Current Events > Riku was an ass in KH 1 but I feel they overcorrected in KH 2 going forward

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah he was a big jerk in kh 1 but as early as kh 2 he's just overly helpful and protective of sora and feels like they just made yaoiu fanbait

KH1 was literally always about Riku being mad his boyfriend got a girlfriend.

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Riku was only "into" Kairi in KH1 to the extent that she was a prize for him to lord over Sora. "See! You're not the hero, I am! I saved her before you, so hah!" and all that.

But nah, if you played CoM, then his development in KH2 made perfect sense. Maybe he might have seemed off if you skipped straight from 1 to 2, but even then it makes sense for a guy who was acting like a douche to his friends to want to make up for that while also beating himself up over what he did.

BLAKUboy posted...

KH1 was literally always about Riku being mad his boyfriend got a girlfriend.

More like him being mad his boyfriend got two other [furry] boyfriends and stole his dream job.

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Something something darkness

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Long hair Riku [kh2] >>>

Remember when Riku permanently transformed his body into Heartless Ansem-who-isn't-Ansem for the darkness gains but then Ansem used a vacuum cleaner on Kingdom Hearts and it was going to explode and if it exploded then "anything could happen" and it turns out the anything was Riku's body turning from Heartless Ansem back into regular Riku for some reason.

That was weird.

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Kuuko posted...

Remember when Riku permanently transformed his body into Heartless Ansem-who-isn't-Ansem for the darkness gains but then Ansem used a vacuum cleaner on Kingdom Hearts and it was going to explode and if it exploded then "anything could happen" and it turns out the anything was Riku's body turning from Heartless Ansem back into regular Riku for some reason.

That was weird.

His eyes couldn't lie.
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Kuuko posted...

Remember when Riku permanently transformed his body into Heartless Ansem-who-isn't-Ansem for the darkness gains but then Ansem used a vacuum cleaner on Kingdom Hearts and it was going to explode and if it exploded then "anything could happen" and it turns out the anything was Riku's body turning from Heartless Ansem back into regular Riku for some reason.

That was weird.

Yeah, I do remember Riku taking on the form of the fake Ansem and using his name in front of the real Ansem who was currently pretending not to be Ansem, a short while after they met in Castle Oblivion when the real Ansem also took on the form of the fake Ansem.

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slmcknett posted...

More like him being mad his boyfriend got two other [furry] boyfriends and stole his dream job.

Well, yeah, but that wasnt his initial motivation. And it ultimately came back to Sora being so obsessed with Kairi that he ignored Riku the whole game anyway.

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i mean they started as friends and their conflict was mostly caused by Riku being a dumbfuck who thought the 8 foot tall green devil lady was worth listening to.

I hated every bit of his time as a rival/villain in 1 lol.

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In fairness, Maleficent can be hella charming when she wants to be. Shes only feared in her world because of her reputation, which Riku (and Terra) wouldnt know anything about.

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BLAKUboy posted...

In fairness, Maleficent can be hella charming when she wants to be. Shes only feared in her world because of her reputation, which Riku (and Terra) wouldnt know anything about.

Her name is literally Maleficent.

The only way the stranger danger couldve been any more obvious was if her name was Satan McEvilman >_>

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slmcknett posted...

Riku was only "into" Kairi in KH1 to the extent that she was a prize for him to lord over Sora. "See! You're not the hero, I am! I saved her before you, so hah!" and all that.

That is how most men being into someone works, more or less.

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He was basically sexually harassed by the darkness in CoM, makes sense that he'd want to get as far away as possible from that shit. >_>
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AlisLandale posted...

i mean they started as friends and their conflict was mostly caused by Riku being a dumbfuck who thought the 8 foot tall green devil lady was worth listening to.

I hated every bit of his time as a rival/villain in 1 lol.

Tbf, he said to her face that he didn't trust her. She was just the only way he could rescue Kairi.

But yeah, it does hinge on you having to accept that Riku was just *that* jealous of his best friend he's known since childhood. It doesn't really work until you get more context in KH2 and BbS, and even then he comes off looking bad.

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Always hated Riku in the first game tbh.

Could have saved himself a whole lot of hassle if he had waited five seconds for Sora to convince Donald to let Riku join.

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slmcknett posted...

Yeah, I do remember Riku taking on the form of the fake Ansem and using his name in front of the real Ansem who was currently pretending not to be Ansem, a short while after they met in Castle Oblivion when the real Ansem also took on the form of the fake Ansem.

So if I understand this right, Ansem is pretending to be Ansem pretending to be Ansem.

And then you have Riku who was, in turn, pretending to be Ansem pretending to be Ansem while he worked for Ansem who was pretending to be Ansem pretending to be Ansem.

What's sad is that that is only from KH2. The real nonsense hasn't even happened yet.

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I checked out after bbs myself

rexcrk posted...

Always hated Riku in the first game tbh.

Could have saved himself a whole lot of hassle if he had waited five seconds for Sora to convince Donald to let Riku join.

And face that kinda humiliation of being a tag-along 4th wheel when he was previously the coolest kid on the island? Riku does a lot of things that don't make sense but not this one

KH2 Riku could never lead me into everlasting darkness and force me to watch that cutscene over and over.

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"Kairi...Kairi's inside me?"

"I know all that there is to know!"

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KH1 was also the last time Riku had a personality.

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Did someone mention the door to darkness?

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He was only mean because his heart was being corrupted by Ansem SoD and his darkness. It makes sense hed return to normal as Ansem became less and less of a presence and he learned to control the darkness instead of being consumed by it.

I will agree that he became way too boring as time went on. A real personality probably shouldve replaced his dickishness instead of... yknow... nothing replacing it. KH doesnt have very good characters in general though (outside of Roxas quartet).

You know at one point I wanted to read through all of KH story (only played KH1) but after reading all this "it was Ansem! Wait no it wasn't! Actually it was but not in the way you think" nonsense I'm remembering why I didn't

Entire kingdom hearts game storyline is garbsge

its a game that desperately needs a complete reboot with a better writing team

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Kami_no_Kami posted...

KH doesnt have very good characters in general though (outside of Roxas quartet).

I'd say it has good characters that the writers just don't ever feel like doing anything with. Even Roxas gets super boring after a point where his return in KH3 barely did anything for me.

Oreos74 posted...

its a game that desperately needs a complete reboot with a better writing team

Yeah, was hoping for that with KH3 -- a soft reboot that allows the next arc to start fresh. Oh well.

Though, I suppose it's not too late for them to let someone else take a crack at the writing -- the lady who writes the novels, as an example, does a much better job at tying together plot points and making things feel organic than Nomura does, sadly. So they should probably look at getting other [better] writers to tackle Nomura's ideas.

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Ruvan22 posted...

You know at one point I wanted to read through all of KH story (only played KH1) but after reading all this "it was Ansem! Wait no it wasn't! Actually it was but not in the way you think" nonsense I'm remembering why I didn't

It's somehow both more complicated and less complicated than it all sounds. On paper it's so convoluted it resembles an MC Escher painting. But the characters are always all acting like it makes perfect sense. And the large part of almost every game is just Disney movie plots. So when you're playing the ridiculousness isn't all that distracting.

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People try to make Kingdom Hearts seem more complicated than it is tbh

The man named Ansem is actually the heartless of a man named Xehanort. He took his master's name. So CoMpLiCaTeD

I played KH2 when I was 13 and followed it fine.

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Most of the overcomplications enter into the franchise after KH2, though I wouldn't say either it or CoM are free of it either.

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Rharyx211 posted...

I'd say it has good characters that the writers just don't ever feel like doing anything with. Even Roxas gets super boring after a point where his return in KH3 barely did anything for me.

I mean characters who you can identify with and feel for. There are plenty of cool shounen-esque characters but theyre mostly just generic archetypes that are there to shout exposition and generic dialog in a cool way, pose, fight... and thats it.

I felt very little about Roxas coming back as well, but thats mostly just an issue with KH3s story in general. Roxas, Terras, Namines and especially Xions returns were so slapdash Id be embarassed to be on any kind of writing team associated with them. Even Aquas and Vens were kinda shit. The biggest issue with KH3, in my opinion, was in how it handled its characters, both hero and villain.

Noumas posted...

And face that kinda humiliation of being a tag-along 4th wheel when he was previously the coolest kid on the island? Riku does a lot of things that don't make sense but not this one

Never said it didnt make sense

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Kami_no_Kami posted...

The biggest issue with KH3, in my opinion, was in how it handled its characters, both hero and villain.

Real talk. It's an issue that KH2 had as well, but only with almost three times as big of a cast so it's way more noticable.

They basically skimmed over everything that made the characters engaging or interesting and gave them really surface level reunions (for the good guys) and send offs (for the bad guys) that felt either unearned or out of left field. Even after being invested with the series for over a decade I couldn't bring myself to care about anything I was watching.

As for characters you can identify with, there's a few, but yeah most of them are just anime tropes, or became anime tropes by the end.

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DeadBankerDream posted...

Most of the overcomplications enter into the franchise after KH2, though I wouldn't say either it or CoM are free of it either.

CoM/KH2 are kind of like the android/cell saga in that the writer was making it up as he goes along but it actually worked.

Post kh 2 is basically the buu saga where the writer was pulling stuff out of left field even worse and overwriting already established stuff and it really, really didn't work.

Rharyx211 posted...

Real talk. It's an issue that KH2 had as well, but only with almost three times as big of a cast so it's way more noticable.

They basically skimmed over everything that made the characters engaging or interesting and gave them really surface level reunions (for the good guys) and send offs (for the bad guys) that felt either unearned or out of left field. Even after being invested with the series for over a decade I couldn't bring myself to care about anything I was watching.

As for characters you can identify with, there's a few, but yeah most of them are just anime tropes, or became anime tropes by the end.

It's like, why even bother bringing people back if they weren't gonna do them justice?

It should also be mentioned that Xion is a garbage filler character who should not exist

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pegusus123456 posted...

It should also be mentioned that Xion is a garbage filler character who should not exist

This is what I'm talking about. I wasn't even a fan of bringing back dead characters but this... this is ridiculous. Shes a nothing character.

This is basically what happened in kh2

Ruvan22 posted...

You know at one point I wanted to read through all of KH story (only played KH1) but after reading all this "it was Ansem! Wait no it wasn't! Actually it was but not in the way you think" nonsense I'm remembering why I didn't

Yep. I also have only played 1. But I did watch a let's play of 2. And just from that, I understand the series got really weird

Zikten posted...

Yep. I also have only played 1. But I did watch a let's play of 2. And just from that, I understand the series got really weird

If you thought the series "got really weird" as early as kh2 then hew boy... have I got noose for you

I'm not one to do the whole shipping or make a character gay just for the sake of it or anything...

Buuuuuuut the relationship between Sora and Riku is a million times better than Sora and Kairi. Riku has a character and does things for starters. But yeah, Sora just seems so damn supportive and emotional about Riku in 2 and Dream Drop Distance.

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You shouldnt play KH for the story. Only the gameplay

KH1 was good at the time but dated now.
CoM is eh. Its not for most people but it has its appeal to some
KH2 is absolutely fantastic and still one of the best games of all time
BBS is eh. The combat sucks until you get some decent skills
DDD would be better if the enemies werent damage sponges
forgot the name but the KH3 demo with Aqua in the shadow realm was fantastic
KH3 is the second best in the series. Not as good as KH2. The reason it gets so much hate is the story is a literal 0/10 after so much buildup.

as for story, all of them are atrocious including KH1.
KH2 was dumb but at least it had Rule of Cool going for it with Organisation 13

Kloe_Rinz posted...

CoM is eh. Its not for most people but it has its appeal to some

God, I hated CoM. I fucking hated that last boss where it does that attack that scatters your cards across the area.

Kloe_Rinz posted...

BBS is eh. The combat sucks until you get some decent skills

The combat sucks period. Vanitas is probably the worst boss I've ever played.

Kloe_Rinz posted...

as for story, all of them are atrocious including KH1.

KH1 isn't bad tbh. It's a little cheesy and it's obviously for kids, but the cheesiness was amped way the fuck up after two.

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He didn't really seem like an ass to me.

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Kisai posted...

He didn't really seem like an ass to me.

He instantly turned on his best friend because he saw he had made other friends. Then he teamed up with Maleficent and tried to steal Sora's power so he could be the hero instead.

Kloe_Rinz posted...

You shouldnt play KH for the story. Only the gameplay

If you played only for gameplay, you'd only get through like maybe 4 of the games lol

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Rharyx211 posted...

He instantly turned on his best friend because he saw he had made other friends. Then he teamed up with Maleficent and tried to steal Sora's power so he could be the hero instead.

If you played only for gameplay, you'd only get through like maybe 4 of the games lol

And its hilarious when you consider that he was happy to have Donald and goofy join him when he thought he was the true keyblade wielder

Riku was jealous of Sora in KH1. He was also just a kid. He wanted to be the best, he wanted Kairi as the prize, and then he wanted to be the hero. He lost all of that to the kid who could never beat him back home, and he felt he didnt deserve it.

Then Maleficent comes along and basically manipulates him, telling him that Sora hates him now. He basically had a midlife crisis at age 10.

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