"SIMBA!! DO SOMETHING!!! FUCKING SAVE ME!!!!" - KH:CoM Blogging
Guess who started Chain of Memories for the first time since ragequitting the GBA version as a child! ...Guess who ragequit again on PS4! I... I just really hate the card system. By the time I figure out what cards I'm looking at, and select the correct one for the situation, or god forbid try to stack 3, the situation has already changed and/or the enemy has used a card that just breaks mine a frame before I hit X/Triangle anyway. It's unbearable to me. Any game that makes you shift your attention between different parts of the screen quickly is almost always going to be a nightmare for me. I just end up button mashing and hating myself for it. If there was a mod of this game to just fight things like the original game or even a turn based card game I'd play it. I'd re-purchase this game on steam just to mod it, even. But, man, I just cannot get my brain to work fast enough for this shit. Traverse Town was annoying, but manageable. I beat the boss the first try I am so tempted to just watch a cutscene movie and then go straight to KH2, but I'm gonna try to stick it out. ...And I really hope that I don't regret saying that. But yeah, currently feeling like this, and I haven't even gotten to Cloud yet, or any of the actually difficult Organization XIII fights. I am going to get fucking wrecked by the rest of this game, aren't I.
HOOOOOF. Colosseum done! I ended up beating Cloud on only the second try! Take that, you life-ruining uke! Hades got me down to a sliver of health before I finished him with a final Blizzard card, but when Cloud gave me his Summon card after the cutscene and it was only a fucking 4 I almost reset to do the fight again. Anyway, I got some help from a friend on formatting the card decks which has made the game a LOT easier, too. I'm starting to get the hang of stacking combos properly, even if I'm still absolutely relying on summon cards. (No thanks to Cloud, btw--- My 9 Genie and two 6 Simbas are the ones carrying at the moment.) I'm in Monstro now and, to be honest... As much as I love the soundtrack to these games, the Monstro music is probably the weakest track. And the level design is kind of boring too. I usually love organic, and well, organ-themed levels, but this one reads more as jiggly jell-o world. I dunno. Even in the original it needed rooms of more varied colors or something. Anyway, I'll survive the rest of the world somehow, I'm sure. Just waiting to see my boy Riku now, hehe. I'm honestly surprised to say that my Chain of Memories playthrough is still going really well! I feel like I've finally gotten a hold on lining up combos in decks for myself (Fire Raid my beloved), the rest of Monstro and Halloween town went really well, and I even ended up being able to beat both bosses on my first try! The plot's actually picking up now, also. CoM really adds to the mystique of Organization XIII, and Namine's self-insert moments are pretty damn heartbreaking... They designed a perfectly pitiful little cringefail of a blond girl... I mean, after all, we've all wanted to alter Blorbo's memory to make ourselves their BFF at some point in our lives, right? ...No? Just me? Anyone?
Anyway, I used to really dislike Larxene* when I was younger, but she's kind of hilarious to me now in a tryhard sort of way. She is going to be a bad guy, damnit! And her little bitchfests with Axel are so hilarious, too. I love them, but man, it kind of cracks me up when people ship them together--- Can you say lavender marriage? Anyway, the thing about liking Kingdom Hearts as a teenager is that the world is so dramatic, and it sounds deep enough on the surface level since they throw around vague mysterious sentences and darkness and light and heart and other worlds etc etc., and it takes itself pretty seriously most of the time, and when you put all that together, you kind of don't have a choice but to end up meeting it at that level and taking most of it at face-value.
Larxene's attempts to be a scathing, evil villainess just kind of come off as pathetic and over the top. It interests me from a character standpoint that Axel is obviously letting things slip through his facade in his interest in Sora (because of Roxas), but Larxene remains pretty unreadable unless you already know the story beats. She's just... Always at level 10 evil snarkity snark. Their characterizations play off each other nicely. It's kind of refreshing that she's the only girl in the organization (I said what I said) but she's not, like, A "The Only Girl" Character. I don't need to write out a paragraph explaining why I like Axel because. It's Axel. No shit. Who DOESN'T like Axel? ---Well, apart from the weird AkuRoku-antis that cropped up out of nowhere when KH3 revived the fandom. But, yeah. I really am shocked how--- let's say somewhere between "tolerable" and "enjoyable"--- this playthrough has been. Turns out the solution really was to simply git gud this time! ...And it only took me 6 Worlds to get sufficiently good...! Oh! And I almost forgot: So far, we've seen Riku's left leg. Just in case you wanted an update on the Riku Report. I'm sure the thrilling reveal of the Riku story route will be an unforeseeable shock to all. I mean uhhh. Nothing.
Upon entering my starting Moogle Room in Atlantica, excited to see the cute new graphics on the more expensive Card Packs, I bought the most expensive, black leather belt wrapped Blue Booster Pack and said aloud: "Okay, now give me Cloud." Larxene had just given me the The Cards flipped up one by one on my screen. And what, dear reader, was revealed, all in the same pack?
Apparently, I somehow unknowingly completed some kind of Satanic Bishie-Summoning Ritual. I started out by going to edit my deck. I reluctantly replaced my combo of three Simbas, skeptical that Cloud would manage to beat the convenience and power of Simba's AoE attack, and went into the next room for a battle. And then I was prompted to simply hit Triangle like 5 times in a row and Cloud slaughtered everything on the field. The Bishie Is Back.mp3 Seriously, pulling out a stack of three Cloud cards genuinely feels like cheating sometimes. If I get sick of actually fighting heartless and using the Keyblade, I just whip out my three Clouds and commit mass murder. It's pretty great when you're in a fight with a lot of annoying heartless and just want to leave the room. I was so, so excited about the new Cloud viability, and meanwhile poor Sora is soooo sad about Ebil Riku being all jealous and mean to him... I'm with Donald and Goofy--- I wanna hug the little baby guy and tell him to cheer up, too. Thankfully, my satanic 666 Cloud combo was also extremely helpful to start out with for that Ebil Riku fight! Oh, right. So for a quick Riku Report Update: I beat him half to death. Spamming Triangle is just the way to go for some fights, honestly. ...Until you get mixed up in where you are in your deck and don't look at the combo you're about to use and end up wasting your Cure in a useless stack so it'll never reload again...
As for the actual plot, I left off about 3/4ths of the way through neverland, so I'll be returning to my 0 fondness for Peter Pan soon enough.
Last playsession, I took care of the rest of Neverland (god Peter Pan annoys the piss outta me) and beat up Captain Hook. Sorry, foppish pirate man. Cloud got the killing blow in, so he's probably actually dead now. Oh, and I take back what I said about Monstro, btw. Going through the boring-ass pirate ship layout was so, so much worse than Monstro. As I was gliding around the rooms I genuinely had the thought "Man, if this wasn't a Kingdom Hearts game I really would never have touched it in a million years." I'm having fun, still--- it's not like I'd actually rather just watch a cutscene movie for the plot, I just... Really miss actually fighting things with my actual Keyblade and actual magic and actual movement tech instead of just using a card deck to do so. I did do better than the first time on the second Ebil Riku fight, but god damn--- Again, my heart really does break for Sora. Especially considering he's so naive that he thinks that's actually Riku's opinion.* Like, the part of the cutscene just before the fight where Sora imagines himself and Riku as babbies fighting with wooden swords? Broke my fucking (kingdom) heart(s). Basically the lack of SoRiku ship material in the first half of the game is practically single handedly made up for with the line: "Sora... You're always trying to worm your way into my heart!"
...I'm sorry, but how the hell else do you even take that besides SoRiku canon? I mean, and then right after that we get Sora saying: "You won't push me away..." ABSOLUTE FUJOBAIT CINEMA. Also, the Axel and Namine scene... Every member of Organization XIII really said Mansplain, Manipulate, Malewife, Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss, all at the same time. Before I actually go back to the plot, I think I'd like to backtrack to the previous worlds and get the treasure rooms I didn't have the cards to unlock the first time around, and I'll farm some mushrooms to maybe try to get their Heartless Cards while I'm at it.  Farming Key to Rewards in the first room of Hollow Bastion wasn't too bad, but I only did Traverse Town, Wonderland, Agrabah, and Olympia before it was too late in the afternoon to keep playing. (Putting housekeeping above video games, I know, I'm like the most responsible person in the world. The thing is that Sora can't really help me clean my oven, sooo...) So today I started out by finishing up getting the Rooms of Rewards I'd missed, then went ahead and finished up Hollow Bastion and juuust barely clutched out a win against Maleficent. Next, I finally started the Winnie The Pooh minigame world I'd been avoiding... I did get finally get a Megaether and an Elixir though, so I'm pleased with that, at least. Vexen was such an annoying fight--- he kept ruining my combos and fucking up my deck placements... I almost ragequit, but I decided to do just one more try and of course on my last attempt I finally managed to beat him. I had to rearrange my deck and add a bunch more fire based moves.* Fuck Vexen, tbh. Genuinely one of the most boring members of Organization XIII. Now, Marluxia, on the other hand, is hilarious. Especially next to Axel. They're constantly trying to outdo each other's offputting auras, lol. Well, anyhow, Twilight Town will be next up. Some of the textures just in the opening cutscene look hilariously low-quality, but the music of course holds up as well as ever. ...Time for Sora to go delve into Ventus' memories!
Me, upon starting Twilight Town: Jeez, this world has such a small map! I wonder why it's not longer? Vexen: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :))) It's me agaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn I am not kidding you when I say I got a FUCKING STOMACH ACHE from restarting the Vexen II fight over and over. The state of my deck was cheesy and shameful... Just heals and Fire-element combo setups and NINE CLOUD CARDS.
Plus, it's just so much worse rewatching Vexen's little intro cutscene over and over at the start of the fight and seeing his stupid nonchalant face.* I admit I was fully malding and shouting at the screen. "WHY??? WHY CAN HE DO THAT? WHY DOES HE HAVE SO MANY ZEROES? I AM GOING TO KILL YOU. YOU WILL BE DEAD." Just completely titled. It was not pretty. That Ice Needle move should be fucking illegal. I found myself almost about to ragequit (again) when I decided to just level a little and use up some of my Guarded Trove cards to calm down before a final try. ...Well, okay, it ended up being a final 5 tries, but I did finally beat his ass once and for all. And then I flipped off the TV with both hands. Vexen deserves no less than a double deuce for that absolute fuckery. I cheered when Axel Thanos-snapped him into nothingness--- Once again, Chain of Memories' tagline could really just be You Will Love Axel By The End Of This Game. I Guarantee It. They must have made that Vexen fight such a pain in the ass because then it ensures that you'll be rooting for Axel after he just straight up fucking murders the guy. I'll be honest. It was a little hard to pay attention to the fifteen cutscenes after that fight (again, I wasn't kidding about the vengeance-induced tummy ache Vexen gave me--- I probably have an actual stomach ulcer after that shit). But again, the SoRiku is not lost on me. Even if that Ebil Riku fight was like eating a sundae compared to fighting Vexen just before. I genuinely had something worthwhile I wanted to write in here while I was watching the cutscenes, but it seems to have drained out of my brain from the exhaustion after that bullshit. (Why why why does he have both bullshit attacks AND a bullshit shield??? Why?????) I can't even tell if I'm more tired from the difficulty or more tired from the sheer rage that was coursing through every bone in my body while the borderline-soporific Twilight Town theme played after every Continue... So, right, we got the Axel Kills Vexen cutscene, the No Doubles SoRiku cutscene (Demyx was definitely in charge of the arts and crafts to make those two fake good luck charms), we got Axel Having Feelings, you know, the thing Nobodies are not supposed to have... And how about that cutscene where Sora snaps at Donald and Goofy?! Crazy, right? It was genuinely pretty shocking to get to the next floor and just... Not have Goofy and Donald there. Though it's also pretty ridiculous that they only thought to voice their concerns by floor fucking 12. I might've been on your side in room 5, but come the fuck on, it's WAY too late to turn back now, guys. Ugh. Man. Anyway, fuck Vexen. Just cleaned up in Destiny Islands and earned myself the Ebil Riku heartless card! Honestly, I was worried about missing Goofy and Donald, but it is CoM, soooo... I honestly hardly even noticed they were gone... I do love the cutscene where Namine just fucking shatters Ebil Riku's heart and Larxene points and laughs at Sora's panicking... "You're so fun to waaaatch!" I mean, I gotta agree with her there. Watching Sora freak out is pretty much always entertaining, lol. The Ebil Riku puppet reveal is such a pathetic moment, too... Poor Sora. Oh, and Larxene's evil villain speech where she explains the Organization coup, gets mad at Axel for having a good guy moment, and slaps the shit out of Sora, Namine, AND the Riku puppet is so fucking funny. She literally called Sora Almost makes me not hate her for how bullshit this boss battle against her is! Tried a buncha times and ragequit for a long while while I 100%'d Jak & Daxter. (clicky for blogpost about that.) I'm definitely going to have to rearrange my deck and quite possibly levelgrind and/or Moogle Shop room grind, but I've been too busy IRL to really have the mental capacity for quickmath bullshit fucking card games. Ahh... Man I hate the mechanics of Chain of Memories. If Larxene keeps giving me trouble I seriously may have to switch over to the cutscene movie route... Hopefully not though. If all goes well my next update to this blog will be triumphant gloating about beating Larxene with my fancy sleights and how the only cutscene movie will be KH buncha-numbers-over-two days. ...So let's hope it goes well!
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Despairing
Like an unbelievable amount. I do not think this is a fun game outside of navigating the map.
But I need to stick it out at least for the ship material. 
That was kind of annoying with all the large bodies, but those were still better than those obnoxious creeper plants in wonderland.
)
) that you can barely ever take anyone or anything in the plot seriously.
(I'm sure that was probably Voltron fandom's fault, somehow. We can go with that explanation.)
