#that was supposed to be disposed before birth due to a weak heart | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

help-im-a-gay-fish · 4 years

Text

The Birth of Sun and Moon. Part two.

Part 1, Part 3 baby blues

The following in part 2 of 3 of a piece of writing about the birth/spawning of the Dark-Cream ship kids Celestial star and Luna light.

This takes place in a universe separate to @zu-is-here dark cream story and splits of somewhere around 'the price of happiness'. Any continuity errors should be accepted as being part of an alternative timeline.

Synopsis: a few days after the last piece of writing. Dreams soul spawns the twins. It happened out of no where. Confused and alone. How will cross react?

Why.

How?

Why.

These (for the most part) where the only things going through Shattered's mind, as he lay on the floor of the void, where he'd collapsed a few minutes before. He lay almost paralysed. Unmoving.

His eyes were locked on it. A tiny little thing. It was completely covered in the gloop and wasn't moving at all. If Dream hadn't known any better, he'd have thought that it was just a lump of gloop.

But he knew better.

It had started with a leach from his soul. Then a deep and sudden pain. It had been a very painful experience. Though not the most painful, that prize would always belong to his corruption, his consumption of the golden apple and being turned to stone. Yeah, the pain hadn't been anywhere near the pain of those events.

However, it's suddenness had made it the most shocking. It had felt like his whole body had been shocked with electricity and burned with fire all at once. Then it felt like his soul was splitting apart, he supposed it kind of had been.

Was it... Was it dead?

Dream moved his hand underneath his chest and attempted to push himself up. However his arms gave out under him and he weakly fell back down onto his chest. It still hurt to move his body. He felt even more drained then he did after to much positively.

Shattered didn't take his eyes of the gloop. He waited for it to move. It still didn't.

Come on Dream! He thought to himself. He couldn't just lay on the floor until Cross came back. After taking a deep breath, he attempted to push himself up again. His body complained as he did so. Through gritted teeth, he pushed himself into a sitting position.

His body ached and complained, but now he was sat up.

It still hadn't moved.

Maybe it was dead. It wouldn't surprise him if it was. His soul was very damaged due to the corruption, so it wasn't a good soul for spawning. It had never been an issue before, since he'd never wanted or even thought he'd be in a place to have children.

However, a trickle of sadness ran through him, as he stared at the un-moving blob.

This child was un wanted, but no person could ever be happy about a child being born dead.

It hurt a bit, although he knew it couldn't be helped. He could never be a parent anyway. It wasn't really in his nature. On top of that, Cross had never expressed a desire to have children to him, so... maybe it was better this way.

It also hit him that since the spawn with accidental, it was most likely a unpure spawn. Unpure and born from a corrupted soul? There was no telling what that could cause. So in the end he started to feel relieved.

Despite that, it would probably hurt Cross if he found out about it..... So he should dispose of the body as soon as possible.

After a brief pause, Shattered summoned a tentacle. It hurt a lot more then normal and felt a lot heaver then he was used to. It fell limp at his side. He truly hated these tentacles, they brought him so many painful memories. He'd swarm off using them unless absolutely necessary. The pain was subsiding now, but it was still ever present. Slowly and carefully he lifted the tentacle up and moved it over to the blob

He curled it around it and tugged slightly. But then something happened.

There was an ear splitting screech and suddenly it sprung to life.

Dream jumped backwards, then shuffled back. He continued to shuffle backwards until his back hit the sofa.

His soul hammered in his ribcage. What. The. Hell.

His eye lights locked onto the blob again, it was now moving. Squirming, convoluting and making a most uncomfortable gargling noise. 1000 thoughts and ideas ran through his mind in an instant. But in the end he settled on one.

It was alive, he was a parent.

This thought froze him in his place. He could no longer feel the pain rippling through his bones, or his soul racing. He felt nothing but numb.

It continued to wriggle and started to cry. It was in distress and was calling for him. But feeling nothing, he simply continued to watch it rive in pain.

So many times he had heard people talk about an instant love. An instant connection to their children the moment they are born, a special feeling from deep in the soul. People said it was the most amazing feeling. Like a feeling of being complete. But Shattered felt......... nothing.

The gargling and crying continued, but now it just felt like background noise to him. He just stared.... spacing out.

He didn't notice as Cross returned to the void, he didn't notice as Cross approached the scene and he didn't notice as Cross bombarded him with questions about what had happened? where the gloop had come from? and what the blob on the floor was.

But what he did notice was Cross approach the wriggling mass and wrap his coat around it, picking it up gently. He noticed as Cross rocked it slowly from side-to-side and he noticed as it quieted down and stopped screaming.

He blinked. "Cross..?"

Cross looked over at him, "Dream... why is there a baby here? where did this come from?! Are you alright?"

Now that Dream has been snapped back to reality, the pain that ran through his bones hit him again. He winced slightly and leant his head back against the sofa.

"I.... I guess... I spawned..... I don't know how to describe it properly"

He felt suddenly very weak and very dizzy again. The gravity of the situation was crashing down upon him. Now that Cross knew about it, there was no going back.

Cross simply stared at him for a moment, then back at the tiny creature.

"........ Are you saying that this is your baby?" he paused for a moment before adding "or.. our baby?"

Dream slowly nodded.

Cross had a look of pure disbelief on his face. "How? why? How it this even possible?"

He rocked the tiny creature a slightly.

Shattered simply stared at him. He felt slightly disheartened that cross hadn't seemed to notice he was in a bad state, but he figured that the situation must have just been a big shock to Cross.

"it's...." he said running his hand across his face "an energy being thing.... I'm not really fully sure about how it works myself.... it must have been something to do with when we were soul touching"

Cross continue to rock the tiny bundle. The gloop started to drip down his arms slightly from where it's still covered the baby. He didn't seem to even notice and didn't seem to be listening to Dream anymore.

It was then Dreams saw something that truly made his heart drop.

Cross smiled.

Dream could see it right then and there in his eyes and in his face. The happy, natural, instant connection kind of starry-eyed Love. The one people claimed to feel upon first seeing their child. The same kind of love that Shattered had been unable to feel.

His soul twisted in his chest: he felt truly horrible. He wanted to cry but decided it was better not to.

Cross walked over to Dream and carefully sat by him.

Dream could now see Cross had wiped off the majority of the gloop from the child. They seemed to be sleeping now and they seemed peaceful.

But then something else court Dreams eye, a tiny little of light next to them. A second being. There were two.

"twins.."

Dream said, his voice shaking slightly. Twins!? was this some kind of a cruel joke. Was life trying to make a mockery of him? It wouldn't be the first time.

"Twins!?" Cross said, turning to dream "what are you talking about?"

Dream simply sighed and gestured slowly to the tiny ball of light. It moved slightly.

"that's what energy beings look like upon their birth" he said. He was so defeated.

Cross felt another rush of joy follow through him. But this soon faded as Cross finally noticed his partner's condition. Dream looked more exhausted and drained then he'd ever seen him. He felt like an idiot.

"Wait.... are you alright? you don't look so good Dream"

Dream gave him a sidewise glance. Finally he noticed.

If today had been a normal day, Dream would have taken the opportunity to mess with him a bit. After all, playing with Cross was always fun.

But today? It wasn't a normal day. He just wanted a hug.

"it's just the process is very straining.... I'll be fine..... my soul just needs to rest for a while"

With that Cross seemed relieved and turned his attention back to the baby. He nuzzled it slightly. Dream looked away from the scene.

".........."

Dream felt himself wishing to cry again. No Dream. Stay strong.

"look..... I didn't know or I would have told you" he said quietly "I had no idea... I'm sorry about this. I know you didn't really want children"

Cross let out a light chuckle.

"Are you kidding? this one of the greatest gifts you've ever given me" he smiled softly.

Dream looked back to him instantly. "What!?"

Cross turned to his lover.

"I'd always accepted that I'd never be able to have children... and I was fine with that because I had you, but now... " He smiled wider

"I know that your whole thing is shattering dreams but right now you've made another one of mine come true".

Cross kissed him on the forehead and nuzzled him lovingly.

"I love you so much you know"

Normally a kiss or a nuzzle from Cross would have made Dream's soul skip a beat. But right now, it made him feel sick. Truly and utterly sick.

Resting his head on Cross' shoulder, he relaxed his body weight against him. It was all to much. Way to much. He couldn't take it. He just wanted it to stop.

Maybe he could just rest for a while and when he woke up this will all just be a bad dream.

He closed his eyes and slipped unconscious.

***************

Part 2 yay! So happy! @zu-is-here I hope you like this like the other part.

Thank you everyone! Part 1 was taken very well, so I hope this is a good follow-up! Thank you for reading.

Original cross and dream belong to jakei95 and jokublog

Original shattered dream belongs to @galacii

Dark cream comic and story is by @zu-is-here

The Dark cream twins belong to me :)

@official-darkxunshine-kids

88 notes · View notes

spoadicdeviance · 5 years

Text

Simple and Clean: The Kingdom Hearts Conundrum

Well it looks like the hype of the release of Kingdom Hearts 3 has calmed down significantly, mostly due to the fact that the game is considered by many to be lackluster. As for myself, I have finished my first playthrough of the game, on proud mode, and done most of the side quests, and while I did like my experience overall, I can’t really refute the criticisms the game has gotten and have to agree that Kingdom Hearts 3 is a disappointment.

I suppose I can’t be too surprised with how the third game in the franchise turned out considering the direction the series has been on since the second game which is actually the third game released but due the number placed at the title the game is still the second game, and I’ll just stop right now before I go on a tangent over the names of each game.

Kingdom Hearts, to me, is a series that captivated me right at the very beginning. I love Kingdom Hearts 1. It’s probably in my Top 20 favorite games of all time. The game managed to encapsulate the whimsy and charm of Disney, while delivering an epic, yet simplistic tale of adventure, light vs darkness, and friendship. The game was fun to play, and the story kept me engaged to the post credits scene. To this day, the game is still one that I would gladly replay and enjoy in its entirety.

Can’t say the same for the other games.

I know, I’m in the minority here on this, but in my opinion, the Kingdom Hearts series peaked with the original game from 2002 while all subsequent games have struggled under lackluster levels, a combat system that favors style over substance, and a convoluted plot with dull, heavy-handed dialog. Heck, a lot of what made Kingdom Hearts 3 such a disappointment to many players can be found in Kingdom Hearts 2 and (to a lesser extent) Birth by Sleep, the two games fans say are the pinnacle of the series.

Now I’m not simply here to say that I like this game over that game end it there. I’m going to explain why I think the Kingdom Hearts 1 (or KH1) is my favorite game in the series while putting into words my disappointment with the later games in the franchise, particularly KH2 and Birth by Sleep. This is going to be a long one so just get yourself comfortable and wait until you finish reading my post before you comment. Let’s go over why Kingdom Hearts 1 is the best in the franchise.

First things first, let’s discuss the levels in these games. The worlds of KH1 are a lot of fun to explore. While not exactly Thief II: The Metal Age complex, they were expansive and navigating them was more than just going from point A to point B. Some of the worlds were almost maze like in their design. There were light puzzle elements to most of the worlds. There was even platforming that, while clunky, added some variety to each level. These different elements made the moment to moment gameplay more than just brawling and therefore playing KH1 never got stale.

It’s quite a different story for the other games. The worlds in the latter games are straight forward in their design. The worlds were usually a singular pathway with the occasional branching off into a mini path, (Enchanted Domain, KH2’s Halloween Town), or central hub area that branches into three-four linear pathways (Beast’s Castle). Just look at the maps of Agrabah from KH1 and KH2 to see the downgrade firsthand.

Not only did the levels lack complex designs, they also had little to no puzzles in them and instead of tweaking the platforming to make it less clunky, the worlds minimize or flat out remove platforming all together. This resulted in worlds where you mostly just walk and fight.

Now these games are not simply all combat. There is something added that is intended to break the monotony, and it’s one of the most out of place aspects of the game; the forced minigames.

To be fair, having minigames isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, even if its put into the main campaign/quest. Games like Jak and Daxter and Donkey Kong 64 have plenty of minigames, however most of them are optional to beat the game. Finishing DK64 requires 50% of golden bananas and minigames give roughly 25% of golden bananas. Final Fantasy IX and Skyward Sword have the player do a minigame, but it lasts for 2-5 minutes out of a 35+ hour campaign and serve more to entice players to do a side quest. Even KH1, the only moments that feel like the game forces you to do a minigame like activity were the race against Rikku at Destiny Islands, the 1 minute of vine surfing at the start of Deep Jungle, and the 2-minute magic carpet escape at the end of Agrabah.

The other Kingdom Hearts games are not as stingy with minigames. As each world progresses, minigame after minigame is dumped on the player. KH2 is one of the worst offenders of this. It doesn’t help that these minigames, unlike the ones from DK64 and Final Fantasy IX, don’t provide a real break from the endless stream of battles. The majority of minigames are just regular fights with an arbitrary stipulation added to it; fight the enemies before the timer runs out, fight the enemies until the timer runs out, fight the enemies while collecting some orbs, fight the enemies while filling the bar onscreen, fight the enemies while depleting the bar onscreen, fight the enemies while escorting a slow ass character. It’s all just more fighting, and it even spills over to some of the bosses as well.

Even the minigames that aren’t centered around fighting, like the rhythm games in Atlantica, are too shallow to provide any sense of fulfillment while playing them. Subsequent Kingdom Hearts games aren’t exempt from this. From Birth by Sleep’s Disney Town world being dedicated to minigames, to the shallow imitation of Nintendogs in Dream Drop Distance, these games also have the same minigame issue that KH2 has.

I have talked about how the games became more combat oriented, however I haven’t really discussed combat itself. This is probably the part where I’ll get the most flack.

Combat in KH1 is a lot of fun and the highlight of the game alongside its story. While basic at first, the fighting gets more complex with the addition of special moves, extra combos, spells, and summons adding variety to the system. Plus, different enemies and bosses a certain attacks and weaknesses. Mashing the x button repeatedly will not get you far, you will have to think and be strategic during battle.

The later games, however, do not have strategy in their combat. Sure, you have different options with drive forms, shot locks, trinity limits, and other sorts of abilities, but at the end of the day, combat from KH2 onward is mostly whaling on the attack button over and over again. The amount of enemies that require certain strategies to defeat them diminish, dodging becomes practically unnecessary, and combat becomes simplified as a whole

Drive forms and trinity limits require little to no strategy when using them. Just activate them and mash buttons while your character zips their way through the battlefield while all sorts of flashy effects fill the screen and enemies go down without a fight. How fortunate that certain abilities could only be unlocked when the player fights with each drive form for a certain amount of time. Forced grinding, what a treat.

The worst offender of this is the context sensitive “reaction commends” that can clear waves of enemies and knock out a huge portion of the bosses’ health. Sometimes it’s the only way to defeat certain bosses. All the player must do during these reaction commands is simple press the triangle button over and over. It’s like a quicktime event only virtually impossible to fail at. There’s a reason why the phrase “press triangle to win” exists.

Magic also got a downgrade as the series progressed. In KH1, magic was not always at your disposal. When your MP got depleted, the player (or companions) would have to use an elixir/ether or land enough melee strikes on enemies to replenish your magic. Despite that, spells and summons were incredibly useful in battle, as well as for environmental puzzles, and the proper use of magic could mean the difference between success and failure.

In the later Kingdom Hearts games, the inverse seemed to be true for magic. Not only were puzzles that require spells became almost nonexistent, removing more variety in level design, but spells and summons became less effective in battle. In KH1, the player could focus on spellcasting, while doing the occasional melee attacks, and get through the game with relative ease. In later games, due to how magic became nerfed, using magic primarily was more of a self-imposed hinderance rather than an alternative style of play. This results in the player using magic almost exclusively for healing. Lucky for those players, MP automatically regenerates after depletion at a relatively quick rate, making ethers useless, which gives the player an unlimited amount of heals.

After KH2’s release, with the emphasis on style over substance, combat in Kingdom Hearts games became more about how to make the player look cool while fighting rather than making the player feel good after the fight.

The reason why it felt good to complete a battle in KH1; the game was actually difficult. Enemies and bosses didn’t just let you pummel them with combos and stylized forms. You had to react to the enemies and the arena you fought in. Even to this day, fights against Clayton, Ursula, Maleficent (human and dragon), possessed Rikku, many more bosses still put me on edge as I fight them.

There was no challenge to the fights in games like KH2 and Birth by Sleep. Since the player has multiples ways to dispose of an enemy, virtually endless amount of heals, and less adversaries that require any strategy outside of “hit me a bunch of times until I no longer exist”, they face little to no challenge while playing latter day Kingdom Hearts games. Bosses that make creative use of the environment you fight are less frequent too. The only way a boss can begin to test the player is when a minigame-like stipulation is added to the fight. Stipulations such as kill all the water clones in this time limit, put the coins in the chest before you can do damage, whatever the heck the Luxord fight was supposed to be, and so on and so forth.

Even then, I still didn’t get that much of a challenge. After three playthroughs of KH2, two of which were on Proud/Critical mode, the combined total of times I died does not even come close to a quarter of the amount of times I died in my first playthrough of KH1. I never even died during KH2’s Sephiroth fight, and I still struggle to defeat him in KH1’s proud mode. The other games provide even less challenge outside of a few endgame/postgame bosses.

And before you reply, the re-releases did not remedy this issue. In fact, the re-release of KH2 gave the player new abilities that allowed the player to cheese his/her way through some boss fights.

Now I have talked about the level design, the moment to moment gameplay, and the difficulty. I supposed that leaves us with the plot of these games.

Do I even have to explain why KH1 has the superior story?

KH1 had a simple yet effective hero’s journey story about a child who wanted to explore the various worlds with his friends but got more than he bargained for when his home is engulfed in darkness and he’s separated from his friends. He goes to various worlds, forms friendships with numerous people, and learns about his newfound abilities as well as the forces that try to stop him on his quest to find his friends. It’s not the most complex of narratives and that’s all for the better. The amount of exposition is kept to a relative minimum, characters can breathe and are not just there to explain the situation, dialogue was never forced or awkward, each world had their own mini-story that’s both entertaining and connects to the overarching plot, and the story is self-contained, no outside material required to understand what’s going on.

You know the pattern by now, but I still need to elaborate. For some reason, Square-Enix thought that they could pull off this grand epic saga spread over multiple games, well they couldn’t. KH2’s plot is a total mess. It’s a constant bombardment of new ideas, exposition dumps, vague allusions to events from games that weren’t even released yet. It was bad enough that the player had to have played a GBA spinoff in order to understand a lot of the plot, but the narrative was so muddled with inconsistencies and unexplained concepts that two more spinoffs had to be made in order for KH2’s plot to make some sort of sense, even then the plot is still convoluted and heavy-handed.

I’ve seen spiderwebs that have less interwoven parts than the plot of Kingdom Hearts, and far fewer holes as well.

And no, this does not make the story “complex and deep”. While I expect a game called Kingdom Hearts 2 would require me to play the first game in order to get a clear understanding of the plot, that doesn’t excuse having to play multiple spinoffs just to get a iota of a clue of what the heck is going on. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, one of the most celebrated series of books ever, contained an epic tale of war across multiple kingdoms and fleshed out worlds with history and culture. Even then, the reader didn’t have to refer to The Hobbit or The Silmarillion in order to follow the plot of the novels. That’s mainly due to the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien, unlike Tetsuya Nomura, can actually write an overarching story.

There’s also the fact that a lot of the plot in these games feels like filler. In KH2, the first visits to most of the worlds don’t connect to the main plot about the nobodies and Organization XIII. It’s not until the second visit to Radient Gardens where the plot starts to get rolling. In Birth by Sleep, almost all of Aqua’s campaign feel inconsequential until the very end. You could cut her story and have her just be a side character in Ventus and Terra’s campaigns and not much would be lost, plot wise.

The reason why I find a lot of the plot to be filler is due to the stories of most of these worlds are retellings of the Disney movies they’re based on while having little connection to the game’s main plot. In KH1, the stories of the worlds were mostly original tales that were intertwined with the game’s main plot. Whether it was dealing with Maleficent’s group of villains, the search for King Mickey, Rikku, and Kairi along with the rivalry between Sora and Rikku, learning more about the keyblade and its various abilities, visiting each world moved the main plot forward while having fun mini-narratives of their own. Even worlds like Wonderland, Deep Jungle, and Neverland focused more on one scene/act from the movie and expanding on it rather than rushing through the cliff notes of the source material.

It seems like for the other games, Nomura just copied and pasted the scripts of the movies the worlds a based on, added interjections from Sora, and called it an original story. It sticks out like a sore thumb and makes visits to these worlds feel more like distractions than anything else.

This longwinded plot also extends to the dialogue. The dialogue in KH1 was natural, aside from a few moments of emphasizing the difference between light and darkness. Characters acted normally, they had actual personalities and chemistry with each other. That was because KH1’s plot was not domineering to the point where the characters were relegated to just be vessels meant to explain the narrative. In games like KH2, conversations don’t feel like a group of people talking amongst themselves but rather like a lecture that the player needs to pay attention to. It makes a large chunk of scenes drag on for what feels like an eternity.

The fact that characters feel more like lore dispensers than actual people leads me to my next point, I don’t care about these new characters. Almost every character introduced from Chain of Memories onward has left little to no impact on me.

Organization XIII are a bunch of cliché Shonen Jump villains, either cackling at how evil they are or brooding over something quasi-poetic until the main character comes in and inevitably defeats them.

Roxas got a 2-hour prologue in KH2 in order for the player to get to know him and I was more relieved than upset whenever he “sacrificed” himself in order for Sora to wake up. Even 358/2 Days couldn‘t get me to care for this guy.

Xion exists solely to die at the end of 358/2 days and then be resurrected in Dream Drop Distance, that’s it.

Hayner, Pence, and Olette are like the annoying group of kids you’re forced to hang out with during college orientation, then they think you want to spend more time with them afterwards.

Ventus, Terra, and Aqua might’ve been interesting characters if we had more than 10 minutes dedicated to their friendship and personalities. Birth by Sleep is so focused on explaining the origins of Xehanort, the ways of the keyblade master, and linking its plot to the overarching plot of the series, that I never find myself connecting to any of the characters. The three separate campaigns don’t do the plot any favors. In fact, it makes the story seem disjointed. To be honest, when the characters were either killed, possessed, or banished to the Realm of Darkness, I did not care in the slightest.

It doesn’t help that Tetsuya Nomura can only seem to write 4 or 5 kinds of original characters, resulting in everyone being a Xehanort/Ansem clone or a copycat of the Sora, Kairi, Rikku dynamic. Seriously, the amount of Sora clones in this franchise is absurd.

The worse thing about these new characters is that Square seems convinced that the general audience needs more of them and forces them into the plot at the expense of characters we already have investment in.

The most egregious example of this happens at the end KH2 when during the final fight against Xemnas, rather than allowing the player to use Donald and Goofy, the game forces you to use only Rikku in the fight.

I don’t care that it’s meant to serve as Rikku’s redemption. He seemed to have redeemed himself with his self-sacrifice at the end of the first game. I don’t care about that stupid reaction command in the middle of the battle looks cool. It’s just another example of the game preferring style over substance. I don’t care that I get to fight with Rikku. I want Donald and Goofy.

I know we play as Sora and therefore focus on building his stats/abilities, but we put almost as much time into Donald and Goofy while we played the game. The player had to find the best equipment, do the side quests in order to obtain their ultimate weapon, mastered their trinity limits, managed their A.I. to suit the player’s needs in battle. Then the game rewards your dedication to these characters by saying “Screw you! Here’s a premade character with a default weapon you can’t change, and you only have the final level to learn how he is like in combat. You’re gonna love it.”

I’m sorry, but for an RPG to do that is inexcusable. Imagine in an Elder Scrolls game, before the final part of the main quest, your character is killed, and you must play as a premade Dark Elf Mage for the rest of the game. How about in Persona 5 before the last boss, instead of the Phantom Thieves, Joker gets a party consisting of some random side characters you barely interacted with in the game. Would anyone defend that design choice then?

The fact that I’m forced to only use Rikku in the fight, alongside how easy it is, makes the final battle against Xemnas in KH2 one of the worst final bosses in gaming, in my opinion.

I’ve been ranting about KH2, Birth by Sleep, 358/2 Days, Chain of Memories, but I haven’t talked specifically about Kingdom Hearts 3. KH3 is a weird case because it fixed some issues that I had with the later Kingdom Hearts games while doubling down on the issues it didn’t fix and adding new issues altogether.

KH3’s level design is improved somewhat. There’s still generally not much to do in the worlds aside from walk, fight, and do a minigame, however the actual levels are more open and intricate compared to KH2 and Birth by Sleep. The presentation is the best in the series, not just the graphical upgrade but also cinematography of the cutscenes and animations are more expressive than in past games. Plus, I got to give the game credit for making me like Axel/Lea, who before was just another forgettable side character.

However, combat is even more style over substance with additions like the Attractions Summons. The minigames are still as intrusive as they are lacking in quality. The retelling of the Disney plots is so bad here that there are literally shot for shot recreations of scenes from the movies with Sora, Donald, and Goofy added in the background. The Frozen and Tangled worlds suffer the most from this. Plus, the Pirates of the Caribbean world is based on the third movie despite the fact that no Kingdom Hearts game covered the second Pirates movie. Good luck understanding that plot without seeing the films. Dialogue is just as mind-numbingly dull. Also, you know how the plots of the latter Kingdom Hearts game can be described as having 30-50% filler, well KH3’s plot is almost 80% filler.

All this is combined with new problems such as combat feeling floatier compared to KH2 and Birth by Sleep, the emphasis on Disney over everything else, and the fact that this supposed “conclusion” to the trilogy didn’t fulfill on all the promises of past games, forgot to fill some of the plot holes, and felt like advertisement for games yet to come, makes it hard for me to say KH3 is a total improvement over the other Kingdom Hearts sequels and spinoffs. In many ways, it’s a downgrade.

You know, it feels like Kingdom Hearts is the Guns and Roses of the video game industry. Their first effort is groundbreaking and makes a huge impact on the scene. Subsequent follow-ups do their best to expand upon the initial outing only to end up with well regarded yet still confused end products. Then a new project is in the works and gets constantly delayed during which a revolving door of crew members tries to salvage the development, all the while a talented yet egomaniacal leader is micromanaging every aspect. Then when the long-awaited product is released, reviewers give mild praise while the general public is disappointed and finds the end result to be a mish mash of disparaging ideas while feeling almost unfinished.

Yes, Kingdom Hearts 3 is Square’s Chinese Democracy.

If I were asked to do a tier list ranking of each game in the series, at this moment, it would look like this.

This maybe a bit of a surprise to you since I spent the entire time ranting about KH2’s flaws, so let me explain. After playing KH3, I’ve come to notice more of the positive aspects of the second Kingdom Hearts. While I do think that they serve more to make the game easy and hate the excessive grinding that comes with them, the drive forms do give the player a sense of experimentation with some of these fights. In fact, compared to KH3, 2 has more builds for the player, as well as more balanced. KH2 is still easy as heck, and in my opinion inferior to KH1 in almost every way. However, I now appreciate more of the second game’s strong points.

Also, the music is excellent. I think that goes without saying. Yoko Shimomura is a goddess of music.

So as if this entire post hasn’t made it clear already, I love Kingdom Hearts 1. Unlike the other games in the franchise, it knew where to be straightforward and where to have complexity. It had a robust, dynamic combat system, the plot was self-contained and had more personality than exposition, and the gameplay was varied without being diluted. To this day, I find it hard to understand why most Kingdom Hearts fans prefer games like KH2 and Birth by Sleep over the original Kingdom Hearts.

Who knows? Maybe they like the combat to have some flash and felt the fighting in KH1 is too rigid. Maybe they found the puzzles, exploration, and platforming of KH1 to be more akin to fat that had to be trimmed in service to the aspect of the games that they actually like. Maybe they enjoy the plot because it has such a detailed lore and expands the narrative beyond three guys saving the universe from darkness. Maybe they find the new characters charming and enjoy the parallels between them and other characters like Sora and Rikku.

If that’s how they feel, then that’s more than fine. We’re all allowed to have out take on things and no one should tell someone else that they shouldn’t have their opinion.

That being said, in my opinion, while I do enjoy most of the games in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, the only game that I find exceptional is Kingdom Hearts 1.

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 2 #kingdom hearts 3 #birth by sleep #358/2 days #chain of memories #dream drop distance #sora #rikku #kairi #disney #donald duck #goofy #roxas #axel

2 notes · View notes