Fynn
is an EoFF Hero and/or Heroine
Radical Dreamer

Prologue is finished. Still trippy and interesting, but I also feel it showcases a lot of the issues I have with the story overall with all the early twists that seem to be there more for shock value than because it's necessary for the story. I still enjoyed it, and I'm quickly learning I'm a bit out of practice with this entry though.

I will say, it was harder to get through this part with the 358/2 retcons now in play. Obviously 358/2 utilized ideas from KH2 for it's plot and character interaction, but looking at it as a whole, it now makes me wonder if the actions and routines of Hayner, Pence, and Olette are simply just like that and it just happens to be similar to what Roxas did with Axel and Xion, or if Diz set up the virtual world to tap in and copy Roxas memories to ease him better into the fake world?

I am being reminded of a plot hole that has always bothered me about this game. If Roxas' reality was a fake based on the real Twilight Town, then how do the trio sort of remember him? Like their interaction with Sora is sort of based on their virtual selves dealing with Roxas, and even though they never actually met Roxas purposely, why does the story treat it like the events of the prologue really happened to them when it was all an assimilation.

The cosmology of this series has always bugged me because it really does seem like the writers play fast and loose with rules and definitions to get their cake and eat it too.

PS3, I got the 1.5 Mix as a Christmas gift a few years back when it was new, and I opted to pick up the second set for the PS3 as well because my OCD works that way. I did break down and also pick up a used copy of the II.8 nonsense, only because I was curious about Aqua's title and could justify it by getting a coupon from Gamestop.

I don't really believe my thoughts on the writing is going to change much, I still feel like II has a meandering plot that halfheartedly closed out the Nobody arc while spending most of it's actual time setting up all of the spin-off titles that came after. I'm more curious to see if the gameplay side of things will change for me, but I also don't really feel that will be the case either as most of my time watching videos justifying why it's so good falls into my pet peeve about difficulty balance. I mean it's great that they added a whole slew of optional bosses that make the battle system shine, it;'s a shame they couldn't fix the rest of the game's gameplay to do the same...

And finished. Was nice to replay an old classic even if it was rough around the edges. Outside of the two difficulty mode trophies, I believe I got all of Riku's trophies. I mostly ran through Twilight Town and only stopped to the boss I forgot about. Honestly the Riku Replica fight was tough despite having a better deck, but I blame it on the fact the deck is set up to have the weakest cards on the third part of a combo, leaving poor Riku wide open for card break. Ansem was also and ass, and I'm mostly annoyed because I nearly got him ona first attempt because we kept card dueling and I kept wrecking him, but the finisher for barrage had this nasty habit of shifting or maneuvering Riku towards the Guardian who blocks all damage. Course the wonky 3D has it's advantages as well, I had Ansem activate his nasty charge move and I couldn't move fast enough to find a 0 card only for Ansem to somehow get stuck on the environment and give me time to set up a counter. The ending was good of course, and one thing I forgot to mention I did really enjoy is the credit sequence. Not so much the highlight reel as much as I enjoy watching all of the various cast members do stuff. It was a nice touch to have Sora showcase heroes, while Riku showcased the villains.

Now I get to move onto KHII:FM and see what all the hype is about.

Yeah, I feel Zane did a better job of making Ansem a total ham. Granted, I love Epcar as well, but he'll always be Ziggy, Baofu, and Jigen for me.

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.

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.

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.

And I got side tracked with a thread I wanted to make instead...