Release the Fury Darksiders 3

There was some doubt that this game would never come out, seeing as how THQ went under and the game was stuck in limbo for a long time. I should be glad that it did, and that it expanded upon the amazing lore set by the first two games, and in a way, I am glad. But the game-play of this game GOD the game-play of this game......
Around the time the first game came out difficulty in games was inspired by two games specifically "Devil May Cry" as well as "Ninja Gaiden" which were, at the time considered to be tough as nails. Darksiders one mimicked the more DMC difficulty, all be it a bit less so. Darksiders two did the same with NG. Neither of the games were quite as hard as the ones they were inspired by. Frankly, I actually like that they aren't as difficult.
But times change, and inspiration comes from different sources. Enter Darksidersouls. Since the time THQ went under and the game was stuck in limbo a new kind of difficulty emerged in the form of Darksouls. It was a game where every encounter could potentially be your last. I never played the game because I didn't like that idea, like having enemies jump out at you out of no where for an insta-death. No thank you. Had enough of those playing NG2 on Master Ninja mode and those enemies weren't in hiding. And yet, that became the inspiration for Darksiders 3. I can't say I'm in any way surprised, but I do wish they'd gone a different route.

We'll get to game play in a bit though, for now, lets talk about Fury, the third horseman. Her goal is to find and kill the seven deadly sins. That's basically her journey. You can do it in any way that you want (almost) but there really isn't much to it. Unlike the other horsemen, though, the journey she takes is much about herself as well. In the beginning she is hot headed and brash, but by the end she is visibly changed, worrying for the humans, who she hadn't really cared for at first. In the waiting period for this game to officially launch IGN did an interview with the voice actress Crissy Jones, who played Fury and they sounded genuinely excited. When the game came out, however, they said that Fury's voice acting was mostly just yelling and wasn't very good. They might as well just have made a trophy out of a middle finger and sent it to her. That's why I don't listen to reviews of games any more. I look at the story and the game-play to see that they are engaging and fun, if so, then I'm interested. It's that simple.
Fury starts by killing off Envy and from there, finds Ulthane. He tells her Where Wrath is, and Fury fights him, winning, but at the cost of her horse's life, and nearly of hers. At the last second she is transported into the Hollow Lands where she is patched up or healed or whatever and meets The Hollow Lord (who was a password in the first game you could type in to get the Harvester for free) and he gives her the flame hollow. Unlike in the previous games where War and Death pick up new weapons, Fury is a bit different. Her weapon, the Scorn is, basically a hilt. Her signature weapon are the barbs but Scorn can turn into anything from chains to hammers to swords to spears. Each hollow gives her a different weapon. I like the idea very much.
But I digress, we're still on story. After escaping the Hollows you end up in Avarice's domain. Personally, I like the name Greed better but whatever. You can choose to kill him now or wait and delve deeper into The Nether, (where you went to fight Wrath) and eventually come across my favorite sin (personality wise) Sloth. Either way you end up back in the hollows where you are given the storm hollow. It isn't, however, until you get to a place called the Bone-land when you get the next sin.
Before you can do that Fury has a confrontation with Pride who naturally thinks she's the best of the sins and refuses to fight you until you've defeated all the others. She goes off to a land called Aries. This brings me to a small gripe about this game. I wish there was more lore in it. While I like Fury's story very much, and the characters as well, the history of the world just isn't really in the game. You can see it, reading some of the descriptions of things in the menu, but there aren't really any side quests or journeys you can undertake in which you learn about any of the history. If this game had come after the first, which had just enough lore to keep you interested, then I would have enjoyed it more. The problem is that this game came after the second game which was full to the brim with all kinds of lore. It's kind of a shame they took it away in this game. Fortunately the DLC adds a bit of lore to keep you interested.
In the Bone-lands Fury finds the angels, who she blames for killing her noble steed and decides to massacre the lot of them. Then you come face to face with Useal, an arc angel stuck on earth and he tells you that they angels had nothing to do with killing your horse and that it was Lust. With that knowledge, Fury continues her quest.
She's attacked by a kraken all the while during her search for the sin, as well as some enemies that will make you rip all of your hair out in frustration if you hadn't already done that in in the first few sections of the game. Finally she comes to Lust.
This is another of my favorites. Slightly off topic for a bit, but I watch a lot of animation (anime) and often in it there are young boys who are for, whatever reason, played by women. Timmy Turner from Fairly Odd Parents is played by Terra Strong, for example. Anime tends to do it on an even more regular basis. I bring this up because the opposite is done here. It is obviously a man voicing the character, Jason Spisak, but he is speaking in a feminine voice. I guess my point with all of the above is that I kind of like seeing the rolls reversed and I think more men should do it.
So anyway, after defeating Lust and getting the force hollow its on to Gluttony. Here, I should also point out that you can go for Avarice or Gluttony if you haven't already. I like that the game doesn't really direct you where to go it just lets you be you. I like it. Back to story. You start out in the Depths a largely underwater landscape with drowned ruins. It leads way into a subway briefly and from there into a sewer I think. It's questionable because you kind of travel through both. The Nether is the same, though it seems to be more subway than sewer while this one seems to be more sewer than subway.
Eventually, you come across Gluttony. Fury and he exchange some friendly banter, that is until he spits up the head of Fury's horse. Enraged, she dies. Oh wait maybe that was just me trying to avoid all the damn acid all along the floor during the fight. After dying a few more times and finally out of luck or shear will, but mostly luck, you'll get Gluttony's health about half way at which point he'll turn into the kraken. This part of the fight can easily fuck you up and bring you to tears when you die and have to fight Gluttony and his acid fountain again. Once you figure out what the hell your actually doing though it's really not that hard.
After defeating Gluttony you get the Stasis Hollow. At this point you have to try and find your way back somewhere, anywhere. There are multiple areas that lead out of the Depths, but to continue the game, you have to get back to Haven (where you met the makers). Once you have the Force and Stasis Hollows you can head over to the Scar if you want.
I hate it. The Scar has demonic enemies. That's not the reason I hate it though. In fact I actually love fighting the enemies here. One of them is a Trauma from the first game. Some are lesser demons from the first game. Some, new to this game, summon in enemies in battle while another makes copies of itself. They are all incredibly different enemies and I like fighting them. What I hate, though is dying. The puzzle to get into the scar is very unforgiving. Basically, you have to use Stasis to freeze something and then the Flame Hollow to jump across it. The problem is that you are not only on a timer, but if you should do anything wrong, like not freeze EVERYTHING or time your jump wrong or die to any one of the aforementioned enemies before you make it to the next save point, then you have to do it all over again. And that, really effing sucks. This same thing happens with the Tornado that plagues the Scar. Both gave me lots of frustration when I first did them.
Inside the Scar you meet two people. The first you're most likely to meet, by sheer accident, is Abraxis. He is a demon lord who The Hollow Lord asked you to kill, though you'll be forgiven for forgetting as it's all the way back in the beginning of the game when you get the first hollow. The second creature you meet is one of the Chosen. The game likes to throw this term around. Each of the Darksiders game had creatures called "the chosen" and they were all different. This mini boss is one of the only ones in the game. There are actually more than one to fight but more on that later.
After you meet them, Abraxis not required, you can actually skip right over him, then it's on to a rematch with Wrath, where this time, Fury kills him for good. Assuming you've defeated all the other sins then it's on to Aries to fight Pride.
Defeating her, it is revealed that, the Watcher, who was with you the entire time, was actually the real Envy, who had disguised herself as an ally. There are several hints throughout the game, easily miss-able in the first play through.
Envy kills Fury, or so she thinks. In truth, she is saved by a human, Jones, who she met at the beginning of the game. It's not actually clear on who saves her, but I'm making an assumption here. Either way, she ends up back in Haven with Ulthane. Now, assuming you killed Abraxis, and returned to the Hollow Lord, the ending can change here. Under the assumption that you did, though, you get a . . . . . . . . .  thing. It's never really clear what it is or what it does.
Ulthane reveals a portal, one he'd been working on for the entirety of the game, which leads the horseman to her final battle with Envy. She holds up said thing after the battle realizing that said thing can destroy the council and then leaves. Outside, the tree is under attack from the Destroyer (this game takes place while War is still imprisoned by the council and there by not dead yet) and everyone is in a tizzy. Ulthane tells the horseman to use the portal and get the humans to safety. She vows to look after them and on her way out, sees that Jones is the only human who stayed behind. This is because, as it turns out, he was Strife all along. BUM BUM BUUUUUM. That's why I think it was him who saved her.
Anyway, cut to credits. There are some extra cut scenes, much like in the second game, with the Prince of Darkness talking to Lilith, both of which very depending on if you got the thing from the Hollow Lord. And that's the end.

There are some glaring issues that I need to talk about though. As mentioned above, sometimes, getting to save points can be a real chore. I actually timed the load screen after death. It's right around 40 seconds. That doesn't seem like a long time but add that to getting from one save point to another, possibly having to fight all the enemies along the way to get there only then to die in the exact same spot and have to do it all over again. In some cases, during the boss fight with Lust, for example:

Wait 40 seconds for load screen.

Respawn.

Travel 15 seconds back to the Lust Boss.

Die in 1 second.

Repeat.

It may seem like I'm nit picking here but I'm not exaggerating either. Sometimes you can last longer than one second so the time can vary a bit. One of the things this game has going for it is that after you initiate the boss fights,  eg watch the cut scene, they are just there waiting for you after you die. That's a nice change from Darksiders 1 and 2 in which you had to skip the scene every time. In Darksiders 2 In the Archon fight you had to skip three different scenes just to get back to the fight and then die and do it over again. I like the change. It still suck waiting for the load screen though.
Another thing I enjoy about this game is that, like the other Darksiders games, it is uniquely different. Sometimes, as mentioned above, that can be a bad thing, but for the most part, I like it. This game is sort of Metroid style game. It happened a bit in the first game, but in this one it's far more obvious how the world seems to fold in on itself revealing new paths to areas you've already visited. The paths usually lead to treasure, so it's worth looking for them.
On the subject of treasure, I find the items I pick up far more useful than the ones in Darksiders 2. Where Death would pick up a weapon with some stat boost or another, this game hearkens back to the first game, having you pick up Enhancements, which you can embed into your weapon for various stats. Personally, I like that much better than just finding a weapon randomly in a dungeon. Also, Souls as currency are back. They were absent in the second game because of the locations Death was visiting, but in this game, they make a triumphant return. And with souls, of course, comes everybody's favorite demon merchant Vulgrim.  God I love him.
Now and again he and Fury will talk and, ugh, I love it. The banter between them and the one liners he has are awesome. I love too, how the game kind of makes fun of itself, when, in one encounter, Vulgrim asks Fury for an artifact, which she has just acquired from the angels.
There are a few things missing from this game though, some characters, like Ureal, and others just game play elements. In the first two games there was a shooting segment, in Darksiders 1 there were two actually, where War, and Death take up an angel/demon gun and just fire away. This game doesn't have anything like that. Considering the mechanics of the game though it was probably for the best that they got rid of it.
Instead, you have to run away from a giant ass tornado. That's a super annoying section. It doesn't help that, when I first played it, I didn't know you could just avoid being sucked into it just by having the Force Hollow equipped. I guess that was on me, but still, kinda irksome.
That, sort of, leads me into my next section, and that's the puzzles. It wouldn't be Darksiders without them. Each area has puzzles that can only be solved by using one of the four hollows. Sometimes you have to use more than one switching between them on the fly. The puzzles are made even more complicated in the DLC, in the Void, not so much in the Crucible, where you just fight a bunch a shit. Sometimes though, like at the end, when you've to get to Wicked K, but not much there.
Another cool thing is that, as Fury acquires new hollows, Scorn changes its form. I mentioned it above, but it's worth repeating. Each weapon has various skills that the others don't. Take the Force Hammer "Mallet of Scorn". With that equipped you can smash right through cars, light, lamps, and all other manner of objects in your way. You can break SOME of those things with other weapons, but with the mallet, it's just more fun. Especially with the "get souls from breaking objects" enhancement on it. That makes doing it well worth it. Until the game crashes.
The "Lance of Scorn" is the only weapon that can be throne. It makes fighting long range enemies much easier but only if you can time the dodge counter right. The "Edge of Scorn" has the unique ability to freeze enemies (and objects) for a time. I wish it would freeze enemies for just a bit longer, but alas. The Flame hollow just sets stuff on fire. I mainly use it for when I need to jump higher, which is often.
I do need to talk about something else though, and that's the enemies. This game has no shortage of variety when it comes to fighting. Some enemies, like the Trauma's and the Undead General all make an appearance in this game. While the Trauma was missing from Darksiders 2 it, too, had an Undead General. The one in the third game is more akin to that one than the one from the first. Most of the enemies are fine I guess.
Like I said, the variety is great, but what isn't great, is the damage output. Right off the bat enemies can kill you in about 3 hits where as it takes you, depending on the enemy, seven or eight to kill them. What's more, some of the enemies have a gap closing attack where, even if you dodge, it can still hit you. This becomes especially tiresome with what I call the "shadow" enemies. They are regular enemies but with glowing red eyes and bathed in darkness. They can just one shot you. Even upgrading your health is no use against them as they seem to have no regard for what it may be.
What makes it all even more frustrating is that there are some enemies who have projectiles which they throw at you from off screen. Sure, there's a red arrow on screen telling you where the attack is coming from, but when you're surrounded by red arrows it doesn't really matter where the attack is coming from, you're just dead.

So what can I really say about this game? Well, I have sort of a love/ hate relationship with it. On the one hand, I really like the story and lore that it brings to the series. And while, yes, there really isn't any side quests to expand the lore further like in the other games, there are things to read in the menu's and in Vulgrum's shop, all of which give just a bit more in-sight on the game and its world. On the other hand, the game is aggressively hard with that "get gud" mentality. While I don't mind hard games, I do feel though, as if the difficulty is very unbalanced. Maybe it's just me. I've played it enough now to the point that, honestly, I don't really find it very hard anymore, and when I do, I just use up all the Havoc shards I've been collecting and bring forth the . . . well . . . Havoc. All in all, I enjoy the game very much despite its flaws. It may very well be one of my favorite series of all time. I hope that they are one day able to follow up with the amazing ending from the first game. That would be a dream come true.

The Failure that was Darksiders 2 Death Lives

Don't think for a second the title of this article means that the game is absolute trash. On the contrary, it improves on almost every aspect of the original, almost. The failure of this game comes from two things, the first, and most important, was the fact that this game was somehow supposed to keep THQ afloat. The company was going belly up and this was one of the last games that could potentially save the company, well, it didn't. Part of that do to the fact that the game had so many bugs coming out the door that versions of it weren't even playable on the PC. The second was the DLC content that should have been in the game. the "Bloodless" quest comes to mind, Karn's fetch quest, the search for the book all should have been in the game already. In the case of he "Bloodless" quest you can even see and hear them roaming around in the first world. They're translucent, but they're there.  The book quest, as well as Karn's fetch quest are all similar. If you knew where to look for them, you could see the items sitting right there, but unless you payed for it, you couldn't do the quest.
Some things, like the extra side dungeons, I didn't mind so much paying extra for. "The Abyss" "Labyrinth of the Deposesed King" and "Earth" were among the three in the "season pass" for the game, which I got, but could only play one dungeon. When I downloaded the others the game would crash on me. The only way to stop it was to delete the DLC, which was a shame, because I really wanted to play. The other quest mentioned above though, should have been part of the game from the start. The Remaster fixes all the bugs and adds all the DLC but that doesn't change the fact that THQ wanted people to pay for extra content that should have been there to begin with. Suffice to say, it didn't work.
The company went belly up, and for a long time, it looked like the Darksiders franchise would be lost forever. Nordic Games stepped up, but that's a story for another time. Right now it's time to take a dive in and see what the game has to offer.

Like in the first game, the story is fairly straight forward. You play as one of the four horsemen, Death, on a quest to erase his brother, War's, crime from the first game. Death hopes that by restoring humanity, he'll be able to redeem his brother. But Death has no idea how to do that, so begins his quest by seeking out some who does. The keeper of secrets. The keeper of secrets tells Death he'll help but only if Death relieves him of the souls of the Nephilim, which the horseman had given to the keeper of secrets long ago. Death refuses and the keeper of secrets refuses to help. Death is left with no choice but to kill him.
He is then transported to the Makers land. He learns from one of the makers that the way to save his brother is at the Tree of Life, which is currently blocked by something called corruption. Death's only choice is to help restore the the lands to their former glory and awaken a colossal stone beast which is supposed to be able to rid the land of corruption. It's worth mentioning that this first world you go to is as big, or almost as big, as the entirety of the first game. At least if felt that way to me.
At the end of the level the colossal monster becomes corrupted and Death has to put it down Shadow of the Colossus style. The whole level is wonderful.
The second level is great too, I'll be it a bit slow. First Death has to summon the throne, then, in order to speak to the king, he has to find three keys to fight a beast in the arena then he talks to the king and has to find his three judges, one of whom you have to help by saving three human souls, another you just fight, and another who is locked away in someplace called the Psychomeron, which is basically Hell, especially if you chose to play the game on one of the higher difficulties. So once you get all three of them and take them back, the Lord of Bones kills the three judges and sends Death to the City of the Dead where he'll find someone willing to help him. Whilst inside the game tricks you by having these Leviathan like creatures flying all around the sky. At one point you have to dodge one to get a key. I thought you were going to have to fight it, but nope, it's just there for show although, when you fight the colossal Whaling Host, depending on what difficulty you chose, he can summon those things to aid him in battle. Pretty cool I guess. Any way, you defeat the Whaling Host and meet the keeper of secrets, naturally. He tells you that there are two keys (wait, not three? weird) one held by the angels and one by the demons. Death goes in search of them.
The third level of the game is where things start to suffer. Unlike the previous two games the third and fourth areas are much shorter, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but it's definitely a bit disappointing. The place is called Lost Light and you start out by making your way to a spire, where you are told to speak with the Archon. He tells you that the key is unreachable, but that if he had the Rod of Arefel, he could clear all the corruption away. Death goes on a surprise trip to Earth (surprise because I didn't think he was going there in the game) to retrieve the three rod pieces. Once found he takes the rod back to the Archon who clears the way to the city of light where death meets Jameirah, a scribe, who tells Death that the Archon has the key. Going back to the Archon he and Death have chat which ends with the Archon on the end of Death's scythe.
The fourth and final level is the smallest. Death goes to the Shadow Realm, the realm of demons. There are no surprise visits to Earth or any other realms from here. It's one big straight line with only two branching paths, one leading to a secret treasure vault (more on that later)and the other leading to Lilith, who gives Death the power of the chronoshere much like in the first game, only instead of slowing time, it will take death into the past and present, though it only works in side the spire. Death fights his way through both past and present in order to find the king of the realm, who happens to be Sameal from the first game. He taunts Death and the two of them fight. Death wins but Sameal makes it clear that it was a test, and that he passed.
From here you can go back and talk to Lilith if you want, and she'll tell you to resurrect the Nephilim, which by the way is revealed in game that the four horsemen became the four horsemen when they grew tired of their race killing off everything and every one, and so made a pact with the Charred Council for immense power. Their first task as horsemen was to wipe out the rest of the Nephilim. The eldest of the Nephilim, Absolom, fell upon Death's scythe, birthing corruption.
In a not as epic as the colossus fight at the beginning of the game (the closest thing to that being the Whaling Host, the Noss from Earth or Sameal) Death and Absolom fight. Death wins, naturally. The keeper of secrets then tells him that the only way to resurrect humanity is to sacrifice the souls of the Nephilim. Death reluctantly does so, jumping into the well of souls, himself to do so. The game ends, sort of, the same way the first one did.
There is an extra scene with Lilith and the Prince of Darkness but that's only if you meet certain requirement. Basically he tells Lilith he's not happy and that she must be punished, but not in the good Dominatrix way that she likes.

There is some subtle characterization in the game, but Death is otherwise unchanged throughout the game. In the beginning, we learn that Death didn't want to destroy the Nephilim because he didn't want his race to be gone forever, but in order to save War, he realizes that he has to chose between the Nephilim or humanity. Death chooses to save War above all else, there by sacrificing any hope he may have had of bringing the Nephilim back. Kind of sad when you think of it like that, but seeing as how they were murderous monsters, it's probably for the best.
I only bring this up because War, throughout his entire campaign, is vastly unchanged. Death is, all be it very little, but he is changed none the less.
But enough about that, lets get into game-play. If Darksiders was, as someone said, Zelda May Cry then Darksiders 2 Death Lives would have to be Prince of Diablo. Seeing as how Prince of Persia was one of my favorite games growing up, (and seeing as how Ubi$oft would rather make fee to pay games now) I'll take it what I can get.
The game play though, is one of the parts of the game that kind of bother me. Running along walls and rooftops and the like is fun and very reminiscent of the old Prince of Persia games. I love it. The one caveat is that sometimes it feels like things are just there for Death to grab onto, such as pegs in the wall or "Death Grip" points. I guess that's more of a level design thing. My problem with it is that it just kind of feels weird, like there happens to be a peg there for you to extend a wall run. In Prince of Perisa it felt more natural. Not always, but for the most part it did. Like I said though, that's more of an aesthetic thing than a gripe about game play, which is still fun.
The fighting is much better in this game. Death has his traditional scythe(s) as well as three other types of weapons: bucklers, which can be used to counter enemy attacks, claws which are used for fast brutal attacks, and hammers, which are used for powerful but slow attacks. There are some other weapons in the game like glaives and tridents and such but they all play so similarly to the aforementioned three that it's hardly worth mentioning.
Fighting with either of these weapons have both their advantages and disadvantages. In the first game your combos were limited between the sword, gauntlet and scythe, each of which had only a certain number of moves even after you had bought them all from Vulgrum. This game expands upon your arsenal so the fighting never feels stale. Death's movement, and ability to dodge is also a big improvement. War could dash away from attacks, but Death can dash away or even around an enemy. The only gripe I have about Death's dodge is that you can only do it three times before he does a pause, leaving him open for enemy attacks. There's a way around that, but in the middle of combat, especially when you're surrounded by enemies, it's easy to forget.
The "Diablo" like elements in the game come in the form of the loot system. Death opens a chest and a plethora of gear and gold comes out. There are also the weapon classes, such as enchanted weapons, possessed weapons, etc. It's a fun idea, but the more chests you open the more you begin to realize that the gear you get is pretty useless. At least in the latter parts of the game it is. More often than not, I'd pick something up only to find out that what I had on was better. Sometimes there weapon or gear would have something worth sacrificing to a possessed weapon, but for the most part, I just didn't feel that it was worth it, so stopped picking up the stuff about mid way through the game.

One of the great features of the game is that you get the horse right from the get go. I love being able to use it to travel faster and I feel like a bad ass when I get into fights while riding. That is until an enemy attacks you, knocking you off. You don't always get to use it though. There are plenty of areas in the game that are "no place for a horse" forcing Death to "have to go alone." In those huge areas though, where you do get the horse, I'm somewhat reminded again of Shadow of the Colossus.
I now have talk about the side quests. With the acceptation of the "go kill this monster" quest, there are only three, and they can be very tedious. The first is from Vulgrum, who, while present in the game, which is fun, lacks much of the humor from the first, which is a real shame. Anyway, he asks you to go and find the BLUE PAGES! Oops sorry, wrong game, the Book of the Dead pages. There are 40 in total through out the game. The next quest is the stone collection quest where you have to find a total of 70 effing stones for this guy. Finding them can be a huge pain in the ass. I did the quest one time so I could get the trophy for it, never again. NEVER AGAIN. The last one is a quest from another merchant in the game Ostegoth. He asks you to retrieve 30 relics for him. You don't have to do any of the quests mind you, unless you want the Abyssal Armor for Death, then you've got to do both the page quest and the relic quest, thank God you don't have to do the stone quest.

The other quests in the game, the DLC ones mentioned above, were fetch quests and go kill this thing quests as well, but they weren't nearly as long, and the reward for doing them, honestly, wasn't that great. That has been amended in the Remaster though, making them totally worth doing, except for the maker quest. You have to go find a helmet, a shield and a compass for him. Whatever he gives you for finding them isn't as great as being able to keep the compass would be.
This brings me to another fault of this game. There is 0 indication on the map where to find the pages, stones or relics. You just have to, basically know where to look, or just check everywhere, which, as mentioned above, is incredibly tedious, essentially trying to find the damn stones. In the first game relics were indicated on the map. Having a compass or item that revealed them on the map would have been very helpful. It sucks going back to the Dead City, looking everywhere for that one lost relic only to realize that you've already collected everyone from this area. The game puts unopened treasure box locations on the map, so I don't see why it couldn't have done that for the other collectibles. It just makes finding them all the more irksome.

New Locations DLC are very fun, at least when they work. Even though I bought them for the original game I was only able to actually play them after purchasing the remaster. They are as follows: "Layer of the Deposesed King". Here you go on a quest for Ostegoth. He tells you that there are secrets all around if you know where to look. Going through the dungeon you'll eventually run into Tiamat, the bat queen's brother/ husband/ friend/ acquaintance/ really the game never really says. Either way, like Tiamat in the first game it's a giant bat. You kill it. The secret you get is some nice ice claws and various other collectibles from chests in the level.
The second location is called the Abyssal Forge, the place where the Abyssal Armor was forged. Here, you meet the Mad Smith, a maker who was cast out and lost his Celtic accent because of it. When you meet him, at first he fights you, but when you are about to deliver the final blow, he tells you that he's willing to help. Long story short, they Abyssal Forge is going to implode in on itself if Death doesn't stop it. He reluctantly does. There's something here, and only here for some reason, that happens in the third game all the time, which I like. If you die to the boss of this level, you don't have to watch the cut scene before hand every single time. If you die once you just go back there and, as soon as you reach the boss, the fight starts. A welcome addition in my mind, especially when it's so easy to this boss.
Third is Earth. Ureal asks Death to seek out the demon lord Balaris and along the way Death comes across the last of the humans, at least the last of the humans in whatever trashed city on Earth Death happens to be in. The human, afraid at first, finally agrees to help Death. After killing the demon lord Death returns to the human who asks death to put an end to him.
None of this pertains to the main plot it's just nice that you get some extra life out of the game. Something odd though I noticed. In the Remaster, you unlock the Abyssal Forge after beating the wailing host, the Layer of the Deposested King from beating the Archon, and Earth, from beating Samael. I feel like you should get the Abyssal Forge after the Forge Lands, the Layer of the Deposesed King after the Dead Lands (and the place where you actually fight the deposesed king) and Earth after defeating the Archon. Not a big deal, just kind of strange the order they unlock in.
I mentioned above that the game-play isn't the best. I do love much of it, the fighting, the wall running and the items that you get, like the death grip and void walker, but there are many aspects of the game I don't care for, like all the useless loot and the fact that the gold you pick up isn't really worth using, especially since you don't really need to buy anything when there's so much loot just laying around in chests. Even Vulgrum doesn't really offer much, which is a real shame. It'd be nice if you could by special weapons from him, rather than just getting them in game, i don't know. There are also things like the timed floor in the Dead Lands (you all know the one). I can do it, but I still hate it. It regurgitates horrible memories for me when I think about it.
There's one other special world accessible in whatever world you're in, and that's the Crucible. A place where you can go to fight hordes of monsters. That's basically it. It's super fun, until you have to fight the DAMN MALISTROM. It's also the place, though not the first place, where you really get to utilize the Execution commands. The game starts out with them, letting you insta-kill enemies once their health is low enough, but as you progress further in the game they kind of disappear. There is a way to initiate them though, which is by sacrificing items to possessed weapons. One of the abilities of some of the weapons in the game is Execution Chance. The more weapons you sacrifice with an Execution Chance, the higher your chances are of getting executions with that weapon.

In conclusion, there are many things about Darksiders II Death Lives that expand upon the lore of the first game gave us but there are some choices, like the loot system, that I don't think really work well for this game. Never the less, this game is an excellent expansion of the story that the first game gave us. It's fun, the music is great and Death is awesome. The reviewers can all go and choke on their words. What more could you want out of a game?

How I fell in love with Darksiders (The Wrath of War)

 Darksiders was a game that came out in 2010. I can remember seeing the first trailer, people stuck in traffic, as a big screen on the side of a building talks about meteors falling. In between are snips of two creatures fighting. Then, all hell breaks loose as meteors land upon the earth, turning into demons and angels, all fighting to the death, with the demons already winning. Down comes another meteor, but this time it's not angel or demon, but something in between. Our protagonist, War, takes one look at the chaos and readies his sword.
    That alone got me to want to play the game, and I knew nothing else about it at the time. Over the course of the next few years, I followed the game closely. I'm sorry to say that it didn't do very well. It was put out at an impossible time. The game had to compete with the first Beyonetta game, which was getting rave reviews (being created by the same guy who made the original DMC games). There was no way a studio that no one had heard of was going to beat him out.
    I, of course, chose to buy Darksiders. Beyonetta just didn't really appeal to me. I did eventually get it, and beat it, but it's not a game I ever felt the need to come back to. I played it once, and that was enough. Darksiders, however, I kept. I LOVED it. Sure, it wasn't as tough as Beyonetta, but it was far better acted and the lore was miles ahead of anything Beyo had. Still, reviewers tore into Darksiders, calling it an amalgamation of God of War meets Zelda meets Devil May Cry, and it was, but who cares. I don't mind the repetitious bosses. I don't mind that I'm not getting my ass handed to me left and right. NOT ALL GAMES NEED TO BE FUCKING DARKSOULS! and when they are like Darksouls (Darksiders 3) then reviewers bitch about how hard the game is. The franchise just can't seem to win.
    From a personal stand point I don't think reviewers are very credible. Slight tangent here, but I'm an artist. That doesn't mean I don't like CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. But it has to be that, constructive. You can't just tear into something, because you think the game has a "poorly fleshed out story" which: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? With the possible exception of Final Fantasy (which has been going to shit for the past couple years) this has one of the best stories I've played in a game for a while. In what realm is Darksiders story "poorly fleshed out?" Shadow of the Colossus was a beautiful game for it's time, 2005, and when the remaster came out 2015? reviewers said that "the controls felt clunky" the thing is, you said in your original review in 2005 that the "clunky" controls only added to the ambiance of the game. Other than an uptick in graphics (and some extra side quests) NOTHING ABOUT THE GAME HAS CHANGED! How can the controls "add to the games ambiance" and ten years later feel "clunky?" Seriously, if you're going to bitch and moan about a game then just stop, go be a journalist in a different field, the game industry doesn't want you anymore either.
    Okay, rant over. So, Darksiders. Let's take a look at the games "poorly fleshed out" story.

 The game starts with one of the four horseman of the apocalypse arriving on Earth just as Armageddon has been started between the angels and the demons. War makes his way around the city, killing demons, as well as angels, who all believe that it was War who prematurely started the end of times. When War finds the angel named Abaddon, the angel cries out "the seventh seal wasn't broken," before being crushed. War is then transported to an entity known as the Charred Council, whose primary existence is to keep order and balance between the angels and demons. They are ready and willing to punish War for starting the end war when the horseman convinces them to let him free, and to find out who is really responsible. The council reluctantly agrees, attaching a spectral creature called a watcher to him on his journey. The council tells him to seek out a demon known as Vulgrum, who is a merchant (and awesome in every way).
    Upon finding Vulgrum, War is told that if he wants answers, he should talk to a demon Prince known as Sameal. Finding him, Sameal tells War about the Destroyer, and where to find him, adding that, "You're no match for him as you are now," he then proceeds to tell War that the only way into the tower is to defeat it's four guardians. War does so, each time bringing their still beating hearts back to Sameal, who eats them, gaining more power each time. It isn't until the fourth guardian that War learns the truth, that Sameal has been lying to him.
    War kills the last guardian, bringing her heart to Sameal, fully expecting him to attack, but Sameal, delivers, as promised, creating a path to the Destroyer's tower. War goes and finds an angel named Azreal inside. He reveals it was he and Abaddon who prematurely started the end war. War is going to kill him for his treachery when Azreal tells him that he can help War escape, once the final guardian is destroyed. War accepts.
    He is taken to Eden, to the tree of knowledge, where he learns that Abaddon is the Destroyer, and that the only way to stop him is to reforge a blade called the Armageddon Blade. War goes on a quest to recover all seven pieces of the blade, and find one of the makers (the only beings in the universe capable of creating a weapon of such immense power). Upon retrieving the final piece of the blade War is confronted by Ureal, and angel who blames him for the Apocalypse, and she challenges him to a fight. War wins, telling her what he learned from the tree.
    In the final battle War defeats the Destroyer, and in his dying breath he reaches out to Ureal, who wants nothing to do with him. War kills him. It is then that the watcher reveals his treachery, saying that the council knew what would happen, and what War would do, so sent him down to kill everyone involved. Ureal kills War, breaking the seventh seal in the process. War is resurrected and kills the watcher. He leaves Ureal alone, holding up the Seventh Seal, as his three siblings come crashing down from the sky.
    So, yeah, very poorly fleshed out.

 Game-play in this game is very reminiscent of God of War and Devil May Cry, all be it a less complex Devil May Cry. The conjoining of the two fighting styles makes for a fairly simple game with some more complexities. Basically, it keeps the game engaging. (If I were a reviewer, it's here, I might dock the game some points, not because I don't think the game-play is fun, but because it all feels so familiar, if you've played the other two games mentioned above.) War starts out with the chaos eater and can acquire a scythe and a gauntlet to aid him in battle. Side note: in the original game you could type in the code "the hollow lord" and get a scythe called the harvester for free. In the War-mastered edition you have to pay 5000 souls for it.
    The alternate weapons offer some nice verity to combat, though not as much as I would like. You can buy new moves from Vulgrum but even then there's only about seven or so to chose from. I guess I'm just used to Ninja Gaiden's massive moves list. I want to stress though, that despite the smaller moves set, I do find the game fun, and with only three weapons, it's pretty easy to weapon swap on the fly and make for some fun combos with all three weapons at once.
    In the game you also get some other collectables, almost all of which can also be used as weapons. The first is the horn, which is used to wake Wardens and to blow enemies backwards. The next collectable you get is in the first level of the game and it's your first projectile weapon. The next collectable you get is the gauntlet, which we've discussed already. Soon after getting the gauntlet you receive the gun Mercy (one of Strife's Guns) which is the only collectable, besides the mask, that you can use on Ruin. The next one you receive is the Abyssal Chain, which can pull enemies towards you, though it doesn't really hurt them like the gun or the cross blade. In the latter parts of the game you get a portal gun, and the Mask of Shadows, which allows you to see into the "shadow realm".
 

 I can't talk about Darksiders or its game play, however, with out talking about the Legend of Zelda. To be fair, and at the risk of showing my age, I can remember playing Zelda on the original Nintendo. I never made it very far in the game, but I loved the open worldness of the game. That is, perhaps, why I love games like Final Fantasy and Shadow of the Colossus, because of the big expansive worlds that you get to explore. That being said, I can't really compare Darksiders to the Zelda games that came after because I never played them. It is obvious though, that Darksiders borrowed many elements from Zelda. The Mask of Shadows is similar to Zelda's "Mazura's Mask" and the serpent holes you use to fast travel from location to location is reminiscent of another feature in the Zelda games (can't remember the name of them).
    The boss fights in the game, while fun, are rather repetitive. Basically, you do X which causes the boss to do Y and then you hit the boss until it gets. Rinse and repeat. This goes for all the bosses. Honestly, the bosses are the more disappointing aspect of the game.
    This leads me to another of the downsides of the game. I mentioned it before, but a lot of the stuff is borrowed from other games, so if you've played them, everything may seem familiar and not very fresh to you. The game tires to change things up, even going as far as to have some sections of the game which play as third person shooters (or optional third person shooters I should say) as well as having puzzle solving elements.
    Personally, while I've always been interested in the Zelda games, I can only afford one console, and I chose the one that had more games I liked, that being PlayStation. This meant that I didn't get to play the other Zelda games. So for me, Darksiders is like a grown up Zelda game. One with a great story, and fun game-play, despite it being a rip off of other games.
 The first time I played the game, I fell in love with it. To me, the ideas were cool, and I liked how they changed up the game-play in parts. The characters and game-play were all very enjoyable. I've replayed the game more times than I can count and I love every second of it. Yes, the boss fights can be repetitive, but each one is slightly different, and still engaging. Yes, almost all the elements are borrowed from other games, but that doesn't matter. A game, for me at least, is about game-play, and about story. As long as those two things are fun, or at least interesting, I'm all in, and this game has some fun game-play and a great story, steeped in so much lore that they had to make a companion comic book just to tell the whole story.
    Darksiders if a franchise I will love forever, despite its short comings. Unless they fuck it up like Team Ninja did Ninja Gaiden, but I don't want to think about that.

Kingdom Hearts 3

Kingdom Hearts 3
"Don't assume your dreams are just fantasy. If you can imagine a world, believe in it...and dive in."

Kingdom Hearts 3 finally arrived, and, in all honesty, it's the most fun I've had with the game since Kingdom Hearts 1 came out in 2002. Let me explain why. Since the second game there have been a total of five other games, all with variations on the game play, and that even goes back to two. In the second game there were form changes. In BbS there were "transformations" that occurred when fighting enemies and in DDD there was the flow motion. With so many things added to the game, they all had to find a way into the third one in a way that made sense, or else fans, like myself, would be disappointed. Not to mention they had to find a way to incorporate the extended lore from 5 different games. Suffice to say, they pulled, not only the game play off, but the story as well. While there are areas of the game's story that could have improved over all, I think, they managed to pull of a marvelous feat. The game play and the story were all great! This is what a squeal should be.
    Okay, so now that I've finished geeking out, lets get into the nitty gritty of what makes this game work. I guess we'll start with characters. I'm not going to go over Every. Single. Person, that shows up in the game because then we'd have fifty pages of just characters and that would be boring. I'll go over the three(ish) main characters, and then the main villains. That said, here goes.

You guys are the best

Sora: We start this game off, quite literally, where DDD ended. (Well technically where 0.2 a Fragmentary passage ended, but whatever). Riku goes off with Mickey to the realm of Darkness to try and find Aqua. Sora, played once more by Haley Joel Osment, having failed his mark of mastery exam, has to "find the power of waking" in order to help Riku and Mickey. That lack of skill doesn't stop him from offering his services though. Despite his desire to help his friends though, everyone is adamant that he learn this power (which technically, I don't think he ever does 'officially' all though he does end up doing it.) Another thing I'd like to point out is that there are moments in the game where Donald and Goofy tease Sora about not being able to read to which he replies "that's not relevant". I just think it's hilarious that he didn't even try to deny it. At any rate, Sore has to travel to some old, but mostly new worlds, and, of course makes new friends all the while. Oh, and before I forget Donald and Goofy are played by Tony Anselmo and Bill Farmer, respectively, and as always, they do fantastic.

Riku, David Galligher reprises his roll as Riku. He and Mickey (Bret Iwan) are off in the realm of Darkness where you get to play as him once. After that the two of them have to leave where they spend much of the rest of their time both in Yen Sid's Tower and in Radiant Garden, (sadly not a returning world in the game at least not for Sora). At any rate, they head back into the realm of darkness, and the next time they do, Sora finds his way inside to help. Then they go off to the final world. Sadly, there's not a lot to say here. While they call Sora a lot through out the game, it's just to relay information. Which is good, I'm glad we got to see them, but with Riku such a predominant character in many of the other games I was hoping for a bit more with him.

Kairi who is no longer played by Hayden Penettiere, likely do to the fact that she may still be a fugitive in Japan, is now played by Alyson Stoner, who does an okay job, but, honestly I miss Hayden. Oh well, at least I still have Willa Holland. She and Axel (Quintin Flynn) are off in hiding training with Merlin to be full fledged keyblade wielders. They have one or two scenes together before they turn up and with Sora and the gang at the end battle, where Kairi, once again becomes the DiD (if you don't know what that is go watch the original Hercules movie by Disney). This time though, Sora doesn't save her and she ends up dead, well, maybe, it's really unclear actually. I know a lot of people were dissapointed, myself included, that she didn't have more of a prominant role with all the hype, and with her having a keyblade and all, but Kairi's never been anything more than that, so I can't say I was surprised.

Aqua Yay for Willa Holland! She is probably one of my top three favorite characters in the game. With all that she's been through, I feel like she has the best story over all. Our first meeting with her we see she and Ansem the Wise (Corey Burton) and some other guy who shows up knocks her into the ocean depths thereby sending her deeper into darkness. We don't see her again until Sora shows up and helps Riku defeat her. Beating her, she wakes up to the light, thanks in no small part to Sora, and takes them to the land of Departure/ Castle Oblivion where we Sora kinda sorta discovers the power of waking because Ven (Jesse McCartney) wakes up. Before that, we get to play as Aqua in her fight against Venitus (Haley Joel Osment), so that's cool. Oh, yeah, and Terra (Jason Dohring) shows up in the final world somehow breaking free from Xehanort. Terra's voice doesn't bother me as much as it did in 0.2, maybe because he has fewer lines, i don't know.

Final Fantasy characters are gone . . .ish from the world of Kingdom Hearts, that is with the exception of moogles who may likely vanish now with the appearance of Chirithy, but maybe not, we'll see. I say "gone" with a grain of salt because while there are no official "Final Fantasy" characters the is a commercial upon entering the toy story world for "Verum Rex" which looks eerily identical to the original Versus XIII trailers, don't believe me? see for your self:

Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Verum Rex

After the commercial and the full on product placement for "Verum Rex" in that level, you see nothing of them again, that is, until the secret movie where you see all kinds of crazy shit happening, including the main Yazora who acts as the main character of the "Verum Rex" game. I don't know where Nomura is going with this trippy reveal, but what I do know is . . . I kinda want to play Verum Rex now . . .

Organization uh, not thirteen? So not everyone in organization 13 is so bad apparently. You've got Axel (Lea) who turns good. As does Zexion (Ienzo Vincent Corazza) as well as Xaldin (Dilan) and Lexeus (whatever his real name is). They are helping out in Radiant Garden. The latter two without voice actors. Oh, and Demynx (Ryan ODonohue) who is also good now. Then you've got Roxas who gets resurrected as well as Xion. Even Siax turns over a new leaf and Luxord (Robin Atkins Downs) while he starts out as a villain, turns out not to be so bad after all, even giving Sora some kind of card that does . . . something . . .??????

Protect yourself from mayhem like me

 
Xehanort, Rutgar Huer, sounds weird. At one point he sounds as if he's got a bit of a spanish accent, and then he doesn't, and then he does again. I just didn't like the choice for this character. It's hard to fill Lenoard Nemoy's shoes though. I think it would have been funny if they'd used William Shatner, but maybe that would have been too strange. Fortunately he doesn't have that many lines to care about it too much. He does kill Kiari though "you bastard!" At the end of the game he meets Mark Hamill i mean Eriquis who shows him the evil of his ways and the two of them walk away together into the sunset.

Marluxia, Keith Ferguson, is still kind of a douch. We first see him first in the Kingdom of Corona and learn that he is after the new princesses of light, since the old ones (Cinderella, Snow White, Auroa, Jasmine, Belle, and . . . Alice) are, too old now. We see him again some time later in the game talking to Siax and then we beat his ass at the end. I think it's the same

actor from Chain of Memories. He does a great job, not much to say about him sadly.
Shanelle Workman Gray, plays less of a bitch Larxine in the game. Like Marluxia we see her once in a level (Arendelle) and then again later, and then she's dead. While I LOVE the fact that we got to fight all these characters in this game, as I feel that was, in part, what was missing from Kingdom Hearts 2, their roles in the game were minuscule at best.

Venitus voiced by Sora, is another story. We first see him in the Monster's inc world where Sora, for the first time, fights Unversed. He appears again in the world of Departure where we fight him as Aqua, and then we fight him again as Sora. When Sora sees his face his reaction is priceless. I love that they managed to get all of these characters in the game some how. They even managed to get Dark Riku from Chain of Memories who turns good some how. it's just great!

Xigbar is probably the most interesting character. We see him several times through out the story, often just to mess with Sora, but also with the organization. At the end of the game, when you fight him, he doesn't die or fade, but laughs, letting himself fall off a cliff. At the end, it is spoiled that he is acutally a character from the Union Cross mobile game. (I want to pause here to say something. It is important to play all the games in Kingdom Hearts [except for coded] because without having played/ watched all of the games or movies you would be utterly lost. Granted the game does allow you to access Jimmeny's journal files to get some background, but it's not enough. Yo really need to watch and play all the games before you start this, or the story will make ZERO sense. Unfortunately, that can put a lot of people off. I'm just glad I followed the story this time otherwise I'd take issue with alot of this story) at any rate, Xigbar, James Patrick Stuart, turns out to be one of the Lost Masters from Union Cross (which by the way, you should just you tube it. No offense to the Union Cross game but you've got to wade through a lot of shit plot before you get to the good stuff.)

Last and  least important we have Maleficent and Pete Susanne Blakeslee and Jim Cummings respectively. They show up once in the first world you visit, Hercules and then at the end, when Xigbar reveals himself to the Lost Masters. Fortunately, there, they don't really say any thing. Honestly, I was worried we were going to get a lot of non sense when we first saw them, but I'm glad they took a back seat. I feel like every time Pete shows up, you know not to take the game too seriously. Maleficent just feels like a staple now, she's always going to be there even when the plot doesn't really require her.

The rest of the Disney Cast some characters reprise their rolls while others are out right replaced. That being said, most of them do a good job. I honestly couldn't tell much of a difference between the voice actors from the game and from the movie. Maybe if I watched and played side by side. 

Recalculating!

 
Now that we've got the characters down, let's move on to the levels. So the game starts out much the same way as Kingdom Hearts 1 did where Sora is dreaming in limbo and you chose your play preference, eg mage, warrior, defender. From there you are taken to Yen Sid's tower where Sora is told he must gain the power of waking, but in order to do that, he has to change clothes first.
It's after that, when we arrive at our true first level Thebes/ Olympus

The game starts off on fire, literally, the whole town is blazing. It's up to Sora and his pals to put out the fires and stop the heartless causing it. There are a bunch of towns people you can either choose to save or you can decide to let them all burn, your call, but once your done, you meet Hercules, and he tells you that My Olympus needs help, so off we go to climb the mountain. About half way up we Meet Hades having an exchange of words with Maleficent and Pete. Neither of them stay long, and we continue up the mountain to have our first titan fight with our good ol' friend the rock titan. It's different this time in that, he's throwing crap at us until we can reach him, at which point we beat him into a pile of pebbles. From there we actually get to see the realm of the gods. It's once we reach the tippy top that we get to fight all the other titans from the movie, Lava, Tornado, and our good friend Ice.

    From here you're free you are given a small tutorial on navigating through gummi space. Normally I wouldn't bring it up, as flying the gummi ship is pretty boring, but here they did something different that I think, is really fun. Flying through gummi space is similar to playing No Man's Sky, I'll be it an easier version. You still get into fights, but you have to initiate them, most of the time. There's also constellations that you can try and find as well as hidden treasure spheres. Its really fun to just fly around and explore, at least, it was to me, but I'm a sucker for games like that.

    So, from here you get to chose where you want to go. The next the game wants you to go to is the Kingdom of Corona. It's here where we meet Repunzel and Flynn Ryder. He's just taken her out of the tower and we (Goofy, Donald and Sora, see what I did there Square, I changed the order, you should try it some time,) act as her guardians as she makes her way to the lights to fullful her birthday wish. I didn't think I was going to like the new lack of classic worlds in the Kingdom Hearts games, but I have to say I was pleasently surprised. Not only was the world fun, it was fun having Rapunzel in the party, that is until the game forcebly rips her away from you, but before that, Marluxia shows up and says some words about darkness, and princesses, and stealing hearts, Sora kills him . . . well not quite yet. . . At any rate, the story ends with Sora fighting a Heartless version of Rapunzel's tower. God the fighting in this game is fun. I loved fighting every enemy and every boss. The game was a bit easy (I played on proud) but, at least for me, that's very refreshing. I don't need Darksouls difficulty in every fucking game. Honestly, if all games were like Darksouls, I'd probably quit gaming.

    The next world you visit is Twilight Town. It's a much smaller version of the world being only the tram square (with all the shops) the sewer, the forest, and outside the mansion. It's a little disappointing until you realize that the other worlds in the game are massive and more than make up for Twilight Towns lack of size. The story here is simple: Help Ratatouille make food. It's fun for a while but the novelty wears off quick. Fortunately, Merlin shows up (because apparently he's board with training Axel/ Lea and Kairi) and forces us to go and see Pooh Bear. Fortunately, there's only one place to visit, and its only for a short time. Oh, and we do go into the mansion, via cut scene, to view the computer. Later, Hayner, Pence and Olette, find Ansem the Wise here and he helps them retrieve his data from the computer.

    And now a note from our sponsor

    Upon Entering "The Toy Box" we are shown a game trailer that has nothing to do with Kingdom Hearts . . . yet. Verum Rex is a game within the game, so to speak, and in the toy box world, it's all over the place. I said before and I'll say it again, these characters are what I imagine Noctis would look like had he been in Kingdom Hearts. It's clear that Nomura has some bitter feelings about being taken off Versus XIII.

    With that out of the way, now we get back to story. Andy is missing, along with some of the other toys, and we have to travel to Galaxy Toys to find them. That's it. Some one from the organization does show up if memory serves, though I can't remember who exactly. At any rate we finally find the rest of the toys and end up fighting a giant plane heartless. Then we are suddenly transported into the Verum Rex game where we have to fight mecha suits whilst inside another mecha suit. You can try without the suit but, yeah, good luck with that. At the end of the level the soldiers call, telling us that Andy has returned.

    Periodically, between levels Sora converses with Riku and Mickey. The two of them start out in the world of Darkness looking for Aqua, but while they're there, get into a (playable) fight with a tornado of shadow Heartless, and Riku's keyblade breaks. He and Mickey have to leave so they can recoup orate. They end up in Hollow Bastion. From there, Sora hears from not only Riku but from Zexion as well, who is a good guy now along with Xaldin and Lexaus. They talk to Sora from the lab (where we got to the Space Paranoids in KH2) We learn most of are main plot from them, and from what they've uncovered. I can't remember it all, there's so much plot in this game, so much.

    I do want to commend the game for being able to get through so much of it. I honestly didn't think they'd be able to cover every thing that we learned from every game, but they did, and that's quite a feat. It really is amazing how much happened. I'd also like to give one little gripe about the game. I wanted to play as Riku more, maybe in Hollow Bastion, or in the Dark World, but we only get that one time to play as him which is unfortunate.

    Now onto the next world, Arendelle. With the exception of having to listen to "Let it Go" for the millionth time the world was incredibly fun to play in, which I didn't think it would be. I'd been hoping for some older worlds, like Jungle Book, or something, but alas, it was passed over again. Maybe in Kingdom Hearts Insert Incredibly Long and Needlessly Complicated Title Here. The best part about Arendelle is that it's really funny. Sora, GOOFY, and Donald are trying to get up to the ice castle after seeing Elsa run away, but every time the do, something, or some one, brings them back down the mountain, forcing them to find their way up again. It's super funny. Before all that though we meet up with Larxene who tells us that the Organization wants both princesses from this world. It's only after that, and several trips up and down the mountain (and through an ice maze courtesy of Larxine) later, that we meet up with Marshmallow (the abominable snowman from the movie and one of the many reasons for our trek back up the mountain) who is trying to save Elsa. Sora and him, in a surprise twist, team up, and stop the evil prince from killing Elsa's sister. He gets so mad at his failure that he turns into a Heartless, who Sora and Marshmallow make short work of, oh and Donald and Goofy help too.

    Monster's Inc is next. This world is unique because Sora Meets the Unversed for the very first time, as well as Venitus. The story is pretty much the plot of the movie, only it takes place after the movie does, meaning Mike and Sully are President and Vice President of the company. Sully, at some point before Sora and the gang arrived, went through Boo's door and brought her to the office for a visit. Unfortunately, there is't much to say about the world. There is another giant  boss fight at the end, which was fun. What I really liked about this level was that Sora got to fight the Unversed. I really didn't think I'd see them again. It was a bit of a surprise for me, but seeing as how Venitus was there, I guess it shouldn't have been.

    The Caribbean. I both love and loathe this level. On the one hand, we get a boat and can sail all over the place, have fights all along the water, and explore the vast islands scattered all around us. On the other hand, there are required moments in the game that are very frustrating. One is racing against Luxord. At one point I beat him, but the game wouldn't let me through the "barrier" telling me to "head for the right spot" or some vague bullshit that just pissed me off. I'm on a fucking boat and I won, just let me through goddammit! Needles to say that took longer than it should have. The next spot was a required boat fight that I kept loosing to. There were so many friggin' boats that the just destroyed me. I amended it by leveling up my ship but I wasn't happy about it. It was late at the time and I just wanted to stop, and save, but I couldn't because the game was going from cut scene to game play, with no save spots in between. I guess that's what I get for choosing proud mode. As for story, I don't' really remember. Luxord is here for the black box, which he thinks Davy Jones has, turns out it's just Jones's heart in a box. The boss is fighting Jones's ship, which was pretty tough. I may have left something out, but whatever.

    San Francokyo Is kind of a strange world. Sora finds the Big Hero 6 team, helps them out, and then travels around the city with them, both in day and in night. The only thing that bothers me are the "barrier" put up by Hiro. I keep running into it and he's all "don't go near the barrier" and I'm like "bitch, don't tell me what to do. I do what I want!" As for story I'll do my best. Replica Riku (from chain of memories) isn't as dead as we thought. He's the instigator of what's happening, but he's not really a bad guy, he just wanted to torment Sora because he thought it was fun... or something. I got nothing.

    World of Darkness and the Land of Departure: Despite being told numerous times throughout the game not to enter the World of Darkness, Sora does it anyway, and he dies. Okay that last part's not true. He fights Aqua, with Riku's help, and frees her from the darkness. She then takes him to the Land of Departure as a reward. It's here where we see Venitus again, and fight him as Aqua. Before she can deliver the final blow Sora kind of sort of wakes Ventus up. I think it may just have been the fact that he was in the vicinity of Ventus, and Ven's heart was freed from Sora's, the game's not clear on that. What is clear is that Ven wakes up and helps stave off Venitus.

    The Badlands Keyblade Grave Yard. It's here where the game starts to shine again.

    Almost as soon as Sora arrives here, all of his friends, minus Riku, are defeated. Sora cries, saying he can't fight without his friends, and Riku is like, "Get the fuck up and help me dude." Sora and Riku fight only to fail. Now it's Sora alone. He travels through a portal left open by the Heartless who defeated all his friends, and, teleporting to each of the aforementioned worlds, has to fight the boss in order to wake his friends up.

    Someone on YouTube mentioned that, this would have actually been a better place to start the story, with Sora having to save his friends by traveling to each world, and having to gather his friends, and then save them with the power of waking. Either way, he saves everyone, and then they defeat the Heartless together. Also Ephemer from Kingdom Hearts X comes to help, as well as everyone who's played the game . . . I guess. Then where's my name damn it!

    Anyway, after that, Sora dies.

    That's not even a joke. He dies, ending up in the place Where Hearts Return. There is a scene there, that's optional I think, where Sora talks to a ball of light. There are several balls of light that he talks to actually, but only one that's actually voice acted. From there, Sora form there Sora finds the pieces of his heart that are scattered all around. You only have to collect something like 50 or 100, but I stayed until I collected them all, you know, just cause. I believe the total is something like 237.
    Once that's done, Everyone meets back in the badlands, where all the Xehanorts have gathered. I maze pops up out of nowhere and Goofy, Donald and Sora are separated from their friends. As you go from place to place there are nice big open arenas where Sora, along side all his friends, hast to fight all of organization 13, or at least those that are left.

    All of them die. Luxord gives Sora a wild card before he does. As for what it's for? No one knows as of yet. After defeating Xigbar, he kind a runs away, or at least deliberately falls off the wall. Siax, once defeated, doesn't die, but does have a change of heart.
    Then it's off to fight Xemnas, Ansem, and Xehenort. Sora defeats the first two, but Xehenort wins stealing Kiari and killing her. Sora hulks out and goes after him.

    He finds himself in a place only known as the Final World which has an eerie likeness to Daybreak Town from Kingdom Hearts X. Sora finds and defeats Xehenort. Though like in true RPG fashion he refuses to die. That is until Mark Hamill shows up (aka Eriquis) and says something like "Dude, the show's over," and the two of them hold hands as they head off into the sunset.

    Then we see them as little kids, as we did at the beginning of the game, and Eriquis says, "hey lets play a new game," and resets the chess board.

    We then see everyone gathering on Destiny islands. Even Kiari (or so the game would have us believe, it's really unclear) shows up, and it looks as though she's sitting next to Sora until he fades away.

    In the next second we are back in the Keyblade Graveyard where it's revealed that Xigbar is Luxu, who was tasked by the Master of Masters (See Kingdom Hearts X Black Cover) to take the black box away. He summons the master's from Kingdom Hearts X who apparently are still alive. That's when we see Maleficent and Pete again, watching from a distance.

    And here's where things get even stranger. Sora Wakes up in Shabuya (From The World Ends With You) or at least in a version of it. At the same time, Riku wakes up in a town that looks almost identical to Crown City from Final Fantasy XV/ Versus XIII. What's even MORE strange is that the main character from Verum Rex shows up, just chillin' on top of a building like you do. The strangest thing that happens, is we see a normal round moon, and a hooded figure hold up his hands forming a heart shape around the moon. It's assumed that he is the Master of Masters, but what he's doing there, and where he is in relation to Riku and Sora is totally confusing and exciting all at the same time.

I'm a pretty girl out jogging

 
Yeah, so story took up way more space then I wanted. But anyway, now it's onto the game play, and after all, isn't that what's most important?

    To put it simply, it's great fun. They managed to take all the great features of the spin off games, and from past games, and bring them all back. You like Sora's "Special" moves from Kingdom Hearts 1, they're in there, I'll be it different, but still there. You like Sora's Drive forms in 2, well, they're there too, and so are the form changes from BBS as well. Speaking of BBS did you like the Focus Meter, because that's back. How about the completely customizable "Decks" in BBS and DDD, well, they're back. And don't forget flow motion, that plays a huge roll in many of the levels.
    There really wasn't a single thing about the game play that I didn't like. Everything was right there, easily accessible, and easily customized. That's not to say the game was without faults though. With the introduction of Attractions in this game (which are essentially Disney Rides) it cane be really hard to chose the form you want. For example:

A form you haven't tried yet shows up.
You have 30 seconds to use it.
You hit triangle, but Sora does an attack with goofy instead.
You hit triangle again, but Sora does an Attraction attack instead
you cancel
Time limit expired, try again next time.

    That happened to me a lot in the game. There is a way around it, or rather, to extend the time limit so you get to try everything, but when you have 5 attacks stacked up, waiting to be used or lost, it can be a bit annoying. Not to the point where you want to quit, but just so.

    Keyblades in this game are uniquely different as well. This time, you can level them up. With each new level, you gain stronger attacks, magic, and even some new/ expanded form changes, and each weapon is different. I stuck with the kingdom key the whole time, using other keyblades as needed.
    I don't really know what else to say about the game play with out repeating myself. It's just hella fun. Probably the most fun I've had with a Kingdom Hearts game since Kingdom Hearts 1, and that's saying something.

Are You in Good Hands

 
The last thing to talk about is the music. The theme for this new game is meh. I know a lot of people love it, and that's great, Utada Hikaru is a great singer, but, I don't know, I've just never thought that her songs fit Kingdom Hearts. That, or maybe it's the fact that I know the song will be featured in the next 10 spin off games, and I'm just anticipating being sick of it already. Whatever, if you like it, then great. As for the in level music, it's wonderful. I don't really have much to say about it though. It's nice hearing the old Colosseum music from KH1 and the music in each level, and on the gummi map is great. I didn't need to hear "Let it Fucking Go" again but, whatever, I pretty much knew that was going to happen when they announced that world.

    All in all, this game is SO good. It's everything I wanted in the next installment of Kingdom Hearts. As much as I love the series though, I have to wonder how much longer it can go on. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of story left to tell, but I don't want it to start feeling stale. My hope is that Nomura has an End Game. So many of my beloved series *cough* Final Fantasy *cough* go on for so long, that the makers of those games seem to have forgotten what made them so great in the first place. While Final Fantasy 15 was a step in the right direction, it left a lot to be desired in the story department. I don't want that to happen to Kingdom Hearts. Tell the story, take it as far as you have to, but then, put it to rest.

"Darkness becomes light, light falls into darkness."

Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance a.k.a 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue Dream Drop Distance 0.2 A Fragmented Passage X Black Cover now these titles are just getting ridiculous. During the making of “Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep” Square-Enix realized that the team who normally made the game was STILL working on “Final Fantasy XV” and that they wouldn’t have the game done for another four years. As a result, Square decided to make, yet another, spin off game. This time for the Nintendo 3DS. It wasn’t until four years later (and two Kingdom Hearts Remakes later) that they finally decided to remake this one as well.
    “Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue” comes packaged with “Dream Drop Distance” “Birth by Sleep 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage” and “Unchained Black Cover” the last being a movie of the Unchained mobile game.  I am writing this just for KH DDD though, as it is a much bigger game. With a lot more characters.

 What is not a dream by day to him whose eyes are cast.

 Sora is, once again, voiced by Haley Joel Osment. In this game he is more focused on making friends then he is actually figuring out how to wake up the worlds, though let’s be honest, we learned in the second game that Sora suffers from ADHD. That explains why he always forgets what he’s doing the minute he enters a new world. We also learned in the second game that Sora’s education is a bit lacking, probably because he always falls asleep in class. At any rate, in this game Sora is, well, he’s not bright. He has gotten older since the second game, and I like that his voice reflects that. There are some interesting choices of words in battle that Sora says as if with an accent, almost as if taunting the enemy. I really like it though whether or not it was intentional I’ll never know. So, anyway, Sora in this story is plagued by a Young Xenort who follows him to almost every world. It’s revealed later in the game that he wants to use Sora to for his narcissistic scheme of creating a world of Xenorts.

 Riku, still voiced by David Galligher, is a much more sophisticated master than Sora. Characters seem to understand this and tell him what’s going on, while with Sora, they just talk about him making friends, which seems to be the only thing he knows how to do. It’s with Riku we learn that Sora is in danger and that he has to save him. In fact, without knowing it, Riku becomes Sora’s Guardian “DreamEater” without realizing it. The two of them travel the worlds semi-simultaneously and work together to wake them up. Then, of course Sora falls asleep again and Riku has to wake him up so that they can go back to the islands and wait patiently for “Kingdom Hearts III” to finally come out.

 Goofy, Donald and Mickey: While featured, they take much more of a back seat role this time, mostly appearing in cut scenes through out, and only really near the end do they start showing up again. By now I think we can expect pretty good quality work when it comes to voice acting in this game. I don't really have much else to say about them, sad to say.



Moogle(s): These little guys are all that remains of the Final Fantasy characters that were once so prevalent in this game. In the past, Final Fantasy characters like Cloud or Squall were only really in Kingdom Hearts in order to help it sell more copies. Now that the game can stand on its own two feet, Square seems to want to keep the two separate. Personally liked the cameos of the characters and I hope to see a return in the future, but if that's not the path Square chooses to go, then I'm okay with that too. With the exception of Squall their stories in Kingdom Hearts 2 were steaming piles of horse shite. If Square is going to have more Final Fantasy characters in the next game please give them a cohesive story that isn't trying to prepare people for some stupid Final Fantasy movie (or re-make) for that matter.

 Axel, or Lea, as he now wants to be called, and which everyone in the game seems to forget (to some rather humorous results) is voiced once again by Quintin Flynn, and wakes up early on in the game. He disappears for a while only to show up again midway through the game asking Yen Sid for a favor. The next time we see him he has entered the dream world and is heading through the levels to catch up with Sora and Riku. He does so just in the nick of time, and wakes Sora up right before Xehnort can get his hands on him. It isn’t until everything is done when Axel, Lea, finally gets his keyblade, making him the 8th out of 7 keyblade wielders of light, and no, I don’t see a plot hole there, what are you talking about? Shh. Shh. It’s okay. We’ll get you help. The likely hood of us playing as all 8 keyblade wielders will probably never happen but with as long as it’s taking them to make the third game something better happen. I have a feeling though that it’s just going to be chalk full of cut scenes in which we get to see the other characters doing cool stuff, then return us to Sora. 

In lieu of having pretty much exhausted all the “Final Fantasy VII” characters in “Kingdom Hearts II” this game decided to go with another game entirely. This time around Nomura chose “The World Ends With You” characters. They, as far as I can tall, are all voiced by their original voice actors from the game. It actually works with the concept of their game as the characters are dead and trying to fight their way out of limbo. All Nomura had to do was say that they were asleep instead of dead and it made perfect sense for them to be there. Depending on who you chose to play at first Neku is the first one you meet. Shiki, Rhyme and Beat, from the game also make an appearance.  Joshua acts as a medium between the two worlds and is the only one able to see both Sora and Riku. ). I had never played the game before, so I forced myself to play it before I allowed myself to play this one. I use the term "forced" loosely, as I enjoyed the game, but got a little board with it near the end. Maybe I just wanted to get to playing Kingdom Hearts. I think it's an interesting concept though, and I wouldn't mind seeing other characters from Square Enix games make an appearance (STILL WAITING FOR SAMURAI MUSASHI SQUARE!!) Similarly to the Final Fantasy Characters, TWEWY folks are restricted to one world: Traverse Town.

Yen Sid: Being a retired Master Keyblade wielder, it's Yen Sid's job to give Sora and Riku, and all the other characters who turn up, the mark of mastery exam. He's also the one to send Riku back out there when Sora goes and gets himself captured like a dumb dumb.
Disney Characters: I think they all do a splendid job, though their stories are stripped down to the barest of bones. I'm not saying that's a bad thing but it's awkward when they use specific lines from the movies without the same visual context. This is most noticeable in the Hunchback of Notre Dam world.

How they creep through my fingers to the deep, while I weep- while I weep!

DreamEaters: There are two types of Dream eaters. The ones called "Nightmares" are the ones that you fight through out the game. Spirits or just DreamEaters, are what fight beside Sora and Riku throughout the game, all of which are brightly colored reskins of the enemies that you previously fought, with the exception of bosses that is. While on the subject of bosses I just want to go on record saying FUCK THEM ALL! Fighting them with Riku isn't so bad, but fighting them with Sora sucks ass. Okay so they aren't all bad if you've leveled up enough but most of them just suck. What's more, Sora ends up having to fight some of the more irksome bosses twice, just to piss you off more, and they aren't even the worst bosses. That title goes to the pelican boss that hides on floating rocks just out of reach and destroys you with lightening.
I wish I could say that the common enemies of the game were fun to fight, but alas, they suck as well. Every enemy has an attack that either stuns you, eats you, blocks you, or is just plain unavoidable. Sure there are a select few enemies that don't but they're usually in with the ones that do. Flow motion helps some, but in the end the fighting in this game is just not very fun to me.
Organization 13: They're back, and what's more, they have a plan to try to steal Sora and make him into one of their puppets. Riku and Mickey find out just in the nick of time save him, of course, but it gets pretty trippy toward the end. I also want to say that this is the last game in the series with Leonard Nemoy as Xehenort. His replacement will have some very big shoes to fill indeed.
Disney Villains: As stated above, the Disney villains are many, and all of them do a commendable job. I do have to wonder about Melificent and Pete. If i were her, I'd have burned his ass with green fire. Pete is a blundering idiot and I just don't really see them working together. Also, I'm not sure how Melificent got into Mickey's castle when in the second game Sora restored the Cornerstone of Light, which I thought was supposed to keep evil out of the castle, hence why Melificent could only appear there when it was full of dark thorns. Maybe I'm just looking too much into it.

With characters done, let's move on to worlds.

    So this game takes place after the dreaded Coded game where Sora was data. Yen Sid has gathered the two boys so that they can become keyblade masters. To do so, however, they have to travel to various worlds and “wake them up” whatever that means.

I stand amid the roar of a surf-tormented shore

 The first world Sora and Riku visit is Old Faithful Traverse Town. Well technically it's Destiny Islands, but you're only there for a boss fight against Ursula because, you know, that's never happened in the history of Kingdom Hearts. After that, we appear in, you guessed it Traverse Town. At least this time the game has some new areas to explore mainly sector 4, 5, and 6. Part of me wants to complain about our umpteenth visit to the world, but with the new additions, it's actually rather fun. Until you have to fight that is.

The next world you visit is La Cité des Cloches. Here Sora and Riku are confronted by Judge Claude Frollo, who thinks they're gypses and tries to kill them with Dreameaters. Phebus, Esmeralda and Quasi all help out the heroes. Actually, Riku ends up saving Phebus and has to fight the dream eater atop the clock tower which is really fun. Sora has to find Esmeralda and ends up leading Frollo straight to her, and has to fight that same DreamEater on the ground after Sora has clipped its wings. I prefer it in the air.

The Grid formerly known as Space Paranoid in Kingdom Hearts 2 is next. The whole level, obviously, is inspired by Tron Legacy. I have to say I love the level very much, but the story just didn't mesh well with what had already been established in Kingdom Hearts 2. Briefly: in KH2 Xehanort made a copy of Encom software and installed it into his own computer, thus creating the Space Paranoids world. Great. So in this game Jeff Bridges character shows up and talks about how he made this entire world blah blah blah, but here's the thing. How the fuck did he end up in Xehenorts computer? Unless the copies of the two software somehow join together, then I don't see how exactly they can be there. Nomura would probably explain it that "they were just in a data world it wasn't real" which is sort of a non answer but whatever. I enjoyed the world alot and thought it was really fun. Hoping for a Tron 3 one day.

Pranksters Paradise is Pinocchio's world. Well technically it's only one of many worlds in Pinocchio specifically the world where he turns into a Jack-a-mule (which in the movie they actually say Jack Ass and it still got away with a G rating). So, Sora comes here and helps Jiminy to find Pinocchio. The level is full of carnival rides and a roller coaster that's fun to just let Sora slide on. In fact, the whole level is really fun to just goof off in. At least on Sora's end. Riku gets to play around inside Monstro again (yet it's still called Pranksters Paradise with him, not sure why). It's not quit as gross this time as you don't have to play around in Monstro's bowels, but its still pretty nasty.

Land of the Musketeers comes after another romp in Traverse Town where we meet the Goddamsonofafuckingbitch Spellican. Here Riku is told that the dreaming worlds they thought they were in may not be dreaming at all, but real. We don't really get to understand the truth of this until later in the game, but back to the Musketeer world. I wish I could say I liked it. As soon as I see Pete in any form in Kingdom Hearts I just shake my head because I know some ridiculous nonsense is about to take place. I understand that they wanted more villains and such, but why the fuck Pete? The first Kingdom Heart's game was so good with it's choice of villains and then Pete showed up. He just makes the game feel too childish and I don't like him.

Symphony of Sorcery is based on the Fantasia movies and it is one of my favorite worlds. Part of that reason is that Sora and Riku don't speak in these worlds. Let me explain. In battle Sora and Riku say things like "Sorry" "This is it" "Take that" Which is all well and good until you realize that they say it after every finishing move. So by the time you get to this world you've heard them say it a hundred thousand times already. But in the symphony of sorcery world their words are replaced by musical scores. It's brilliant and I love this world so much and hope that it can somehow make another appearance in the series. That said, it's not without its faults. Aside from the extremely irksome enemies there are "musical puzzles" that the level requires you to do. That wouldn't be a bad thing if they weren't so easy to mess up. I had to do some of them six or seven times before I completed them, and I think the game only let me win because it was tired of me fucking them up.

The World that Never Was is the final world in the game. Here it is revealed that the organization have been with Sora since the beginning, and they were to some degree manipulating his journey. Throughout most of this world Sora is just driven by cut scene while Riku arrives to save him. At this point in the game we are also introduced to Time Travel within the Kingdom Hearts. Yeah, that's a thing now.

 Is All that we See or Seem but a Dream Within A Dream?

 I'm going to go ahead and say that the story is what drives me to play this game. It picks up the slack with all the horrible bosses and enemies. That said if you were to ask me what the story in this game was about I honestly couldn't tell you. Sora and Riku are taking a test to become Keyblade masters. All of the stories within the context of the world, even within the games own worlds, make zero sense to me. There just isn't enough information in any world to give you a cohesive story. But what the hell, I'll give it a try:
    Sora and Riku start out in Destiny Island to start their mark of mastery exam. After fighting Ursula they are split apart and yet both end up in a version of Traverse town where TWEWY character Joshua explains to them that the world has been copied, and Sora and Riku are each in a copy of the world. This must be the case with all the other worlds too because trying to make a cohesive narrative from this point on is impossible. Riku meets Quasi and saves Phebus while Sora finds Esmeralda. Frollo takes Esmeralda and sets the city on fire. Quasi saves Esmeralda and Riku rides the flames of the burning city to fight off the DreamEater. Sora fights the DreamEater on the ground after the flames have died down, but Frollo falls off the tower and into the flames, which coincidentally he did with Riku as well. Oh, and Sora has a vision of Xemnas and Venitus who give him some cryptic message about something or other.
    After that it's off to the grid where Sora and Riku both meet Flyn, Sam and Quorra. They both are capture by CLU but escape. Riku helps to free Quorra while Sora helps Tron remember who he is. Sora also sees Xemnas again and is given some more cryptic messages about sleeping and waking and stuff.
    In Pranksters Paradise Both Riku and Sora have to go on a hunt for Pinocchio, only Riku does it inside whale. Sora gets to explore a carnival. I'm gonna be honest with you know. I have no idea what the fuck happens here. Not a clue. I suppose I could go read a synopsis or something but that won't help me understand what the hell is happening in this game.
    After this it's back to Traverse Town where we are told that Time runs differently in each iteration of the world. I suppose that's foreshadowing for time travel. If not, then I've got nothing. Anyway, Sora has to re fight all the bosses he's had until now.
    I want to pause here for a moment. I don't understand why Sora, it seems has to fight the harder bosses. The mole boss in the next level is difficult to be sure, and that's solely a Riku boss, but for the most part, Sora, it seems gets pitted against the most aggravating iterations of any of the bosses, not to mention the damn pelican. Why is that?
    Anyway back to story. The musketeer world is next. Pete does some shit to mess up Mickey's shit but Riku intervenes and messes up Pete's shit so that Sora can give Pete shit. If that doesn't make sense then join the club. Admission is $5.
    In the Symphony of Sorcery world Sora and Riku find and enchanted Mickey. Both are tasked with finding a Sound Idea in order to free him. The Sound Ideas come together to create a beautiful melody (Kingdom Hearts Title theme Dearly Beloved) and there is a beautiful cut scene where Riku shows how much he cares about Sora. After that, Sora has to fight the pelican which kind of undermines any joy the scene might have brought.
    Finally, in the world that never was we see that the organization have been manipulating Sora so that they can use him as a horcrux Xehanort clone. Riku finds out and saves the day, freeing Sora, and thus granting himself the title of Master. Sora fails the test but doesn't seem perturbed by that at all.
    While all this is happening, Mickey, Donald and Goofy are in Yen Sid's Tower when their castle is attacked by Melificent. Yen Sid knows at once something is amiss. Mickey and his friends hurry to stop the mistress of all evil. In the castle they are overwhelmed but Axel, who has awoken because his nobody and his heartless were both destroyed, thus finding each other in the either and bringing him back to life, i guess, saves the day. For his bravery, Yen Sid allows him to take the test, and he too, becomes a keyblade master.
    The story ends with Kiari arriving at the tower to become a master as well. Mind you, that's a secret ending. Speaking of which, one of the things that this game does right compared to Kingdom Hearts 2 is that, in order to get the secret ending all you have to do is find all the treasure chests, which is pretty tough in it's own right. I'm just glad I didn't have Jiminy forcing me to to acquire a billion points on some trivial skateboard quest. 

 What could there be more purely bright?
This part is hard for me. On the one hand the battle system is liken to Birth by Sleep, which was fun. There are even some link attacks that Riku can do that are copies of attacks from Birth by Sleep like Ghost, Light Sword, etc. I enjoy them. Building your own deck and being able to use whatever attacks you want is great. If you want, you could have a whole deck of heal spells, whatever works. Along with attacks there are new skills that you can learn as well, such as Glide for Sora, which allows you to move around the environments even faster, and that's along with flow motion abilities. All of that said, I find the game to be very trite.
    Let me explain. As mentioned above, many, if not all of the enemies have some kind of stun weather it's Stop, Slow, Gravity, or even an attack that makes you unable to use your deck commands until the enemy who cast it on you is defeated. If it were just a few enemies through out the game, that would be fine, but it's not. It's Every. Fucking. World. It makes the game feel tedious and, honestly, makes it unfun to play. The bosses are a different story though.
    They're fast and many of their attacks come out of no where and seem to deal massive amounts of damage. I remember having tons of trouble on my first play through, and on my second one, less, but I still find them to be annoying. I'll use the pelican as an example. He flies around the area making hitting him nearly impossible, and when he does finally land on a floating rock trying to get up to him is a joke. Even using flow-motion Sora will sometimes pass him without landing a hit, and land on the ground. By the time he finally does land on the rock the pelican is moving again. What's more, at the start of the battle, and once more in the middle and end, you have to flow motion to catch him. This means you are in a sort of on-rails shooter, only you can't shoot, only dodge. Sora's health is significantly decreased, and if you get hit by all the flying debris, he dies, making you start, not just that section over, but the whole damn battle. And that's not even the end boss.

 Riku's end boss has a cool attack where he can drain your health to 1 and then, if he so desires, while Riku is still stunned from the former attack, he can do another attack right under you and kill you, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
    Diving is another story. The goals are easy at first, but get progressively harder, especially when you are required to defeat bosses. The only way to do it while Diving is to wait for the bosses "core" to be exposed, but the game doesn't always like to tell you how to do it. It just says "defeat the boss" and leaves you to it. It isn't until you die, or have been fighting him for two minutes or so when the game finally gives you a hint, but sometimes, it flies by so quick that if you blink you'll miss it. Fortunately, there aren't too many boss fights when diving. I wish I could say diving without boss fights is fun, but that isn't great either. There is usually always a strict time limit and if you run out of time, you have to start over.
    Rather than Donald or Goofy or any other Disney Character in your party, this time you get to use Dream Eaters. I heard someone describe them as dimwitted Pokemon, and I think that's a good description. The dream eaters can be helpful but they can be just as much of a hindrance. In the later levels you can flow-motion your way all the way to the top of a building or cliff side to get a treasure, but as soon as you reach the top, your DreamEater appears there and knocks you all the way back down again. In battle I've seen them just standing there. Sometimes, they'll even get stuck in areas and not show up until you've defeated all the enemies without them.
    Each one has link abilities which grant Sora and Riku abilities as well such as Defense Boost or HP Boost. The problem is that some of the dream eaters charge you points to open pathways between those abilities. In other words in order to get new abilities for Sora and Riku you have to spend ability points on nothing to open a pathway that leads to something. Mind, not all of the DreamEaters make you do this. Some of them require your DreamEater to get to a certain level before you can gain access to all of their abilities, even once you've opened all their abilities on the board. This means you have to stick with the same DreamEaters throughout almost the entire game. That's not a problem if you don't give a crap about the other DreamEaters, but if you want to level all 100 or so of them up, it makes for a lot of level grinding, that in my opinion, isn't really worth it.

Hath cheered me as a lovely beam a lonely spirit guiding.

 As far as music and voice work goes it's great. "Simple and Clean/ Passion" Remix is back for those people who like it. I do, but I'm just tired of it at this point. Fortunately we get a new son in Kingdom Hearts 3 so there's that. The world music is great. Once again I love that, in the Disney worlds they use music from that world. Tron's world comes to mind. Even the battle theme they used in the game fits perfectly.
    I have only a few gripes, and they are personal gripes. I don't take points off for any of these next few things. First and foremost, is the Spirit Menu Music. Any time you go to train your DreamEaters, you are forced to listen to something liken to the Meow Mix commercials. It's sickeningly cute, and not in a good way. The song makes me literally want to throw up. I suppose they want these games to stay "E10+" which is why Nomura throws in cute songs or moments like this, but honestly, having grown up with this game, Some part of me was hoping it would grow up a little bit too. I'm not asking for an "M" Rating for Kingdom Hearts or anything, but maybe just some more grown up themes.
    Second is some of the voice work. As mentioned above, Judge Claude Frollo's voice actor does an okay job, but there are lines from the movie incorporated in the game that without the visual impact of the movie just don't make sense. Example: In the movie Frollo talks about stomping out the Gypsies by crushing some ants with his fingers. Then picks up a brick and shows thousand more, crushing all of them as well, to which Phebus replies "you make your point quite vividly." In this version, it's just them talking. It just doesn't work for me. I don't want to say that the line was delivered poorly, but yeah, I didn't like it. 

 What though that light, thro' storm and night, so trembled from afar—

 I really want to like this game, I really do. It has some great elements in it that, if done properly, could have made for a stellar experience, but sadly, with enemies that constantly stun you, spirits that knock you off platforms, and bosses who can attack even while you're stunned, the game play of the game is just subpar. I love the story, the visuals, voice work and music (for the most part) but I just can't get into the game play, and that's a shame. Fortunately, 0.2 has restored my faith in the series.