#nomura’s special potion

[fisherrprince]

many people leaving incredibly good analysis on my post. however I have experienced many pieces of media, many of which have all the aspects of kingdom hearts. many of which have the formula down, the length, the mystery, the dedication, nostalgia, emotions, sincerity, goofiness. I just think Nomura accidentally put something highly radioactive in there without realizing and no other explanation will suffice to explain why it makes you go crazy insane

[katkeyboardmastah]

The gameplay and story intergration within Ux is sth I believe no other KH game replicated (Dream Drop Distance, DS Re:Coded and Chain of Memories come close) and it trully enhances the experience of certain plot points as those before me had mentioned in these set of posts. And it goes even further than that:

It was already mentioned how you don't actually get to experience the Keyblade War in Ux unless you had played the later added flashback event. The differences between X & Ux do not stop there, we see em via the Disney worlds you visit. Not only did you not go to Enchanted Dominion until waaaaaay later, you also didn't get to see Castle of Dreams, as well as the proper ending to Agrabah. Like you know sth was off and it wasn't just the lack of the War.

Then there's the whole Action Point system that got removed with Ux. AP in the original X was used as limiter to the number of actions you can take DURING quests (vs only being a resource that bars you from doing TOO MANY quests), like opening chests was a certain ammount of AP, fighting Heartless on the map was another. You even had actual proper items such as Potions. This all really drove home the feeling of things being cut short because of the War, you had to manage your priorities more carefully in story and gameplay. Compare this Ux's lax approach that let's you do so many things bcuz the Dandelions are trying move themselves away from the bad memories by going as if the War never transpired.

Another neat thing is how the cards/medals sometimes served as a hint towards the series' future. In canon they are they are powers pulled from the future via the Boom of Prophecies to aid the Player in fighting and collecting Lux, that is the game's reason as to why we see many of familiar faces (as well as promo event characters). So in turn you don't see cast from the age of fairy tales on them. The first instance where that was not the case however was for og X's third anniversary, they released a card with Nomura's artwork of KH3's Destiny Trio alongside Ephemera, Skuld & VENTUS. And this was BEFORE we even knew about the new Union Leaders. Then a few months later for Ux's 1st anniversary, Nomura made a sketch with Ephemera, Skuld & Ventus as well hinting about the "Five" which only got properly introduced in like March 2017 with Unchained X rebranding into Union X.

This would have been the only instance but then, at some point during Union X' early run, we got a medal set featuring the Foretellers. For a while that felt against the established medal patterns UNTIL KH3 released and BAM! Foretellers are in the present! Similar happened to Strelitzia who was featuree on Ux's 5th anniversary medal, and then B A M! Strelitzia is in Quadratum chilling with Sora in their expensive apartment! You really wouldn't have gotten this experience unless you played the games or kept up with the news.

Heck I don't think anyone would have really understood the importance of Ventus wielding Missing Ache and not his signature Wayward Wind Keyblade unless they had grinded through Ux's Proud Mode quests (even tho it was originally a Days' only Keyblade)

Remember how we had to work our butts in a special Ux event to get our names in KH3? Which resulted in one of the most satisfying sequences in all of KH? It feels even better cuz Ux players earned that spot, they were the Kurt Zisa of KH3, how much cooler can it get from that???

Oh and recall the insane fandom moment that was original X's Secret Episode that served as set up for Maleficent's role in Ux's plot? Yeah that cutscene never got officially localized through Ux, but it still sent the fandom spiraling bcuz it managed to elaborate Maleficent's motivations as seen in Re:Coded's additional scenes in 2.5 (that was still rather fresh in people's minds) as well as Dream Drop Distance.

X series is fking wild bro.

Let's talk khux gameplay and plot,

imo I think part of khux's story telling and the impact of the story gets lost now that the game is defunct. I always thought people didn't appreciate how the gameplay and the mechanics actually had an impact on the story and while that impact become virtually nonexistent later on, I always thought it made the story far more engaging when the game was just chi/unchained chi and also the English translation didn't do it too well ngl

Anyway what I'm specifically talking about is the medal system. Also I feel like the whole bangle thing wasn't explained well in game but really it just comes down to leveling up medals specifically. If you never played khux, you equip medals to your keyblades and they doa specific attack and to level them up you combine multiple of the same medal and you could see how leveled up a medal is by the amount of yellow dots next to it and, in JP at least, this was called "guilt" and like wow that name fucking slaps. And when nightmare chirithy reveals the player has been collecting darkness this whole time thru the medal system, you have literal guilt on your conscious. You are guilty of collecting darkness and negative emotions like guilt to use for your own power. And in Back Cover when the foretellers are made aware of this, there's no stopping it and ofc the player can't stop either, they HAVE to get stronger, you literally have to keep playing the game,

Another part of the game that I appreciated is the way the name changes factored into the game; chi was the original "world line" that the dandelions existed in and at first unchained chi had come off as just a remake but really what we're playing is the continuation, where the player and the dandelions are now in this unchained state/new world line and they're reliving their time as wielders but now without the war/"dark" memories and finally when they relive everything and get back to the "present," they continue on after into "union cross" which I feel like. wasn't explained well in game that much tbh but if you didn't understand what that meant in game, it was just to say that unions didn't matter anymore and they were all dandelions so the unions. when the unions are crossed.

and tbh the experience of playing this game in real time also added to the experience a lot and the impact of the story especially with a player insert character. I think the most effective use of this game being played in real time was Strelitzia. Now in the english version, everything with Strelitzia was all one update and the english ver was behind so honestly they had to do catch up they couldn't really afford to lag behind. But in JP, which most khux fans kept up with using fan translations, Strelitzia's introduction and her death happened about a month apart so it gave the players time to actualyl grow attached to her and THEN we get crushed. You can easily pin point the exact time certain khux fan art was drawn bc in a group drawing of the dandelions Strelitzia is there instead of Lauriam since he was only introduced after her death

and another thing! It only became apparent by the end of the game but khux actually takes place over the course of about 4 years. which is fucking insane. because the dandelions were stuck in the data for 4 years and didn't know it until the glitches started. and the game ran for roughly the same amount of time and we weren't even aware of that either until the glitches! ("why 4 years" there are cutscenes that literally say "4 years ago" so yeah girl what the fuck haha)

Anyway yeah this was just me rambling I think about this so much all the time can you tell. I hope missing link does something like this too tbh it makes it more fun and makes it feel that your actions as the player actually have impact on the story