(no subject)

[felis_ultharus]

So I just finished Kingdom Hearts I. I have to admit to admit I avoided this one for awhile -- Disney makes me squeamish and even a Disney-Final Fantasy crossover made me worry.

Overall, though, it was an excellent game. As it progresses, it becomes less and less Disney and more and more Final Fantasy.

The story is more intelligent than you'd expect from Disney, and it reminded me of Neil Gaiman's Black Orchid -- where a true master of fantasy-writing tackles the dull, clichéd superheroes of DC, and weaves them into something mythic and brilliant.

Final Fantasy dileuted a lot of Disney's saccharine, and did the usual Disney theme of following your heart instead of your head much better than Disney ever has.

Still, it wasn't perfect. My criticisms:

• I could not kill Goofy. Try as I might -- drive him off of cliffs, put him in the way of harm without a weapon -- nothing works. If he gets knocked out, he just wakes up a few minutes later.
  
  
• In Final Fantasy games, you can summon Bahamut, King of Dragons, to exhale a blast of continent-obliterating hecatomb at your enemies from orbit. In Kingdom Hearts, you can summon Bambi, who makes useful objects pop out of the ground. I feel the game could have been significantly enhanced if Bambi could exhale a blast of continent-obliterating hecatomb at my enemies from orbit.
  
  
• I could not kill Goofy. Putting him in the way of the full force of the major enemy attacks, getting him stomped on by a Behemoth, and targetting him with your own weapon all don't seem to work.
  
  
• I remember seeing a documentary on Edward Said, where his voice discussing stereotypes of Arabs was overlaid on top of footage of Disney's Aladdin. well, I suspect Agrabah-world was the nightmare Said woke up screaming from every night. I doubt there'd be quite so many faceless horrors in turbans if the game hadn't been programmed so soon after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York.
  
  
• I could not kill Goofy. I couldn't abandon him to the Heartless to have his soul devoured -- he must not have one to steal. I tried replacing him with other Disney characters, but they don't let you keep them. When the Darkness devours Goofy towards the end, they make you rescue him to progress the game. I felt that was totally unfair.

On the other hand, I knew the game would get much better when I reached Nightmare Before Christmas world, and it did ^_^

For those with no interest in video games, I'll just mention that there's a black squirrel here in Verdun, living in a tree on fourth avenue.

This is significant -- Montrealers are always fascinated by black squirrels, and often tell me that there are no black squirrels in Montreal, that you only find them at Oka, or up in the Laurentians, etc.

I've nicknamed him Kokki. Fans of 12 Kingdoms will know why ^_^

Comments

[maidenofirisa.livejournal.com]

My question is: Did you defeat Sephiroth? I've always had problems with that one. 1. He's ridiculously strong. 2. I can't imagine Sephiroth being defeat by Sora.

(Warning: small spoilers for the second game but really it's nothing important) In the second game there is this scene were you think Goofy sacrificed himself for another character. I never thought for a second he would really be death but you don't even get to fight a level without him. He comes back at the end of the cut scene...

Also KH2 longest playable intro ever. But enough about that game, you've just finished the first one.

I don't remember using the summons in the first game (I used them in the second one) but remember: Never underestimate the power of The Cute. :p

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

The Cute is all powerful!

When I lived in Ontario, there was a squirrel that was half brown and half black; we called him Pants. I've never seen a black squirrel before though.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

It's just that I somehow overheard three conversations in one week by Montrealers about how they saw a black squirrel for the first time upon leaving the city.

This fascinated me, because Montrealers don't notice nature under most circumstances.

Then I saw a black squirrel this week. Made me wonder how many there are like Kokki.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Never met him -- I knew he was there, and that he was voiced by Lance Bass (!), but I knew I wouldn't be able to fight him. But I've already started replaying the game.

I bought a copy of Kingdom Hearts 2, and I'm also playing that. You weren't kidding -- that intro clocks in at a good 4 hours.

As for cute summons, that could be enhanced by white-hot flares of fiery hecatomb. Cute is powerful, but the kind of adorable that leads your enemies into a false sense of security is better ^_^

[yumemisama.livejournal.com]

The battle to get to Sephiroth is doable, if lengthy -- it's just rounds and rounds of Coliseum battle. Sephiroth is damn near impossible. I got all the way there once, to see his intro and judge the new CG model, then pretty much resigned myself to dying miserably.

An optional Sephiroth battle also exists in KH2. You'll stumble onto it pretty much naturally if you're in the habit of revisiting everywhere you've been after major plot-bits. The optional battle is harder in KH2, as judged by the fact that I survived through about half of Sephiroth's HP in KH, and I survived about twenty-five seconds in KH2. If you want the bonus ending video for 100% complete, you must win all optional challenges in Normal Mode -OR- replay the plot, but not all the optional bits, in Proud Mode, which becomes available after you complete the game the first time. The second is substantially easier, although possibly more time-consuming.

I have to say, though, that KH2 actually manages to be prettier than KH. I didn't think it was possible. Save one world that I felt dipped a bit far into the Uncanny Valley, the whole thing was visually impressive from start to finish. The tendency to slash also does not diminish in the slightest. ^_^