Kingdom Hearts

Does anyone play the game Kingdom Hearts?  It's a video game series developed by Square Enix, featuring Disney.  It's an awesome game, just FYI.  If you like Disney, playing video games with plot and action, you'd love this game.  I'm personally not a fan of video games to begin with, but I started playing this game because my friends all loved it.  Funny story.  My parents asked me if I wanted a PS2, because that's the console KH1 and KH2 are on.  I told them no.  And then... guess what?  They got me a PS2!  Wasn't that excited at first, but KH is an awesome game.  I think video games need both a plot and some kind of action, so you're not just running around aimlessly.  And this plot is very family friendly, but at the same time gets into darker tones.  Cliched at times, but hey, anything connected to Disney movies is always somewhat cliched.  That's the epitome of the Disney princess movies.  And the action isn't killing... not really.  The games are near impossible to explain because they've become so convoluted.  But I'll try.  A boy named Sora finds that he can wield a blade called the keyblade (which is exactly what it sounds like, a blade which looks like a key) and has to go to different worlds (mostly Disney worlds) and destroy the Heartless (created from darkness) which are trying to take over the worlds.  He succeeds, and then stuff happens.  And he has to do it again... kinda.  And there's a lot more convolutions, but that's the bare bones.

Isn't this awesome? 

I played and finished the first game years ago.  I actually only finished the second game over the summer. (I've had the games for at least four years.)  But that's beside the point...  I recently got back into the game so I'm replaying the game on expert mode.  All the KH games have secret endings that you can unlock if you fulfill certain criteria.  Most of these secret endings are trailers for the next game to be released, or at the very least, alludes to future games.  All these videos are on youtube, certainly, but I'm just obsessed with seeing them on the TV screen and feeling the satisfaction that I was able to unlock it.  Haven't been able to unlock them yet... I have three of the KH games.  KH1, KH2, and KH: Birth By Sleep.  When I played KH1, I wasn't aware of these secret endings, and it was the first video game I've ever played that I've ever been invested in.  I barely got through, had no skill whatsoever, and literally mashed buttons until I a) won, or b) died.  Most times... it was choice b.  When I got lucky, or at a high enough level, I'd win.  But then I learned about unlocking secret endings, and decided to do everything I could for KH2.  I gave up... it was terrible.  I beat the hardest boss in the game, Sephiroth (and sat there shaking in excitement for a good five minutes afterward) and then gave up because I couldn't beat a mini-game called Cargo Climb.  Yes, it was just as pathetic as it sounds.  All that blood, sweat, and tears, only to give up thanks to a mini-game.  Sigh.

Beat him.

Got beat by this.

Now, playing on expert, I sorta know what's coming up, and I have some skill in playing the game.  I had to learn while playing KHBBS, in which mashing buttons doesn't work.  So I think that helped in getting through expert mode more smoothly.  What took me fifty tries to defeat the first time now takes less than five.  Of course... some things that took me one try to beat now takes me fifty... So, I'm iffy on this whole improvement thing.

Isn't this just epic looking?  It's from a cut scene, but this is the kind of stuff you see!

This is the Battle of 1000 Heartless.  Yes, it was literally 1000.  It was not exaggerating.  But... it was actually quite cathartic hacking my way through them.  

There's this world called Monstro.  It's a giant whale from Pinocchio, I think?  I'm not that familiar with Pinocchio.  But Monstro literally swallows you as you're travelling between worlds.  See, you have something called a gummi ship that allows you to travel within the deep space all the worlds are floating in.  And... Monstro is just swimming in this deep space.  And it swallows you!  As you're trying to get to a different world!  It's quite traumatic the first time.

Imagine being swallowed by that!

Your gummi ship stalls, and you just see this giant... thing coming at you.  And when it gets closer, you see it's a ginormous whale that's at least ten times larger than your ship.  It flies around you a couple times, and then it's mouth opens and you get swallowed!  It's crazy!  Oh, and when you get inside the whale, you literally travel around through the insides of the whale, jumping around in its mouth, its throat, its stomach, and chambers (in its stomach, I think).  Not only that, the ground under your feet (which is the innards of a whale!) jiggles... And all the walls and the ceiling around you jiggles too!  Just on its own!  It's not like you step somewhere, and it jiggles.  It just jiggles randomly, all the time!  It's really freaky.  It's also really colorful and spotted.  Considering where you are... it's just freaky.  And then, the boss you fight is called a parasite cage.  Which makes sense since you encounter it inside a whale.

This is the parasite cage.  Imagine fighting this... inside the stomach of a whale.  

But when you finish fighting the parasite cage the second time, Monstro sneezes (yes, it sneezes!) and you get sneezed out!  I just re-finished Monstro and just realized that you get sneezed out.  I originally thought it just spit you out cuz it decided you were giving it a stomachache or something.  Which is equally plausible!  Probably more so... since you weren't jumping around Monstro's nose... so I don't really know why you would get sneezed out anyway...

There's a crapload more I could rant about.  And a crapload more that I want to rant about.  But it's past midnight, and I should really stop... I'm sure there will be many more posts about Kingdom Hearts (especially since I'm on break right now) so bear with me!  So I'll do my best to intersperse these random posts with something about Gossip Girl.  Now, I shall leave you with one final epic picture.  Er... maybe two.

This is The World That Never Was.

This is a map of all the KH worlds from all the games.  (I think.)  

I think that first picture of The World That Never Was is just beyond epic.  I've noticed that every single world has a light and dark side.  You can see an image of each world before you land, and like the picture you see above, part of it is light (to top, white castle) and the other part is dark (the bottom, dark city).  I don't know how well you can see all the worlds in the second picture, but they're all pretty epic.

~XOXO, Seravia