Sure it could've been structured better but I blame that on the Organization being poorly strung together conceptually and having no substance to keep their whole game.
More like Nomura and the staff can't think of shit to do with the characters they already have and go with the obvious contrived idea that didn't do
anything worth creating. When the series' fandom does better in developing pre-existing characters or making better stories surrounding them than the main team itself, then any credit immediately goes down the drain. It wasn't the Organization - they have enough to contribute and had the potential. It just wasn't tapped in. Especially Xemnas. Good Lord, what they did to him. He's an idiot and lost any cred of being a manipulative bastard.
And seriously, I don't find focusing on Xion's woes of the day and then expanding the game with useless filler ice cream scenes any better. Give me the members sitting on the meeting room all day and I'll be happier. No doubt it would be more
exciting.
There's a reason why people think the game sucked, and it's not because the Organization couldn't do anything to structure the plot. People knew they could but they didn't, and that's one of its criticisms among the
many.
Days explained the whole YEAR part.
Which didn't need to.
Why didn't Riku just beat Roxas up?
The Organization were keeping a tight watch on him, naturally, since he's their Keyblade wielder. Xemnas "smelled" Diz prowling around, and took precautions. Getting close enough would have been difficult, let alone take him peacefully (like
KH2 showed). That also could've been a perfect way to incorporate why the members also had to go with him on missions sometimes. And last time I checked, Riku turning into Rikunort was kind of a last resort he had to use to get Sora back when he finally remembered that he was suppose to care for his best friend more and try to get him awake as soon as possible. Thus, he had to sacrifice.
Furthermore, it would have been great if Nomura went for his original plan and had something going on with both Riku and Roxas enough that Riku could summon him to the skyscraper and he'd come (
Days being a Roxas and Riku game sounds so much better that it's a shame. A darn gone shame). Seriously, Roxas could have done things he wasn't suppose to and talk to people he wasn't suppose to as much as Xion did (if he was actually done correctly and not regulated to be the camera). Pack that with a nice confrontation that he's stuck between Riku/Diz vs. The Organization as well as him harboring memories of Sora, and you got a good thing to fall back on. Oh, and a dash of Ventus.
And, I recall, this didn't even take me two minutes to come up with. Kind of sad.
Riku wasn't active up to late into that year.
And when he was active, it was lackluster. Oh, let's just have him walk around with the 14th but not really member and...hell, what
did he do other than that?
And it took even Namine a good while to figure out the mess.
To be honest, she already knew what was up and what needed to be done. It wasn't that difficult.
And let's face it as Deus Ex Machina as Riku was at times in the game, the Organization wasn't an opponent you took on lightly.
It didn't seem that way. When did Riku
ever go against the Organization or fought them off? His job in that game was to glue to Xion and no one else.
Then there's the issue that Riku IS a sap and he gave Xion a choice, something I think he'd have done for Roxas had Diz not showed up right after he took the kid down.
Riku's little speech afterward and his lasting regret on the matter seem to back this up nicely.
So yeah. Now we know why, despite Riku being able to off Roxas like in a single Darkness-blow and why once Roxas was back, it took a freaking WEEK, it took about a YEAR to recover Sora's Memories. And we got some Org fanservice along the way, not to mention a couple of BBS references and another person to have to save in the future of the series.
Sweet.
Over his best friend, which I still don't find credible. You can feel sympathy for someone because they're a clone, but to let them decide the fate of one of your important people, and the
real one at that, it's just mind boggling no matter how you look at it. Especially with someone you knew, uh, just a meeting ago? And who's ass you royally kicked? And who you were cold to? And even in the DI discussion, that things would be better if "she" didn't exist? (but, of course, he didn't act on it because the game would end quickly. I just wish it wasn't so apparent that the staff was doing it due to that fact)
Looking at it as a whole, there was no way Riku was going to let Roxas go and do what he wanted. When Xion died and the game returned to normal (yes, characters became what they should have been earlier), he was very determined and certain that he needed to get Sora out of his coma
despite his personal feelings on the matter (something he should've done 358 days ago, yet I digress). HALLELUJAH. It only took him a whole damn year despite that he had the chance to end it all right next to him! What a stand up guy. But away from sarcasm, how could you say that he would've been willing to let Roxas go when he was already turning into Rikunort and knocked the kid out before Diz even reached them? :/ If he was planning to let him leave, he would have done so since the beginning. Making him unconscious wasn't going to
help him escape, you know. Never saw much regret either, just that he perhaps could have handled things differently since it appeared Roxas "wanted to meet" Sora. And that he didn't agree with Diz's treatment.
And really, it isn't any surprise. Roxas was half of Sora - the other part of him. The memory recovery took a week because not only is it hard for Naminé to accomplish (and it's a process), which she admitted long ago that it might take a while, but Diz had to make sure that Roxas keeps being in a fantasy world away from the Organization to do what they needed to do without problems. Didn't work out too well, but at least Roxas decided by himself to do what Diz had been wanting in the end.
And it took a year because, well, the memories were leaking into Roxas and hampering everything. Xion wasn't needed because she simply sucked them away from
him unto her, so the vessel holding them would've been him if she didn't exist. After all,
Xion dying didn't get things to normal. And in the same vain, Roxas would be hard to get with the aforementioned complications in the way above.