Re: Message at the end of KH3D. (Take Everything With A Grain Of Salt General)
Riku's a
main character, believe it or not. It's not favoritism as much as having his place in the story since the beginning (which is why Kairi being put aside is completely ridiculous, though with the whole seven princesses thing appearing again...). Mickey's exactly the same way - a key character from
KH1 and a figure of the series. Axel was only a selfish jerkass as much as the rest of the members who got lucky people loved him so much and therefore got his chance to shine/develop. He's something to be
milked. He's popular with the masses, and they
are going to use that for sales. And since he's also a staff favorite, there you go. He's cemented.
With a keyblade.
It's the standard now, or you have no point of being relevant, it seems
.
The same way you have no point of being relevant if you don't look like Sora or Kairi, or be a part of some constant trinity connected back to the main one.
How accurate is this whole Lea thing doesn't matter. That will mean having faith, and I'm done with that for KH. I rather ride this without false hope.
Uh yeah, and TAV, Naminé, Roxas or Donald and Goofy aren't main characters? Yet they get way less focus than Riku or Mickey, but still more than, say, Lea, Yen Sid or Ansem the Wise.
That may be the case, yep, but as long as his involvement isn't overly ridiculous and he has actual
impact on how the story expands and unfolds I don't see what's so negative about that.
The story is constantly expanding and more mysteries of the whole universe are unfolded and developed, but giving out Keyblades could be a sort of "fear" on the developer's side that a character might not be viewed as "cool enough" when he/she doesn't have a Keyblade.
But I'll seriously laugh (and facepalm) if we see then later on Naminé, Ansem the Wise, Donald and Goofy all running around with Keyblades, lol.
The KH series has focal points on the power and
connections between hearts so relevant persons being tied somehow to the already established cast sorta comes with the territory.
I would say that is highly subjective as several people expect different things from the series. I for myself actually find that the series has gotten (in an overall view, regardless of some even severe flaws) better than before especially with the addition of Birth by Sleep and its cast.
You kind of answered that yourself below here:
It's fine if he has some role to play in Roxas' life. But it's gotten out of hand.
And, oh gawd, no. I don't want to think of the idea even though there's the highest probability it can happen.
It's not uncommon though in fictional works that some former support characters get an increase in importance in the whole picture.
While I can agree with you that giving him a Keyblade is vastly stretching it and is, if no significant story purpose for it comes up, as unneccessary as a whoopee cushion, I don't necessarily see increasing his importance overall as a bad thing.
Except pleasing the whole fanbase wasn't this difficult in the past. KH2 could either be a hit or miss with some, admittedly, yet it didn't change much. KH1 and CoM were accepted. It wasn't until these recent side games began to come out that shit hit the fan, to be honest.
In the past there were also vastly different circumstances, like a general younger and more easily pleaseable fanbase, no former titles to compare to and an oversimplified, cliché storyline. Not to mention many people tend to give
KH1 extra points due to nostalgia.
KH2, while I do like it pretty much, it had admittedly some serious errors like story pacing and some awkward dialogue. The dumbed down difficulty though, which nowadays some people tend to whine about so much, was included due to
fan complaints about the first game being too difficult in the battle department. Complaints over the controls in the Atlantica level (
from the unpleasable fanbase! Yes, even back THEN!) led to the total revamp of Atlantica in KH2.
Another reason might also be that people nowadays (in comparison to 2002 to 2004) have just too high expectations in every area.
A good example for this is also the overall reactions to Final Fantasy X compared to those of Final Fantasy XII and, more strikingly, Final Fantasy XIII.
People complain about FF XIII being linear? Great, FF X was just as linear as XIII up to a certain point.
It's not wrong. But it has to be things that work for the story without making too many plot discrepancies. And not have it half-assed. For example, I don't get how adding a character (unnecessarily at that) who had not existed in any way between two established installments made any sense whatsoever. And who needed to be "forgotten" and disappear for the sake of not contradicting the game that comes after it, or the one that coincides with it. Which is pretty stupid because Xion was supposedly alive during CoM, and yet there was nothing. We saw representations of Roxas and Naminé residing inside Sora and Kairi, to accentuate their consciousness, and Ventus had the whole "Heart" situation with Roxas. TAV had been hinted. Their introductions were smoothed out. Xion was, more or less, thrown into a clock tower scenario with Axel and Roxas out of freaking thin air whose apparently BFFs with them. I didn't buy it then, I don't buy it now, and forcing me to feel pity isn't going to work on me.
For this it needs to be evaluated if there are really that bad plot discrepancies. Piecing Sora's memory back together did take so long because the Org interfered with their plan and the Replica they created sucked up Sora's memories through his nobody. Roxas would have never got a single memory of Sora inside himself if Xion would not have started to suck out the disconnected memories from Sora
through him.
Roxas never had any "memory-sucking" powers so he alone would not have got any of Sora's memories, making the reconstruction-stuff taking that long
and him being forced back into Sora unneccessary.
I'll give you that though, while TAV, Roxas and Naminé were reasonably foreshadowed and Nomura already made several cryptic comments about Roxas' "special status" and this having to do with "Xehanort's memories" (which was a metaphor for BBS back then) early on.
With Xion, her overall "weaving" into the overall plot outside of Days only started with Blank Points in BBS.
Tomoco Kanemaki isn't part of the central KH staff, really, just has her connections (her foreword said enough). An author who writes extra novels for the games and had the opportunity to have her own creation appear in the series. If it wasn't for those aforementioned connections, she would be in our typical spot when it comes to inventing our own characters, whether for the bad or good. Maybe that's why it's so fanfic-y. I respect her, however, for giving members the depth that they should have been given. Whether she consulted it with Nomura and asked for some background information, it gave them what they lacked. A little anyway. And made me cry at their waste. Because damn it was interesting.
There's also Axel and Naminé bonding, which should've been seen in the light of the main games. Considering that he mentioned her in Remembrance with Roxas, and they got into the topic of him and the "Heart" he might or might not have.
Ah, so like she's a friend of Nomura, or what? Like Nomura is best buddies with Kojima (who's Metal Gear series also has a convoluted plot)?
I thought I read somewhere that Nomura gave out some background material for the novels which he felt was unneccessary to add in the games because it would distract from the main characters.
When I look at Larxene and Marluxia from CoM they already
have some decent depth I would say. And their attitudes and quirks were actually confirmed during the short time they were shown in Days.
Luxord had more screentime in Days than he had in KH2 and Demyx was also confirmed as the lazy, annoying dumbass who is too cowardly to fight himself and either bribes others to do his work (aka Roxas) or let his water clones do the job, pretty much fits together with the few glimpses we saw in KH2.
I never said it was. I was just commenting on that in particular and what Nomura perhaps thought was a good shock met with gusto was...not. Well, who knows, can't speak for everyone. It's another thing that didn't work for me at least.
Probably more than likely.
Then might as well just have made it Organization VIII. Maybe an added extra two so they can die for plot purpose, like CoM. Other than the whole unlucky number symbolism, if this was their fate, then there was no use creating or focusing on these characters. I find it pointless. I've seen better handling of this in other media, and they do it better too. Hell, even with a bigger cast. And not even for that span of a long time. It was just a fail. Especially when you have one installment whose setting was on their base. There's no excuse.
And if they have no importance, just release their names already. I can't fathom why he's keeping it. What, for a simple cameo? The heck.
Lol, no one knows what Nomura actually thinks, but I really doubt it's just giving Lea a keyblade.
Would make Xehanort definitely one hell of a difficult fellow to take out, if that is the case he can give Voldemort a run for his money
and the good guys would need 13 people who are on Xehanort's level or higher to beat all of his "13 darknesses" simultaneously.
The use for "creating" them was actually to have someone fill the ranks and act as more bosses obviously from a gameplay-point of view. As for "focusing" on characters that is always a balance act depending on how they are needed in the overall picture. I remember Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace also not getting much focus at all and yet he was sort of the "final boss".
As with "bigger cast", do I sense a reference to Final Fantasy Type-0 there? Although class zero are all good guys as far as I remember, and the bad guys also only have Cid Aulstyne and Qator Bashtar really focused upon. Much like the Org focuses mostly on the important members like Xigbar, Xemnas, Saix, Axel and possibly Vexen.
I remember in Days there was not always (although mostly) Xion moping, as we also got quite some stuff between Saix, Xigbar and Xemnas discussing their plans, references to BBS, Saix and Axel scenes as well as much insight into Xaldin's thought processes and how the plot in Beast Castle came to be.
Even Demyx got lots of screentime when on missions with Roxas and, personally, just annoyed the heck out of me.
Do we know that Nomura is keeping it? Maybe he just doesn't see it as important enough for the overall story and decided to leave it out?
Umm, I welcome Lea as a keyblade weilder. Sorry some don't like it, but it's not like the hints weren't there (the keyblade from KH2, the one from BBS, Axel knew Sora, Roxas and Ven)
Riku pass just as we predicted, but Sora going on a one man journey we didn't see.
13 darkness... 13 seeds? That's alot of planting
It would be new for me that someone gets a Keyblade by just being a friend of a Keyblade wielder, lol.
The Keyblade in KH2 was "modelled" after Axel's weapons, to see that as a clue to him getting one is a bit farfetched.
I wouldn't go into detail about the ending stuff this much until we have certainly confirmed evidence that this is going to happen.
We don't know if these "13 darknesses" are really Xehanort's seeds and Riku getting the master title alone can also be the case because he's to only one capable of receiving it, depending on Sora's state at the end of the whole game.
