Well Clickbait Boyfriend fans, we made it: it only took a year, but this blog has finally caught up to the end of Kingdom Hearts III. In the nick of time too, because Re:Mind comes out in less than nine hours here at Talk This NYC HQ! All that we have left is the half an hour of cutscenes at the end of the game, and then we’re all up to date. Not that anything particularly important happens in those cinematics, right? I’m sure Clickbait Boyfriend doesn’t have any thoughts on Yozora…
(New to Clickbait Boyfriend? Everyone has to start somewhere! You catch up on ten whole games of content here!)
“What’s in the box? Don’t tell me they’re going to save that until the very end and make that the set up for Kingdom Hearts IV. If they do that I’m done. But I’m not.”
-on predictions that are a little too accurate
Spoilers for the rest of the post: Clickbait Boyfriend was both done and not done when this exact thing transpired.
Sora is all of us.
“No. No. What is this? Was Eraqus Terra the whole time? No.”
-on Eraqus’s spirit/heart emerging from Terra for friend time
I wish I understood how hearts live in other hearts better. Does this mean that Eraqus was there with Terra in the Guardian for a decade? Was he weirdly with Xehanort all along? That’s both kinda poetic and totally bonkers.
CBB (left) to this whole series (right)
“His eyes aren’t yellow? Why aren’t his eyes yellow?”
-on Young Xehanort’s silver eyes
Later in life, Xehanort discovered colored contacts, and everything changed.
“One day, I’ll make all my friends wear yellow contacts and I’ll be the coolest kid around,” he thought.
“Some bad guy he is.”
-on Soft Boi Xehanort
I read this winter that Xehanort’s dreams of starting the world anew are a little less warm and fuzzy in the original Japanese. Still, if the softening of Xehanort is just set-up to add Young Norty to the Team of Light or something, I can get behind it. Riku needs a silver-haired buddy who isn’t another Riku.
So no one told Norty life was gonna be this way *clap clap clap clap*
“They’re buds!”
-on Xehaqus’s bond
Look, you play Kingdom Hearts for the Big Friendship Energy, but I did not expect friendship to be powerful enough to redeem Xehanort at the end.
And what happened, then? Well, in Keyblade Graveyard they say – that Norty’s small heart grew three sizes that day
“There’s gotta be a whole lot more right? This isn’t it?”
-on closing Kingdom Hearts
I can’t emphasize enough that it’s taken us ten games and more than fifteen years to get this far. But fortunately for Clickbait Boyfriend, we’ve got that sweet, sweet DLC coming.
My PS4 (center) downloading Re:Mind on Thursday.
“That feels like the ending game music, which I don’t like.”
-on the Kingdom Hearts equivalent of “Closing Time”
If you hear “Dearly Beloved” or an orchestral version of one of the themes, you know the end is nigh.
Mickey, we’re not READY yet.
“No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.”
-on Sora going off alone
Once more with feeling!
“Daisy Duck and Pluto seeker of darkness!”
-on the twists no one saw coming
Pluto is a loose end that makes me deeply uncomfortable, and Daisy Duck has been one of CBB’s favorite characters in the game since the beginning. It has to happen.
Yes, Pluto, deal with our rodent problem!
“Goofy doesn’t have anyone!”
-on the loneliest anthropomorphic dog around
Does Max exist in the Kingdom Hearts universe? It’s one thing to abandon your wife to go on adventures around the Disney universe, and another one entirely to leave your son behind to hang with some other teenagers.
Well, I guess he has Jiminy. But is that worse than having no one at all?
“What is the chibi doing here? Is Ventus an immortal being?”
-on Chirithy’s return
The moogles had better watch their backs; there’s a new cutie in town.
Me (left) comforting CBB (right) after the game didn’t answer his questions.
“Is Axel in short sleeves? Why is Isa here? Is he a good boy now?”
-on clocktower reunions
Everyone knows that short-sleeves weather means a season with more light. It’s all a metaphor!
Shhh they’re all eating ice cream together, just enjoy this.
“Please give me more. They’re not gonna give me more are they?”
-on the denial stage of grief
In Riku’s hand, you can see how many answers this game will ever give.
“Are they finally gonna kiss?”
-on Sora and Kairi
Clickbait Boyfriend, revealed to be a Sora and Kairi shipper right under the wire here.
Me, listening to the orchestral version of “SImple and Clean” over the end credits
“What did I just sit through? That was the most useless Kingdom Hearts game I’ve played through in my entire life. So much happened and nothing happened. I feel just as lost now as I did before I played this, which is really typical. So much happened at the end and they didn’t give you a chance to process it. No time to dwell on anything.”
-on complaints, complaints, complaints
No one ever said Clickbait Boyfriend didn’t have strong feelings about these games.
The biggest crime of all is this Donald Duck sand sculpture. Who had the skills to make this? Is this why Donald never has magic to cure me? He’s making ART?
“I hate how they credit the Disney characters.”
-on bizarre vendettas
Who does crediting the Disney characters hurt? Clickbait Boyfriend just lashing out in all directions now.
I take it back. Crediting Mickey Mouse hurts us all.
“Are there gonna be any real bombshells in the credits?”
-on hilarious oversights
Literally as Josh said this, the Foretellers scrolled by and he missed it.
“Get to check in with all my Disney friends! Is this where they get a Michelin Star?”
-on Scrooge McDuck’s Bistro
Scrooge McDuck’s restaurant relies on sporadic child labor that cannot consistently crack an egg, so feels like a long-shot.
They might need to address the rodent problem too.
“Orlando Bloom, truly. Shmeira Shmightley.”
-on our pirate buddies, one last time
I would be shocked if the Pirates crew returned in any future Kingdom Hearts games, so this is our final tribute to the artist formerly known as Shmorlando Shmloom. Truly the most iconic glow-up of this entire series.
My PS4 (left) when I (right) leave the apartment for two weeks over the holidays
“Justice for Winnie the Pooh! Why didn’t I get more of a Pooh world?”
-on friends we missed this time around
We miss our childhood friends, dang it! Give me more fake Candy Crush!
Nomura’s Heartless (left) and Nobody (right) planting narrative seeds in these games that he’ll figure out how to grow later.
“I had the name of the secret movie spoiled to me a long time ago, and it has me real worried. It’s probably not related. That would be some real Tetsuya Nomura bulls#!t.”
-on Yozora
Tetsuya Nomura, grabbing his bulls#!t
“I can’t believe I’m gonna have to deal with Maleficent and Pete in the end scene.”
-on the most important two characters in the series, probably
Maleficent is about to reclaim her rightful place as the Big Bad, don’t let Luxu distract you.
PETE ARTHUR FIST!
“This epilogue better make up for a lot.”
-on high hopes to the very end
Isn’t Clickbait Boyfriend’s optimism a thing to behold? One minute, he’s ranting about how disappointing this game is and how it always makes him angry and never gives any answers, the next, he’s blindly hoping for some satisfaction in the epilogue. It’s remarkable!
Here, have a unicorn! Doesn’t this take a little of the sting off being confused all the time?
“What? So we’re back in time now? But the key? Are we forward in time?”
-on the Foretellers
It is an exercise in futility to try to follow the time travel. I can barely keep track of the fact that we’re in 2020 in the real world, so who could reasonable expect me to follow the Jeremy Bearimys of Kingdom Hearts?
Me (left) telling Clickbait Boyfriend (center) to stop fighting the Kingdom Hearts II Roxas batlle over and over and go to sleep. The others are our imaginary dogs.
“Is that the Master of Masters? Is it the other disciple?”
-on mysterious hooded figures
Kingdom Hearts does love a good hooded figure reveal.
KH:UX, Dream Drop Distance, Re:Coded, and Chain of Memories closing in on anyone who says there hasn’t been a Kingdom Hearts game in over a decade.
“What kills me is how not surprised I am? That’s what hurts the most. It’s not the most ridiculous thing they could have done. Why does this feel normal? I’m not emotionally ready. I don’t like this. Why. Why are they doing this? Nomura!”
-on Luxu/Xigbar/Braig
These games are becoming more and more like Russian novels, in that everyone has half a dozen different names and that it’s a crime how much narrative punishment they dole out on all of us.
Luxu laughs in the face of your confusion.
“We already know that Ventus and Marluxia are apparently immortal beings. So I knew the Back Cover stuff and the normal people had to connect in some way, and it was just a matter of how dumb it was gonna be. And by the way, behind all those masks are gonna be the other Organization XIII members. I guarantee it.”
-on future earth-shaking reveals
If I find out tomorrow that Demyx is the Master of Masters I am going to LOSE IT. And that’s nothing compared to how I imagine Clickbait Boyfriend will react. We’ll see if our tiny TV survives his rage.
The Kingdom Hearts games (right) explaining yet another ridiculous twist as I (left) look on in horror and fascination.
“It’s just not the dumbest thing in the whole world. It kinda is.”
-on not opening the box
What (and I cannot emphasize this enough) is IN THE BOX?
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
“I’m not ready to push the X button again, Madelyn. I can’t do this. It’s just gonna do dumb things. I can handle this, but if I go any farther I don’t think I can.”
-on steeling yourself for just one more minute of cutscene revelations
Clickbait Boyfriend trying to work up the courage to pick up the controller for the secret movie
“Is it an alternate dimension? How does time work?”
-on Sora in Shibuya
At this point, I’m just along for the ride.
The Shibuya Scramble? More like the Shibuya Dodge Roll and Superglide, am I right?
“…”
-on Yozora
If you’ve read all sixty editions of this blog series so far, you’ll recognize that it takes a lot to render Clickbait Boyfriend speechless.
“…” -Yozora, probably
“So Kingdom Hearts IV is gonna be a gritty, real life…I can’t believe this.”
-on gigantic genre shifts
You’ve always got to take the secret movie with a grain of salt, right? Riku and Roxas fighting in The World that Never Was also looked pretty gritty and real-life, and I can’t say it lived up to that when it actually happened five games later. So we’re probably looking at Kingdom Hearts 5.4 here, and it’ll probably just be Sora running around with his TWEWY friends in one world. But you never know…
<3
“Kingdom Hearts has jumped the shark.”
-on one last parting thought
I think that happened way back in the first game, when we fought the shark in Atlantica. Hey, whatever happened to that guy? Could he be one of the foretellers too…?
—-
That’s all folks….until tomorrow’s DLC! Tune in later this week for a special Secret Reports edition of Clickbait Boyfriend, and watch for some of his thoughts on Re:Mind to go live next week!