#proper face reveal! the previous one was so funny tho i had fun

[marinaiguess]

proof that I've been gaslighting you all. I'm not blaze the cat I'm sorry.

[claidi]

My take on Star Wars: Spoilers Ahead

Going into this, my expectations were low. I heard it was low rated, had too many things going on, and was too safe. Well, since the previous movie kinda killed my investment in this trilogy anyway I wasn't to concerned. I figured it'd be a good spectacle and I wanted to be in on the conversation around it.

After sitting through a long span of trailers and an epilepsy warning the music kicks in. The opening scroll starts and I... I start losing it.

"The dead speak!" That's the first thing someone decided I needed to to experience. Palpatine is back and here to be the villain. I thought it'd be something revealed to the characters during the movie, a big dramatic moment. Instead, he's just back and who really needs to know why.

After that, the movie opens proper on a Kylo Ren tantrum. Just letting you know now, I'm not a fan of the Kyle. We get him tracking down Palps because apparently Kyle isn't enough of a villain to stand on his own in even the first minute of screentime. Inexplicably Snoke is revealed to be a clone / science experiment or something and ol' Palps has behind everything all along. It's so gloriously cheesy I can't help but laugh at every new revelation.

After that we finally get to our heroes. It's kinda fun to see our leads actually interacting like they're close to each other. A spy is mentioned and automatically I know it's gonna be Hux which amuses me once more, given I walked out of the last movie fairly certain that he'd be plotting Kyle's death if any justice was given to his character.

I have mixed feelings about Rey training with Leia. On one hand, I love me some Leia. On the other hand, I'm worried that was added just to give Rey credentials and stop the whiners who complain the main character of a Star Wars movie is too over powered... But it's fun when Rey's friends get back with the Plot and we get some trio interaction for once. Didn't like that the Kyle force Skype calls are still a thing but whatever, it's time to save the universe in 16 hours!

Speaking of Kyle, when he fixes his helmet I read the red sections as burning hot metal at first and thought he was actually burning his face to wear the thing for the drama. The fact he actually used like red hot glue or something is even more hilarious tho.

We get an adventure to find a knife which shows more plot threads, that Rey can Force heal, Finn has something to tell her, and the most ridiculous tug of war match is ended by a little lightning. It's pretty clear what Rey's newly retconned family situation is shaping up to be and someone is gonna be deathly wounded for her to heal. Meanwhile I guess Finn probably tells Rey he has the force in some deleted scene I guess because even when it comes back up it's never properly resolved...

We have some flirts with character death. It's kinda hilarious actually. They aren't even played out for drama as they're resolved fairly quickly. Meanwhile Rey's plot has pretty much just become her Skype calls to Kyle. They keep talking about why Rey didn't "take his hand." I know what they mean but I just keep cracking up because my brain just adds "in marriage" after that. Seriously, it works as Kyle whining about "why don't you liiiiike me?????" but eventually he drops the bomb on her parents identities a second time. Like seriously, why do they keep having Kyle do this? Is it his job? Like Vader revealed Luke's parentage, Kyle must update Rey on hers to live up to him? It's especially delightful how Rey's Palpatiness told, dancing on the base story given last movie as it retcons it away.

Oh yes, Rey's parents were nobodies. It's her grandpa who's the important one! XD

I can't make this up.

So like I know this *said* Rey was sold to protect her but like... Is the drinking money still canon as well? Cause that was never directly addressed. Was is a 2 for 1 deal? Protect daughter and have credits for booze before zombiebot Palpatine's cult kills you? I just... The keeping half of it and glossing over the rest is as funny as Kyle just randomly knowing the "wrong" past last movie.

Also I don't want to know why Palpatine had a son. I'm just saying he was a science experiment and moving on because I do Not like the alternative.

The heroes continue the quest. Rey keeps getting isolated from the group. Finn meets a new friend I half expected to be revealed as his sister because it's been that kind of movie. Like seriously, there was even a scene where Kyle strangled someone criticizing the Sith as some mystic cult to harken back to a New Hope. It would have been on brand.

Rey finds the plot mcguffin. Fights herself. Kyle shows up from literally nowhere. They fight so the special effects team can practice their water effects. Leia dies to say Kyle's name for some reason and this turns him good?

Well whatever it's just about climax time!

Rey has a brief detour where Luke Skywalker tells her that maybe hiding on a porg filled planet isn't the answer. We find Leia got Jedi training but put it aside seeing that it would lead to her son death. That's just... Really something in hindsight. But regardless, Rey's on her way to fight Palps with two lightsabers and the resistance at her back.

Now the real fun part! Palpatine! A Sith choir! Lightning! A ridiculous soulmate plot that I'm wondering was poached from a probably better written fic!

I love that it's supposed to be a shock that Palpatine wanted Rey alive. Like I was confused when he claimed the opposite. This is the villain who is evil for the lolz. He doesn't think anyone could truly bring him down, no matter the power he thinks himself on step ahead. And yes! Gloriously yes! Palpatine is seriously written from pieced together memes. He is nothing but "dew it" and "the dark side has many powers some would call unnatural" and "strike me down with your hatred!"

He's a zombie robot thing who's been behind everything. He has these super duper stardestroyers that all have death star lasers and lightning powers so strong he can... Temporarily disrupt all the electronics on a fleet of ships? Like it's not enough to actually kill anyone just pause the battle I guess? Oh but he has ALL the Sith in him and whoever kills him then gets possessed as well. And he can heal himself by sucking energy from Rey and Kyle's extra special soulmate bond. And he has a choir backing up his evil sith ways.

It's so over the top.

I can't take it seriously.

And I think that's my review.

It's hilarious, ridiculous, and I didn't take anything seriously. It's great for a laugh.

We get scenes like Chewie finally getting a medal. Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber being buried in the Tatooine sand. A resurrection. We get a bunch of joke theories thrown in a blender and given a budget. Critically speaking this is a mess. Speaking as me it was a cracktastic laughfest.

[thechocobros]

My little (not so little) Kingdom Hearts III’s review :)

(possible spoilers under the cut)

Somebody asked for my personal opinion about the game, so, here I am! I’ll try to be as objective as possible, even if you probably know already my deep affection for this saga and for its creators XD

Let’s start with the positive things, the things that really impressed me the most about KH3, which are: the graphic (even the in-game one), the gameplay, the huge amount of enjoyable exploration. And then I’ll start voting the rest, by giving my opinion. 

 - Graphic: 10/10. I was able to see the pores on Sora’s face and on Terra’s hands. I was able to zoom on the smallest details with my Gummiphone and still find some amazing details in the landscape. Literally EVERYTHING was so well done i had to stop more than once to admire what i was playing. It was stunning. Let’s not even talk about the Disney cutscenes, because those were a masterpiece and i have no words to describe them. 

- Gameplay: 10/10. Listen, i never played a game where there were so MANY options for the gameplay. I beated the 13 darknesses by using attractions, limits, different forms, combined moves, special abilities, combos, different keyblades ... There were so many minigames, ideas, i fought on Baymax, i fought as a captain of a ship, i cooked, I did treasure hunts, took pictures, the gummiship style too ... every fricking world offered so many different gameplays options i even freaked out because i wasn’t able to learn them all. It was so FUN!

- Exploration; 10/10. Let’s be real, every world (except Twilight Town lol) was as huge as all the Disney worlds of the previous KH games together. Really, i was lost. It was even too much. It will take me a lifetime to explore all the worlds in all its beautiful details xD for ex in the POTC’s world we are able to access to at least 6 different islands + Port Royal + underwater + the battles setting + we command an entire sailing ship. Also, have you try to collect all the lucky emblems? Because I think they all are in some areas i still don’t know they exist. It was AMAZING. 

- Music: 8/10. I love “Face my fears” so much, i like “Don’t think twice” a lot, Utada is always a queen. As for Yoko, she never dissapoints me either, even though this time she didn’t came out with “new” brilliant melodies like she did in the other games. She mostly arranged differently songs and themes we already were familiar with, which is nostalgic and happily welcomed anyway. + Bonus Points to Somnus song mixed together with Hikari. Wow. 

- Plot twists/Surprise/content/plot elements: 8.5/10. Every Kingdom Hearts game needs a huge amount of “WHAt-THE-moments” and KH3 makes no exception. The final battles and the endings were a concentrated of twists and turns, starting from Yen Sid, to Ephemer, from Sora dying (like twice, during this game? the last one almost got me tho), to Kairi dying, from Xigbar’s real identity to Yozora officially inserted in KH’s main plot etc etc. It was a rollercoaster. And I loved it. Funny enough, the only “secret” that didn’t feel like a “secret” was the “secret” that Nomura defined the “biggest secret” XD ... aka Roxas xD I mean, they talked about making a replica for Roxas all the game long, so when Roxas actually appeared and claimed that Vexen made a replica for him, i was like ... yeah, thanks, that’s not a brand new information xD Talking about Vexen, him and the rest of the Organization had some really nice surprising elements, their story was worthy. 

- The narrative/structure/pace: 6.5/10. Ok, here’s the thing. Even if the actual story content was interesting and pretty good, there were problems in the pace and we all hardcore fans noticed it. Why was that? Because they changed some things they shouldn’t have changed in order to give more space to Disney worlds. 

For ex, I’m talking about the fact that we started our adventure in ... the Olympus world. I have nothing against that world of course. But in KH1 we started in Destiny Islands/Traverse Town. In KH2 we started in Twilight Town. In KHBBS we started in the Land of the Departure. In KH3 we should have respected traditions and start from an original world. Why? Because original worlds are strictly connected to the original characters’ development + main plot. By making Sora starting in a Disney world, they cut out an extremely important part in the KH3 story’s development, aka the very own basis. And  no, Twilight Town arrived 3 hours later, and was half as big as the other Disney worlds, so it doesn’t really stand the competion. 

  So, by putting so many Disney worlds and cutting out the original worlds, they confused the storyline’s pace. The actual story’s progression was reduced to some cutscenes between a world and another which is ... not a really good idea. We needed at least one or two more playable original worlds somewhere there in between, like KH2 had Radiant Garden and KH1 had Traverse Town, so that the story could have been developed  and the characters would have been able to meet and interact properly.

  In fact, the biggest problem is that the entire main plot is rushed in the last hours of the game. 35 hours of funny happy Disney gameplay. 5 hours of actual plot. It’s not balanced. The player didn’t feel the rising pressure for the final battle of light against darkness. No matter how epic the Keyblade War actually was, of course it felt a bit rushed, because it popped out all of a sudden and wasn’t smoothly inserted from the beginning of the game. 

  I can actually justify this choice though: KH3′s purpose was to give a conclusion to Xehanort’s saga. Which means they didn’t plan to develop the story or the characters more than what they already had in the previous games. They just wanted to show a proper “conclusion”. Not “development”. 

  It’s not the choice i would have taken in terms of storytelling, but it’s an option so i’m not really angry about it. It worked anyway because almost all the characters really had a solid background plot. .... almost. Which sadly leads to the sore point of the game. Here we go.

- Characters development: 7/10. Kingdom Hearts has a large quantity of very developed characters. Kingdom Hearts’ original characters are the ones who entered in out hearts years ago and we love them for a reason. They’re all well characterized, with specific strengths and weaknesses. Which means that no matter how weird the pace of KH3 could have been, the characters have been so well written in the previous games that they were able to tollerate everything in terms or story telling. Sora, Riku, Aqua, Roxas, Axel, Ventus, Xion, Terra, Naminè .... they all had a major role in KH’s plot on their shoulders and unique facets. But one character was strongly penalized by this the rhythm of KH3: Kairi. 

  Unlike most of the other characters that belong to the famous trios, Kairi could never count on a strong background, nor a good characterization. 

  Even though i liked her in KH1 (where she at least interacted with both Sora and Riku multiple times and had a part in the main plot, even if she was comatose for 80% of the time), it’s not a secret that she got benched immediately after that. KH2 didn’t make her justice with all that being kidnapped, and in the next games she completely dissapeared even. She was never involved in the story ever again. What am i referring to?

  In Birth By Sleep, only Sora and Riku met all the members of the wayfinder trio and played an actual part in their lives. Kairi barely meet Aqua once, and never played an active part in her life anyway. I mean, Aqua never needed Kairi for anything, never. On the contrary, both Sora and Riku were vital for all the members of the wayfinder trio, back then and later on.

  In Chain of Memories, Coded, 358/2 days ... Kairi was replaced with two other girls that quickly became more interesting than Kairi herself, aka Naminé and Xion. In those stories Kairi is barely mentioned and almost never appears. But Sora and Riku ... oh, Sora and Riku! They’re the PROTAGONISTS. They always interact, they always appear, they always do stuff. 

  Let’s not even talk about Dream Drop Distance, where it’s JUST Sora and RIku. 

  What’s my point? The Destiny trio isn’t a trio, it’s a duo. Kairi is ALWAYS put in a corner, she never has a part in the story. 

  I’m not talking about ships, i don’t care about ships, I don’t ship Soriku nor Sokai, it’s not about this. The problem is Kairi’s character development, which did not exist. Not only a development, but even a purpose was missing. 

  So, since i kinda liked her in KH1 and the potential was there, i thought that KH3 would have set things right for her. I had high hopes especially because of Axel, I was like, “WOW here it is a great potential for a good, healthy, platonic relationship, finally Kairi found someone to be paired with and do stuff. We will finally see her being weak, finding her power again, maybe she will be a playable character, maybe she will interact with BOTH Sora and RIku too, making jokes, express her preferences etc etc” yeah and what we got? Kairi is reduced to a mere man pain object again. She almost forgot about Axel once that Sora appeared. She got kidnapped here and there all along. Again. She kinda forced Sora to eat that fruit and never asked for his opinion, while Riku was having an existential drama going on just some steps away. But i don’t think she cares for Riku anyway since she never had any kind of bond time with him and isn’t interested in his problems. She fought once (badly), revealing that her training was somehow useless (she had to be saved by Sora and the others). She gets killed (pretty stupidly too) and Sora had to sacrifice to bring her back. And what made me angry the most: Sora’s heart gets lost in the process of saving her but it’s NOT Kairi the one going after him in the secret ending. IT’S RIKU. LIKE WHAAAT?? Riku?? She can’t even take her girly keyblade and go after the boy she is supposed to love and that died for her?? Riku has to do it? Really? It’s ridiculous. ... 

  Furthermore, she wasn’t a playable character. The only characters that we were able to play were Sora, Riku and .... Aqua! Pretty funny. (I think they are Nomura’s favorites, i don’t know.)

  Kairi’s only part in KH3 was changing outfit and “being Sora’s light” somehow but ... that was so much out of the blue and most likely an isolated moment. It could have been a nice coronation for a developed love story but the problem is that no development was there before.

  So, going back to my point.

  Even if i would have chosen another way to tell the story, the rushed pace of KH3 worked for everyone anyway, except for Kairi. Kairi needed a different treatment.

  But at this point i don’t think she will ever get it, probably Nomura doesn’t like her too much since he decided to make another DreamDropDistance game settled in Insommia next time xD so i give up on her. I’ll focus on the other beautiful female characters of this game.

  Anyway, even if i talked a lot about why Kairi was another flop, i want to point out how interesting some characters got instead. I’m talking about Xigbar (great plot twist), Saix, Demyx, Vexen (Vexen had so much importance, i mean, i didn’t expect him to be the one moving kh3’s plot), Luxord, Marluxia, Larxene and Repliriku! They used to be marginal characters and now they turned out to be protagonists, it’s amazing.

- FF characters: 7/10. I really loved Verum Rex’s surprise, it’s a clever idea to recycle the Versus characters and concepts Nomura couldn’t bring to life. Now that Nomura turned them into original characters, he has the copyright over them again thanks to Disney and he can use them as much as he wants, bringing the “ff characters cameos in kh” on a brand new level. Starting from the next game, we will have semi-FFcharacters included in the main plot, not just having a cameo here and there, which is amazing!

  But. This doesn’t mean i didn’t miss actual FF characters in Kh3. Cloud, Leon&Co left a hole in kh’s tradition.

Let’s sum it up my notes: 

Graphic: 10/10 +

Gameplay: 10/10 +

Exploration: 10/10 +

Music: 8/10 +

Plot twists/Surprise/Content/Plot elements: 8.5/10. +

The narrative/structure/pace: 6.5/10. +

Characters development: 7/10. +

FF characters: 7/10. +

Total = 8,3

AND ... THAT’S IT FOR NOW I GUESS? xD