For starters - Riku-Keyblade quoted me. Go read and wisen up.
A bonus?
A bonus... seriously? You already know what's going to happen, and most of those characters never appear again.
You'd rather play that than III?
Ah, but good luck understanding KH3 without Days, BBS and Coded.
Personally, when I look at KH2
with CoM, I find the plot severly lacking, and that's with me
yes knowing about the Organization before hand and what they generally wanted to do and what they were.
I don't want to think what would've happened had I not played CoM.
KH3 without Coded, Days and BBS = one big huge repeat of Sora running around without us knowing why and then shouting at him for being a jerk and a stupid one at that because we don't know nothing about the Organization - which, lo and behold, is
the whole story in Days!!! - making it vital.
Personally, I can do without more plot holes and curiosities, thank you very much.
Technically they aren't. Someone can play KH1 and KH2 but not CoM, and still follow the story.
That's because
1) CoM was loosely linked to KH2, which is a
bad thing.
2) We didn't really get to see the
plot. We saw Sora fighting off
Heartless instead of the Nobodies.
It doesn't mean that CoM isn't needed; it just means KH2 failed.
Now, if you don't play the CoM spin off, you'll have some elements missing and won't understand some plot twist as why Riku had Ansem's appearance in KH2.
You still won't understand that as it's told only
after CoM, but seeing how CoM was effectively
Riku's whole story and character development and the somewhat conclusion to his dilemma, it is as vital a game to play for Riku's character as the novels are to read if one is to understand KH2's true plot.
It's the same with those three spin off.
Let's get some things clear - None of these games are
spin offs.
A spin off would be Kairi getting a Keyblade and setting off on her own journey without relevance to the current plot.
If anything, the spinoff will be
KH3 to these three games. But he's not.
You'll be able to play and understand KH3 that you played them or not.
I highly doubt that, and you have neither the right nor the ability to say that before you played even one of those games, let alone all three of them and then saw how those affect KH3.
But it's possible that you go "WTF?" if in the middle of the game Xehanort transform into MX or if the 14th member ask to Mickey how he goes since last time she saw him. Just sample of possibility.
And that, my friend, would be
needing those three so called 'useless spinoffs' if you are to understand.
Play KH1, play KH2, and you'll forever more wonder as to how Riku got from one to another.
Seeing how his character development is half the plot the story has to offer, CoM is a
must, even more so such plot events as you described.
If you're a hard core KH fan, those game are necessary. If you play KH like any other game, they aren't.
I'll correct -
If you give a rat's @$$ about the
plot and the
characters, you'll play these games.
If you play the games to go ooooooooooh, Sora's shinyyyyyyyyyy, then I suggest you go play some platform games and spare yourself the grief of complaining over so many consoles and games and what not.
While it is splendid KH offers us amazing gameplay, what is the heart and soul of Kingdom Hearts are the
plot, the
characters, and how it all gets mixed together into one wonderful burst of colorful dancing pixels.
I admit, they could've released a bunch of novels. That, however, would've reduced from the charm, seeing how KH is a series of
games and the gameplay is a crucial part of the atmosphere in the games - as Nomura makes quite clear with him repeatedly stressing how they're doing their best to maintain the same air and gameplay structure despite it being now on multiple consoles.
Yes, it's for money; however, I'll take an extra SE game for a series I liked over a sequal for a Hollywood movie any day - chances are higher I'll get my money's worth and then a whoooooole lot more
