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- Mar 16, 2013
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Because in many cases, a weak narrative will use the audience's emotions as a veil to hide behind so that they don't notice its shortcomings.Where the hell are we that "a story eliciting emotions out of the viewer" is considered an illegitimate form of quality
In stories like this, when you take away that initial emotional response, the narrative falls apart under scrutiny. It's using your empathy as a scapegoat.
Days, as a narrative, exists only to make you cry at the end. It has no other purpose. Xion, as a character, exists only so that you will feel sad when she dies. She has no other purpose. The entire game is built around leading you into a tearjerker finale, and as a result, everything but the finale suffers. But you forget about that, because your emotions in the final act overshadow whatever you thought or felt beforehand.
It's baffling to me how many KH fans don't recognize Days' brand of cheap and manipulative storytelling, considering how often the franchise successfully earns emotional payoffs in other titles. KH1, CoM and KHII are littered with such moments, so even at release Days presents its narrative as markedly inferior, pushing everything it has into a single scene and hoping the fans won't notice how weak everything else was.
To it's credit, I guess it worked.