Timed Run: Kingdom Hearts 03:51
Jul. 19th, 2009 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mcityWakka, aside from being named by Fozzie bear, mentions that he was exploring a cave with Tidus. His last name may be Schrodinger, since the cave literally didn't exist until he pointed it out. Sora wastes no time in running into the dark cave. The "coma dream" theory gains support by the second.
Inside the cave, Our Hero finds a mysterious door, and a drawing of himself and Riku. He flahes back to the time l'il Kairi and l'il himself drew the respective pictures, and adds himself feeding a papau to Ri--wait, my director has informed me that young Sora was drawing Kairi. The white hair is just a result of Sora drawing with limestone. He is actually expressing his feelings for the girl.
Back to King Mickey's castle, and the guys are reading a note from Mickey. He tells them to head out to "Traverse Town"(because "hub world" wasn't as marketable), look for "Leon", and find a "key". Since his world was destroyed, Jiminy Cricket joins as a chronicler of their adventures. As they head down to the launch platform for their Gummi Ship, Donald reminds Goofy that they can't tell people who don't know already about the existence of other worlds, and will have to dress appropriately.
Goofy: The Prime Directive, Donald? I gotcha.
Donald: No, we're "protecting the world borders".
Goofy: How is that any different?
Donald: Paramount can't sue us.
The two launch the ship.
Sora wakes up his bedroom, noting that there's a storm outside. Not only is the room larger than any other on the island, but he's lying in bed in his large, clownlike shoes. While thinking about Kairi, he notices a storm a-comin', and by the time his mother calls him down to dinner, he's already left to protect the raft.
Sora's house is never seen from the outside, and neither is his mother. The physical relation to the rest of the Destiny Islands is never explained. You can't get there from the gameplay portion, and there's nowhere unexplored large enough to fit a whole house. Whatever you do, don't think about it, or you start wondering where their clothes come from, and where they get their hair gel and what they eat and then you can't take the game seriously.
Oh, wait.
Upon resuming gameplay, Heartless, those black things, start coming out of the sandwork. One thing no one ever mentions is the fact that the low-level Heartless can become two-dimensional and slide around on the textures. As if dozens of creatures you can't fight appearing on your home island with a storm rollin' in weren't creepy enough.
After running all over, I finally realize Riku is on his Brooding Island, the one where we fought earlier. I failed to mention Sora's hilarious climbing animation. He climbs ladders like an old man, mainly because of his large, clownlike shoes. The entrance to the cave has become an elaborate silver door I can't get through, and when I reach Riku, he stares at the weird anomaly in the sky and starts talking nonsense about how "the door has opened" and "now can go to the outside world." Sora is confused, Riku stretches his hand toward him, and then they're both eaten by darkness.
THE END.
Seriously, the darkness vanishes and Sora has a Keyblade. Now he can actually fight Heartless. He makes his way to the cave, finds Kairi in front of the door. She says "Sora..." in a manner exactly like she's been drugged, and then raises her hand toward Sora before the door opens and a black wind blows her toward him. She vanishes, and our Hero is blown down the corridor and straight into a boss fight. He lands on a flying island-thing that's basically a fragmented version of the beach portion of the islands, with nothing on it but grass, wood, and a giant black figure from the tutorial level I didn't mention earlier.
Sora: Mommy, not the tentacles again!
After smacking the big monster around a bit, something happens and I end up in Traverse Town. I checked Jiminy's log later, and it actually says "something happened". Even the game is going "what is this I don't even".
Donald and Goofy, having changed their clothes, gained lots of pointless straps and buckles, and unfortunately, lost their sweet hats, look up in the sky of Traverse Town.
Goofy;: A star in the sky is going out.
Donald; All the lights in the heavens are our enemies.
Goofy; What?
Donald; Nothing.*
Sora arrives. Some NPC conversations, and I find Cid's shop and the save point.
Cid: Welcome to my shop. I'm Cid.
Sora: What's your last name?
Cid: Highwind.
Sora: Do you have a ship?
Cid: In this continuity? No.
Sora: My friend wanted to name a ship after you.
Cid: About yea high, platinum hair, green eyes, well developed in the upper torso?
Sora: Yep.
Cid: Never heard of 'im.
Sora: But you just-
Cid: Never. Heard. Of Him.
Sora: Oooo-kayyy...
Cid: Good luck finding your friends.
Sora I never said I was looking for my friends.
Cid: ...Do you want to buy anything?
Sora: Heck no.
After running all over the curiously unoccupied Traverse Town smacking Heartless trying to find Leon, I dragged my large-shod carcass back to Cid's shop and saved. While I was out, I saw a Heartless eat a man's heart. I would like to remind everyone this is a kids' game. Then I left again.
Leon: 'Sup.
Sora: FRRGGGTHHPPN!1
Leon: Let's fight.
Sora: Wait, do you know anyone named "Selphie"? 'Cause she lives on my home island, and I'm fairly certain she was in your game--
Leon: Mysterious prettyboy, remember? Besides, I'm just here as fanservice.
Sora: Cloud's showing up later, isn't he?
Leon: ...I've said too much.
Announcer: Round one; FIGHT!
After a brief moment of indecision prompted by whether to reference Buffy or Bones, I leaped into the fray, and got smacked down. This is getting to be a habit. I'd like to point out that Nomura gave Squall more straps and buckles as Leon. I'm fairly certain Lulu still takes the prize, though.
Announcer: HUMILIATION!
"Mighty Ninja" Yuffie pops up and helps expositorize. From the Let's Play of Dirge of Cerberus I read and my copy of Advent Children, showing up, doing pretty much nothing, and talking about how awesome she is seems entirely consistent with her character.
Leon and Yuffie drag Sora back to their room, and expositorize. Meanwhile, next door, Aeris (who Sephiroth killed) is doing the exact same thing with Donald and Goofy, after finding them in an alleyway. No, the name of that portion of town is actually "Alleyway". After the cutscene ends, I have Sora talk to Yuffie, who encourages our hero to try his Keyblade in any lock he can find. To help the reader understand the hilarity of this, I've prepared a visual aid, representing where I happened to have Sora at this point.
The spiky-haired blob on the right is a teenage boy in large, clownlike shoes. The one on the left is a lithe, attractive, scantily clad teenage girl lounging on a bed suggesting he try his key in as many locks as possible. This is a kids' game.
After namedropping the "Ansem Reports", a Heartless appears. Sora and Leon chase it out of the room while Yuffie leaves in the other direction-straight through Aeris' room. She manages to smash Donald behind the swinging door in classic Disney fashion before Aeris gives chase. I really have to give David Boreanaz as Leon credit here; he could've phoned it in, but he didn't.
Sora finds himself in the Second District of Traverse. He can go back to the first, but Leon is there and informs us that he'll be guarding the District. Sure, Booth, leave me to do all the work. Take more than a few steps into the District, and Craig T. Nelson appears. No, wait, I mean a cutscene starts.
Donald and Goofy try to take on a few of the knight Heartless, and get knocked into the second district square, where Sora is. Again, they're the funniest things about this game. They notice Sora has the "key", and help him fight the knight Heartless. Then a much bigger knight Heartless pops up. I die a few times, and notice a trend; Donald's absolutely useless.
There's a bit at the start of the game where the player is asked to choose from three items; a sword, a shield, and a mage's staff. I chose the Shield, and gave up the Staff, figuring that I would end up with higher defense and weaker magic. I had no idea it would make Donald a gold brick. He goes down easily in most fights, which means that he can't even level up effectively. There's also a series of three questions from Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie shortly thereafter, which allegedly determines the levelling speed. There was already a perfectly serviceable difficulty selector at the start of the game, but Square apparently thought that wasn't cheap and arbitrary enough.
After defeating the really big Knight Heartless, I get Fire and a dodge Ability. An Ability is a special move or attack, and which you can do is determined by how many AP you have. I have one. Donald and Goofy invite Sora onto their Gummi Ship, informing him it's powered by smiles. May I just note the irony of Donald Duck telling someone to be cheerful? Come to think of it, I suspect there's no Scrooge McDuck in this continuity, because he would have the entire plot resolved by the time Sora finished the training level, and then gone for a swim in his money bin for some real exercise.
There's a scene with various Disney villains, in shadow, watching our heroes through a not-crystal ball and plotting. Ursula is present, don't ask me how, but Maleficent is the only one visible. The first world is not Sleeping Beauty's. I go back to the shop and save.
Cid: What're you buyin'?
Sora: That's not even from this genre.
After this, I leave town with two complete strangers. I choose Wonderland, and then go into a space shooting sequence. No, really. This is one of the most-maligned portions of the game, according to TVTropes, and was apparently improved for the sequel. I find it only mildly pointless, with somewhat oversensitive controls. Oh, look, Wonderland.
Upon falling down the rabbit hole, Team Sora ends up in the White Rabbit's hall. Save point. The next room is his Parlour. There's a puzzle involving the requisite DRINK ME and a couch, and we're introduced to the new mage Heartless before making our way into the Queen of Hearts' garden. Alice is on trial for attempted removal of the Queen's heart. The golden trio speak on her behalf, but are unable to identify the Heartless by name because of the Prime Directive. The Queen seems entirely content to trust three strangers who she's never seen in her life to back up their claims of the innocence of a girl whom she has only slightly more acquaintance with. Well, not "trust", exactly, since she demands proof. I head to the garden next door.
What follows is a clever bit of spoonfeeding involving size-changing and Heartless. At one point, a mushroom Heartless appears, and I attacked it. After a certain amount of damage, it teleports somewhere within your line of sight, and you attack it again. Once it vanishes for good, you realize that you're standing next to a doorway. Clever. Somewhere in the section, I realized that you have to actually equip Abilities. They have yet to come in handy.
End result; Donald continues to be useles, I found the evidence, but Alice was kidnapped. The Queen tells me to get her back so the trial can continue. First I'm Alice's defender, now I'm her bail bondsman. Who does the Queen think I am, Jack Bauer?
*Original joke involved Doctor Who, but it would've been a spoiler. So I changed it to a portion of Gurren Lagann I've never seen before.
Inside the cave, Our Hero finds a mysterious door, and a drawing of himself and Riku. He flahes back to the time l'il Kairi and l'il himself drew the respective pictures, and adds himself feeding a papau to Ri--wait, my director has informed me that young Sora was drawing Kairi. The white hair is just a result of Sora drawing with limestone. He is actually expressing his feelings for the girl.
Back to King Mickey's castle, and the guys are reading a note from Mickey. He tells them to head out to "Traverse Town"(because "hub world" wasn't as marketable), look for "Leon", and find a "key". Since his world was destroyed, Jiminy Cricket joins as a chronicler of their adventures. As they head down to the launch platform for their Gummi Ship, Donald reminds Goofy that they can't tell people who don't know already about the existence of other worlds, and will have to dress appropriately.
Goofy: The Prime Directive, Donald? I gotcha.
Donald: No, we're "protecting the world borders".
Goofy: How is that any different?
Donald: Paramount can't sue us.
The two launch the ship.
Sora wakes up his bedroom, noting that there's a storm outside. Not only is the room larger than any other on the island, but he's lying in bed in his large, clownlike shoes. While thinking about Kairi, he notices a storm a-comin', and by the time his mother calls him down to dinner, he's already left to protect the raft.
Sora's house is never seen from the outside, and neither is his mother. The physical relation to the rest of the Destiny Islands is never explained. You can't get there from the gameplay portion, and there's nowhere unexplored large enough to fit a whole house. Whatever you do, don't think about it, or you start wondering where their clothes come from, and where they get their hair gel and what they eat and then you can't take the game seriously.
Oh, wait.
Upon resuming gameplay, Heartless, those black things, start coming out of the sandwork. One thing no one ever mentions is the fact that the low-level Heartless can become two-dimensional and slide around on the textures. As if dozens of creatures you can't fight appearing on your home island with a storm rollin' in weren't creepy enough.
After running all over, I finally realize Riku is on his Brooding Island, the one where we fought earlier. I failed to mention Sora's hilarious climbing animation. He climbs ladders like an old man, mainly because of his large, clownlike shoes. The entrance to the cave has become an elaborate silver door I can't get through, and when I reach Riku, he stares at the weird anomaly in the sky and starts talking nonsense about how "the door has opened" and "now
THE END.
Seriously, the darkness vanishes and Sora has a Keyblade. Now he can actually fight Heartless. He makes his way to the cave, finds Kairi in front of the door. She says "Sora..." in a manner exactly like she's been drugged, and then raises her hand toward Sora before the door opens and a black wind blows her toward him. She vanishes, and our Hero is blown down the corridor and straight into a boss fight. He lands on a flying island-thing that's basically a fragmented version of the beach portion of the islands, with nothing on it but grass, wood, and a giant black figure from the tutorial level I didn't mention earlier.
Sora: Mommy, not the tentacles again!
After smacking the big monster around a bit, something happens and I end up in Traverse Town. I checked Jiminy's log later, and it actually says "something happened". Even the game is going "what is this I don't even".
Donald and Goofy, having changed their clothes, gained lots of pointless straps and buckles, and unfortunately, lost their sweet hats, look up in the sky of Traverse Town.
Goofy;: A star in the sky is going out.
Donald; All the lights in the heavens are our enemies.
Goofy; What?
Donald; Nothing.*
Sora arrives. Some NPC conversations, and I find Cid's shop and the save point.
Cid: Welcome to my shop. I'm Cid.
Sora: What's your last name?
Cid: Highwind.
Sora: Do you have a ship?
Cid: In this continuity? No.
Sora: My friend wanted to name a ship after you.
Cid: About yea high, platinum hair, green eyes, well developed in the upper torso?
Sora: Yep.
Cid: Never heard of 'im.
Sora: But you just-
Cid: Never. Heard. Of Him.
Sora: Oooo-kayyy...
Cid: Good luck finding your friends.
Sora I never said I was looking for my friends.
Cid: ...Do you want to buy anything?
Sora: Heck no.
After running all over the curiously unoccupied Traverse Town smacking Heartless trying to find Leon, I dragged my large-shod carcass back to Cid's shop and saved. While I was out, I saw a Heartless eat a man's heart. I would like to remind everyone this is a kids' game. Then I left again.
Leon: 'Sup.
Sora: FRRGGGTHHPPN!1
Leon: Let's fight.
Sora: Wait, do you know anyone named "Selphie"? 'Cause she lives on my home island, and I'm fairly certain she was in your game--
Leon: Mysterious prettyboy, remember? Besides, I'm just here as fanservice.
Sora: Cloud's showing up later, isn't he?
Leon: ...I've said too much.
Announcer: Round one; FIGHT!
After a brief moment of indecision prompted by whether to reference Buffy or Bones, I leaped into the fray, and got smacked down. This is getting to be a habit. I'd like to point out that Nomura gave Squall more straps and buckles as Leon. I'm fairly certain Lulu still takes the prize, though.
Announcer: HUMILIATION!
"Mighty Ninja" Yuffie pops up and helps expositorize. From the Let's Play of Dirge of Cerberus I read and my copy of Advent Children, showing up, doing pretty much nothing, and talking about how awesome she is seems entirely consistent with her character.
Leon and Yuffie drag Sora back to their room, and expositorize. Meanwhile, next door, Aeris (who Sephiroth killed) is doing the exact same thing with Donald and Goofy, after finding them in an alleyway. No, the name of that portion of town is actually "Alleyway". After the cutscene ends, I have Sora talk to Yuffie, who encourages our hero to try his Keyblade in any lock he can find. To help the reader understand the hilarity of this, I've prepared a visual aid, representing where I happened to have Sora at this point.
The spiky-haired blob on the right is a teenage boy in large, clownlike shoes. The one on the left is a lithe, attractive, scantily clad teenage girl lounging on a bed suggesting he try his key in as many locks as possible. This is a kids' game.
After namedropping the "Ansem Reports", a Heartless appears. Sora and Leon chase it out of the room while Yuffie leaves in the other direction-straight through Aeris' room. She manages to smash Donald behind the swinging door in classic Disney fashion before Aeris gives chase. I really have to give David Boreanaz as Leon credit here; he could've phoned it in, but he didn't.
Sora finds himself in the Second District of Traverse. He can go back to the first, but Leon is there and informs us that he'll be guarding the District. Sure, Booth, leave me to do all the work. Take more than a few steps into the District, and Craig T. Nelson appears. No, wait, I mean a cutscene starts.
Donald and Goofy try to take on a few of the knight Heartless, and get knocked into the second district square, where Sora is. Again, they're the funniest things about this game. They notice Sora has the "key", and help him fight the knight Heartless. Then a much bigger knight Heartless pops up. I die a few times, and notice a trend; Donald's absolutely useless.
There's a bit at the start of the game where the player is asked to choose from three items; a sword, a shield, and a mage's staff. I chose the Shield, and gave up the Staff, figuring that I would end up with higher defense and weaker magic. I had no idea it would make Donald a gold brick. He goes down easily in most fights, which means that he can't even level up effectively. There's also a series of three questions from Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie shortly thereafter, which allegedly determines the levelling speed. There was already a perfectly serviceable difficulty selector at the start of the game, but Square apparently thought that wasn't cheap and arbitrary enough.
After defeating the really big Knight Heartless, I get Fire and a dodge Ability. An Ability is a special move or attack, and which you can do is determined by how many AP you have. I have one. Donald and Goofy invite Sora onto their Gummi Ship, informing him it's powered by smiles. May I just note the irony of Donald Duck telling someone to be cheerful? Come to think of it, I suspect there's no Scrooge McDuck in this continuity, because he would have the entire plot resolved by the time Sora finished the training level, and then gone for a swim in his money bin for some real exercise.
There's a scene with various Disney villains, in shadow, watching our heroes through a not-crystal ball and plotting. Ursula is present, don't ask me how, but Maleficent is the only one visible. The first world is not Sleeping Beauty's. I go back to the shop and save.
Cid: What're you buyin'?
Sora: That's not even from this genre.
After this, I leave town with two complete strangers. I choose Wonderland, and then go into a space shooting sequence. No, really. This is one of the most-maligned portions of the game, according to TVTropes, and was apparently improved for the sequel. I find it only mildly pointless, with somewhat oversensitive controls. Oh, look, Wonderland.
Upon falling down the rabbit hole, Team Sora ends up in the White Rabbit's hall. Save point. The next room is his Parlour. There's a puzzle involving the requisite DRINK ME and a couch, and we're introduced to the new mage Heartless before making our way into the Queen of Hearts' garden. Alice is on trial for attempted removal of the Queen's heart. The golden trio speak on her behalf, but are unable to identify the Heartless by name because of the Prime Directive. The Queen seems entirely content to trust three strangers who she's never seen in her life to back up their claims of the innocence of a girl whom she has only slightly more acquaintance with. Well, not "trust", exactly, since she demands proof. I head to the garden next door.
What follows is a clever bit of spoonfeeding involving size-changing and Heartless. At one point, a mushroom Heartless appears, and I attacked it. After a certain amount of damage, it teleports somewhere within your line of sight, and you attack it again. Once it vanishes for good, you realize that you're standing next to a doorway. Clever. Somewhere in the section, I realized that you have to actually equip Abilities. They have yet to come in handy.
End result; Donald continues to be useles, I found the evidence, but Alice was kidnapped. The Queen tells me to get her back so the trial can continue. First I'm Alice's defender, now I'm her bail bondsman. Who does the Queen think I am, Jack Bauer?
*Original joke involved Doctor Who, but it would've been a spoiler. So I changed it to a portion of Gurren Lagann I've never seen before.
