"This Keyblade, it`s sham... worthless."

[Audo]

I almost guarantee you that Nomura heard the idea of "A secret 14th member of the Organization" and with his love of plot twists simply for surprise's sake, included it. That's one thing about Nomura's ideas that I don't care for. I'm all for shock and awe, but Nomura does random crap just in the hopes that we'll gasp at it.

Honestly, I think the fourteenth member was his idea. He always said he pictured a girl being responsible for Roxas leaving (which is dumb and bleh but whatever). I don't think Kanemaki was the one who came up with the fourteenth member, I think she was just the one who came up with the details of it (as in, she's a replica, her name means this this and this, she looks like me)

Keep in mind that Nomura also came up with the idea for the just as fanfic-y X-Blade, aka the WEAPON EVEN STRONGER AND MORE IMPORTANT THAN THe KEYBLADE~~~ So, yeah.

It's a shame when he gets so focused on shocking people and doesn't focus on delivering strong character stuff because when he does it's usually pretty good.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Aka every "plot twist" he's tried to throw at us for years now. Each one being more underwhelming, predicted or convoluting than shocking.

Yep, which is mostly because Nomura approaches the whole deal with a flawed starting mindset to begin with.
Normally, surprises and plot twists should be included with the thoughts in the background "how do these benefit the overaching story or the characters" (really good twists actually do both).
But Nomura doesn't think like this, he's just aiming for the highest "WTF"-factor and more than once this has already harmed his own fictional universe in more than one way.

 

[Audo]

Yep, which is mostly because Nomura approaches the whole deal with a flawed starting mindset to begin with.
Normally, surprises and plot twists should be included with the thoughts in the background "how do these benefit the overaching story or the characters" (really good twists actually do both).
But Nomura doesn't think like this, he's just aiming for the highest "WTF"-factor and more than once this has already harmed his own fictional universe in more than one way.

Though he does pull this off occasionally. Blank Points is a good example, imo. It manages to weave the mythology and character elements together in a really great way and also shakes up a lot of things in the series at the same time. It's a series high point imo.

Shame he doesn't aim for more of that.

 

[Anagram]

Yep, which is mostly because Nomura approaches the whole deal with a flawed starting mindset to begin with.
Normally, surprises and plot twists should be included with the thoughts in the background "how do these benefit the overaching story or the characters" (really good twists actually do both).
But Nomura doesn't think like this, he's just aiming for the highest "WTF"-factor and more than once this has already harmed his own fictional universe in more than one way.

Which coupled with poor character handling (Days) or relationship exploration (BBS) just hurt it more. Even decent moments feel less than so due to the story they're buried in. Even the Blank Points Audo finds fine above I find indifference in since the entire story before was just so uninteresting. It's hard for me to consider something a high point when nothing was interesting beforehand.

 

[Antifa Lockhart]

Which coupled with poor character handling (Days) or relationship exploration (BBS) just hurt it more. Even decent moments feel less than so due to the story they're buried in. Even the Blank Points Audo finds fine above I find indifference in since the entire story before was just so uninteresting. It's hard for me to consider something a high point when nothing was interesting beforehand.

You can't be wrong about your opinion, I guess but this baffles me. Blank Points is kind of the end of the narrative arc post-KH2, I find it hard to believe anybody who liked at least ONE character or plot point from any of the games up to that point wasn't at least a little moved.