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News ► Dual wielding returns with Kingdom Hearts III's Oathkeeper and Oblivion new formchange



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lycropath

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Wait are we calling Mickey's keyblade Star Cluster instead of Kingdom Key W? We should really call Xehanort's keyblade Gazing Eye by now then...
 

Twilight Lumiair

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Wow! Shows how much I pay attention to half these Keyblades. I didn't even realize Mickey was using Starseeker for ReCoded. But interesting he can't use them both at once despite having two.
Lol, don't worry. You're definitely not the first person to miss that particular detail. XD

But yeah, the idea is that you need two hearts in order to use both Keyblades at once, but not to carry more than one Keyblade in their pocket dimension/"hammer space."
To be honest I don't mind the idea of Mickey combining his Keyblades (no more than Riku supposedly using Soul Eater as a medium to forge one), but then it's placed so awkwardly within the material as a solution to a problem that didn't need to exist. At least with the Way to Dawn there was an implied journey that took place, and it was indicative of Riku coming into his own as a protagonist. I can accept that as a symbolic gesture. What doesn't ring true is introducing a symbolic obstacle through one scenario, and then resolving it immediately not through character action that provides insight into the metaphorical foundations of the narrative, but by making the relationships between the characters and the metaphors cheaper. Keyblades are supposed to be toys in the real world, not the fantasy one.
Exactly. It's framed as almost part of Riku's journey (even though it's technically a gesture to aid/thank Repliku for saving him), but then it's fixed by shallow, utilitarian means. By that logic, no one has to earn their Keyblades through growth and struggle (like Riku, Data-Sora, and Lea) anymore, they just need to ask for Yen Sid to make them a new one. Which lessens a lot of the weight the weapon used to carry, and now we have even more unnecessary questions. For example, why didn't Lea just ask Yen Sid to make him a Keyblade immediately during DDD, rather than struggle to form it on his own? There was NO reason they needed to make things so difficult for themselves (especially in Sora's hour of need).

Honestly, when I first saw the scene of Riku giving up Way to Dawn, I figured he was either going to forge a brand new one from his own heart (like he seemingly did with Kairi), without using Soul Eater as an intermediary. Showing that Braveheart a more pure representation of who Riku is now. Or, alternatively, they could've had Riku and Repliku unite once they met up in the RoD, and you could've had the Keyblade represent the two's shared struggles and common courage to face the darkness (perfectly explaining the name). But alas, they went for the most boring angle possible.. again. It almost ReMinds me of how people were defending the idea of Xion being brought back through data, of all things, despite no one remembering her.
 

Launchpad

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I actually think it's pretty nice that Oblivion (as far as we know) has to be unlocked through completing Critical mode. Very cool reward for a good challenge. KH3 Critical Mode is one of the best difficulty increases they've ever done, second only to the godly 2FM. It ups the challenge by a lot but doesn't nerf Sora to a ridiculous degree-- You can still be monstrously strong, you just die real quick too. My biggest problem with it is their refusal to rebalance magic. Instead, they just made your MP bar really small, so there's no point in using anything besides Links, which are still WAY too strong. God, please let them update the game to make magic more sensible.
 

Sephiroth0812

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I guess the staff either decided that the "Skill" Synch Blade would stay even after Ventus left their Hearts, (unless Sora's heart is still connected to Ventus despite his seeming okayness) or it is a just for fun thing. I mean potentially he could have picked up a second Keyblade and turned it into another one, because as I understand the Synch Blade thing is a summon thing, that he could call forth an extra Keyblade out of nothingness, but there doesn't seem to be a rule stating that you can't use another Keyblade you picked up in the wild as Sora showed with the Master's Keyblade before (though he had to give that back to Aqua.)

The deep heart-connection between Sora and Ventus certainly remains as this connection existed since Sora was a newborn heart when he first patched up Ven's heart in the prologue of BBS which takes place four years before BBS proper. It was only after the finale of BBS when Ven's heart was heavily damaged due to the destruction of the proto-X-blade that it actually properly moved completely into Sora's.

Having a heart-connection, no matter how deep and close, is still different to having a heart directly inside another like a Matryoshka doll.
So far, lore was always that only the latter allows one to dual wield two Keyblades at the same time. Mickey i.e. owns several keyblades but never summons more than one at the same time.

Granted, Keyblade transformations have by now murked the whole issue and can be pulled as an explanation for seeming dual wielding when in "reality" it would be just one Keyblade transformed into two.

Considering how malleable the lore is in Nomura's mind I wouldn't put it past him that, I dunno, people at Master level or so who own multiple keychains can duplicate their own Keyblade and give that duplicate one of their extra keychains so it looks like another one.

There certainly exist several possible explanations, but that isn't necessarily the main issue.

The model for the Boy in Black in the journal is about a foot shorter then Young Xehanort's model and has a different and younger head including Xehanort's original not yellow eye colour he had before he met the Master of Masters. Its definitely not an illusion of hairstyle like Kairi.

It could also be another Xehanort from a different worldline or something like that. Since Nomura opened that can of worms one can expect for some things to make even less sense than before KH 3 and Ux.

We're all assuming Nomura wants to forget about lore, but what if Sora ends up housing another heart?!

I'm not sure if it even is "wanting" to forget the lore or just simple plain forgetting as is. Didn't Nomura mention somewhere in a pre-KH 3 release interview that even he himself sometimes tends to forget some twists and past developments?

Execution matters. Just because people wanted dual-wielding doesn't mean they wanted the mechanic placed ahead of the lore. One of the reasons I would have argued for dual-wielding over Keyblade transformations aside from personal preference is that the rules and internal logic behind it is better established. It represents the kind of structure that KH3 lacked, and it suffered as a story for it.

It's like, yes I wanted Kairi to have a stronger showing in the game, but no I'm not going to pretend that ReMind fixes her narrative arc just because it patches in some flashy move sets for her. When the attempt to fix the issues with the approach taken towards his game exacerbate the core issues with the approach taken with this game (as @Twilight Lumiair has put it, style over substance) it's not a real answer to the criticism surrounding it. It shouldn't be hard to ascertain why people remain unimpressed.

Exactly, and execution is something the KH series as a whole has a undeniable problem with ever since KH2 itself when it comes to narrative and character issues.
Gameplay is a different beast altogether and while thanks to so much RL duties I haven't yet had time to finish KH3 I'm now in San Fransokyo and in terms of gameplay KH3 is more than just fine.

In regards to stronger showing all I can add to this in quickness is that such a thing doesn't have to translate to person of mass destruction racking up a kill count in the hundreds.
When it comes specifically to Kairi the problem is that she's allowed no clear agenda outside of Sora and remains always in his trajectory. The scene where she talks with Lea/Axel about Naminé and Roxas shows that she herself cares to a degree and makes her own thoughts, but it is not followed upon nor do we ever get further in to knowing what's going on in her head and what her actual aims and goals are beyond "being with Sora".

While I agree with the general perspective here, I think on this specific issue there's a case to be made that Sora should be able to dual wield because Roxas's heart is with him for the majority of the game, and that it actually causes dissonance within the narrative that he doesn't. There's at least a rationale to Sora displaying that power which, I agree, could and should have been built into a potential arc for Roxas.

I get from where you come and that could have been built up into an interesting premise which would have connected narrative and gameplay in a coherent manner.
However building a potential arc for Roxas would have required for KH 3's narrative to give a damn about the other major characters not named Sora and some focus to them in the first place which goes beyond just two scenes and being a mark on a check list to be met.
 

AdrianXXII

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I think there are a lot of people who, acting in good faith, really want to enjoy this game and are looking for reasons to validate its inconsistencies and poor methods of conceptualizing and delivering its own ideas, and will lean into any appearance of that occurring, but I also think there's a kind of rote cynicism to this whole ReMind project that betrays those folks most deeply. We'll see how it plays out.

But hasn't that always been more or less the case that we fans put in way more effort to make sense of the breadcrumbs we get piecing together explanations where the game and Nomura only offered us indications?

I feel we always tried to make sense of what we saw with the information we got, often getting it wrong, because the answer came out of left field and was something new.

Exactly. It's framed as almost part of Riku's journey (even though it's technically a gesture to aid/thank Repliku for saving him), but then it's fixed by shallow, utilitarian means. By that logic, no one has to earn their Keyblades through growth and struggle (like Riku, Data-Sora, and Lea) anymore, they just need to ask for Yen Sid to make them a new one. Which lessens a lot of the weight the weapon used to carry, and now we have even more unnecessary questions. For example, why didn't Lea just ask Yen Sid to make him a Keyblade immediately during DDD, rather than struggle to form it on his own? There was NO reason they needed to make things so difficult for themselves (especially in Sora's hour of need).


Honestly, when I first saw the scene of Riku giving up Way to Dawn, I figured he was either going to forge a brand new one from his own heart (like he seemingly did with Kairi), without using Soul Eater as an intermediary. Showing that Braveheart a more pure representation of who Riku is now. Or, alternatively, they could've had Riku and Repliku unite once they met up in the RoD, and you could've had the Keyblade represent the two's shared struggles and common courage to face the darkness (perfectly explaining the name). But alas, they went for the most boring angle possible.. again. It almost ReMinds me of how people were defending the idea of Xion being brought back through data, of all things, despite no one remembering her.

Gosh I'm not a fan of the whole forming a Keyblade from one's heart being introduced. Weren't wielders suppose to be chosen by the Keyblades. I guess existing ones choose and new ones can just be made for someone? Just handing them out is even less appealing.

Still I can't help but feel what a Keyblade is and what rules govern it are constantly changing. Which makes getting a feel for what to expect impossible.
With Riku's Keyblade breaking, Mickey's taking damage and both Kairi & Axel learning to wield, we'd have had a great opportunity to hammer out some things regarding the Keyblade in KH3, which was sadly not utilized.

And we really needed it, the Information regarding Keyblades has become so messy and unclear over the games. There are just so many ways of getting one. Like we have Keyblades that are passed down (Master's Defender, No Name), Keyblades that chose their wielder (Kingdom Key), Keyblades made out of people's hearts (Keyblade of Hearts, X-Blade), a Keyblade summoned for someone else (The first appearance of Destiny's Embrace), Keyblades just being picked up (Kingdom Key D), one just handed to a wielder (Bravehard) and Keyblades being fused (Star seeker + Kingdom Key D = Starcluster aka Kingdom Key W). All of these methods can in theory coexist but would greatly benefit from an explanation and lore/info dump.

I get that there is merit to some things being implicit, like a Keyblade wielder can have multiple Keyblades, but only summon one at a time, but with how wishy-washy everything else is, I'd prefer that stuff to be spelled out.

I'd also appreciate some consistency, if Sora was chosen by his Keyblade the others should have been too. It'd have been cool if one their journey through the RoD, Riku had been recognized by a Keyblade of Darkness and chosen as it's wielder instead of just randomly getting a new one out of nowhere.
 

Chaser

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They said it will come out before Re:mind.. so hopefully midnight for australia
The North American branch said it’d be out in NA before Re Mind. Everywhere else could be screwed over lol
 
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the red monster

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Well yozora as secret boss confirmed.
xion is part of the data fights.
xion and master xehanort are the most difficult ones.
6 new abilities
 

Foxycian

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If it's just about dual-wielding gameplay all they would have needed to do was making Roxas playable more. It's his specialty after all.
Giving it to Sora now as well again makes him just look more like an all-powerful plot device who gets every gimmick and ability of all the other characters.
Agree with you but I mean people should not take Sora move and attacks in gameplay seriously it’s really exaggeration and fan service since in cutscenes I never seen him fight like that it’s us that control him and make him look OP not the actual story which makes him just a decent keyblade wielder like the other ones we played with and no more then that.
 

2 quid is good

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This whole thing gets funnier when you realize a mechanic from a KH gacha game (guilt/sin) gets a lore explanation too.
So did PVP and that's absolutely hilarious. Nomura is so hot on making everything canon, and he's constantly telling the fanbase to figure things out, but when the fans do that people get mad.

It's only plot hole, y u heff 2 b mad
 

Ven_Roxas

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I figured it’s like “you need two hearts to awaken the ability. Once it’s awakened, you always have it.” That’s what I’m going to tell myself anyway. That and it’s a gameplay mechanic so it doesn’t need a full explanation. Kind of like Aqua not actually having cat ears and glowing wings while in the realm of darkness (although it would have been cool if it took data from your 0.2 save to add those in her cutscenes before you rescue her).
 

SweetYetSalty

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Well yozora as secret boss confirmed.
xion is part of the data fights.
xion and master xehanort are the most difficult ones.
6 new abilities
Xion as hard as old man Xehanort? I already got murder numerous times by my boi Roxas in KH2FM now my daughter is going to have her turn in destroying me too? I can't wait :D
 
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