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Hello! Something that's been going on my mind ever since I've seen the ending for this game and it stuck even after going back and watching the entire thing is how the past games have been used into this game and the missed opportunities.
This is going to be pretty spoiler heavy and cover everything about the ending, so beware.
Also a warning: this is a pretty long read, so I'm sorry in advance for those who dislike long threads.
This is going to be pretty spoiler heavy and cover everything about the ending, so beware.
Also a warning: this is a pretty long read, so I'm sorry in advance for those who dislike long threads.
Spoiler Show
I'd like to start this by stating right now that I'm disappointed with the story of this game. However, I don't think the entire plot is bad- There's two things in special that I want to highlight being the utilization of the datascape from Coded and the references to the [Chi/X] saga. Those are both underapreciated games that many people dislike and did not expect to matter to the overall game, but they used them in unexpected ways and I really appreciated that.
With that out of the way, here comes the dreaded critics.
Basically, KH3 is the epitome of all the hype they've been building ever since KH2 came out way back in 2005, and ever since that game we had many spin offs which introduced new characters that contributed to this.
But most of all, the biggest hype towards KH3 and the conclusion of the Dark Seeker saga is the salvation of the missing Keyblade wielders: Roxas, Xion, Aqua, Terra and Ventus. And that is also it's biggest problem: it failed to deliver.
I personally believe the game leading up to the finale is actually pretty good. I had some issues with it that I'll adress later, but overall it works out. UNTIL we got to save Aqua.
If loosing her Keyblade without explanation just so she could be taken out by Terranort and lead to the corruption subplot wasn't enough, we also have Riku and Mickey stripped out of their ONLY role into the plot to have Sora take control and rescue them.
I ask you guys: what was the point of depowering Sora in 3D while raising Riku as a Keyblade Master only for him to fail at such a simple task? During the whole game we have EVERYONE treating Sora like shit (specially Yen Sid) over loosing his powers (which should have been fixed by Olympus ending the whole 2.8 section, but nope. That plot is dragged until Aqua's rescue and then never really talked about again.) just for him to show up and save TWO fully fledged Keyblade Masters who have dominion over the power of Darkness AND had reinforced Keyblades.
But ok, moving on. Then we go back into Castle Oblivion, return it to it's original form as Land of Departure and rescue Ven. I'm not going to talk about the bad delivering in that scene with Aqua being taken out just to have Ventus save himself as others have already pointed out, and at least it's excused as she took a direct hit here on purpose.
At this point, we have the whole scene in Yen Sid's tower and at least I expected someone else to be returned through the Replica left in the apprentices hands, but instead that is postponed and we don't really have any interaction with Ienzo and Co anymore and we jump straight into the final battle.
Another bad written scene with everyone being whipped out by the Dark wave (like, seriously. Was I the only one who expected Sora and Riku to do the cool union Keyblade move from 3D again like they used earlier during the Aqua segment? What happened to it? We had _7_ Keyblade users there, two of them Masters and Sora and Ventus are arguably on Master level as well. There's no reason for them to be defeated so easily, nor have them needing the Lingering Will to stop Terranort. Aqua did that all by herself in BBS, and that was BEFORE she got beefier after fending off high level Heartless for years in the Dark Realm.
Then we have Naminé's ONLY role in the entire game and they made it skippable if you don't happen to be extra curious during the Final World scene. And it evolves turning back time, somehow..? Great.
At this point I was already disappointed with how things went, but I was still happy for the most part (specially since Ephemera and the Dandelions showed up), but they had to make it worse. Boy, how do I even address this next part.
The conflict between the 7 (actually 9!) Lights and the 13 Darknesses could not have been more messy.
Kairi and Lea get taken out like filler characters in a shounen anime. I can put up with it in Kairi's case since she was unexperienced in real combat and Xemnas was one of the combatents, but WHY was Lea so weak here? Seriously, Axel was the literal Assassin of the Organization, and was shown multiple times to be an excelent fighter. So WHY did he get so weak now to be taken out so easily? He still had his fire powers, and although he changed weapons, he still should have retained his moves so that he would AT LEAST avoid being hitten like he was.
Then there's Xion, which is a matter of it's own.
First of all, during the whole game there's hints of her existance through the Org members and Lea's flashbacks, but that's it. We never see Sora finding out about her or Riku talking about the third heart he met inside Sora's. She's just.. there. Suddenly. During the final fight.
And then she.. has a change of mind? Seriously, did anyone actually understand how that worked out? When I read the spoilers I first thought they made another Xion Replica and Sora just freed her heart and it would go back into her, but we actually have no explanation whatsoever of how she came back.
The same goes for Roxas.
We never actually saw His or Xion's heart leaving Sora, so when exactly did he go into the Replica conveniently made by Vexen and Ansem albeit never show? Did their hearts leave alongside Ventus during the Land of Departure segment? And WHY Is he still able to dual wield? Is there another hidden heart inside Sora that we did not know about who stuck with him?
While at that, why did Repliku had to die again? He said there was already one Riku out there and to save the body for Naminé, but instantly after that Roxas comes back showing that they had no shortages of bodies. And again: Ventus and Roxas are out there, so is Naminé, Xion and Kairi. So why is it a issue to have two Riku-faced people existing again? Saying he's different because he has Riku's memories and stuff doesn't work because so does Xion with Sora. Just give him a new name and he'd been set. If anything, when I first saw the body I thought Roxas would show up in that one since we KNEW there was already a replica in Ienzo's hands that could've been given to Naminé.
Then there's Terra's rescue; not the best, but at least it works even if it's quite a huge retcon on Nomura's part.
It's a bunch of bad writing in the last portion of the game and my biggest problem here is that it could have been avoided if instead of saving everything for the finale, the rescue portions had been spread throughout the game.
Heck, scratch that: This could have been avoided if they actually put some of those parts during Coded and 3D.
They could have had us us learn about the extra hearts in Sora during Coded.
They could have us rescue someone during the 3D finale, maybe having Xion awaken inside Sora back then making it so the bigger issue during 3 was obtaining the bodies for them and awakening Ventus, as Roxas never slept like the other two (like the ending of KH2 shows with him and Naminé flashing for a second).
The conflict would have shifted from "Let's bully Sora for falling into a trap set by Xehanort that not even Yen Sid noticed until he regains his powers and the power of awakening!!" into "Sora has to figure out how to obtain vessels for Xion and Roxas while rushing to awaken Ventus."
The whole finale of the game then could have went from "Aqua is suddenly back and angry!!!" to "I have awakened Ventus' heart and he is telling me the path to find Aqua!".
It's just annoying how the game leaves everything they've hyped for the last 3~4 hours for no real reason making the ending incredibly convoluted and disappointing.