KJ

So, that was pretty good, and mostly satisfying. I am only a little bit confused. I think.

It was much shorter than I expected, based on previous games. Less than 40 hours! Partially that's because we didn't really do any sidequests, but I think it also has to do with how the game was structured. ( Thoughts about that and other things, under the cut. )

I guess it's not so early. We've played 12 or so hours, onto the second world in the second zone. I'm having fun with it so far, although as usual it's not always clear what's going on. I am very very thankful to have picked up the Story So Far collection, and especially to have played both Birth By Sleep games. I still feel okay without Dream Drop Distance for now, but only because I watched a couple of recap videos. If you're planning to play KH3 without having played all of the previous games, I definitely recommend doing your homework -- there are in-story recaps, but you still meet an awful lot of people without knowing who they are.

( Minor spoilers, only revealing new Disney property that have mostly been announced elsewhere )

The overall story is... complicated, as to be expected. ( Cut for more significant spoilers )

Maybe it will be explained and maybe it won't. After all, Kingdom Hearts means never having to say "I totally understand what's going on." As long as I enjoy the journey, it's okay if I don't get all the answers.

Did I really not say anything here about Kingdom Hearts 3 finally being a real thing that I will actually be able to play soon? Wow, I really am out of the habit of posting.

Anyway, after literal years of teasing the upcoming game, I didn't learn that there was a release date until quite recently. Maybe in November? That release date is January 29th, i.e. less than two weeks away, and I'm getting pretty darn excited. After some waffling about which edition to get, I pre-ordered the regular edition from Amazon a few days ago. As long as I was there, I also picked up Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far, which includes the HD remasters of KH, KH 2, and almost all the other games in the series. I've only played the two main titles, and I never picked up the earlier remaster collections -- all I had were the original PlayStation 2 discs, and since we said goodbye to our PS2 some years ago, it only made sense to own versions that I could actually play.

Speaking of playing: now I need to figure out which, if any, games I want to get through before starting KH 3. The disc arrived last night, and I was already overwhelmed with potential choices. Careful readers will notice that I played Kingdom Hearts 2 without having ever played Chain of Memories. After I played, I went back to catch up on what I'd missed -- I read through a script and some plot summaries, and at some point I watched a movie of all the cutscenes strung together -- but I went into the new game cold. For the most part it was fine, but there's been a LOT more between-game content this time, and I'd like to see about catching up on at least some of it.

On the other hand, that's a lot of content to consume between now and a week from Tuesday. So I'll probably need to triage, at least a bit. In a perfect world, I would've bought this collection three months ago and embarked on an epic complete replay, but obviously that is not going to happen in ten days. So KH and KH 2 are off the table for now, and I also don't feel the need to play Chain of Memories. Another thing that helps is that some of the "games" are not full games, just an HD remaster of all the cutscenes with text to connect them together. So I can just sit back and watch KH 358/2 Days, KH re:Coded, and KH X. That leaves me with three actual games to play: Birth By Sleep, Birth By Sleep 0.2, and Dream Drop Distance. Last night, T and I decided to give Birth By Sleep a try, since it's a prequel and can presumably be played any time. (We started with Terra and got three worlds into his story -- good so far, and I appreciate the opportunity to get used to KH-style gameplay again.) And today, I watched an hour or so of 358/2 Days, because it's the Roxas backstory, which I find interesting. So we'll continue with both of those for now. I suppose my only real question is this: will I be missing out on anything vital if I wait until after KH 3 to watch the others and play Dream Drop? Any thoughts and recommendations are welcome.

I still remember the day so many years ago, when the first KH3 teaser trailer dropped at E3, and my Tumblr timeline went berserk. I hadn't realized I followed so many big KH fans-- heck, I didn't realize that I myself was that big of a KH fan! We've been waiting, and now it's really going to happen. I kind of still can't believe it's real. Maybe I won't until I hold the game in my hands.

I keep waiting to update because I figure I'll post once I hear from one of the employers I'm waiting on (had a second interview three weeks ago, have been in intermittent contact with another school), but it keeps not happening. Maybe reporting that there is nothing to report will jar the universe into giving me some information.

Not much else to discuss, really. Not many other jobs to apply for. No travel or other shenanigans planned (and I'm reluctant to plan anything when the job stuff is up in the air). There's a Dragon Age fan meetup in New York City that I'm contemplating. My fic for the DA Reverse Bang is coming along, if very slowly. I've been plugging along on the 31 Day Hawke Challenge, too. Haven't missed a day yet! Unheard of, for these 30-day memes. Predictably, I want to write up the answers for Marissa now, too, and Garrett (my pro-templar m!Hawke warrior, who's just getting into Act 3).

Speaking of games, I finally gave up on finishing the Via Infinito (stupid Chac) and went ahead and wrapped up my FFX-2 replay last week, resulting in predictable Paine/Nooj emotions and plot bunnies, and I really need to write them another story sometime. Then, spurred on by some impulse I don't fully understand, I started a new game of Kingdom Hearts, a game I haven't played in many, many years. Probably I should just wait for the rumored PS3 remaster that includes Chain of Memories (which I have never played), but no. And then, to complete the trifecta of games in process, I discovered that Knights of the Old Republic is available for iPad. Now this is exciting, because I've always wanted to play that game, but assumed I never would for platform reasons. I downloaded it almost immediately and am now maybe 6 or so hours in? So far, so good, although I think I stumbled across a major, major spoiler on Tumblr the day after I began playing. (Probably a spoiler I've heard a hundred times, but never had the context to understand before.) We'll see if it means what I think it means.

Kingdom Hearts II? Is much harder on the advanced level. Much.

Yay for four day weekends!

I don't remember now how I found this, or why, but I discovered it lately and had to share. It's a fan-made film of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, which takes all the Organization XIII-related scenes from the game (both the Sora and Riku versions) and knits them into a three-hour movie. I don't have a stable link; do a search for "Skies of Memory" and you'll find it. I downloaded the video onto my iPod and watched it over the last few days, mostly on the train and at lunch. The verdict? You can understand KH II without having played CoM, but it makes a lot more sense with it. I read a game script for CoM, which was useful, but it was far easier to follow and truly understand what was going on in video format. And I got a much better sense of the characters. The members of Organization XIII who don't appear in KH II had been little more than names to me; now they're real, with personalities and motivations. I appreciate that. Definitely recommended, if you want the backstory or the memory refresher.

(BTW, I know, copyright issues, with downloading and watching such a thing when I don't own the game. In my defense, had the game been on any other platform I almost certainly would have bought it. But I can't play CoM -- the tiny GameBoy keypad would almost certainly be an RSI disaster for me. So I don't feel particularly guity.)