Dave

I see a lot of people mentioning that the non-numbered games were needed for lore purposes, but I'm going to counter that they only embellish lore that they themselves introduced. Birth By Sleep invents its own overarching story and then superimposes it upon the rest of the series which still functions (in my opinion, for the better) without it. Not to say that this is the case for all of them: Chain of Memories directly works alongside Kingdom Hearts II to offer a complete story, and 358 Days is really sort of a stand alone story that can exist on its own. Actually, I had played KH2 without knowing about CoM beforehand, and I had no troubles figuring things out, thanks to the Ansem reports and putting together other little pieces that the game put forward.

I feel that, had the story been structured around one character, Aqua might be the main character if only because she's in a position to observe and piece together what's happening with everyone else. She has the benefit of having a distinct questline (which she fails to accomplish totally, but alas): bring back Ven, tail Terra, and find out what Xehanort is up to, whereas Ven's quest is generally to sort of wander around for a bit, and Terra's role as a pawn is among one of the least satisfying things to play as. Aqua at least is set up to be active and somewhat outside of the grand plan, giving her a chance to disrupt Xehanort's plot and give the player a sense of agency which the others do not.

I want Riku to rock the Stone Cold Steve Austin look. Make bald beautiful again.

"It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have." -Unforgiven "Is it true God answers all prayers?" "Yes. And sometimes, the answer is No." "Well, boys - it would be hard to call what we've been through fun, but I'm sure glad we went through it together." -MASH "To us and our good fortune Be happy, be healthy, long life! And if our good fortune never comes Here's to whatever comes Drink, L'chaim, to life!" "Oh, Lord. You made many, many poor people. I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor. But it's no great honor, either." -Fiddler on the Roof "The best place to start is at the beginning." -Wizard of Oz "There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,'' returned the nephew: ``Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!'' -A Christmas Carol "The fact of the matter is, Colonel, that you cannot judge a race. Any man who judges people by a group is a pea wit. You take men one at a time." "You know what's gonna happen? I'll tell you what's gonna happen. Troops are now forming behind the line of trees. When they come out, they'll be under enemy long-range artillery fire. Solid shot. Percussion. Every gun they have. Troops will come out under fire with more than a mile to walk. And still, within the open field, among the range of aimed muskets. They'll be slowed by that fence out there, and the formation - what's left of it - will begin to come apart. When they cross that road, they'll be under short-range artillery. Canister fire. Thousands of little bits of shrapnel wiping the holes in the lines. If they get to the wall without breaking up, there won't be many left. A mathematical equation... But maybe, just maybe, our own artillery will break up their defenses. There's always that hope. But that's Hancock out there, and he ain't gonna run. So it's mathematical after all. If they get to that road, or beyond it, we'll suffer over fifty percent casualties. But, Harrison, I don't believe my boys will reach that wall." -Gettysburg

That moment when you realize that they aren't entirely dissimilar from their original models...

Please keep the discussion on topic and respectful at all times. Thank you for your cooperation.

Surely the most passive sentence known to man.

I kind of figure certain characters of the worlds, like Santa, Hades, and Triton, probably have enough power and influence to be able to see past the walls of Darkness and can figure out what's happening in the grand scheme of things.

He's gonna hold up that wall like his life counts on it.

I've always felt it represents how the Nobodies are pretending to exist. They have what appears to be a great, expansive city, but it's without substance at all, being little more than a facade as they pretend that they have lives of their own.

Why are they walking outside the car while one of them is still driving the car? It's not like they're out of gas, or parked somewhere with the sole intent of going for a walk.

The population of Japan is pushing somewhere along the lines of 127 Million, and the state with the highest population in America is California, with 38 million.

Now, I could be wrong about this, but for all the talk of each part running the full length of the original FFVII, I simply cannot see how. It didn't take me 40 hours to get Shinra to drop the ceiling, and it didn't take another 40 hours to finally get on that Ferris wheel with Barrett. There's really only two ways that this is getting padded out this long: if the sheer amount of gameplay and sidequests will actually occupy me for that long, or, and this is the more likely option, there's going to be an obscene amount of cutscenes and very little game. And if the fact that they're referencing XIII is any indication, it's going to be the latter.

I won't argue against more Braig time, for the same reasons that I like Larxene time.

Gives her a satisfying story arc with a definite end, which gives us a better story. No wonder Xehanort just keeps getting worse and worse.

Primarily because in a series full of monotone, plodding, and stay-behind-the-curtain-until-the-last-second villains, Larxene actually DID things. She brought energy to the story with overt antagonism and a killer personality. The buttons she pushes to get Sora riled up were executed perfectly, and brought out the best in Sora to get him to a point where he never really went to again. She has the right blend of condescension and sarcasm while also being vulnerable and fallible, which makes her take slights personally and gets her angry, adding more dynamics to the scenes that she's in. Not to mention that her motivations of just being sick of being number 12 out of 13 is believable and holds strong enough to believe that she's willing to overthrow a bunch of stiffs just to make a name for herself. After Maleficent, I personally hold Larxene as the best antagonist in the series.