13 years old me: "Man, Harry and Ron are so dumb! Why do they avoid doing their homeworks, that will only lead to have getting a huge pile to take care of in a few days!"
Me now: "The sea of replies is neverending."
Something else I dislike about KH3 is that we only fight the Organization members at the Keyblade Graveyard (and Land of Departure). Why DIDN‘T we fight Marluxia? Or Vanitas in MI? Or Larxene? It doesn‘t make sense and I don‘t like it.
It really dampened the whole sense of danger and urgency.
So, I guess Maleficent is truly the only one who refers to the 13 vs 7 in KH III as a "Keyblade War", but still it's interesting how KH III is supposed to be almost all the previous villains gathering together to try and bring Doomsday this time for real, and... the general state of things is probably one of the chilliest the saga ever gets.
Like, nothing really happens. The Norts, as stated numerous times, can't actually do anything serious to either the Guardians nor the Princesses so they're just there. Maleficent and Pete are on a goose chase. And even most Disney worlds are facing very "subdued" crises minus a few exceptions.
KH1 was the most hectic scenario, some people kinda miss it but the aim in the game isn't even to PREVENT the Armageddon, the Armageddon has been happening for 9 years straight. Sora is essentially moving in the least remaining worlds, or close to it.
In KH II you had the Organization actually doing a lot of stuff, not to mention Xemnas/The MCP trying to utterly destroy Radiant Garden with a massive army.
KH III feels a Keyblade Order's internal scuffle gotten slightly out of hand.
He defeated four titans in the 1st world & afterwards they were still talking about how he hasn't regained his strength. Like Goddamn Square, do you really need to treat the Disney villains as being that irrelevant?
Donald: "We went to Olympus and nothing really happened."
I think stopping Hades' rebellion was kinda something, especially since he himself keeps stating he wants to rule over the cosmos.
Unless the implication is that Hercules alone was enough to handle things since he has all the powers, which in turn would be like admitting Sora was irrelevant.
Bit of a bummer too, since Hades was always kind of a big deal in his own right and I liked it a lot.
Why do they have to keep bringing up that Sora lost all his powers. It's an rpg, isn't starting at level one something we should all expect?
The reason I bring this up is because things are only going to get tougher from here. Sora and co. will have to be stronger than ever, and yet Sora again and again has to start from scratch. It gives off the impression that where he was when he beat Xehanort will be enough to beat the MoM because guess what, he lost all his powers again and has to climb back to where he was.
On one hand the God of War fanboy in me always likes when a series provides in-canon explanations about why there's a level regression, but KH III handled it sloppily.
"Xehanort got through you and so you've lost all your powers"
I mean, I feel like this is the right thread to ask exactly why? Xehanort didn't even possess Sora, all they did to him in DDD was making him sleepy and having nightmares. Sure enough that's also how KH II handles it, but if so then why didn't Riku suffer from anything? He literally fought Darkness within Darkness, a Twofold Nightmare(™).
Again, I had no problems the other times they did it, but in this one I too did feel like it was a bit unnecessary. Would've been perfectly fine by my book if Sora was still treated like he had all of his ability in the story and was level 1 for gameplay purposes, and him getting levels in KH III meant he was going to be EVEN STRONGER for the battle.
"May your heart be your guiding key" makes no sense. Keys don't guide. Something like "May your heart be your guiding light" would have made much more sense.
And not exactly a nitpick, but "May you heart be your guiding key" is just an overly poetic way of saying "figure it out yourself."
Doesn't "may your heart be your guiding key" kinda implies everything's good as long as you follow your heart, which I'm pretty sure is what Xehanort did all along?
I'm okay with replacing key with light both for it to make sense even to non-Keyblade wielder characters and because light IS ultimately the source of all that is good in the series.
Honestly, I'd go for a more stylish version of "May your heart never lead you astray" or something. Like, don't just do as you see fit hoping your heart is innately good, TRY yourself to be good.
"May your heart be your guiding key" implies that the heart is always good and as long as you follow it everything's fine. I think it has been proven several times that hearts CAN lead you off the path due to your own inexperience or some third party influence. Sora's heart in CoM was his guiding key and it was all a trap.
This over-reliance on this absolutism fits Eraqus and perhaps whatever distorted moral the MoM gave his apprentices, but you'd think Yen Sid would've had better insight by now.
My biggest nitpick about everyone picking on Sora is the fact that he is right.
"Nuh-uh, you first gotta acquire the power of waking".
eight worlds later
"Ok you still haven't acquired yet but we think it's finally time for some plot, so go help Riku and Mickey anyway!! haha! oh surprise, it worked! maybe we should've trusted you after everything that happened so far"
At the end of it all, the whole "wait till you're ready" felt absolutely pointless, was the biggest waste of time, because neither were the individual plots of the Disney worlds (or rather: the villains that appear in them) properly resolved, nor did Sora really learn anything in them that was useful for the final battle.
It's so utterly stupid.
Y U P
What makes it even jarring it's that Yen Sid himself (not to mention Ansem the Wise and Master Xehanort) states pretty early on that Sora operates outside of every preconceived scheme and performs even "miracles" that defy logic, because his heart is so pure and powerful.
That being said, whenever Sora is trying to follow his heart which tells him to go save Aqua, Yen Sid strongly opposes the idea because he needs to follow this (completely and utterly useless and nonsensical) preconceived plan of visiting the Disney worlds.
Like, dude. Why.