Search Results

You act like it'd be hard for the NSA with any but the most paranoid

I still appreciate Riku as a character. He hasn't been put through as much of a blender as, say, Lea.
The gameplay honestly wasn't very useful in terms of gameplay, but it made me feel like I was playing as a different character than Sora. By the end Riku has a different dodge anyways, so they clearly aren't against making him play different from Sora. The thing is, by the end of the game it doesn't really feel like I'm playing as Sora OR Riku, most of their unique abilities are more or less ripped from BBS.
The thing is, Riku IS more thoughtful than Sora, and I wish that was exploited more. Riku has since Days retired himself to being a background character to Sora, this is exemplified in Country of Musketeers, where he is LITERALLY backstage while Sora does the real fighting. I don't think Riku needs to be loud or angry, but he's lost so much initiative and drive since even CoM. Riku has the potential to figure out things Sora couldn't, and interact with the world in a very different way from Sora, and that's sorely underused. Like in Symphony of Sorcery, it makes sense for Sora to try to bash the music in with his keyblade, but when Riku is presented with the same challenge... he has the EXACT same response.
But yeah, Riku's not terrible or anything, but compared to the other extremes in KH he stands out and is a bit obring. He would be at home in a Final Fantasy game, but KH doesn't really respond well to being down to earth.
And here's the thing. A three dimensional character IS an interesting one. But what has Riku done to show he's 3d? what facets does he have? Like, what does he have going for him besides his darkness plot? Sora has more depth, we've seen him in more situations and can glean details from that, and Ventus has shades of this too. When has Riku even talked about something not plot relevant?

Here's the thing about relatable characters.
They aren't relatable for being really well developed, or something like that, they're relatable for being the opposite.
It's a lack of detail that makes people relate with a character en masse. Otherwise a relatable character is really only reletable to a few people because they become too specific. That's why, for example, in so many media characters are who might otherwise be extraordinary are treated ordinarily. Giving superheroes a job and money issues makes them more relatable than they otherwise would be because most humans can relate to that.

I'm not going to pass this off as a personal attack (though it definitely is)
I'm going to pass it off as "oh hey, ANOTHER kid who deals in absolutes who has somehow deluded themsleves into thinking that anybody who is critical of something has no right to be on a website dedicated to it. Who deals in such an insane degree of absolutes that having valid criticism for a game SOMEHOW means I hate it.
And that somehow relates to me trying to appear smarter than I am
Now ignoring all the random, unwarranted antagonism, let's look at your points.
It's not easier to defend something than it is to form a critique of something. I could hype things up all day, it's easy. It's almost a hobby, I go around getting people to make terrible purchasing decisions by minimizing something's flaws and maximizing its strengths. I don't bother with that on a fan-site. That's boring. Why should I bother spending time trying tos ell \KH fans on KH? They've already bought into it.
Don't need to research? But so many vital plot details are hidden in the Japan-only Ultimanias.
You feel people are idiotic for thinking that entering a seven part franchise over a decade old is too dense to enter? Just fully explaining Roxas to a newcomer would take a few minutes, and probably lead into extra tangents about the true nature of Xehanort and Organization XIII. It's a ridiculously dense story to enter, and you have the GALL to call people idiots for being wary of getting into it?
The... Halo franchise. The one EVERYBODY knows for its multiplayer? The one where NOBODY talks about the plot? That's a vital difference right there, Halo holds its shooting front and centre, KH wears its story on the front. When I hear people talk about the plot of Halo, it inevitable leads to jokes about how nobody cares enough about the story to bother reading the books or anything.

And that's about it for valid opinions, the rest is just you spitting bile

It syncs with the music perfectly

and thus FFX2.5

First, on gameplay. Not at all. Dark Mode a functionally different thing entirely. I'm talking about Riku's base combos. They're not nearly identical, they're VERY different. Riku's moves are much longer and sweeping in DDD, more in line with Sora's typical moveset. Riku also jumps higher by default in Re:CoM, mirroring his ability in KH1. Re:CoM Riku is stiff and more surgical, DDD Riku is flowing and round, like Sora. His dodge roll is identical to Sora's now, too. In Re:CoM he'd do a flip that ended with a slight pause, making him feel very different from Sora.

I never said that Riku losing half his character was good or bad. He just has far fewer distinct characteristics now. He's more mature, that's a definite thing, but you probably can't pick out as many distinct characteristics with Riku now as opposed to KH1 or CoM. For me personally, that makes him a touch more boring, as the world of KH is full of extreme characters, so in a weird way he just sort of sticks out now. To me, Riku being arrogant, confident and ambitious made him interesting. Now he's submissive, passive, basically a walking plot device without much going on for him
I'm not the kind of person who thinks characters should be forced to stay in the status quo in order to be good, but becoming 'mature' doesn't equate to eliminating all your flaws

KH has a complex plot on the surface. It's actually brain dead simple, it's just dense. You can't explain it easily, but that doesn't mean it has any depth. But it scares off newcomers because KH is notorious for having an impenetrable plot.
And here's the thing. We were talking about WRITING. That's different from plot. KH is largely poorly written. KH MEANS well, but it fails on execution on multiple levels.
The plot only being revealed through RESEARCH is also an absolutely terrible thing. That's work, that's a terrible. A story shouldn't require the viewer actively RESEARCH the story jsut to know what's going on. Never mind that research mostly comes from major plot details never being released outside of Japan.
But yeah, plot is separate from writing. A plot is neither good nor bad, because a plot is nothing without execution. BBS' plot could be done well, done poorly, done for laughs, done in a more kid friendly way. The possibilities and intent don't matter, what counts is the end result. I mean heck, you're telling me that translated dialog is never as good... so I should look up... translated dialog... what does that prove?
Terra, as a character, does the opposite of what people tell him in the most ham fisted ways possible. He loses faith in his supposed life-long friends at the drop of a hat, and commits nary a single evil deed throughout the entire game... and this is somehow enough for him to fall to the dark side by the end. It's contrived because they already had a conclusion, and ddin't bother making any level of natural progression towards it.
Ventus IS wandering aimlessly. He's not running from Aqua: SHE leaves HIM. Terra just told him that he can't come with him either. At that point in the story Ven has been abandoned by both of his friends... so he just sort of randomly goes to Disney worlds with the vague pretense of finding friends. He has no reason or motive for the second half of the game. Aqua's motivation is ambiguous at best as well, considering her orders are to bring Ventus home and to look into the darkness with Terra, and she has the opportunity to do both and does neither. This is especially notable with Ven, where she's explicitly told to bring Ven home... and on both opportunities instead just tells him to go home and assumes he'll do it.
I think comparing KH to a Disney movie is just silly. The Disney movies are functional, they have a proper set up and pay off. Their stories aren't complex or complicated, they're just effective. They're simple plots lucky enough to be given good writers and solid voice actors.
The story isn't good if you look into it. The story isn't good. That's it. It has a few shining moments, and a LOT of bad. It's not accessible, it's dense and impenetrable. The characters are one note at best bar perhaps Sora. The writing is mostly bad, the scenarios are mostly poorly thought out, the voice acting is from a lot of talented people who seem to phone it in quite often. The Disney elements aren't treated with any respect and the original stuff is just a bunch of random anime cliches glued together

Varies from person to person.
People claim Xion is a great character because she sacrifices herself for Sora.
I don't see how that's meaningful in any way

A LOT of people are a very shallow about what bringing something to life means.

With a lot of game designers, life begins and ends at how well they can use motion capture to make their characters realistic and thus somehow relatable
Because as you know, how well a person's eyebrows move when something dramatic happens is what REALLY determines how much we care

You're finally gonna do LPs?
About ****ing time

Well the thing is, when people talk about bring a character to life in a video game, they mean making them human-like. Realisitc animations, non-uncanny models, that sort of thing

Because neither was Lightning?
If you look at the dev videos, from the start it has never been about making Lightning a fleshed out character. They throw around the words "cool" and "beautiful" like it'll get them free candy though

You'd think

It's looking to be easily the best playing of the XIII series. The plot sounds completely bonkers but I'm okay with that

Sounds interesting.
If your interested, I know some people, sites and resources that could help