Dark Road ► Dark Road Finale Megathread

[darknessofheart]

Upon re-watching the previous cutscenes, one thing I noticed was that Bragi was always quick to always ask Xehanort for his opinion or advice during most situations. Towards the end, it even seemed like he had a respect for how quick Xehanort was to pick up on details. Nice touch and was cool foreshadowing that Luxu knew that Xehanort was going to be an important piece, even if he didn't think he was the seeker at that point.

 

[the red monster]

Pretty decent finale.
loved that the blue-hood is the second life of the player, now it make sense why they never showed it's face in the ending of UX.
also loved that xehanort is part of ephemer's bloodline.
bragi being luxu was pretty obvious, pretty much since they revealed the name before game ever released lol
game deserved more budget, but still major props to these two people, they did great job all things considered.

 

[Sonofjafar]

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Why did they have to make the cloak blue? It’s like they know that they retconned Yen Sid out of things and just want to annoy the people who wanted to see him in this particular era

 

[Chie]

They just added Newtypes to Kingdom Hearts? Okay cool.

You can tell that the final chapters are wrapping stuff up pretty quickly because they have no budget or even income generated by the game. With that said, I loved the middle chapters and how much this game is pointing out things that should be obvious but that the characters don't tend to get. It's a story about the assumptions that Keyblade wielders make and why. Even Hades is baffled by how they have such a vague concept of death - which we do too, as viewers! Because it's confusing!

There's a lot of vague implications scattered around that are yet unresolved and the plot might continue not touching, honestly. There's always an uneasiness with these - "is he actually going anywhere with any of this?" - but so far it's playing into many of the themes and theories I already suspected, so I guess I'm on the right track.

I really don't get what Baldr was talking about in the end. And also where is Yen Sid.

 

[Chaser]

Hades when he played the UX update that changed Ark to Lifeboats

 

[Violet Pluto]

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To be fair it's kind of impossible to not be that right now since the Book of Prophecies literally makes everything a prophecy in the long run... until the end of KH3 at least.

 

[AdrianXXII]

I enjoyed this finale, though I do feel like some of the back and forths confused me.

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I feel like these episodes really killed any understanding I had of how time is supposed to flow in the KH universe. Seeing while 65 years have passed for Xehanort, it seems weeks or just a few years passed for Snow White's world and even less could have passed in Agrabah. I'm assuming that the years we're given are always relative to Xehanort, so 65 years for him might have only been 35 for Eraqus, given he was supposed to be in his 50s in BBS.

Talking of which it seems Ven and Xehanort only spent a year together, which I think makes sense with what we knew. But what doesn't quite match up is that up until now I got the impression that Ven, Eraqus, Aqua and Terra spent approximately 4 years together, but the time indications we got here and in ReMind don't work with that. Remind set the events of KH3 75 years after Xehanort's talk with MoM, which according to DR is 2 years after DR's main events, DR also says he left Ven there 65 years after the main events from DR. If we deduct the 11 years implied to have passed between BBS and KH3, then we have a year which Ven spent with the others. So does that mean they grew those alleged close bonds than a year. It can't really be a time dilation thing, seeing Ven and Vanitas both aged at the same rate.
I think I better give up on any notion of understanding the time flow in this series now...

Baldr's Darkness possession also kind of did a number on my head. initially they implied it was the "true primordial darkness" possessing him, only for it to be revealed to be his own darkness, which is also everyone else's Darkness. Yet instead of him giving into it and becoming a heartless or darkling, the darkness possesses him and seems to have it's own consciousness, that also happens to know a lot of stuff you'd expect the "true primordial darkness" to know.

On the other hand Xehanort's interaction with Vanitas, kind of strengthens the theory, that Vanita's isn't just the Darkness that possessed Ven, but also Ven's darkness, which has become its own entity. Though it has been left vague enough for it to go in any direction in future titles.

I'm happy to know that Blue Robe is Player and not Xehanort. It also explains why their appearance never gets revealed. Wonder if Player!Ux gets reincarnated as Player!ML. Still him having told Xehanort all about Ephemera and his bloodline, makes a lot of the blue blood jealousy stuff in the secret reports nonsensical, seeing he's more blue blooded than most of his classmates.

I'm a bit surprised we never learned about the Land of Departure and it's connection to Scala Ad Caelum or why Eraqus moved there. Or get any hints as to where Aqua and Terra came from, are they bluebloods from Scala or just random orphan's Eraqus picked up?

 

[Chie]

Ok wait. "My name is -----". In KHII the characters couldn't refer to their photographs because the Dusks stole the word, which is censored in the same way. The "photo" in "photograph" comes from "photos" which means light in Greek. A light shines when he says his name in the KH3 version of the scene. Is MoM's name "Photos".

I'm only mostly joking.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

Honestly, Dark Road was okay. I do love how Xehanort was humanised but this game had too large of a cast of newcomers for me to really care for most of them. X/Unchained/Union Cross gave us a more centralised cast hence why they're more memorable.

 

[Xagzan]

Starting the videos in earnest now. Episode 4 down.

You know, for someone who was so concerned with finding his beloved dream friends his entire life, Xehanort sure didn't treat Ven very nice when he found him lol.

I also laughed when he walked away at the end, imagining the Mirror being like "uh hey where you going? Don't you wanna hear where the rest of them are?"

 

[Zackarix]

I was surprised by how relevant the Disney worlds ended up being. It's especially impressive when you realize that they didn't even get to chose which worlds would work best for the story, they were stuck with trying to make the best of reused KHUX assets. And they succeeded.

 

[the red monster]

but this game had too large of a cast of newcomers for me to really care for most of them. X/Unchained/Union Cross gave us a more centralised cast hence why they're more memorable.

This i have to agree with. game is not long enough to have this many characters.
they died way too fast to have any sort of connection with them, which lessen the impact of their death.
still pretty good for the amount of time they had though.

 

[Agroogrooiya]

I thought DR would upstage XC3 but no, it didn't. I don't feel bad for Xehanort, I don't have any empathy or sympathy for him unlike I did for my boy N. The difference between them is the writing, timing, and the callousness Xehanort always had versus N's once being an upstanding member of society.

Xehanort was always interested in towing the line of dark, even crossing over it, and he never showed his cards. Why? We will never know. Eraqus' friendship with him wasn't the same as his friendship with Eraqus. E seriously valued his buddy-turned-brother, even in their old age he loved his brother. Xehanort did not. Eraqus did move to kill Ven, but NOT Xehanort. Why? Because even after the scars, he STILL loved his brother. Xehanort killed Eraqus like a bitch too, and only when Xehanort himself was on death's door did he finally give in to Eraqus' wishes.

Looking back, we see Xehanort's callousness too when he kills Baldr. He wasnt supposed to kill him, just rid him of darkness. Thats why Eraqus was with shocked expression.

 

[Sonofjafar]

so i found out that blue robe does not have the same color as Yen Sid so a bit disappointed i can't connect the two better. took me awhile to figure that out.

 

[kirabook]

At last, Dark Road is complete.

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I was happy that Xehanort is NOT player. As twisty as it would've been, I kinda just didn't like it. But for it to have been Xehanort reading the memories/feelings of reincarnated player I think is a lot better. I don't feel as meh about it anymore.

I think much of my angst with Dark Road at this point is why didn't they allude more to this in the main games, especially KH3. Mostly that ability to connect to hearts we've been familiar with for most of the series with Sora. If Xehanort had this ability too, why not show that a little more? Connect the dots between Sora and Xehanort a little more? Clearly Nomura must've had at least that part planned so I'm just wondering why he's left it to a mobile game that 75% of the KH fanbase might never bother to look at.

As for the child of prophecy thing, I'm conflicted. It makes sense because I've never quite believed Nomura's BS that "Sora is just a normal kid". He's clearly not, he's always been a little special and every single game shows us that. Even when he was just 4 years old in BbS.

I'm conflicted because I'm wondering if "fate" and "destiny" really exist, or are we in a situation where all the big brained characters are unknowingly forcing the world into a self fulfilling prophecy of doom?

Surely there is no "child of prophecy", there are just some people who are ultra sensitive and their hearts like attaching to others willy nilly.

Or is this prophecy legit, and it turns out Sora really is "the" child of prophecy? EH

Oh, also disappointed if we don't see all these characters again. A waste of character designs. Why not put them in Quadranum to fill out the world a bit? Could teach Sora a thing or two.

 

[Chie]

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I think much of my angst with Dark Road at this point is why didn't they allude more to this in the main games, especially KH3. Clearly Nomura must've had at least that part planned so I'm just wondering why he's left it to a mobile game that 75% of the KH fanbase might never bother to look at.

You can say this about UX too, which is weird because KH3 DOES have little bits in it that allude to the UX deeplore. But for the most part, KH3 focuses on simple answers that it treats with a lot of gravitas even though they don't really mean anything in the long run. But then you go look at what's going on in UX and it's the craziest revelations in the whole series but they're dropped extremely casually as if they don't exist. It's a really weird tension, like KH3 is a deliberately "simplified" game, like it's gaslighting you or something.

 

[Chaser]

I've avoided watching the scenes and everything I've said was based on what others told me (my first post in the thread was about Bragi) and I've been slowly playing catch up after my save from last year was wiped. Then last night I remembered I could buy a buttload of charms and just steamroll the grind.

Aside from the original Coded, I've never not played and finished a Kingdom Hearts game myself and I wasn't going to let this one be the first one that I didn't finish myself, and I'm almost there!

I'm up to the final chapter now but I'm still reeling from spending what? 18 or so years having the series ignore family ties, and now we're being told family and bloodlines and ancestry is important.

One of the most unfunniest, overplayed jokes fans make (and boy there's a lot to choose from) is about Sora's mothers dinner and with Nomura now writing into family I'm concerned that Missing Link, which is meant to connect everything, will actually have something in there about that (even as a joke )

 

[kirabook]

I wonder why Nomura waited this long to start writing in family for real? Up to this point, it was definitely just found family stuff. But now we're getting parents and siblings and cousins and all kinds of stuff. I mean, I don't mind it whether it's found family or blood family but still.

 

[Chaser]

It's definitely odd. I get not touching it before, leaving it up to being found family, and blood relations not being an important thing despite the questions it raised (what did their families think about everything between KH2 and DDD, are they upset that Sora is now dead etc.) as those aren't important for the story itself. Plus making models for like Sora's dad in BbS when Riku talked about him would have taken resources away from something else (similar to why there was no younger young Xehanort model for that game).

What's even weirder is Skuld's connection with Xehanort now. She's not his mother, but his mother (or caregiver?) looks just like her. Meanwhile his heart connected with Players and he had dreams about Skuld. And then she's allegedly Subject X who was in Apprentice Nort's dungeon? Even just that small fraction of "family history" is intriguing, as Nomura does point out blood relations in his answer to that question.

But yeah, KH just having us unlearn things we were told weren't important because now they are important just seems to be a way of life now lo

 

[Chie]

I think the use of family is specifically in the context of Keyblade Society, which is the center of all these prequel games. Technically this was established from BBS' description of Eraqus' bloodline.

Of course by the time of BBS, the society has completely dwindled to random masters training kids they found alone, and then by KH1 there is no keyblade society, and the weapon can only be taken up by children who know nothing of all of this. And so family is not very important in the present day.