Hey there, Clickbait Boyfriend fans! We’ve returned after an unexpected mini hiatus. If you listened to this week’s episode of the podcast or read this week’s upcoming Split Screen, you’ve heard that he used to be a vacationer like you, but then he took a stingray to the foot. Now that I’m confident that he has not gained the superpowers of a stingray, I’m ready to go back to gently making fun of him attempting to roast Kingdom Hearts III! Ready for a journey to the Hundred Acre Wood? Let’s make it through the Realm of Darkness to visit our cuddly stuffed friends!
(New to Clickbait Boyfriend? Catch up on all the posts here!)
“RIP Christopher Lee, man.”
-on replacing voice actors
Starting it off with a bit of a downer. We lost some good ones since the last game.
Oh boy, do I have questions. How much time do you have?
“Don’t tell me Ansem the Wise is going to be one of the thirteen darknesses.”
-on shocking potential evils
More like “Don’t tell me Ansem the Wise is going to have a storyline that makes sense?” I would welcome Ansem the Wise being a darkness, if only because I would finally understand who the heck he is.
Don’t worry, he’s actually just a deeply angsty poet.
“The girl’s Namine! Xion. Could be anyone as far as I’m concerned.”
-on Lea and Isa’s mysterious old friend
At this point, I really thought the mysterious girl was Xion. Later in the game, I became convinced that she was Kairi, before she got meteored to Destiny Islands. Now? I’m not even confident that Nomura knows.
Thanks, Ansem/Xehanort’s Heartless.
“Tea?”
-on Merlin’s drink of choice
Merlin just became one million times more relatable to me, as I too often search the universe to find the best tea shop I can.
Me (left) deciding where to go with CBB (right) for a refreshing beverage.
“I hate that they keep calling him Little Chef.”
-on unfortunate nicknames
There are so many talking animals in this universe. Why can’t we give enough speech capability to Little Chef for him to introduce himself as Remy? Can’t we at least call him petit chef? He is running a French bistro!
This is what I see when I envision “Little Chef”
“I’m trying to parse this Big Ben reference. Assuming Merlin is British and assuming his world eventually gets a Big Ben, it’s about 800 years in the future. Maybe he can see in the future?”
-on magic powers
Clickbait Boyfriend thinks he’s very clever, but I’ve got some holes to poke in his continuity roast here. Number one: pretty sure Merlin is known for being able to see into the future. Number two: we’ve established over and over that time passes at an indeterminate rate in Kingdom Hearts, so it’s basically impossible to know what eight hundred years means in Merlin’s world (which we’ve never seen, by the way. How does Merlin get around? Also unclear.)
Number three is the kicker: we’ve actually already seen Big Ben in the series! The original Neverland from the first game has a bit of a misleading name. You spend most of the level on Captain Hook’s pirate ship trying to track down a passive, helpless, semi-conscious Kairi (just like the rest of the series, hey oh!) and listening to Riku act like a brat. You don’t actually set foot in Neverland (that’s reserved for Birth By Sleep), but you do visit Big Ben in London at the end of the world! You can even fight the bonus Phantom boss there.
However, this raises a whole other set of questions. Has Merlin been to the Big Ben in Neverland? This seems unlikely, but not impossible given that he’s apparently just jetting around the galaxy looking for some Earl Grey. But more importantly, what the heck is the composition of Neverland? Does it contain some version of London? Aqua, Terra, and Ventus didn’t turn up any sign of a clock tower on their visit a decade prior, so either London was built in the intervening ten years or so, or there’s a whole other side of the world we haven’t seen. Are all the worlds that big? Am I falling into darkness down this tangent I’ve dug for myself?
Low quality visual evidence
“I’m ready, yes! It’s all going to be dumb mini games, but yes!!!”
-on returning to the Hundred Acre Wood
You want dumb mini games with a side of wholesome, heartwarming friendship? You got it!
Winnie the Puumba
“Wow interesting graphic choice! It’s like cel shaded!”
-on adding some style to Winnie the Pooh
I really appreciate the subtle graphical distinctions the designers have been between the worlds in Kingdom Hearts III. New costumes and character models for worlds like Toy Box and Monstropolis are always cool, but it’s neat to see more nuanced style distinctions too. Hey Disney! This is a great reminder that animation doesn’t need to be photorealistic to be striking and effective!
The real seven lights, plus Sora.
“This is like every single mobile game ever made.”
-on farming fruit
Honestly, I wish that Union Cross was just a Candy Crush knock-off. It would free up a lot of brain space for things that aren’t Kingdom Hearts conspiracy theories.
Sora, you need to delete the app, it’s taking over your life.
“A lot of those were ingredients for ratatouille. I’ll be damned if I don’t get to make ratatouille. Look at my deep culinary knowledge.”
-on coming up with recipes based on what looks good at the farmer’s market
You do get to make ratatouille in Kingdom Hearts III, but I don’t think Rabbit’s garden has the necessary herbs. Clickbait Boyfriend’s mental recipe rolodex was for naught.
CBB (left) trying to decide what to cook me (right) for dinner.
“Sora in every other world is willing to get roped into all sorts of trivial stuff, but here, he harvests some veggies and he’s like ‘okay, even though you’re some of my best friends, bye!'”
-on taking your friends for granted
Look, Sora’s got a busy schedule! He’s got to find the power of waking by randomly going to worlds to jump around, run up walls, and hit things. He doesn’t have time to randomly go to a world in a book to jump around, run up walls, and hit things!
Whoa there, Pooh Bear. That’s a little intense. Alternate caption: me, to CBB whenever he tries to leave the apartment without me.
“You after going grocery shopping.”
-on “look at all this marvelous fruit”
Can’t even lie, this is, to quote Clickbait Boyfriend looking over my shoulder as I write this, “too real.”
Me (center)…you get the idea.
“Our connection’s getting weaker? That was so ominous and sad!”
-on growing up
This was easily the most emotionally affecting arc of the first two thirds of the game. Please don’t tell me my friendships are getting weaker just because I never visit my friends. Persona 5 already taught me that as long as I level my relationships up to a certain rank, I never have to hang out with those people ever again and I can still reap the benefits. Don’t tell me I have to actively maintain those friendships!
Why am I crying?
“We’re going back. That’s not how they would leave things.”
-on false hope
Hey, at least Winnie and friends got an appearance. Sora didn’t have time to visit Aladdin, Ariel, Simba, or Mulan, and they all have big live action movies to promote!
“…except for Tarzan, eff that guy.”
“Eggselent.”
-on cracking eggs for Little Chef
Nothing like a good pun to crack you up at the end of a post. My brain’s feeling pretty scrambled at this point anyway.
Next time: Remember how last post I teased Frozen because I had forgotten about Hundred Acre Wood? This time, it’s Frozen for real.