Kingdom Hearts.

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12-09-2011, 12:45 AM
Crop

Kingdom Hearts.

Yeah, boring thread title, but at least I'm posting in a dead forum.

So I just played through KH for the first time in a very long time and loved every minute of it, but there were a few (probably obvious) questions I'd like to ask. See after playing the not-as-good KH2 and totally losing interest in all the spin-offs and prequels I either don't have the system for or wern't released in my country, I understand their may be answers that I don't know about.

1. When Riku opens Maleficent's heart to the darkness and she turns into a dragon, why after the battle is Riku like "She failed to notice the darkness eating away at her heart" when she kept her heart closed to the darkness all that time, and the only reason the darkness took her heart was because Riku opened it?

2. So what is Kingdom Hearts, light or dark? First Ansem is like "fill me with the power of darkness" and darkness starts to come out. Then Sora is all "No Kingdom Hearts is light!" and light comes out and destroys Ansem, THEN they're trying to close the door because it's full of heartless, what's the deal?

3. Why does every gaming series I really enjoy get ruined like this one has been?

4. Why is Riku a likeable character in this game but annoying as hell in KH2?

5. When someone turns into a heartless what determines how powerful the heartless becomes? I used to think it was the strength of the heart, but since Sora became just a Shadow I'm starting to think it's to do with the amount of darkness in a heart. Confirm?

im awate your reply
12-09-2011, 09:53 AM
Fynn

It's been a while since I've played the games, but I'll do my best to answer your questions.

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Originally Posted by Crop

1. When Riku opens Maleficent's heart to the darkness and she turns into a dragon, why after the battle is Riku like "She failed to notice the darkness eating away at her heart" when she kept her heart closed to the darkness all that time, and the only reason the darkness took her heart was because Riku opened it?

This is a tricky one. If I were to hazard a guess I would say that she thought she was in control of the darkness, but it's actually a force that would overwhelm anyone. All it needed was for Riku/Xehanort to give it a little push. Maybe. Perhaps someone else has some official word on the matter, I'm just guessing here.

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2. So what is Kingdom Hearts, light or dark? First Ansem is like "fill me with the power of darkness" and darkness starts to come out. Then Sora is all "No Kingdom Hearts is light!" and light comes out and destroys Ansem, THEN they're trying to close the door because it's full of heartless, what's the deal?

KH is the Heart of all worlds, from what I gathered. And as for now, the way it works is still pretty much unknown to the characters and to the players. I personally believe that it is a sort of gateway between the realms of darkness and light. So while it has light, like every heart, there is darkness in it. I'm sure the world of darkness could be flooded by light as well, were it to remain open. I'm getting distinct FFIII-V vibes from here... But again, it's still guesswork.

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3. Why does every gaming series I really enjoy get ruined like this one has been?

Please, give the spin-offs a shot before you make a statement like this. I can guarantee that the games are still very good. Chain of Memories is easily the best written entry in the series, 358/2 is one of the biggest tear-jerkers ever (and a nicely developed character-centric story to boot), while Birth By Sleep is like a main entry, being a story with a huge scope, tying up many loose ends and offering the most exciting gameplay yet. It's easily the best entry in the franchise. I didn't get a chance to play coded yet, though I have heard that it's one of the weaker entries, but I'm still willing to give it a shot, 'cause I heard the gameplay is interesting and the story ties up further loose ends.

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4. Why is Riku a likeable character in this game but annoying as hell in KH2?

Angst! I guess Japan likes their tortured heroes. But he's still pretty well thought-out - the spin-offs give him more screen time and a bigger insight into his problems. In CoM you even get to play as him. While his chapter is not as long as Sora's, it gets him a lot of great character development.

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5. When someone turns into a heartless what determines how powerful the heartless becomes? I used to think it was the strength of the heart, but since Sora became just a Shadow I'm starting to think it's to do with the amount of darkness in a heart. Confirm?

Pretty much, yeah. The strength of heart determines the Nobody. A weak heart will not produce a Nobody at all, a fairly strong one produces one of those silvery Nobodies, while the strongest of strong hearts become humanoid Nobodies - thus, the Organization.
12-11-2011, 06:04 PM
Ouch!

Dead forum gets a dead poster.

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Originally Posted by Crop

1. When Riku opens Maleficent's heart to the darkness and she turns into a dragon, why after the battle is Riku like "She failed to notice the darkness eating away at her heart" when she kept her heart closed to the darkness all that time, and the only reason the darkness took her heart was because Riku opened it?

As Fynn suggested, she thought she was in control of the darkness in her heart. Riku's keyblade had the ability to unlock people's hearts, and that's exactly what he did. Just turns out that she had more darkness in there than she could really control.

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2. So what is Kingdom Hearts, light or dark? First Ansem is like "fill me with the power of darkness" and darkness starts to come out. Then Sora is all "No Kingdom Hearts is light!" and light comes out and destroys Ansem, THEN they're trying to close the door because it's full of heartless, what's the deal?

There are two kinds of Kingdom Hearts: the Kingdom Hearts of worlds, which is a collective of the hearts of each of the worlds and the Kingdom Hearts of men, which is a collective of the hearts of the hearts of people. The former appears in Kingdom Hearts. The latter is what Organization XIII creates in Kingdom Hearts II. There's also a third way to create Kingdom Hearts, but that's got major spoilers for Birth by Sleep. Not sure if you want to go there or not. Regardless, it is a source of great light which inherently attracts great darkness.

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3. Why does every gaming series I really enjoy get ruined like this one has been?

That's subjective. I'd argue that while Kingdom Hearts II introduced a number of confusing elements, having played all the spin-offs and side-games, Nomura has done a surprisingly good job of creating a consistent continuity. Birth by Sleep, in particular, is one of the better games in the series, and Chain of Memories was pretty fantastic as well. The other titles (Days, Coded, etc.) each have their place in explaining parts of the story. KH:3D is also looking like it's shaping up to be a strong entry into the series to guide us to KH3.

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4. Why is Riku a likeable character in this game but annoying as hell in KH2?

Again subjective. I did not find Riku annoying in KH2.

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5. When someone turns into a heartless what determines how powerful the heartless becomes? I used to think it was the strength of the heart, but since Sora became just a Shadow I'm starting to think it's to do with the amount of darkness in a heart. Confirm?

Sora turned into a shadow heartless because shadows are a natural breed of heartless. Most of the other "stronger" heartless are emblem heartless which were created by Ansem in the depths of Hollow Bastion. Because Sora was not consumed by an emblem heartless but rather become one by willingly releasing his own heart, he could not have become much other than a shadow.
12-11-2011, 09:57 PM
Mercen-X

Why did Ansem look human? At the point which Sora encounters him, he's already supposed to be a Heartless, right?
12-12-2011, 05:43 AM
Wolf Kanno

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1. When Riku opens Maleficent's heart to the darkness and she turns into a dragon, why after the battle is Riku like "She failed to notice the darkness eating away at her heart" when she kept her heart closed to the darkness all that time, and the only reason the darkness took her heart was because Riku opened it?

See Fynn's explanation.

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2. So what is Kingdom Hearts, light or dark? First Ansem is like "fill me with the power of darkness" and darkness starts to come out. Then Sora is all "No Kingdom Hearts is light!" and light comes out and destroys Ansem, THEN they're trying to close the door because it's full of heartless, what's the deal?

If the series has shown anything, its that the heart has the potential for both light and darkness, so KH is probably no different. KH is most likely the physical and spiritual manifestation of potential.

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3. Why does every gaming series I really enjoy get ruined like this one has been?

Honestly, I feel the handheld entries are superior overall to the console games, in just about every category. Chain of Memories was surprisingly thought provoking, Days was incredibly emotional and Birth by Sleep is like the franchises potential incarnate.

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4. Why is Riku a likeable character in this game but annoying as hell in KH2?

Because Nojima is a hack writer and can't understand emotions unless its coming out of a soap opera or high school anime romantic comedy. Riku is a bit angsty in CoM but gets over himself, and he's pretty badass and awesome in Days. He just really milks the whole "I turned into Ansem" ordeal despite being a mostly pointless plot element that really doesn't do anything for his character development in KH2.

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5. When someone turns into a heartless what determines how powerful the heartless becomes? I used to think it was the strength of the heart, but since Sora became just a Shadow I'm starting to think it's to do with the amount of darkness in a heart. Confirm?

I believe Nomura actually answered this one in one of the Ultimanaia's but I could have accidentally read some fan wanking as well. Its the amount of darkness in your heart that determines what your heartless is. Since Sora is mostly pure of heart, he gets turned into a simple Shadow. By KH2 and coded, it's hinted to have grown in the passing years after dealing with Organization XIII. I'd be pretty pissy after CoM myself...

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Originally Posted by Mercen-X

Why did Ansem look human? At the point which Sora encounters him, he's already supposed to be a Heartless, right?

This has not been revealed yet, but if memory serves me correct, Nomura has hinted there is a reason and that Xehanort might not be the only one. Some fans speculate some of the Organization members may have some humanoid heartless wondering about.
12-13-2011, 06:13 PM
Crop

Thanks for the replies, it does help clear a few things up.

I think I should elaborate on my question about the game series being ruined - it's not to do with the expansion of the story or anything like that, I'd love to play them, CoM more than any, but it's the way they've been released.
I really don't like handhelds so don't own either of them and they're far too expensive for me to justify buying them and playing only one game, and CoM wasn't even released here. I'd just have liked it much better if they had been released for console.
12-13-2011, 07:53 PM
chionos

I kind of agree with Crop. It's one thing to release a series like FF, with subsequent releases being unrelated to one another, but KH is all one story, so it's just annoying the way they've released the newest iterations. I understand that SE targeted its core demographic but that doesn't help me any. It's not something I fault SE for, it's just personally annoying. It will be especially annoying if I can't go from KH2 to KH3 without playing all the other games first.
12-14-2011, 04:28 AM
DMKA

What I'm wondering is why everyone and their brother can wield a keyblade now, I thought Sora was the "chosen one"?

Also, why did Malificent come back to life with no explanation?
12-14-2011, 05:15 AM
Wolf Kanno

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Originally Posted by chionos

It will be especially annoying if I can't go from KH2 to KH3 without playing all the other games first.

Yeah... you're probably going to have issues I'm afraid. KH3 is going to finally show the true battle between Sora and the real mastermind of everything and unless the game has one hell of great recap of BBS, it's not going to make any sense. Not to mention Sora may become a true Keyblade Master in Dream Drop Distance. I don't think KH3 is going to make much sense without at least playing Birth By Sleep. Xion and the databugs are pretty self contained and easy to explain but BBS pretty much explains what's going on in the KH universe and why a lot of things are happening.

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Originally Posted by DMKA

What I'm wondering is why everyone and their brother can wield a keyblade now, I thought Sora was the "chosen one"?

Keyblade wielders are basically the Jedi ( there use to be a dark faction during the events of the Keyblade War). Not everyone can use them so they are special but they are a dying breed. Also Riku's "Chosen one" spiel comes from events in BBS. Basically here's the run down...

MASSIVE KH SPOILERS FOR DAYS AND BBS
Sora can wield a keyblade due to natural talent for his strong heart, he can wield two, because the Heart of the former keyblade wielder Ventus has merged with Sora's heart and sleeps within, this may also be the reason Roxas looks like Ventus...

Riku also has natural talent and was "chosen" by Terra to become a keyblade wielder. Terra made Riku promise that he wouldn't speak about their meeting or the initiation.

Kairi is a Princess of Heart and can basically wield a keyblade if need be, though we don't know if this is the same as being an actual keyblade wielder.

Roxas is Sora's Nobody, his element is light and his special talent among the members is controlling the keyblade.

Xion can use a keyblade because she is a Sora copy created through Sora's lost memories from the events of CoM. Her power syncs with Roxas' power and is slowly siphoning his strength and power, leading to their final climatic conflict that proceeds the events of Deep Dive trailer.

Ventus, Terra, and Aqua are all apprentice Keyblade Masters, only Aqua finished the trial successfully and became the last Keyblade Master in the series thus far, though Terra and Ventus are easily on the same level as a master...

Vanitas is the physical personification of Ventus' darkness that was created by Xehanort when Ventus failed Master Xehanort's training to forge the legendary Keyblade. He looks like Sora under the mask... but this has not quite been explained, since Ventus never met Sora until after Vanitas was created, but it might be due to something similar to Xion's appearance...

Master Xehanort and Master Eraqus are the last two active Keyblade master's training new recruits.

Yen Sid is a retired Keyblade Master and King Mickey is his apprentice.

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Also, why did Malificent come back to life with no explanation?

No clue, the true Malificent has only appeared in the prequel BBS, and the console entries.
12-14-2011, 05:52 AM
chionos

SE's going to force me to be a horrible person and play the roms. Maybe, just maybe, before KH3 comes out they'll throw us a compilation of all the "in-between" KHs, maybe as DL, on the(a) console(s). Or I may just be a complete loser and read the scripts.
01-23-2013, 07:52 PM
Sephiroth

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Originally Posted by Crop

2. So what is Kingdom Hearts, light or dark? First Ansem is like "fill me with the power of darkness" and darkness starts to come out. Then Sora is all "No Kingdom Hearts is light!" and light comes out and destroys Ansem, THEN they're trying to close the door because it's full of heartless, what's the deal?

Like the others have said there are two types of Kingdom Hearts, but the original Kingdom Hearts is supposed to be a paradox "entity". The story of Kingdom Hearts is about the co-existence of light and darkness. There cannot be light without darkness and vice-versa. Actually both Ansem (Xehanort) and Sora are right about what they say while Sora is "more right" because Kingdom Hearts is a fairytale and light is always shown to be the stronger force in the end. So Kingdom Hearts is "both". Simply everything is connected to Kingdom Hearts so even the doors which appear, meaning the doors which really look like doors or doors like the "door to light" which is said to be the heart itself are also a part of Kingdom Hearts. And of course that is obvious, because as the story and Kanno already said, Kingdom Hearts is the source of everything, the heart of all worlds, the heart of all hearts.