#and in kh3 that’s the moment he remakes it

[blowingoffsteam2]

This parallel though,,,

#soriku #thinking about all the context of these moments #the contrast between what Riku was walking away for then vs what he was walking away for in kh3 #in kh1 that was the moment he had truly broken his promise #and in kh3 that’s the moment he remakes it #just like his poem in CoM #walking the road without you #to remake our forgotten promise #and meet you at road’s end #well something like that anyway

[nebuvoid]

the whole sora kairi roxas xion namine ventus AND vanitas deal baffles me to this day. like even within kingdom hearts rules of how shit works some of it barely makes sense. mind you im not even getting into why x person looks like y person we just roll with the whole "influenced by y" thing. or the whole who is most connected to who. we roll with that too

like ok lets say "body" is just a resource like a full glass of milk. and during com sora and roxas are a half glass each. ok fine sure i guess. their bones must be so brittle.

but then whered ventus go? presumably stayed inside sora. but why didnt he also leave soras heart? because kh1 was a oneshot game with none of this planned is the real answer of course but that has never stopped nomura. and the answer cant be ven went to roxas' body otherwise we wouldnt have roxas with his own heart, we'd just have ven with amnesia...3! and then of course you also have the whole vanitas deal because they heavily imply in kh3 that vanitas is still inside sora at the end. ven and van stayed inside sora because they werent done healing. alright. but the whole heart unlocking thing did things in a very forceful manner, soras heart was forced right out...so why wouldnt theirs be. were ven and van inside the lil heartless ant sora? kh1 needs a remake badly

and THEN you have namine, by god, namine... nothing about her makes sense. shes not even a real nobody. kairis empty body was IN THE ROOM when her heart was freed. like the implication here is that as soon as a heart is free floating in the air outside a body, a nobody is spawned somewhere, even if the heart re-enters a body moments after. kairi and namine as another glass of milk case, or was also using soras body as a resource, making sora one third glass of milk. hm the whole half pint thing is starting to have relevance now...

xion makes sense :) god bless.

dont even get me started on their spawn points. roxas spawning in twilight town. because thats where ven reentered reality via world time travel hopping or whatever. fine. but iirc (and i might not tbf) namine says shes only ever seen the walls of castle oblivion. why didnt she spawn 1. in destiny islands due to her sora and kairi connection or 2. also in twilight town due to her ven connection. like yes vens body is in castle oblivion but you cant just. change your own rules for convenience. or did namine go "oh damn theres already a ven nobody in the twilight town server its full now gotta use the other ven-location"

#just braining out loud really #maybe ill remember things as i keep delving back into things. how very kh-esque in itself #kh talk #kingdom hearts #kh

[derekscorner]

The Eventual Days Remake

I mean, I’d like to believe we’ll get one given the game is tedious at best and the movie sucks at worst. However, the question is “how should we get a remake?”

Well buckle in because I’ve had an idea I’ve been sitting on since I finished KH3!

My Premise

Now I know what I’m about to say will tempt you to immediately reply “what!?” and stop reading but hear me out. My basic premise for this would be remake is based a little on Assassin’s Creed 2. The story structure specifically.

...Still there? I hope so! Naturally, what do I mean by this? Well, the most basic structure. A story set in the present and the past.

We already know ‘Ansem the Wise’ and his machines can help you dive into memories. We also know Ienzo has disney-magic-wifi access to the computer in the Twilight Town basement.

What I am proposing is that our Days Remake is actually set post-KH3. We’d be controlling a revived Roxas (and at times Xion) reliving their memories. Trying to find any hints that could help Sora. They, after all, have the closest ties to him being literal products of his being.

The majority of the story is the duo, in those pods, reliving their lives. This would be our “past” segment in which we spent most of the game. Acting as a true remake to Days (which it needs) while also giving newcomers an easy entry point into a bloated narrative.

At times you will leave the pod, walk around the mansion, interact with Lea, the kids of Twilight Town, etc. Something small that can be a fun break from the heavy story of Roxas’ past.

Perhaps we could even give Roxas access to the computer in which breakdowns and recaps of the story so far exist. A way to explain to new players who Sora even is.

I dont think we’d have the whole of Twilight Town to explore since I doubt a game budget can handle that plus all the Kh3-scale rebuilds of worlds we’d see in the past segments of the game but who knows. DLC exists right?

Story Structure

Naturally, our story structure wont match the original DS game. That was made to be played on the go with it’s mission based layout. Our remake will need the true console treatment.

As mentioned, the “present” segments of the game in which you leave the machine/datascape to explore the mansion would be easy but likely restrict how much of Twilight Town you actually see.

In terms of scenes, the present should have only a few I believe. An intro, an ending, and whatever clues they find in the middle. Perhaps even shots of characters, such as Xion herself, witnessing what Roxas went through during the Kh2 tutorial.

But the past, I think, should follow a chapter like structure. I dont know exactly how we’d lay it out but I chose this because of the simulated nature of the past (its a datascape) and because I feel chapters would allow us to add in the many lost scenes from the DS game.

Such as the small chats Roxas has with Org members in worlds, “thats a stick”, and so on. Days gained a lot of fans due to those moments. They need a way  in.

A chapter structure would also allow us a way to swap between Roxas and Xion. Retelling Days from both of their perspectives. It is essentially their story and we minds well make full use of it.

We could add new things to Xions chapters, flesh out some of her scenes from the old game, small stuff but something that’d be old yet new for this story from 2008.

Lastly, this one is entirely a personal pick on my part, I would add Kh2′s tutorial to the ending of the game. We’d have to tweak it since this is no longer a tutorial but I do feel Roxas and Xion’s story is only told completely if you add that small section of KH2 to Days in some way.

I also just want Roxas’ friends to see what his time in the digital town was like.

Motivations

Lastly, I’d use the present-day portions of the story to give a bit of insight into Roxas’ motivation. I’d like to imagine that he was fully aware for the entirety of 3. Fully knowing of the fact that Sora spent most of 3 just trying to bring him back.

This would be Roxas motivation and a contrast to his past self we see within the datascape. Roxas wishes to help Sora, the only person that told him he deserved to live. One of two people that actively sought ways to help him live a life.

I want that to mean something to Roxas. Xion, in turn, is motivated by this. Sora didn’t actively try to save her as bad but he also didn’t know she existed until she reappeared in KH3 lol.

Conclusion

As for the ending, well once you complete reliving Roxas life we would end the present story with Roxas being told that Riku has found a lead and followed it.

I am not sure what else we would add and I do not know what hints we could add throughout the game to tie it into KH4 or beyond. Those are Nomura secrets at the time of me writing this.

However, I would end it on a positive note. They have a lead and could find Sora. No secret endings, nothing like that, just tell me an open and close story. A story that progresses the present and retells the past.

If done right, we’d have an amazing entry point into the series and a great reintroduction to Roxas and Xion.

Now if only I could beam this idea to Nomura himself. lol Bye now~

#kingdom hearts #kh4 #kh3 #roxas #xion #khtangent

[tomyo]

I know I suddenly posted a lot of backlog adventure stuff back to back haha but just a little lore building here. I felt some energy to actually try games after the rush of playing KH3. At the same time, games are hard alone bleh.

Next week though, I'm briefly staying with a friend who I might try to play through with on Sonic Riders and Nights. Last year when I visited him, I brought my Dreamcast down and we went through Jet Set Radio on it so this is the next playthrough together I guess hahaha.

I would of liked to play more Dreamcast games soon, however a lot of mine don't actually work at the moment. Shenmue and Sonic adventure need to be polished which is big oof anxiety and to a much less extent, Cooking Mama cook off. Might even trade that one in to be real. I think it'd probably be the most fun for us to one day attempt a Dream Cast Binge together. Shenmue will certainly be....a heavy meal of a game and other games like Time Stalkers and Space Channel 5 would just be fun with friends. I might even bring the 360 at some point so I can force him to do Free Riders with me too hahaha.

In general since basically buying every Harvest Moon game out there (as I write this I may or may not be getting grand bazaar and hero of leaf valley 💀) my attention jumped to my Sonic collection. Basically my biggest gap is with Wii era games surprisingly. When I was in elementary to early high school I was pretty big on the games and bought a lot of them for the sub $15 the GameCube ones cost at that time. There is a distinct pain over the fact the copy of Adventure XD I had I had to return for being to scratched given the prices now and for personal reasons, there's someone who I've wanted to be the one to give me their old copy of even though it won't ever happened hahaha. My biggest desires right now are to get my hands on Black Knight but I've also wanted a 360 copy of Unleashed, Generations, Zero Gravity, and Shadow the Hedgehog. Rush adventure and Shuffle also catch my eye but my wallet hurts enough as is. I really need to stop getting into game collecting.

Part of the reason to bring Sonic up is also because I'll probably be playing a replay of Sonic 06 with the friend who leant me his PS4. He apparently never played it but wants to and I love just... Backseat gaming rather than actually playing. Hahahah. Games can be magical but art takes up too much time in my life now. The switch has been helpful for my more on the go lifestyle these days but I often still run short on free time. Even now Ive been wasting work hours to do KH3 this past weekend.

I guess my final little ramble is back to my HM collection. God it's kinda scary how many games I had suddenly bought at once. I keep meaning to play but I know they're the kinda games I have to secretly dedicate a lot of time towards. If I do end up getting the two aforementioned with my recent impulse gets, I've pretty much achieved most major versions of the game. My biggest other missing ones probs come down to the Og Story of Seasons, A version of Back to Nature, and the FoMT remake. Another wonderful life is on there but I'm starting to question my need for that one when I hate all the bachelors which I'm required to marry. Overall though I've reached what feels like a pretty doable conclusion from all of those.

Playing them however.....is a separate case hahaha. I had briefly started a AWLSE run which I might try to pick up, I want to return to Animal Parade as well over the winter, and a Save the Homeland run should??? Be quick??? I just started a my little shop attempt which is a pretty pick up and put down game so I will likely do that daily with Animal Parade when I play that. Overall I think my biggest scare is the handheld games. They should be easier but they feel harder. I want to do A New beginning the most but the game mechanics are daunting. The DS cute Skye playthrough might end up being the better choice from those right now. Which leads me to question how long will I take to go through all those games since I haven't been playing them over the years like they were meant for.

I think if I do go through end of the year as I intend to, recovering from surgery, I will try to go through a bunch of them.

#tomyo's backlog adventure

[dahniwitchoflight]

KH: What is Namine Really?

See also my other post: KH: What is Repliku/Riku Replica Really? https://dahniwitchoflight.tumblr.com/post/649102821124440064

Since I’m continuing my sudden Kingdom Hearts kick sparked by me rewatching all the cinematics for all the games thus far lately and watching all the story cins for KH UX since that’s gonna be relevant to the next games

I just feel I have to re-make this post about what Namine really is, because calling her Kairi’s Nobody has never made sense from the start when you think about it

When Kairi loses her heart in KH1 in the beginning, her body and soul specifically doesn’t get transported to the world that never was like all other nobodies, it’s stays in the realm of Light because Kairi is a princess of Heart, we know this, we see Riku lugging around her corpse throughout the whole game, we keep tabs on it constantly up until the point Sora gives Kairi back her heart and Kairi is re-completed again

KH1′s lore will state that it’s at this moment when Kairi is recompleted that Namine was born, but from what?

Sora’s Body+Soul became Roxas, they make it clear in KH2 that Sora and Roxas is a half and half deal, and when they go back together Sora is complete again.

But in KH1 the only reason Sora was able to maintain his form, was because his Heartless maintained his strong will

Kairi couldn’t have done the same, because as a Princess of Heart she had no darkness, so she couldn’t have had a heartless form

so if Sora’s Heart = Sora

Sora’s Body+Soul = Roxas

Kairi’s Heart = Inside Sora’s Heart

Kairi’s Body+Soul = An Unconscious Kairi

So literally what is left of Kairi to make Namine?

Consider that Kairi has one thing that Sora does not have, a Heart with a Pure Light inside of her, and not just any Pure Light, the thing that makes her a Princess of Heart, and as of KH3, this Pure Light, one of seven Pure Lights, can and do move on to different princesses

The princess from KH1 are the old holder’s of the Pure Lights, the Pure Lights moved on to different princesses in KH3, while the originals still remain full beings pure of heart even without the Pure Lights, the Pure Lights are just a special thing that exists within them that can be passed on to others

but in KH3′s Kairi’s Pure Light stays within her Pure Heart, now why would that be?

A Pure Light, one that specifically cannot exist inside a heart filled with Darkness

Consider that, way back in KH1, when Kairi’s Heart first entered Sora. Sora had Darkness in his heart just being a normal dude, and the Pure Light could no coexist within it

So when Kairi’s heart enters Sora’s, the Pure Light crosses through Sora’s heart and then is ejected somewhere else, Castle Oblivion, and then continues to exist, as Namine

Consider that even though KH1 says Namine and Roxas started to exist at the same time, when Sora Released his Heart and became a Heartless,

We see Roxas’s origins, and he’s a complete zombie, barely existing at the start of Days

and yet Namine the first we see of her in Chain of Memories, seems to have already existed and already gained her own desires and feelings by the time CoM has even started

The whole game is put into motion, because Namine was manipulated into changing up memories to become friends with Sora and Riku

When you consider the timeline with Days, that would have to mean in a very short period of time

Namine would have to appear in Castle Oblivion, be found by Org 13, grow enough of a personality to want things, specifically, the feeling of loneliness, demonstrate her power to change memories in some way, and be manipulated into starting the plot of Chain of Memories, all while Roxas is still basically a zombie

To me, it just makes more sense to say that Namine existed at an earlier point than Roxas did

All this together, I believe Namine is what happened when Kairi’s Pure Light got dipped into Sora’s Memories way back at the start of KH1

and since as of Days we know a full heart can be seeded by nothing but a sprinkling of scattered memories as it’s origins, Namine’s Heart must have grown the same way

Also, it explains why Namine’s so pure white themed and has blonde hair, that can’t really be explained by a connection to Sora’s heart, because he’s a brunette, and even Ventus’s/Roxas’s hair isn’t as Light as Namine’s

But wait you say, A Pure Light can’t make a person, there’s nothing of substance to even make anything there

But DiZ himself explains that Namine is a special nobody, less then a nobody, less then nothing, the most fleeting of all the fleeting shadows

and then yknow, Vanitas is a thing

If all Vanitas is, is a manifestation of Ventus’s Darkness torn apart from him

Then why couldn’t Namine be a manifestation of Kairi’s Pure Light?

Consider also, that of all the people who could be said to be a part of another person, or a special other half, Vanitas and Namine are the only ones given special unique true names, when everyone else, even Xion, is given an anagrammed X name, from “No. i”

and they are the only beings that come with their own unique color schemes, specifically Black for Dark Vanitas, and White for Light Namine

and the only beings that have unique special powers stemming from their unique origins

Vanitas powers over dark emotions, stemming from how the darkness in hearts contain their negative emotions

Namine with her powers over memories, because shared memories are the pieces of light inside hearts that connect different hearts to each other

and then the final nail in the coffin for me, is during the prologue for KH Union X, when Kairi’s Grandmother is telling baby Kairi about the legends of the age of fairytales, when she gets to the part about talking about the “Pure Lights that exist in the hearts of Children” remaking the world

Namine’s Theme starts playing, ever so briefly, even though Namine is nowhere pictured in this scene or has anything to do with this story

Except, if you consider her Origins as a being made from a Pure Light

https://youtu.be/z6NVTZlqw1k?list=PLPCJnwphQDQcJOkD9OsmxxMHX7YHE4WP2&t=70

and since Namine is still within Kairi for all of KH3, Kairi’s “Pure Light” remains within her as well

So that’s my theory and I’m sticking with it

Namine is thematically and symbolically basically the full opposite of what Vanitas is

A dark flavored Sora made from ripping all the darkness out of a person’s heart

and a light flavored Kairi made from the Pure Light inside Kairi being ejected from a person’s heart

but while Ventus becomes half a being without vanitas, since the darkness is part of his own Heart, Namine can exist outside of Kairi, both being full beings of their own, since the Pure Light is something external that Kairi’s heart held onto for a time, and is something that she can live without *EDIT*

one last thing as well, to do with how Kairi went from Radiant Garden to Destiny Islands and how Namine ended up in Castle Oblivion when she was first born

when BBS Sleep came out, Kairi met Aqua and Aqua cast a spell on her saying “One day when you’re in trouble, the Light within you will lead you to the Light of another”

and people were content to assume this means Aqua is the reason Kairi ended up in Destiny Island’s one day since the spell took her to see Sora/Riku the keyblade duh

but then, Melody of Memory came out, and it was revealed that actually Terra-Xehanort purposefully kidnapped Kairi as a child and he sent her directly to Destiny Islands

so then, what was the point of Aqua’s magic spell?

well, for one, it was cast on “The Light” within Kairi, which this theory posits went on to become Namine

and well, Namine as the Pure Light had to end up at Castle Oblivion one way or another when she was first ejected from Sora and Kairi’s Hearts right?

So what if when Destiny Island’s fell to darkness, and Kairi’s heart went inside Sora, That’s when Aqua’s spell triggered for the Light Inside Kairi, and it sent that Pure Light to another “light” one that Aqua knew: Ventus!

Who at this point was sleeping inside the transformed land of Departure aka Castle Oblivion

Therefore, when Namine was “Born”, Aqua’s spell triggered and she landed somewhere near Ventus’s hidden room in Castle Oblivion

Ta-Dah!

~Things mean one thing in the present, and mean a different thing in the future!~

#KH #Naminé #Namine

[terraxcloud]

Kingdom Hearts 4 is another Isekai

EDIT: People are claiming that the forest section of the Kingdom Hearts IV trailer is Endor from Star Wars. (1), (2)

EDIT 2: It’s assumed that Hades was the one that surprised Donald and Goofy at the end of the trailer (blue fire is his thing), but does this really mean they were looking for Hades?

So, Kingdom Hearts 4′s trailer finally dropped, and it’s Sora in “another world” called Quadratum. Black torsions portals(?) suddenly drop “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Chaos” into the world from his earlier incarnation in Dissidia’s early alpha phase, or something like that.

So, Stranger of Paradise released a while ago and that Jack Garland was obviously not from FF1′s world. He should have went to Quadratum.

So, Forspoken hasn’t released yet and Frey is from New York and just randomly ends up in another world. She very similar to another character, and also that Unreal 5 demo character...

So, Opera Omnia released several centuries ago and every single character is just involuntarily from another world (even Enna Kros, who’s a god).

So, there was a manga called Final Fantasy: Lost Stranger, and it was about a Square Enix employee that ends up in a Final Fantasy world after he dies. (Published in 2018)

So, there’s a sequel to the FF7 Remake (which is also a sequel), and we’re expecting another character to end up in some other world, after one character was magically resurrected, maybe...

This sounds like that random NPC in the Sector 7 slums of FF7R where she (or he?) says that the ending of Loveless was different, but everything else was the same. Also, Sephiroth.

And then a torsion black heartless chaos portal(?) appears. I mean, it’s literally appearing at the moment this line is said. It’s now easy to go to another world...not like Sora hasn’t done that a hundred times already.

It’s just missing the lightning bolts, and the shaking, and the purpleness, but just like in Opera Omnia, a random monster randomly comes out of it randomly.

It’s the Promised Land! I mean, this random quote above is right before the random nature scene below. Sherlotta was right, everything that must happen SHOULD happen, so why did you beat up all those fate ghosts, Cloud?

I was born with Black Moon Lilith and the Moon conjunct my Ascendant in Virgo alongside the South Node and my Sun conjunct Pluto in Scorpio, and this is basically what I imagine it being like. This also looks like that meteor Sköll summons in the KH 3 Frozen boss fight, which causes black rain and Sköll fate ghosts to appear.

Neither Sephiroth nor Jenova were involved in that boss fight.

The new Grand Theft Auto is a tad less realistic not Kingdom Hearts 4.

They’re really going deep with the “changing worlds” thing already. When Forspoken’s first trailer came out, I couldn’t help but immediately connect it to the first Unreal 5 trailer involving yet another Terra knock-off...and FF7 Remake itself.

I don’t get it, it just seems too convenient that everything makes sense. I don’t want to assume anything will happen in Kingdom Hearts 4, but since I just posted something about Elsa from KH3 being a hint about Terra Branford, I believe she’ll end up in KH4, and this whole storyline about “being in another world and going to another one” will tie-in to her.

The reason why all these Isekai stories are being released is because of what’ll happen in the FF7 Remake. Maybe they want to make it seem “normal” before the “big one” happens? Maybe they just like putting these hints everywhere?

That’s all I’ll say about that for now.

#Kingdom Hearts 4 #KH4 #Final Fantasy #FF #Clerra #Adding Tags Is a Pain #Nomura

[valorxdrive]

Just a little thing to tack here for future reference, b u t. The way Daybreak Town fell intrigues me because compared to the countless examples we’ve go through the series, so far, it’s one of two that holds a very particular exception.

Despite having every other check mark for falling into the Realm of Darkness, it never does. Rather, it seems as if this similar method resets the world back to a beginning for the most part, by getting rid of all life and structure.

I’m referring to these two moments right here.

It could be an extra coincidence that the No Name Keyblade managed to be here for both accounts, and in fact, that’s what I want to bring attention too. For Daybreak Town it wasn’t a matter of the Heartless finding the door and plunging the whole world away. A Keyblade War apocalypse just takes place and by proxy, everything just fell into destruction after the MoM’s plans rolled themselves out. We know for certain that Luxu here was ordered to witnessed this. (By no means saying he did it.)

Even the end results you come to see adds to how it’s a restart, remake type of scenario for both of these locations. (Though the Land of Departure was repaired due to hidden mechanisms.)

And in my head that’s a big point of lookout to keep for future reference. For what we know of the No Name keyblade is a lot of recent news. From who it belongs too, the people who came to wield it... And in fact, thanks to KH3 in particular we could see this keyblade in particular has the special ability to replicated through moments of conflict with it.

Xehanort’s goal this time to ensure the X-Blade was forged was to ensure that multiple encounters were made with this weapon. From the point with Sora and Xehanort at the tower of endings, all it took was one particular strike to cement that a new keyblade would be created. So for an addition bit of speculation, I want to throw this out here as an extra possibility. If we learn of this replication ability it can do, this could infer that two No Names instead of one actually existed in the time of the Age of Fairy Tales/Daybreak Town.

These two after all made the forbidden clash when Luxu was forbade of any involvement. In turn, this could lead to a secret party using that newly made No Name and bringing forth the ‘Break’ phenomenon to fall upon Daybreak Town, allowing for this world to go through this planet wide wipe in order to reshape it, similar to what was about to happen to Land of Departure if Aqua’s involvement and Eraqus’s secret methods didn’t come to play part.

Leaves you with a good deal to think about!

Tl;dr: No Name has a special ability similar to the Heartless, except of banishing worlds to darkness it wipes worlds clean.

No Name’s special feature of replication could’ve led two to exist in Daybreak Town.

All of this centers on just how endlessly manipulated the keykid population of Daybreak Town truly was.

#| OOC Musings #kh speculation #kh meta #this was in my head while eating pizza today

[casualtheoriesandthoughts]

Why Xemnas and Marluxia can’t wield the Keyblade

This is definitely something that’s been brought up before and I’m sure everyone has their own take on why this is the case. So why not share my own? A lot of people noticed that Xemnas doesn’t wield a Keyblade despite the hearts (Xehanort and Terra) that made up his previous persona(s) both being Keyblade wielders. The same applies to Marluxia, who is the Nobody of Lauriam, one of the five new leaders of the Dandelions (see KHUx). 

I believe that, essentially, Xemnas and Marluxia cannot wield the Keyblade because they do not have their memories (or more precisely, their persona’s worth to the Keyblade). My theory rests on two main points: the importance of memories and the effect of darkness on a Keyblade wielder. I already covered my theory of memories in KH in a previous post, so feel free to check it out. With that, let’s get on with it:

The Keyblade forms a bond with the wielder through their character

Before we get to why Xemnas and Marluxia can’t wield the Keyblade, let’s cover why someone can. Oddly enough, the means by which the Keyblade chooses its wielders (who are not already bequeathed the Keyblade) is never truly discussed at any length. Some of the only characters who offer any sort of explanation are Leon and Aerith in KH1 (and they’re minor characters!). We know that the Keyblade can be passed on either by willingly bequeathing it (ex. Terra to Riku) and also unintentionally by passing on one’s “will” or protective sentiment (ex. Aqua to Kairi). It can also be bestowed on someone of the Keyblade’s own choosing, especially if the original recipient is deemed no longer suitable. This is precisely what happened to Sora.

We are told that Sora was never meant to be the original wielder of the Keyblade, as it chose him when Riku decided to follow the darkness. However, Sora proved himself worthy through his values: commitment to his friends and their welfare, as well as standing up for what’s right: “My friends are my power!” and all that. There is an important element here: the Keyblade forms a bond with its wielder based on a notion of worthiness through character and disposition.

Sora’s accumulated experience as a Keyblade wielder through the entire story up until arriving in Hollow Bastion is significant. This is reiterated in KH Re:CoM which gives greater weight to his memories as the basis of Sora’s mission, values and character. Based on my previous theory that memories mold the heart in significant ways, we can say that memories connected to deeply held beliefs and character are important means by which the Keyblade deems someone worthy. 

One might rightfully question whether this is really true, since Ventus, another Keyblade wielder, resides in Sora’s heart and may have imparted the ability to wield the Keyblade to Sora as a result. That said, that only happens because Sora let him in of his own volition, not once but twice (both as a new heart and a young child). To me, this is the greatest evidence pointing to character being a criterion for wielding the Keyblade. It’s not a stretch to say that Sora was probably a prime candidate for the Keyblade from childhood, and significantly, is the only Keyblade wielder we know of who receives the weapon without inheriting it from a teacher or master (other than the Master of Masters). As an aside: So, no, Riku; Sora is not just the delivery boy! (You might recall Axel summoning a Keyblade on his own, but Kairi establishes that this is because Yen Sid inducted Axel himself; see MoM.)

This bears heavily, then, on Xemnas and Marluxia’s own “worthiness” to wield the Keyblade. Xemnas does not have most of his memories from either Terra or Master Xehanort (evidenced by mixed motivations in visiting the Chamber of Repose). When apprentice Xehanort wakes up in the Radiant Garden plaza, he doesn’t remember who he is. But his sudden remembrance of being Master Xehanort allows him to summon the Keyblade again (even though he separated his heart from his body very soon after). As seen in KH3, Marluxia similarly does not remember enough of his past self to know that he wielded the Keyblade, and we may conclude that this is a primary reason why he doesn’t have one. 

Compare them with Roxas, who wields the Keyblade despite having no memories of being Sora. The BBS Ultimania seems to imply that Roxas is able to wield the Keyblade due to the influence from Ventus’ heart (even saying that Ventus’ heart went with Roxas when Sora became a Heartless). Roxas still possesses many of the qualities of righteousness (in his own way) to which the Keyblade attaches itself, inheriting them from Sora. Combined with the development of his own heart by unclear means, it is possible that Roxas eventually earned the Keyblade in his own right (even if he had some help from Ventus’ heart).

This contrasts with Xemnas and Marluxia, both of whom are true Nobodies without feelings or apparent values. Their lack of complete memories about wielding the Keyblade seem to be a satisfying explanation, but it is more than just that. I believe that the requirement of good character of the wielder runs much deeper than having a memory of who one is when wielding the Keyblade. This is demonstrated by Sora in Re:CoM, who retained the Keyblade even as he lost his memories or as they were altered. The key difference between Roxas and Sora, and Xemnas and Marluxia, is the influence of darkness.

The darkness exerts a corrupting influence

In KHUx (in the most recent translated update that is), we discover that the Darkness (with a capital “D”) is an abstract force of nature. The Master of Masters describes it as being unable to comprehend human beings or their hearts: “It only knows what people hate”. Similarly, Xehanort in KHUx: Dark Road describes the Darkness as stirring emotions of hatred, doubt and jealousy, some of those he had yet to meet. The Darkness also took advantage of Ventus’ desire for power in a similar way, controlling him to kill Strelitizia. 

From these examples, it is seen that darkness (both the character and the abstract entity) reacts to and influences negative emotions, playing on people’s insecurities and baser natures. A corruption of one’s character (or rather, of one’s heart) may very well disqualify a Keyblade wielder from their right to wield the weapon. Riku is the prime example of this, since we only learn he wields the Way to Dawn in KH2, after his ordeal in Castle Oblivion. Reverse/Rebirth in KH Re:CoM shows just how important both personal fortitude and coming to terms with the darkness was for Riku in regaining his right to wield the Keyblade.  

In light of all this, one may wonder why Master Xehanort himself is not automatically disqualified. I suspect that, as is hinted in Dark Road and snippets of Re:Mind and KH3, Master Xehanort’s motivations may in fact be still rather pure (if misguided). He wanted to make the world more perfect by erasing people’s lust for power and weakness, using the X-blade to remake the universe. Master Eraqus was arguably also misguided in his unwavering conviction that darkness was evil, yet never lost his Keyblade. Even Terra, before being lost to the darkness more completely, retained the Keyblade and bequeathed it to Riku despite harboring some darkness in his heart due to his desire for power. 

Master Xehanort’s heart may have in fact been extraordinarily resilient, having willingly traversed the corridors of darkness without protection and diving deep into the darkness to uncover the mysteries of the world. His use of the power of darkness is actually somewhat limited, being largely restricted to a few moments in Birth By Sleep and KH3. The darkness which took Xehanort as he became a Heartless and Nobody may have then more deeply influenced Xemnas, making him lose his right to the Keyblade. It’s not a stretch to suppose this, given that Xemnas’ dying words in KH3 are his lament for taking his allies for granted and narrow-mindedness about the strength required to bear pain with one’s heart. This suggests he was no longer suitable to wield the Keyblade, even while being connected to Xehanort.

Lauriam too shows signs of his hatred and anger overtaking him in KHUx, and an increasing desire to confront Ventus. He displays his rage and despair even in front of Darkness when it shows itself. By the time he becomes Marluxia, his personality is manipulative, cruel and ruthless. It is then possible to suggest that darkness corrupts people in a way that alters their beliefs and feelings, which overrides the power memories may have in preserving a connection to a purer heart. Taking all of this into account, it makes perfect sense why Xemnas and Marluxia cannot wield the Keyblade.

Hope y’all find this theory interesting, and feel free to share!

#kingdom hearts #kh #khfandom #khfantheories #kingdom hearts 3 #marluxia #xemnas #sora #roxas #keyblade #xehanort #riku #khbbs #kingdomhearts #kingdom hearts union x

[crusty-the-snowman]

Arendelle Level Rewrite

(Once again, because I can)

- First of all, Sora gets caught in the blast of Elsa lashing out at Anna. The bolt of ice goes through Anna and right into Sora, where he absorbs the rest of it (they SHOULD’VE had Sora get blasted! It would’ve added such a sense of urgency and drama to the level, not to mention the symbolism, esp for KH3, makes so much sense)

- Hans and Vanitas team up. Both have their own goals, but they’re similar enough to warrant a partnership. 

- Sora’s hair getting white like Anna’s... pretty

- Foreshadowing for Vanitas and Sora being connected is seen when Sora gets a Frozen Heart Pang during a cutscene and doubles over, Vanitas is seen stumbling a little as well

- The same scene in the library happens with Sora, but he’s alone. One of two options happen. He either gets himself off the ground, opening the window and sliding down the roof all by himself (which could work to show Sora can do things himself, come on y’all Sora needs to save himself at some points). OR, Anna and Olaf show up at his window and they all slide down the roof and onto the ground together. Take your pick.

- ALSO with Sora’s library scene, Vanitas is the one to lock him in, but not before mocking him for all he’s worth (same energy as the Monsters Inc confrontation). Sora, too weak to argue right then, simply lays there and takes it, either staying silent or quietly insisting “you’re wrong” at the end, right before Vanitas leaves. 

- The act of true love that saves Sora is given to him by Kairi. It would be such a sweet moment! They could hug, like Elsa does to Anna, or they could even go the direction of Kairi kissing him on the cheek or something. It would add a layer to their relationship that would make them being endgame feel more realistic!!!

- When Sora is frozen completely, he freezes when he grabs Vanitas’ wrist, stopping him from bringing his keyblade down onto Kairi (a reference, of course, to Anna blocking the blade from Hans).

- When Sora and Anna are both unfrozen, Anna punches Hans into the sea and THEN grabs Vanitas (or, Elsa freezes his feet to the boat before he can run) and requests to the Royal Guard to arrest him. Anna ain’t fucking around

- Sora visits Vanitas in his prison cell. He gives the “darkness versus light” speech, with Vanitas staying silent the entire time... if you do have Sora say “you’re wrong” at the end of the library roast, then now is a PERFECT time to have Vanitas throw that right back in his face before escaping 

- I have so many more ideas but aurhahh. mr nomura please hire me for kh3 remake

#@ writing ability come through #this is just SO fucking interesting to me yall #the arendelle level couldve been so much more!! so much more!!!! #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts au #sora kingdom hearts #kh3 #kh3 au #frozen kingdom hearts #arendelle kingdom hearts #take a shot everytime i say KH #this might be fucked up but i loooove the library scene. its genuinely tense #i know sora's strength comes from his friends but come on yall!! #sora cant depend on them forever #hes gotta go his own way and save himself #kingdom hearts sokai #sokai #rich talks(tm) #vanitas #also vanitas' hair gets whiter too when soras does #bc skunk boy

[nadziejastar]

I’m glad the creators want to emphasize thatCloud’s “badass, silent dude” personality was just a fake persona he created. I think a lot of fans had the misconception that was his true personality all along.

Warning: FVII Spoilers

Nomura: “While Cloud may look this way, he was a dork. I believe those of you who played the the original would understand what I mean by saying he’s a dorky character.”

I totally agree. I think a lot of people aren’t good at picking up subtle characterization, especially since the original game didn’t have advanced cutscenes or voice acting. Cloud always seemed like a dork to me after I learned he really had dissociative identity disorder and his whole SOLDIER thing was just a persona--an alter. Barret knew it, and made fun of him. So many people complained that Cloud was OOC in Advent Children and I remember feeling confused because I really didn’t think he was? He was depressed, but it seemed realistic after everything he’d been through.

“In severe cases of mental splitting when the extreme pain drives that person into disassociation, at the moment the person disassociates from their body, the soul-psyche manifest coping mechanisms to survive. To disassociate from the painful trauma felt in the body, the soul and mind will split into sub personalities, or create alternate identities. These are called alters.”

While we’re on the topic of Cloud’s fake badass silent persona, the way Tifa repairs Cloud’s fractured mind in FFVII always reminded me of the power of waking in KH. I’m sure FFVII was the precursor to this idea. Cloud developed his badass persona when he watched Zack get murdered right in front of him. He dissociated and took on a tough guy alter in order to cope.

Sora turned around. Empty husks? Is he saying they’re going to break them with sorrow and put another heart into them…? Or did they already do it?

“Translation—they were gonna turn all the members into Xehanort.”

“Make more Xehanorts?” You’re hollowing out people’s hearts to put Xehanort’s inside them?!

In order to turn people into Xehanorts, they had to break the person’s psyche with pain. That way, the Xehanort “alter” can take over the body. I’m sure that’s what the mind control experiments were about.

You could say Cloud’s heart was in the Realm of Sleep, like Ventus’s was when he first met Terra and Aqua. He was unable to talk and he was not really aware of his surroundings. Cloud’s mind was in pieces and Tifa had to “dive” inside his psyche to repair him and restore him to completeness.

KH3′s tagline was “face your fears”. When I write my KH3 rewrite fic, I wanna give each of the Seven Guardians one of these segments to fully explore their fractured psyche. A time for them to face their insecurities and fears, and actually show them being healed. That’s THE biggest thing I think KH3 was missing. Before waking up, each character needed a Tifa to help them piece themselves together. Riku got swallowed by the Demon Tower in the beginning. I think the Demon Tower was supposed to be something that causes you to be trapped in your worst nightmare. Then he’d have to face his fears with the help of Mickey. His “other self”. He’d have to confront all his insecurities and his guilt over feeling like it was his fault Destiny Island got destroyed.

Mickey got swallowed by the Demon Tower later on. Then he had to deal with his guilt over feeling like he failed Aqua and left her to rot in the Dark Realm. I think the Dark Aqua boss fight was probably originally supposed to be part of Mickey’s nightmare that Riku was trying to wake him from. All the things she said sounded like a reflection of Mickey’s worst fears. And that darkness bubble thing looked like the same thing Sora was trapped in at the end of KH3D, when he was in the nightmare.

I think ALL the main characters, including Sora, were supposed to get a segment like that to give their arcs closure. Sora would have to dive into the abyss at the beach (the KH equivalent of the Lifestream that Cloud fell into). That beach is basically the collective unconscious. All of Sora’s sleeping memories (of Castle Oblivion/Namine, Roxas, and Xion) would have to be confronted. And after that, he’d have to help Aqua face her worst feelings, which was that she failed to save Ven and Terra.

The whole opening of 0.2 foreshadowed the part where Sora would wake Aqua up. Sora didn’t really connect with her heart in KH3 or help her face her fears, though. The whole saving Aqua thing felt so rushed. I think higher ups at either Square or Disney thought that a AAA game like KH3 shouldn’t “waste” so much time with exploring the characters’ psyches and the story needed to move at a faster pace. But we missed out on so much.

I’m sure Ven was supposed to face his fears of feeling like he failed Terra. Lea would have to face his fear that he abandoned Isa for his new best friends and forgot all about him. He’d have a lot of guilt over that and he’d have to face a Nightmare Saix which would be the manifestation of all his worst fears. Honestly, I’m sure the FFVII Remake will do a better job demonstrating the power of waking than KH3. Which is sad.

Back to Cloud. In Crisis Core, you see a shy insecure kid who can’t even face Tifa. That’s the real Cloud. The part of himself he can’t accept.

Cloud never even really wanted to be a SOLDIER for its own sake.

He just wanted to accomplish something. He was lonely and depressed and thought a man was “supposed to be” a soldier. He just wanted to be noticed by Tifa. And Tifa didn’t know this. She genuinely thought Cloud was just a typical boy who wanted to leave home so he could fight in the war.

She took care of him during his time of weakness. And the whole point of FFVII was that Cloud was “weak”. I liked that he wasn’t the generic badass hero who simply “won” the girl by being strong and cool. And it made me like Tifa, too. At first, she wanted her and Cloud to fulfill the stereotypical heterosexual relationship roles. She told Cloud that when she was in trouble, her hero would come rescue her. Then Tifa got to know the real Cloud.

He loved her. But he wasn’t really that heroic. Even his mom thought he needed a girlfriend that would take care of him. But Tifa accepted him anyways, even when he didn’t live up to her knight in shining armor fantasy. She got her relationship with him, with all its flaws. She was HIS hero, actually. I liked that because FFVII was really the first game I ever played where the main couple had what I thought was genuine intimacy instead of simply the girl being the “prize”. And I LOVE FFVII. After he is pieced back together, Cloud acts completely differently. He isn’t cocky or cool. He seemed humble, quiet, and not so much a natural “leader” type.

Zack was the badass everyone thought Cloud was. He took care of Cloud after they were experimented on and Cloud was broken. I cannot help but think that Lea and Isa’s past was originally similar to theirs after being experimented on. Crisis Core was an inspiration for me in imagining their past. Lea is similar to Zack. Cheerful, confident, resilient, and heroic. Very compassionate, too. The way he talked to Cloud even when he was “broken” was very sweet. And I think Isa was similar to Cloud who is more sensitive, vulnerable, and needy. Cloud mentally fractured after watching Zack die in front of him. I wanted to write something similar with Lea and Isa. Isa mentally shatters because he witnessed Lea lose his heart. :)

#ffvii #ff cloud #cloud x tifa #kh3

[fallintosanity]

What are your thoughts on 7 Remake’s ~controversial~ ending? It’s been a few weeks now since I finished and I legit feel like I’ve journeyed through all 5 stages of grief and finally landed on Acceptance 😅

haha that’s fair! I have a lot of thoughts about the remake, but they’re coming from three different angles. 

(Spoilers under the cut obvs; also this got fucklong even after I cut a bunch of non-ending-related thoughts, and I apologize to those of you on mobile)

From the POV of someone who played and loved the original

Overall, I really enjoyed the remake, ending and all. I replayed the OG prior to the remake’s release, finishing literally four hours before the remake became available in North America, but it had still been months since I did the Midgar parts so it wasn’t too immediately fresh in my mind. Still, I was impressed by how faithful the remake is to the OG for the vast majority of the game. They noticeably cleaned up a few things, like Tseng slapping Aerith, which didn’t age well or stopped making sense with regards to the greater Compilation, which was nice to see. But they also doubled down on some of the ridiculousness of the original. I can’t tell you how much I cackled when the Hell House showed up, or how many times I said to my fiance in joy/disbelief, “They really managed to fit that in!” 

I also love all the little nods to the greater Compilation. I saw one interview excerpt from like... 2015 or 2014 or something that said the Remake is considered canon to the Compilation, and the content of the Remake itself suggests this. While some of the cameos could be considered nothing more than cameos (as much as I love Kunsel, I don’t think his name being dropped means anything other than that they needed a name and wanted to give a nod to him), there are other clear hints that Crisis Core and The Kids Are Alright, at minimum, are canon to the Remake. Hojo mentions “S and G type” SOLDIERs, i.e., Sephiroth-type and Genesis/Gillian-type. (Roche is a G type I am not taking arguments on this point) The description of the Buster Sword says it carries the hopes and dreams of those who came before, implying more than just Zack (i.e., Angeal). Zack’s scene right before he charges the ShinRa army is shot-for-shot the one from Crisis Core, which could have just been a nod, but the fact that he also says the same lines as the original is telling. There’s a lot of lore loaded into those lines. Leslie and Kyrie are both from The Kids Are Alright (which makes me wonder if the third ShinRa half-brother is floating around somewhere). You could make an argument for Before Crisis being partially or completely canon to the remake as well, since someone mentions a previous assassination attempt on the President, which happened in BC. 

But now we get into the issue of whether Advent Children is canon to the remake, i.e., the ending and the thing you actually asked about. ^^; This is where I’m more torn. My initial reaction to the ending was “Oh crap, we went from FFVII-Remake to Kingdom Hearts - oh shit now we’re in Advent Children - oh fuck now we’re in fanfiction-land.” Which... is definitely not what I was expecting from the ending of Part 1. 

On first playthrough it feels a bit like they overplayed their hand with Sephiroth in the ending: “everyone wants a Sephiroth fight in a FFVII game, so we’ll give them a Sephiroth fight”. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the fact that Sephiroth appears in person in the Midgar sequence, when in the OG all we see of him before Kalm is the aftermath of President Shinra’s murder. I do think Sephiroth’s appearances prior to the ending were done well - the writers clearly intended to emphasize Cloud’s mental issues, and Sephiroth is too big a part of them to ignore. His appearances prior to the top of Shinra Tower both serve as a bone tossed to those who wanted to see him in the remake, and set up the Cloud-Sephiroth relationship a lot earlier and in more depth. You can see how utterly terrified Cloud is every time Sephiroth is around - even sometimes frozen into immobility. Depending on how things go with the Kalm flashback, this may also help cue new players in to just how wrong things are with Cloud. (After all, a SOLDIER First shouldn’t be afraid of another SOLDIER First, should he?) But the final fight against Sephiroth, or at least, a clone wearing Sephiroth’s face, felt premature, out of place, something that’s only there to appease people who wanted to fight Sephiroth now. 

Aside from the Sephiroth thing, I’m reserving judgment a bit on the ending as a whole. On the one hand, I’m deeply curious to see where the story goes from here, and how the writers use their newfound freedom (more on that in a minute). On the other hand, I don’t want this to turn into Kingdom Hearts 4, and I don’t trust Nomura in that regard, especially after all the bullshit that went on with KH3, Verum Rex, and FFXV/versus 13. I love Nomura, but like George Lucas, he desperately needs someone to rein in, edit, and shape his ideas.

I’m also not sure how I feel about all the theories being thrown out there - such as that at least one of the Sephiroths we see is the one from after AC, somehow flung back in time to fuck things up; or that the OG was, 999-style, Aerith seeing into the future and now in the remake she’s taking control to put everything on the path she wants. They’re interesting, for sure, and I think that with careful handling, it’s possible Squenix might be able to pull one of them off - but given what I know of Squenix (again, more on that later), I don’t trust them to do it well. I am, to be blunt, very concerned that later installments of the remake are going to turn into an incoherent tug-of-war between those who want to be faithful to the original, and Nomura’s desire to inject weird Kingdom Hearts nonsense everywhere. 

I say this with all the love to Kingdom Hearts, but it’s a very specific kind of story and it’s not what I want to see in my FFVII.

On a writing meta level

On the meta level, I’m fascinated by the choice to go with the whole Whispers/Arbiters of Fate thing. I don’t know how much of that is pure Nomura-injected BS vs how much was a deliberate choice by the writing team, but for right now I’m going to assume it was mostly a deliberate and unanimous choice. 

I’ve seen a lot of other Remake opinions along the lines of a reluctant, “I guess they had to put the Whispers in there because a perfect remake wouldn’t have been satisfying to everyone. There’s always someone who would have complained.” I... don’t think that’s entirely true. Like, yeah, sure, someone’s always going to complain if it’s not a pixel-perfect remake, but based on the overall satisfaction I’ve seen from OG fans (including myself) regarding the parts that are true to the original, I think Squenix would have done just fine if that was the path they chose. And given how much attention they paid to making most of the game into a nearly-perfect recreation, I think the writers knew it. 

So why’d they go the whole Whispers route? 

My guess would be that the writers were giving themselves freedom, on a meta level, with the Whispers. It’s a way of both poking fun at, and solving, their own dilemma: do we make a perfect, hi-res copy of the original? Or do we change things to make it our own? 

The “change something to make it your own” is a longstanding trope when someone new is put in charge of something old. You see it in everything from Disney live-action remakes to new managers who change their employees’ routines just to “make an impact”. Most of the time, these changes are neutral / un-impactful at best, or outright frustrating / terrible at worst. I wonder if the Remake writing team wasn’t fully aware of this, and possibly tangled up in knots internally about how to handle it. Would it be seen as a bad, “make it their own” change to have Tseng not slap Aerith? What about adding Chocobo Sam, Madam M, and Andrea Rhodea to the Wall Market sequence? What about the changes to how the Avalanche gang reacts to Cloud, now that we have full animation and voice acting and it’s clear Avalanche has no reason to want to keep him around except for Jessie being horny on main? Where’s the line? 

I could see the Whispers being the writing team’s way of making sure they stay in line where it’s important, while also giving themselves the freedom to make the updates needed to allow the remake to work. They’re kind of a meta nod to the audience, a “don’t worry! If we get too far out of line, the Whispers will bring us back.” In that sense, the entire ending where you (the player) kill the Whispers and free yourself (the player) from destiny is you giving the writers permission to continue making those small changes. 

In FFXV, almost the entire ending sequence is a cutscene: Noctis on the throne, being murdered by his ancestors and descending into the spirit realm. But there’s one single quick-time event in there, one point where the player has to take action and push a button. It’s not even difficult, and on the surface it seems pointless. Except, if you don’t, Noctis lives. (Trapped in purgatory maybe, but he’s still there.) If you never push that button, Noctis doesn’t sacrifice his spirit and those of the Lucii to destroy Ardyn and wipe the Scourge from Eos. By asking - requiring - the player to push that button to commit that final act, the game makes the player complicit in Noct’s sacrifice. It’s a powerful moment, and similar to what (I suspect) the Remake writers intended with the Whispers. 

Because they could have left the Whispers in forever. They could have had them be a continuous presence throughout all episodes of the Remake, a little reminder that no matter what tweaks the writers might make to update the story, to “make it their own”, the Arbiters of Fate will ensure things are on track. That things will play out exactly as in the original. But by asking the player to destroy the Arbiters, the writers are asking for the player’s permission to make changes. And by killing the Arbiters, you’re granting it. Because, just like you can keep Noctis alive by not pushing the button when prompted, you can keep the original game more-or-less on track by never stepping through that portal, never killing the Arbiters. But if you do step through that portal and go through with it, you’re agreeing to accept that things might change, thus freeing the writers from the constant double jeopardy of changing things vs keeping them exactly the same. 

On a business meta level

As cool as (I think) that all sounds, the bigger question is, can Square Enix actually pull it off? And here’s where I start to have my most significant doubts. After the FFvs13/FFXV debacle and the hopeless mess that was KH3, I do not trust Nomura to tell a coherent story, even if it’s supposedly a retelling of an existing, well-known story. I don’t know anything about the inner workings or politics at Square Enix, other than that there are politics at play, so in fairness to him I can’t really say it’s because he himself is bad at telling a story, or just doesn’t have the support he needs to convey his vision well. But that gets into other issues with Squenix. We know their last several major games have had long and troubled developments. Someone way more attuned than me to the Japanese video games industry can talk in depth about why; all I know is that it happened (is happening?) and that it’s something of a miracle the remake came out as well as it did. 

On top of that, I’m a bit concerned that even if Squenix can get (and keep) its shit together, it might be up against external forces that constrain how it can tell the story of FFVII in the present. For example, from what I’ve heard, the reason Crisis Core never got ported the way so many other games did, and the reason Genesis Rhapsodos has never been seen outside it and a Dirge of Cerberus cameo, is due to image licensing fights with Gackt, Genesis’s face model. CC established Genesis as a key player in the events leading up to the original game’s story, and enough hints have been dropped about CC in the remake that, like I said earlier, it appears to be canon. But if Squenix can’t reach an agreement to use the character again, they might be trapped in a corner where they either have to completely rewrite the parts of the story involving Genesis, or dance around his existence. 

And on top of all that, it’s just expensive and time-consuming as hell to make games on the remake’s scale. Everyone expects the PS4 to be retired by the time Remake Part 2 comes out, which is going to pose huge logistical issues for releasing it. Squenix has been having a rough time of it lately, from what I’ve heard - are they, as a company, capable of handling all those logistical issues? I don’t know, and that makes me nervous. 

Still, they did do a remarkable job with the remake overall, even grappling with the pandemic around the launch date. So maybe they’re getting their shit together again, and things will be smooth sailing from here. We’ll have to wait and see. 

#anonymous #final fantasy vii #ffvii #ffvii remake #spoilers #meta #sanity replies #sanity talks a lot #tumblr massively fucked up the formatting somehow sorry

[akunose]

So I finally finished FINAL FANTASY VII Remake on Sunday

Cons

- I still "hate" the new English voice cast, the wrongness about those make my skin crawl

- the first version of One Winged Angel I don't like

- kinda but not really, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie still looking so out of place design wise

- there is rust on the Buster sword

- the ending (I'm scared the sequel won't be as good, which would taint this one...)

Pros

- It's looks amazing (those particle effect!)

- the battle system is fantastic

- Japanese Audio for the Win! (Rest in Peace, Keiji 🌸)

- the OST for the most part - see above - is amazing! Especially the Turk theme

- Seph tormenting Cloud

- Leslie better show up in Wutai!

- HELL HOUSE

- Dat rhythm game!

- Aerith x Chair

- the Corneo Wutai Mission better not be optional again in the future l... I WANT HIM DEAD DEAD!

- I love the Reno + Rude stuff, it's ver reminiscent of ACC extra scenes stuff

- Reno being an extra af pretty shit head is glorious! I love him so so much!

- KUNSEL IS REMAKE CANON, S + G TYPE CELLS, ALL THE CRISIS CORE REFERENCES MAKE MY HEART SOAR

- the ending (especially the big middle finger to the purists)

asdfghjkl - WTF

- Roche?! Am I the only who thought he's the weirdo love child of Demyx and Yazoo? Just me?

- the amount of screenshots I have of Reno (and Rufus) is not healthy

- so Leslie, KH3 Riku, Yozora and Noctis... Someone salty af still

- Cloud x Madame M

- the Japanese apparently being censored in that one scene, fucking bleep scared the hell out of me

- how much older than Aerith is Tseng again? I'm so used to the CC version

- the stair well fuckery is in the game...

- the moment you realize the creepiest dude in the franchise shares a voice with Buggy the Clown

- the ending (bizarro world, I tell you, I needed a drink after being awake for 42 hrs playing)

#FFVIIR #ffviir spoilers #final fantasy vii #Spoiler #Spoilers #Final fantasy vii remake

[sephyathredon]

SephyAthredon Sideblog Masterlist

  Hey there! One of the things I wanted to do is compile all my sideblogs in one place so that you all know where to find me RPing another muse that you may possibly like from another fandom.

  There is also a blog for Aizawa from BNHA in the works for the new year so I’ll add that one once I make it.

  None of the art in the blog previews belong to me.

Blog Name: @sephyathredon

Muse: None/Personal (Formerly an OC clone of Sephiroth from FFVII)

Activity: I’m always reblogging FFVII Remake stuff! Very few posts actually made by me

Content: Purely FFVII, most posts that are not FFVII are tagged with ‘not FFVII’

FFVII and FFVII Remake spoilers, as well as spoilers for Crisis Core, DoC, and AC.

Other: This is my main blog, so all sideblogs will be linked to this one.

Blog Name: @not-what-i-meant

Muse: Finn, from the Blue Sky film Epic.

Activity: Very dead, unlikely to be revived.

Content: Everything Epic, including some of my own photosets and memes that I made.

Blue Sky’s Epic spoilers

Other: This blog is the oldest blog that I have, that I haven’t deleted yet. It still has one of my favorite blog layouts. It’s tag is Not-what-I-meant-Finn. Also, check out @isabeau25‘s blog for alot of Epic worldbuilding that I helped with (I’m FTL).

Blog Name: @ask-masa

Muse: None (It says Masa from House of Five Leaves but 0 RP has been done on this blog)

Activity: Dead, save for one or two posts a month

Content: Anything and anything that crosses my Dash that is House of Five Leaves related.

House of Five Leaves Spoilers

Other: This blog is only really kinda active because I get stuff on my dash from Danikaze that I always reblog.

Blog Name: @durinbrothersrp-archived

Muse: Fili, and occasionally Kili, both from the Hobbit Trilogy

Activity: Dead and archived

Content: Stuff from the Hobbit movies, including some analysis of some of it’s scenes. 

Spoilers for the Hobbit Movies

Other: I had a lot of fun on this blog, but I don’t see it ever being used.

Blog Name: @compassionate-spirit

Muse: Cole from Dragon Age Inquisition, will also occasionally play my Lavellan

Activity: Dead but will occasionally come alive with an inquisition related reblog or two. Has a high chance of being revived. Hit him up if you want to RP with him.

Content: Anything Dragon age, inquisition or otherwise (Not DA2 though)

Spoilers for Dragon Age Origins and Awakening

Other: I love playing Cole mostly for the way he speaks. If you would like Cole to read your muse’s mind, talk to me about it OOC first so we can get the backstory and stuff squared away.

Blog Name: @willfulwayfarer

Muse: Terra from Kingdom Hearts (Will RP BBS or Post KH3)

 Activity: Very Active at the moment. This is the blog I have the most activity on.

Content: Mostly fanart and stuff about the Wayfinder Trio, but I also reblog other things from Kingdom Hearts as well.

Spoilers for Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts 3

Other: This blog also has a whole page of verses to choose from, just include the verse name in an ask or a starter that I’m tagged in.

Blog Name: @lukas-the-loyal

Muse: Lukas from Minecraft Story Mode

Activity: Not active for now, but my interest in MCSM is sporatic, so I may write something and put it on there sometime in the future. I would also love to RP as Lukas, but I don’t know any other blogs that would be willing to do so.

Content: MCSM reblogs and my own writting. It’s mostly Lukesse, though I do sometimes try to explore other characters.

Spoilers for Minecraft Story Mode

Other: None

Blog Name: @sorrowfuldreemurr

Muse: Asgore from Undertale

Activity: Dead for now, but let me know if you would like to RP. I always love playing Asgore.

Content: Undertale related stuff, though sometimes I reblog the posts of some of my friends in the Undertale fandom that don’t necessarily have to do with Undertale.

Spoilers for Undertale and Deltarune

Other: The existence of this blog led me to one of my favorite off-site RPs and I’ll always be grateful for that. Also, check out Fractured, one of my favorite RPs ever. It’s a continuation of something else by my partner. i linked to three different things having to do with it, so check that out first.

Blog Name: @kurogane-takashi

Muse: Kuron/Kuro (Clone Shiro) from Voltron Legendary Defender.

Activity: Sorta dead because I don’t follow any Voltron blogs anymore and I’m super salty about canon, but I have an interest check up for people who would like me to bring him back.

Content: Voltron stuff, but mostly things about Kuron

Spoilers for Voltron Legendary Defenders

Other: This blog was originally made based off the fan theory about Clone Shiro, but that changed with the later seasons.

Blog Name: @ffviitextboxes​ 

Muse: None

Activity: Kinda dead, but will come alive next time I get on FFVII, which will be soon, considering the remake’s coming out soon.

Content: Only text boxes from FFVII that I find interesting, amusing, or notable.

Spoilers for Final Fantasy VII

Other: Probably the least pretty looking blog that I have, but it does what it’s supposed to.

Blog Name: @diplomatictranslator​

Muse: Gren from The Dragon Prince

Activity: Active, since the newest season came out recently.

Content: I reblog alot of TDP things, and I even make my own photosets if I’m motivated enough to.

I wait a week or so before posting spoilers for new seasons of The Dragon Prince, but otherwise, this blog has heavy spoilers.

Other: I am trying to get some RP going on this blog! Wish me luck!

*Picture redacted because of too many DQXI Spoilers*

Blog Name: @oleandertheluminary​

Muse: The Luminary (for me named Oleander) From Dragon Quest XI

Activity: Semi-active

Content: So far, only photosets that I’ve made, that are DQXI related. 

HEAVY Spoilers for Dragon Quest XI

Other: I am also going to see if I can get some RP going here as well!

[phoenix-downer]

Sora and Xehanort: The True King vs. The Pretender to the Throne

Sora fighting Xehanort in Scala ad Caelum was kind of like watching a king reclaim his throne from a pretender who caused nothing but havoc in ruin in the king’s absence. Credit to @rapis-razuri​ for first making the connection and then telling me about it.

Let’s back up a bit first, though. Verum Rex, the video game featured in Toy Box, means True King in Latin.

And while yes, this is no doubt a reference to Versus XIII, I also want to consider the idea of true kings in the context of KH3. 

Sora has his first confrontation with Xehanort in Toy Box (albeit Young Xehanort). The true king (Sora) goes up against the pretender (Xehanort), and Sora doesn’t even hesitate to attack him in a sequence that shows that no, Sora is not over what Xehanort tried to do to him in DDD...

...but unfortunately Xehanort manages to grab him...

...and casts him out/banishes him, i.e. throws him into the video game where the gigas are. 

Fourth wall? What fourth wall?

But Sora fights his way out and makes his way back to his friends... much like how later in the game, he is cast out of the realm of the living... 

...and then fights his way back to his friends and rescues them.

In San Fransokyo, Sora meets Xehanort again after he finds all his friends’ hearts... except Kairi’s.

Look how hostile he is right off the bat towards him:

He just glares at him even while Xehanort... tells the truth for once and warns him what’s going to happen to him?

Sora’s not having it though and is sure to sass him:

And Xehanort’s parting words are chilling:

And then Sora goes back to the Keyblade Graveyard and... well, we all know how things went from there.

Xehanort wants power, no matter what the cost... and he’ll sacrifice whatever it takes to get it. Including Kairi.

And by the time we get to Scala ad Caelum... there’s a marked change in Sora’s interactions with him. No more sass. No more discussion. Sora doesn’t take Xehanort’s BS at all.

Seriously, almost every time he looks at Xehanort, he’s glaring at him or regarding him with the contempt and disgust he deserves. This is the man who killed the girl he loves enough to become a Heartless for - and later on in this very game actually died for! - and it hits Sora where it hurts. Like a king losing his queen when the pretender tries to take over his throne, Kairi’s loss wounds Sora deeply.

And, of course... the game of chess isn’t over if the queen’s gone - the king must be captured for that to happen - but all the same, the king’s left a lot more vulnerable without her.

But, queen at his side or not, he still has to win and beat the guy who made his friends’ lives hell and has made his life hell, too.

His eyebrows are furrowed and he has his hand on his Keyblade, ready to fight:

Xehanort is dressed in goat/ram armor for one of the battles, and goats... well, they’re associated with the devil, among other things, so the parallel is very fitting here. Sora probably felt like he was fighting Satan at this point.

Shoutout to Donald for being equally disgusted/angry with him:

The sky starting to go dark reflects Sora’s mood pretty well here:

Sora just looks at him with utter loathing and disgust, which is such a huge change from his usual friendly/cheerful demeanor:

Even when he’s looking up at him it’s with his head pulled back to make himself look as big/tall as possible. In other words, he isn’t giving Xehanort any sort of deference because he never in a million years deserves it.

Donald and Goofy are equally pissed and it really shows:

Even when Sora’s surprised/unsure about what’s going on he’s still glaring and gritting his teeth:

And when Xehanort took Sora’s light, I’m pretty sure I gasped. Not just because I really liked Rage Form in this game and love any sort of exploration of Sora’s darkness, but because...

Well, Xehanort already took Sora’s light from him. Kairi. Kairi’s his light. This moment really drives that point home. Sora’s still feeling rage and fury and grief over her death, over losing her, and that comes out all at once and boy was it satisfying to wail on Xehanort like this:

Fight darkness with darkness!

Even when he’s desperate and about to die, he’s still just furious at Xehanort and that’s reflected in his demeanor:

And finally, FINALLY, he wins. Xehanort is no longer towering over him. They’re on equal footing now. Sora has dragged him off his high horse and defeated him. Not only that, he’s actually managed to get him to collapse to the ground when before Sora had collapsed to the ground over his grief at losing his friends and then his grief at Kairi’s death. But not here. He’s the one standing over Xehanort for once. 

And he’s so tired and so done with him at this point and it was so satisfying to see someone call Xehanort out on his BS and for Xehanort to finally have to listen:

Sora demands to know what’s going to happen because he doesn’t want to hear any more lies, half-truths, or beating around the bush:

Side note: foreshadowing? 

Sora, in a way, is the World’s hope, and he is likewise lost at the end of the game, and the camera very deliberately chooses to focus on him here...

But anyway, as the scene continues, you can still really just see his contempt and disgust with Xehanort. This is the part where he basically tells Xehanort he’s not cut out to be a true leader because he thinks he can control destiny, and his contempt for Xehanort just oozes off the screen. Bonus points for them having a discussion about destiny vs. free will, where Xehanort blathers on about dictating people’s fates for them while Sora comes down hard on the side of giving people free will even if no one can really control their own destiny:

I love Sora’s line here: “A real leader knows that destiny is beyond his control... and accepts that.”

He tells it like it is, not at all afraid to mince words. Because yeah, Xehanort doesn’t deserve to rule one single bit. And in doing so Sora proves he is the one who truly deserves to rule. What do you bet he will become the eventual ruler of... something, eventually. Kingdom Hearts, maybe? 

This moment is like when the true king tells the pretender to get off his throne, an idea @rapis-razuri​ first proposed:

Yep, I’m definitely getting a “Get out of my kingdom and leave my people alone” vibe from this scene, even if Sora doesn’t know his true destiny yet. Foreshadowing? Especially when his shotlock in Second Form was called King of Hearts?

Probably. After Xehanort banished him and caused endless destruction and ruin, he’s casting Xehanort out and he’s going to make things right.

Goofy gets a moment to look disgusted, too:

And Xehanort tries to make a big show about how he’s handing over the χ-Blade because Sora did so well, blah blah blah, which... at least he acknowledges that Sora is the one who truly deserves this power?

Sora takes the χ-Blade from him:

And to Sora’s infinite credit, even though he has such a powerful weapon at his disposal, even though he could use it to summon the door and open Kingdom Hearts for himself and take full power of whatever lies beyond and be reborn as something greater than human and remake the World how he desires, if Xehanort’s reports in BBS are to be believed...

He doesn’t do that. He doesn’t want that power, and by doing so, shows he is truly worthy of it in a way that Xehanort never was or will be.

But Sora doesn’t take it for himself. He doesn’t because he despises the χ-Blade and what it represents, despises the fact that Xehanort murdered Kairi to create it, despises the fact that it was completed with her death and created by so much pain and suffering.

He could remake the World however he wishes and he chooses not to. He wants the old world back, flawed as it might be, because he wants to give people a chance. Wants to give them a choice.

And instead of trying to go it alone like Xehanort did, he calls on his friends to help him close whatever realm Xehanort opened up:

Then lifts the χ-Blade in the air...

And we get this shot. My friends are my power, indeed:

“Good riddance, I’m destroying this awful thing that represents everything I hate about what happened to Kairi plus all the crap Xehanort put my friends through, and I’m gonna do it with my bare hands.”

Must’ve been so satisfying for Sora to finally see that thing gone. In the next scene the worlds are safe, the χ-Blade is gone, and Kingdom Hearts has been sealed once more.

But even though he fought all night and it is now morning, the king isn’t through with his mission. There’s one last person he still has to save. His queen. And in sharp contrast to how he felt like he was worthless without his friends before, here he feels worthy enough to go after her alone. And he pulls it off and saves her, too.

And for my game, at least, I got this image of Sora sitting on a throne at the end. 

Sora won. He might not be king yet, but he stopped Xehanort from becoming king and restored the worlds and rescued his friends and saved Kairi, and that’s what’s important for now. The rest can happen later. Nomura does like to play the long game, after all, and he’s been drawing Sora slouching around on thrones since... KH1 days?

And... until the next KH game... we’ll just have to wait and see how this theme will be further developed...

#kh3 spoilers #kh3 #kingdom hearts 3 #kingdom hearts 3 spoilers #kingdom hearts #sora #xehanort #kairi #sokai #donald #goofy #kh analysis #kh meta #phoenix plays kh3 #long post #donald duck

[tomboyjessie13]

When I do write rants about the things in a favorite series that I hate or just find annoying, that doesn’t mean I hate the series, I still love it regardless of what I find flawed or stupid.

I just want to clarify because for some reason: People on here seem to think that “hating a few things in X series” = “hating everything in X series as a whole”.

That’s not always true.

Here’s an example with me with “Kingdom Hearts”, and these are my personal opinions so don’t take it seriously: 

I think Terra and Kairi, among some of the other characters, deserve better than what they got even though they’re both an excellent fighters in BBS and Re:Mind, I’m disappointed in Aqua because of how she acts towards her peers, I hate the card battles in COM, I don’t care for Coded even though it has it’s moments, I’m annoyed by Sora’s idiocy in DDD despite it being my 2nd Favorite game, I wished Days was given a proper HD remake than a short movie even though I like some of the scenes, I’m a little irritated with Disney’s higher ups being extremely protective of their works to the point where some of the worlds in KH3 suffered, and I don’t really give a shit for the new Mobile game featuring Master Xehanort because he’s a unlikable and murderous asshole.

Despite some of the things I dislike or I’m annoyed by however, I still love series since my younger years, I love KH2 due to it being my first game in the series and having cool shit from final mix and memorable moments, music provided by Yoko Shimomura and Utada slaps, the Vanilla!OrgXIII is the best OrgXIII, Olympus in KH3 is beautiful and fun, I love the Disney characters owning the villains, the manga version of KH2 and Days are golden even though they’re Canon divergent, Xigbar, Demyx, and Xion are my favorite Nobodies with the first one being a rat bastard, I had fun on Re:Mind’s data greeting, and I think “Demyx Time” and the “Xemnas/Xigbar Report” comics are the best things to grace our fandom since it’s early years.

See what I mean? You can still be a fan of something while criticizing it and vice versa.

#jessie speaks #fandom stuff #Kingdom Hearts #criticizing while loving it

[matthew-niverse]

Kingdom Hearts Union X: Who the HYUCK is “Darkness?”

Critical Mode, as well as the apparent “Story DLC,” are still on their way. Slated to release before the end of 2019, they may be coming sooner than we think. In the meantime - even after nearly 3 months - people are hard at work making crazy theories to try and unravel the secrets of the Kingdom Hearts story. However one theory clicked in my head like a light bulb. Like an “Ah-hah!” moment. It became so obvious once I realized it.

You see, before the release of Kingdom Hearts 3, one of the last story quests released for Kingdom Hearts Union X were Quests 841-845.

In this quest it’s revealed that back in Kingdom Hearts 1, when Maleficent was stabbed and killed by Riku, her heart was able to leave her body.

She used her previous knowledge acquired from Xehanort: that “In order to travel through time,  you must leave your body behind.” Maleficent, in a last-ditch attempt, used her power to travel back in time.

She found herself in the Enchanted Dominion, home of Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty). Or so she thought. A shadowy figure looms out of the castle tower.

Maleficent finds out that she ended up sending herself into a Data World projected by the Book of Prophecies. Upon the realization that - in this version of Enchanted Dominion - the story has already been written and she can’t change the future of data, she decides to go back to the future.

How she was able to do so is a mystery.

This explains how Maleficent suddenly returns at the start of Kingdom Hearts 2! When she asks the figure who he is, he simply replies, “I am Darkness.”

Sounds familiar. This is exactly what Vanitas told Ventus! Vanitas’s whole existence is in darkness, being the shadow of Ventus’s heart. Perhaps once Vanitas faded, he did the same thing Maleficent did, and released his heart to travel through time just as his body perished. But how did Vanitas gain the power to do this?

“To you , the name ‘Vanitas’ shall be given.”

I’d assume he would have the power after being a lackey for Xehanort for so long. Xehanort is the one from whom Maleficent learned the power as well.

The “Darkness” figure we see in Union X doesn’t have a body. They’re just a hollow silhouette, much like one without a body would be.

Another rule that was brought up by Xehanort: That if you are to travel through time, a version of yourself must already exist in that timeline. And Vanitas did exist.

He’s the darkness of Ventus, and Ventus is one of the new Foretellers. I’m glad to see that Vanitas will have a higher importance to the plot in the next saga of Kingdom Hearts games. I’m sure it won’t take very long anyways.

The reason Kingdom Hearts 3 took so long was because they had to start from the ground up. No reusing assets like they did for all the older KH games. Now, they already have a plethora of assets from KH3 to make use of.

Sure Nomura has to finish the Final Fantasy 7 remake, but he’s well known for being able to direct multiple projects at once. However, for now, we wait.

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 3 #kingdom hearts union x #Disney #square enix #Final Fantasy #gamer