Epcar is cool, but Billy Zane is Ansem.
Yeah, he did a film in Turkey that dealt with the U.S. Iraq War that was pretty critical of the U.S., and this being the height of the patriotic Bush Jr. era U.S. Disney barred him from coming back to voice the character to avoid being associated with any controversy. Similar to the silly James Gunn nonsense for Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah, Billy Zane really liked playing Ansem, so it's a shame he never got to return to do it.
On that note: https://twitter.com/Soraalam1/status...008827904?s=19
Lol, that I’d pretty hilarious, all things considered. And I always thought Billy Zane was just too expensive - was there some controversy involved?
I think one of the funniest things I've read about Chain of Memories, partly because I'm trying to find this weird bit of info some detractors are saying that Nomura apparently never wanted it made, but that doesn't seem to be the case, is that Nomura did say he wanted CoM to be "lighter and softer" than KH1. Failed that task it seems...
It's about the same for me as the GBA version. The core story is some good character development for Riku, but the fact the Disney worlds are treated as busy work is still a bit disappointing. The Zexion fight was an interesting idea, but my first impression is that it's a bit frustrating. The cutscenes are good and clear up a few misunderstandings from the GBA version, but you can tell poor Wayne Allwine was on his death bed by the time he recorded Mickey for this game.It's also weird trying to transition to both Ansem's new VA actors since Heartless Ansem's VA was replaced because Diseny always goes to ridiculous lengths to protect their image, and True Ansem was replaced because Christopher Lee wasn't available for this game. The Duel mechanic is a nice touch that helps expand Riku's gameplay, but I can't help but feel like the devs always seem to give him preferential treatment, and leave him all the cool stuff. Despite that, it's a pretty neat feature that I wish had been implemented throughout the game and perhaps expanded. Would have been interesting to give a unique counter move for every boss and whatnot. Alos, is it just me, or does it feel the devs nerfed Mickey's friend card, I remember that card doing way more damage in the original. I think it restores more health though, so perhaps they just rebalanced it. I do feel like Riku has some really wonky targeting issues though. Not that Sora doesn't have the same problem, but it just feels like Riku has it worst. I think what exasperates it more for him is that his moveset is like a "bigger, badder, cooler" version of Sora's which has the side effect of throwing off your timing when trying to get first strike advantage as sometimes Riku decides he needs to spin into the enemy before actually hitting them. I'm starting to lose my patience with the more aggressive lock on that turns the environment into an enemy as you'll try to strike an enemy only to lock onto a hittable part of the environment that the enemy happens to spawn next to. This becomes a real pain in world's filled with such objects like Wonderland, Destiny Island, and Halloween Town. Overall, I feel ReCoM brings in some cool ideas and features, but the transition to 3D wasn't as smooth as I felt like it should be and despite the 2D plane giving unfair advantages to Defender Heartless and Vexen, I feel the card combat system just felt smoother and manageable on the GBA. Load times that don't freeze the A.I., wonky targeting, larger arenas with higher spawn rates, and some of the unfair advantages given to certain bosses because the devs just recycled their boss fight animations sort of show that this is an unpolished remake. It's not bad mind you, but compared to the original, it just feels a bit sluggish and rough around the edges. Even some of the VA work for the new Org. actors are a bit rough, and I still feel like Vexen's voice is too high and nasally for the character.
You’re almost there! So how do you feel the 3D Reverse/Rebirth so far?
In CoM news, I had a rather productive evening. I did complete all of Halloween Town, but it helps I love that film/world. Kind of ironic I saved one of the best Enemy Cards for last. Tackled the improved Laxeus, who was a bit of handful with that invincibility move he has, but I was finally able to take him down due to how much damage he takes from Sleights. Tackled Destiny Island and forgot how BS the card deck your handed in this world was, my goodness, even with the map card that boosts my attack cards, I was still getting break by enemies left and right. The Darkside fight dragged on partially because of that too. On the other hand, I completely forgot how broken the Laxeus card is and how useful it is in this world. This led me to the other new battle in the game, Zexion. I think I could have lived my life without experience that fight. He honestly took me down more times than I think any boss has in this run, especially since part of the fight feels RNG based. My winning round was thanks to him stealing only my weak cards, leaving me enough of my hih end cards to continually break his attacks and destroy his books to stop his attack mode. Man that fight was obnoxious. I can now only imagine what he's going to be like in KHII. With that done, I just now need to head to Twilight Town and then the final area to face Ansem and I'll be finished with Re:CoM.
Well it's posted, have fun.
Jappens to the best of us
