance. I urge you to stop perceiving everything through the notion that Sokai is going to be canon (especially when Nomura has never stated this would be the case), and instead try to leave it more open ended on your journey to discover Nomura's intentions and where he's taken the series. 

I'm incredibly sorry for writing this huge essay

[cyberramblings]

Kingdom Hearts BBS, DDD Blind Thoughts

Spoilers for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and earlier titles in the series. Also warning that I have insomnia and these are utter ramblings on the last 24 hours of blindly binging the Kingdom Hearts series as a total newcomer to the series. Haven’t played three yet and just started Dream Drop Distance. With that warning.....

Birth by Sleep was a ton of fun. We ended up needing to grind a little to make Aqua playable, but that ended up forcing me to learn the game mechanics much deeper, and even my friends leveled up their playing of the game! It was really cool to unlock some of the high tier spells like Triple Firaga and Thundaga Shot, although I do wish we had gotten to chance to unlock even more. I should remember how much more fun the game was after some internet research.

It was very satisfying to unlock the true ending so easily. We had only missed 2 of the 12 required Xehanort Reports. The 2 we needed involved grinding the arena for maybe an hour total and then 5 minutes of finding a treasure chest. We were then able to roll smoothly from Aqua’s finish into the final episode.

Aqua’s fight against Braig was laughable easy, but the final fight against Vanitas/Ventus was slightly tougher. The real challenge was fighting Terra/Xehanort but then the REAL challenge was phase 2 of that fight. I got them all on the first try! It was a really enjoyable flex of my gaming skills in front of the friends.

From a story standpoint, Birth By Sleep had my favorite story of any KH game so far, by a huge margin. I liked certain elements of the KH2 ending (Riku and Sora teaming up, Kairi’s keyblade) but BBS has been the only game where I had any sense of purpose or desire to see how it ends. They did a great job of having each of the 3 routes reveal new information even if played out of order (Xehanort taking over Terra, Vanitas having Sora’s face, Aqua taking care of comatose Ventus).

Obviously it helps to have Leonard Nimoy and Mark Hamill join the cast, plus Aqua’s VA absolutely dominates every scene she’s in. Terra’s VA reminds me a lot of Leon’s monotone edgy boy voice acting (David Boreanaz or otherwise). Of course Ventus shares a VA with Roxas, but the twist of Vanitas being Haley Joel Osmont is really great because he sounds so much older. I think it would have been easier to predict that twist if I had recently heard more of HJO’s Sora voice in Dream Drop Distance or KH3.

Aqua is, of course, the great standout character from BBS. From the start, we got attached to her because of her known prevalence in KH3 on top of her cool design, Arrow voice actress, and the fact that we could finally play a girl (plus one with more human proportions than Kairi). It worked out really well how we saved her for last and had to kind of unlock the secrets of her play style by finally mastering the various gameplay systems.

I much prefer the command deck system compared to the gameplay of KH2. To be fair, these are the only two KH games I’ve beaten. I’ve only barely touched KH1 and Chain of Memories. I felt like BBS did a good job of fusing the action gameplay of KH2 with the (potentially) satisfying deck building of CoM.

Re: Coded is a fucking mess. I might actually go back and play it on a DS emulator just to see the gameplay, but god damn the story is a flimsy excuse for a retread. I almost wish we had skipped it entirely, but just watching the opening and ending worked out pretty well. In the end, it’s literally just “Mickey is gonna give Sora the memories of all the other protagonists” which is badass but probably going to be mentioned again before being relevant. I will say that the ending with Riku and Sora being summoned by Yen Sid for the mark of mastery test is fucking badass and elicited quite the reaction from all three of us. The series is finally starting to have that feeling of “the stakes are high and I want to see what happens with these characters”.

This was expressed most fully in the intro to Dream Drop Distance. Step 1: invoke Disney Magic with a silhouette of magician Mickey. Step 2: Orchestral Simple and Clean. Step 3: use entirely new cinematic footage instead of splicing together an AMB. Step 4: show every keyblade wielder standing side by side. Apparently that’s enough to make me actually cry. We all got very excited by this intro, so it was a bit of a let down to start the game and be seemingly replaying KH1 again.

Of course that’s not the whole game, but I’m still not sure what the whole game is. Riku and Sora have to...wake the seven sleeping worlds to earn their mark of mastery? Are they dreaming all of this, or what? Seeing The World Ends With You was cute for like a second before realizing that I know almost nothing about it. Flowmotion is similarly kinda neat at first but quickly becomes annoying, but maybe it will grow on me with time.

Speaking of fun at first but quickly annoying: Dream Eaters. The Pokémon-esque system seems like a time waster that’s perfect for 3DS but maybe not so much for our tourist play through. The Dream Eater designs are cute when they’re on your team, but strike me as a bit annoying when fighting the same ones over and over. Heartless and Nobodies felt more generic, but that made them feel a little less repetitive to fight over and over. I see the same god damn rainbow colored Panda every god damn fight. To be fair, I think each world randomly contains certain types of Dream Eaters every time you visit it.

Speaking of Worlds, I’m not really looking forward to Hunchback of Notre Dame or Pinocchio world, but at least they’re new worlds instead of retreading Halloween Town, Agrabah, Olympus, Neverland for the millionth time. What I am looking forward to is The Grid from Tron Legacy! I don’t think we’ve seen any Disney world that specifically spotlight a sequel to a Disney world we’ve already seen. We revisit Halloween Town, Agrabah, Beast’s Castle, Olympus, Atlantica but only for some minor follow-up fluff. The Tron world in KH2 meant a lot to me having just seen the film. The Lightcycle combat could’ve been a little more true to the original, but the visuals were so faithful plus having Tron’s actual actor was so fucking cool. Sora and gang getting Tron outfits was so cool too. Also would’ve liked to have a disc fight, but the Sark/MCP fight was spot on. Hopefully we can get both of more in DDD!

It’s a perfect excuse to revisit The Grid since Legacy looks so different from the original. Now, The Grid is not a true world in KH2 but instead part of Hollow Bastion’s computer system. I’m curious if The Grid in DDD is a sleeping world or something that exists within another world, or if it is somehow connected to the KH2 Tron world (which would get real weird real quick if that version of the Grid is a copy of the original, but Legacy is supposed to be set in The Grid 30 years later).

Oh, I like that DDD has the command deck system but I don’t like the pets, I don’t like the link system, I don’t like reality shift, and I don’t like flowmotion. It just seems like BBS with all the RPG features crammed into the pet system with a bunch of gimmick infused into the combat system. Admittedly, gimmick is one of the biggest strengths of the KH franchise, but flowmotion just seems silly. Perhaps I’ll like it more when I get used to it and potentially get to customize the moves.

I’m not sure yet how I feel about the drop system, but I do like getting to play as Riku. I think multiple protagonists is a smart way to stretch the assets and tell 2 stories per world. I rather enjoyed the way Aqua, Terra, and Ventus interacted with some of the Disney worlds. Hopefully we get something similar in some of these worlds.

The dive mini game is definitely gimmicky nonsense clearly designed for the 3DS. In general though, all the games in these collections look great and feel great. I suppose that is why Days, Coded, and Back Cover are cutscenes: to keep the average quality of gameplay roughly somewhere in between KH1 and 2 between all the titles. In fact, I think KH1 is easily the worst feeling out of all the ones thus far. I’ve always complained about KH hopping between systems, but now I can’t really complain about that anymore. My complaint still stands about the games being overly complicated. Plus, the games are clearly taking themselves way too seriously, but that’s very clearly part of the charm.

Really, I suppose the games aren’t that complicated if you heavily condense Chain of Memories, cut out Coded, and try not to think too hard about the phone games. Then it just becomes: Sora defeats the heartless, Sora defeats the nobodies, Roxas backstory, Aqua/Terra/Ventus, training/prep montage, then KH3. Oh, and try to forget that somehow the upcoming rhythm game is canon.

[memaha19]

Things I Want(ed) From KH3 That Re:Mind is Probably Not Going to Fix

 AKA, a brief interlude from Frozen 2 posting because Kingdom Hearts was on my mind this morning.

AKA, I’m excited for Re:Mind but still...

AKA, KH3 disappointed me and I’m still salty about it almost a year later.

AKA,  there are many “my problems with KH3″ posts/discussions floating out there on the internet and many are probably worded better than mine but, as I said, the game was on my mind this morning.

Just...the worlds. The Disney worlds in KH3 bothered me. There were so few of them but they were so so LONG. Some of them were painfully long. Toy Box felt like the longest experience of my life. Every time I thought that level was coming to an end, BAM, another trek to another area. And Arendelle...though I love Frozen, there’s only so many times I can trek up the mountain only to get thrown off and have to climb back up again. There were so few worlds, only seven, I believe, (because we’re not counting Twilight Town or the 100 Acre Woods, more on those later), that I think they could’ve given us a few more worlds and made the levels a little...shorter? A little more detailed and charming? The levels were huge but empty and devoid of the character that previous Disney worlds had in other games. The previous main games had about 10 or 11 worlds, not including the throwaways (like Atlantica in KH2) or the final worlds (TWTNW and End of the World), so there could’ve been some more! Birth By Sleep had numerous shorter worlds and I vastly prefer that to slogging through the same world for hours. Even the way that KH2 had us revisit each world would’ve been nice.  What’s more, they could’ve taken some of the massive time and space devoted to the empty, excruciatingly long Disney worlds and given us more time in Twilight Town or the Keyblade Graveyard, or put a playable Radiant Garden in the game. Those non-Disney worlds always served as nice interludes in the other games and it’s sorely lacking in this one. (And yes, I have heard that Re:Mind is going to let Scala be a playable world, so I’m excited for that!)

Related, I also wanted some worlds from older Disney films. I know the other games have had worlds from older films, but almost all of KH3′s worlds were so jarringly...current. I would’ve liked to see some of the older Disney film worlds rendered in the beautiful graphics of KH3, but, instead, the oldest film represented was Hercules (1997). Three of the worlds (maybe four, actually, with the Pirates world) were from movies from this decade (Corona, Arendelle, and San Fransokyo).

Related, they did the 100 Acre Woods so dirty. It was disappointing and short. It used to be a fun little interlude between the big worlds in previous games, a time to chill and play a mini-game and not have to fight a big boss fight. This was like “hello, here’s one mini game, goodbye.”

Related: all that Twilight Town exploration we got in the other games and this one gives us the forest and the town square area and that’s it?! We can’t even go to the clock tower or inside the mansion? When we first got to Twilight Town I was like “wow this is gorgeous!” and then quickly disappointed when I realized we couldn’t go anywhere.

Related, I’ve seen others say this and I agree: the Disney worlds seem like they’re just there, oftentimes, to get in your way. They feel like obstacles to the actual plot because they didn’t bother to place much/any relevance to the plot into any of the Disney worlds. Sometimes we get little snippets of the big story, like Marluxia and Larxene hanging around in Corona and Arendelle just to say cryptic things without ever being a real threat (that in itself is weird too, I spent ALL of the Corona level bracing myself for a fight with Marluxia only to fight...Mother Gothel’s heartless?) but it feels like two different games: The KH that wants to still be about Disney worlds and the KH that has gotten so deep in its own world building that it doesn’t have time for anything else.

Related, again: KH3 has an abundance of Disney worlds where Sora being there doesn’t make any difference to the plot. The most fun Disney worlds have always been the ones that have an original story that we’re actually involved in. Corona is just the plot of Tangled with Sora and co. tagging along. Their presence or lack thereof make no difference to the story. Arendelle is the same way.

The boss battles in the worlds were...lame. I understand that it maybe doesn’t make sense to fight someone like Mother Gothel, who never shows any physical fighting power in Tangled, but we can’t fight Zurg? We’re in a literal toy store and we can’t fight Zurg as the boss? We have to fight a weird doll and 800 robots? We have to fight Hans’ heartless? Not Hans? We fight Mother Gothel’s heartless? Not Marluxia, who’s been harassing us all level long? I understand that they held the KH characters back because of the whole “assembling 13 pieces of darkness for a big final battle” thing, but we had to fight Xemnas like ten times in previous games, they could let us fight Marluxia twice.  I feel like the other games were a lot better at having us face a combo of heartless/nobodies/unversed AND Disney bosses. But, as the game has really zero interest in making the Disney worlds a part of the plot, they throw these cheap (and endless) unversed/heartless bosses at us and they’re all so EASY. They could have, and probably should have, let us fight the Organization at the end of each world and then let us fight them again in the Keyblade Graveyard, similar to the way Chain of Memories had us fight each Organization member a couple times.   

When you finally do get through the Disney worlds, the ending is like “here’s all these characters that have been missing from the rest of the game” and the Keyblade Graveyard flings boss battle after boss battle at your face without much rhyme or reason. And while some of them are fun, some of them feel like “let’s just pair these characters together and make you fight them at the same time so we can save some time because we didn’t bother to put any of these fights into an earlier part of the game”. I’m looking at the Luxord/Marluxia/Larxene fight in particular. I would’ve understood pairing the last two together, but then Luxord is also there like they didn’t have any other place to put him.

This game is too easy. I’m not great at video games. I’m good-ish. I’m into stories more than anything so I hate when a game’s difficulty keeps me from completing it and keeps me from seeing more of the story. But I still like a little challenge. I have not-so-fond memories of yelling at the TV as I died time and time again fighting Ansem/Riku at Hollow Bastion in KH1, but I also have fond memories of finally beating him and what a rush it was! I didn’t get any of that in KH3. I’m not sure I died more than once or twice, if that.

The way they just let the Organization members hang out in the worlds and do nothing has always seemed weird to me. They’re big parts of the overall plot but now they just stand around and verbally harass Sora? As I said above, I spent all of Corona thinking I was going to have to face Marluxia at the end. Instead, they stand around in the worlds and then they stand around in the Keyblade Graveyard in the cutscenes and just talk. Also, okay, maybe I get the reasoning behind why Luxord was in the pirates world and why Vanitas was in Monstropolis, but Marluxia seemed like he was shoehorned into Corona solely because of the connection between the magic flower and his powers, which was stupid. And Larxene had zero connection to anything going on in Arendelle.

All the characters we’ve been waiting for (Ventus, Aqua, etc.) don’t appear until the very very end, which is a problem with the story pacing. They tease us, very early, with Riku and Mickey trying to find Aqua and then immediately drop that plot point to give us some empty Disney worlds. (Side note: this 100% tricked me into thinking we’d be switching back and forth between what Sora was up to and what Riku was up to and I was sorely disappointed as I played and realized it wasn’t true.) They dither in this “Sora needs the power of waking” to avoid giving us Ventus until the very end.

Just...the story pacing in general, which kind of ties into everything else.  This game has a beginning, because it had to, and something they wanted to end with but they weren’t really sure how to fill the space in the middle. You spend most of the game just chilling in the Disney worlds with very low stakes. This big battle waiting at the end is always there in the background but, partially because the Disney worlds feel like distractions that don’t add to the story, the middle of the game never really feels like it’s building toward the ending, or anything. And then, when you do get through the Disney worlds, about 75% of the plot is thrown at you in the last hour or two of the game. It reminds me (a lot of this game reminds me, actually) of FFXV. I love FFXV dearly, I’ve poured A TON of hours into gathering ingredients and taking photos and doing side quests, but it has the same plot issue. The majority of FFXV is a light-hearted journey about four bros on a roadtrip, only for everything to take a VERY dramatic tonal shift about 3/4 of the way through the game and then stay very very SAD for the rest of the game. KH3 does something similar, with the way we spend most of the game traveling through Disney worlds and cooking food with Remy, only for the game to suddenly remember at the 11th hour that it’s supposed to be wrapping up this big 10+ year long story and thrust you into battle after battle and plot-heavy cutscene after plot-heavy cutscene.

To the pacing point: yes, I’m aware these games have always had slightly funny/back-loaded pacing. However, a main thing the other games had that KH3 lacks is that Radiant Garden/Twilight Town/Traverse Town interlude world that helps push the plot along. Without that in KH3, we get a ton of long Disney worlds where we’re like “when is the story going to happen?” and then the Keyblade Graveyard where suddenly ALL of the story is happening. Previous games have let us experience the Disney worlds for awhile before bringing us to an interlude world which furthers the plot, a la the big Radiant Garden section in KH2 that happens midway through the game.

Anyway, I think Kingdom Hearts 3 was a gorgeous game, graphics-wise, and I’ll still be shelling out money for Re:Mind come January, but after waiting for 14 years for a continuation of the main story line, this game just feels like, after everything, Nomura still wasn’t sure how to end it? It feels rushed and underwhelming and incomplete as hell. 

TL;DR: I have all these thoughts about KH3 that I’ve waited 11 months to express.