Jaina (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
effervescible) wrote2010-01-19 02:32 pm
effervescible) wrote2010-01-19 02:32 pm
Entry tags:
In which I babble over video games
Because I'm paranoid, I'll preface this with a spoiler non-warning: No plot details about KH: 358/2 Days follow, but general comment on the game's premise as well as vague discussion of Kingdom Hearts II does. If you've played the prologue of KH II, you're good.
Oh, Kingdom Hearts. How do you do this to me? You're a beautifully artistic, stylish set of games, but it's not like you're insanely deep; you have bizarrely convoluted plots that are done no favors by your attempts to frame babbling about memories and hearts and blahdiblah into a pseudo-scientific context; and, let's face it, your light side/dark side schtick is wading in the shallow end of the symbolism swimming pool.
And yet.
I still found myself getting kind of weepy during my lunch hour yesterday, when I beat Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. (Thank goodness for cubicle walls.) I didn't actually cry, but that's because I'm fairly tear-deficient when it comes to media entertainment; I have to work up to a good cry, and video game endings aren't usually long enough. Anyway. As Days is the tale of Roxas between Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II, and one of the three main characters is a girl who does not appear in KH II, it should surprise no one that it doesn't have a 100% happy ending. Actually, the game as a whole is fairly melancholy. I loved it like candy.
And the thing is, it makes KH II make so much more sense! I was talking to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kawree about it, and she likes the whole out-of-order thing, but I don't so much. I wish I did. But frankly, I don't know why they didn't just release this one before KH II. (That's a lie. I know two reasons for it: 1) They hadn't figured out all the deets of what Roxas actually did during the year and 2) $$$. I will say that they did an impressive job of matching up the context of Days with the flashback cutscenes from KH II.)
See, the first time I tried KH II, I hadn't played Chain of Memories. As you can imagine, it was a total clusterfuck. Who the fuck was this Roxas guy? Yes, by the time I finished the prologue, I understood the Roxas-Sora connection, but I was pretty unmoved. Later on, I played KH II after playing some of CoM and reading all the info on the rest, and it went better—I understood what was going on—but I still didn't really care. See, it's one thing for a character to be confronted by a mysterious past that he doesn't remember. That's an interesting setup. But when we don't know the mysterious past, either?
Sure, I felt a smidgen of sympathy as his world crumbled around him, but it wasn't enough. First impressions count, and the one for Roxas said he was a normal kid with a funky past; it was hard for me to buy that he was all funky past. Clearly he and Axel had had this epic bromance, and it was very sad that Axel's friend didn't remember him at all, but we knew shit-all about it. We were told instead of shown, and I couldn't quite feel it—I could only sort of imagine I did. (If I wanted to get really pretentiously meta, I'd say this was on purpose to parallel the inability of a Nobody to truly feel, and only remember what it was like to feel. But it wasn't and I don't so I won't.)
Now? Shit yes, now I feel for Roxas. I don't actually care that much about Sora now, especially since Roxas got the raw deal here; he was "incomplete" this and "without a heart" that without Sora, but Sora seemed to be doing okay without him, and Roxas is the one who loses his identity. (I, uh. May produce fic to rectify this in my mind.) I actually get what his purpose in the series is, and why I should give a damn about him and his friendships. It's really interesting to me that the fandom took such a shine to Axel and Roxas and their relationship without knowing anything about what it was actually like. What, did they just invent their own stuff to fill in the gaps? (It's fandom. Of course they did.) I started playing KH II again last night, and it is sadder. It reminds me of how I felt watching the original Star Wars trilogy right after finishing the prequels, except Days is good.
This very wordy lj entry aside, I figure I'm screwed when it comes to fic, since I have no desire to read about Axel and Roxas boning each other. If anyone has gen/friendship recs, though, I'd love 'em, along with anything about Riku/and King Mickey. (Now there's another bromance I dig. Riku had a rough year, didn't he? Although he did get to be Badass McHottie von Mysteriousdude, which is not such a bad gig.)
I think my next DS game will be something more realistic, though. Like a courtroom drama about a gay prosecutor. Yeah, that's the stuff.
Oh, Kingdom Hearts. How do you do this to me? You're a beautifully artistic, stylish set of games, but it's not like you're insanely deep; you have bizarrely convoluted plots that are done no favors by your attempts to frame babbling about memories and hearts and blahdiblah into a pseudo-scientific context; and, let's face it, your light side/dark side schtick is wading in the shallow end of the symbolism swimming pool.
And yet.
I still found myself getting kind of weepy during my lunch hour yesterday, when I beat Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. (Thank goodness for cubicle walls.) I didn't actually cry, but that's because I'm fairly tear-deficient when it comes to media entertainment; I have to work up to a good cry, and video game endings aren't usually long enough. Anyway. As Days is the tale of Roxas between Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II, and one of the three main characters is a girl who does not appear in KH II, it should surprise no one that it doesn't have a 100% happy ending. Actually, the game as a whole is fairly melancholy. I loved it like candy.
And the thing is, it makes KH II make so much more sense! I was talking to
kawree about it, and she likes the whole out-of-order thing, but I don't so much. I wish I did. But frankly, I don't know why they didn't just release this one before KH II. (That's a lie. I know two reasons for it: 1) They hadn't figured out all the deets of what Roxas actually did during the year and 2) $$$. I will say that they did an impressive job of matching up the context of Days with the flashback cutscenes from KH II.)See, the first time I tried KH II, I hadn't played Chain of Memories. As you can imagine, it was a total clusterfuck. Who the fuck was this Roxas guy? Yes, by the time I finished the prologue, I understood the Roxas-Sora connection, but I was pretty unmoved. Later on, I played KH II after playing some of CoM and reading all the info on the rest, and it went better—I understood what was going on—but I still didn't really care. See, it's one thing for a character to be confronted by a mysterious past that he doesn't remember. That's an interesting setup. But when we don't know the mysterious past, either?
Sure, I felt a smidgen of sympathy as his world crumbled around him, but it wasn't enough. First impressions count, and the one for Roxas said he was a normal kid with a funky past; it was hard for me to buy that he was all funky past. Clearly he and Axel had had this epic bromance, and it was very sad that Axel's friend didn't remember him at all, but we knew shit-all about it. We were told instead of shown, and I couldn't quite feel it—I could only sort of imagine I did. (If I wanted to get really pretentiously meta, I'd say this was on purpose to parallel the inability of a Nobody to truly feel, and only remember what it was like to feel. But it wasn't and I don't so I won't.)
Now? Shit yes, now I feel for Roxas. I don't actually care that much about Sora now, especially since Roxas got the raw deal here; he was "incomplete" this and "without a heart" that without Sora, but Sora seemed to be doing okay without him, and Roxas is the one who loses his identity. (I, uh. May produce fic to rectify this in my mind.) I actually get what his purpose in the series is, and why I should give a damn about him and his friendships. It's really interesting to me that the fandom took such a shine to Axel and Roxas and their relationship without knowing anything about what it was actually like. What, did they just invent their own stuff to fill in the gaps? (It's fandom. Of course they did.) I started playing KH II again last night, and it is sadder. It reminds me of how I felt watching the original Star Wars trilogy right after finishing the prequels, except Days is good.
This very wordy lj entry aside, I figure I'm screwed when it comes to fic, since I have no desire to read about Axel and Roxas boning each other. If anyone has gen/friendship recs, though, I'd love 'em, along with anything about Riku/and King Mickey. (Now there's another bromance I dig. Riku had a rough year, didn't he? Although he did get to be Badass McHottie von Mysteriousdude, which is not such a bad gig.)
I think my next DS game will be something more realistic, though. Like a courtroom drama about a gay prosecutor. Yeah, that's the stuff.
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I snorted out my laugh without any dignity and kept laughing, even when everyone in my immediate vicinity started staring.
I confess to have jumped on the Axel/Roxas train years ago (forgive me--first year of college, I was seventeen), but I'm thrilled that there's more of a bromantic thing going on (admittedly, bromance/BFF dynamics often become, um, proper ships for me, because it's a dynamic I really love, but always want to do right by the bromance bit first), so I'm kind of looking forward to playing this eventually.
Like, when I have time and a life again.
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Nothing against Axel/Roxas shippers, but I just don't see it. I mean, I get why they do—the relationship is clearly portrayed as hugely important, and you know what that means for subtext—but actually imagining it kinda squicks me, since Axel appears to be in his mid-late 20s and Roxas looks and acts like a naive 15-year-old. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony of me saying this, considering my primary Bleach ship.)
I'd love to hear your thoughts on it whenever you do get to it. I was sad to see it end.
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I'm not really into the fandom anymore, and I guess I don't see much of it now, short of the actual bromance bit. But given what you see in KH II (and filter that through the mind of a 17-year-old slash fan, and every other one in the vicinity, because KH fandom is terrifying and full of teens), there's not many conclusions to come to, other than being really confused.
:) I'll definitely give it a shot (possibly spring break!) and let you know what I think. I'm sure I'll meta it out a bit with
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Yeah, even though I'm sure the fangirls would've slashed them anyway (because EVERYONE gets slashed), looking at just those flashbacks does make Roxas seem more badass than he really is. I mean, he is badass in that "no one would miss me" scene, and in his faceoff with Riku, but he's pretty adorably derp the rest of the time. In a way, though, I wish I'd been around fandom then—as much as I think KH II is far better with Days around, it must have been interesting to see what people filled in for Roxas and Axel.
Yay, meta! I ♥ meta.
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The Chaos Rules
I don't really read fic unless my friends write it so I don't really have any recs for other people that don't involve boning. >___>
PS: Forgot to mention, I wrote it pre-Days and haven't played it so it's really not compliant with that at all. I was working off a fan-theory where Axel was some kind of fire demon/fae in his past life. >_>
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...not sure if that's a good thing or not.
If you have a DS or can get access to one, I heartily encourage you to try Days. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Um. Obviously.
Oh, I did finally remember to add you to my aim buddy list, so feel free to ping me at JainaX next time you're on and feeling chatty.
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I'm on Windows Live Messenger, so I need the full handle in order to add you.
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My gmail address is eia.the.empath@gmail.com, is that easier?
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The thing is, I never finished KH1. I stopped at the battle with Dragon Maleficent and that was it. (I did the same thing for FFX.) I thought all this was confusing because I just hadn't seen the ending! It's good to know it's not totally my fault.
I sorta figured that Sokka's mind or half of his heart/soul was trapped in the Matrix, which the black robe guys were manipulating, and Namine was like the Oracle to his Neo, and when he reached the fullfillment of his program or his development he merged with Sora and Sora woke up, whole again. Still no explanation for why Goofy and Donald were frozen though. Did they have fake versions of themselves running around their own Matrix?
Anyway, I figure I'll just buy Chain of Memories after I nearly-beat KH2. I am still on a PS2...so they're getting almost out of circuit.
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--without going into spoilers or overlong explanations, I'll just say that the trio willingly went to sleep but lost their memories of why.
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we're totally gameplay twins!
I got some impression from that, but mostly it made me think I hadn't been as far along in the game as I assumed.
I was really confused, but mostly about Ansem. I don't even remember the name Ansem, like, who was he in the game? Except it sounds like the villain of FFX. But in his journal notes it says he befriended King Mickey...and how did that happen if he's evil?
I'm into the Beast's Castle now. I fought the door guardians and I died...and Mickey arrived to save me. This made me ridiculously excited. I was like, "OMG, Mickey, don't let him kill me!"
Now I'm running around with the Beast on my team, and he is...a ridiculous fighting machine. He just runs at everything and wails on 'em. Very useful.
The only thing that bugs me in this version is that it seems like there's more video scenes, and longer ones. I get bored.
Re: we're totally gameplay twins!
Anyway, it's actually sort of okay, because re: Ansem, KH2 plays the "everything you know is wrong!" game.
I love Mickey. If you ever play Chain of Memories, he's actually an important supporting character in Riku's story mode.
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