Kingdom Hearts BAD TAKES Bracket (ft. Kiwi!) - Regular Pat Stream 

Whether or not I actually agree with it, I love the general consensus that Donald is bad at healing. It adds some extra humor to some playthroughs whenever I die and the first thing I look at is Donald's full MP bar. At this point it's less of a "Donald sucks" and more of a "Get your shit together duck. I know you're better than this." for me.

I think the people who honestly think Disney Worlds should be scrapped don’t remember that Disney owns KH.

Regarding the kh2 prologue being "boring" I'm the editor the ReTranslated's video for March Caprice this year. I basically had to take Roxas' 1.75-ish hour prologue and squeeze it into an hour-long video. And how did I do this? The kh2 prologue has sooooooo much dead air. I just cut out long pauses, unnecessary background pans etc etc but had to keep all of the dialogue. And I was able to cut it down to 56 minutes. I guess long story short, the cutscenes themselves can really drag on lol

You know its kind of funny that the arguments in the final round actually feed into each other. I dont think people would dislike the Disney stuff as much if it had more plot relevance, thus making the pacing of the games feel better instead of a weird diversion where all you accomplish is just rewatching the movie the world is based on. A good example being the Disney villain council in KH1 or King Triton just outright acknowledging that he knows about the keyblade and its purpose.

I'm a simple man. I see bracket and kiwi and I click

The thing about the Ice Cream line is that it's an "I" statement because Roxas still hasn't forgiven Axel for his lies, its supposed to represent the fact that Xion is the only person Roxas has left!

I think people who think the "eye" is MoM's actual eye probably dont realize that there is a history behind calling things eyes in media. Like in dungeons and dragons and in skyrim and WoW and all sorts of other games, magical relics are often dubbed "eyes", and usually its because they hold some significance as a tool of magical divination or foresight or are otherwise eye shaped (though not necessarily eye sized, like the eye of magus in skyrim) and extremely important to their creator because of their magical significance. What is most likely in the hilt of that keyblade (if we use other media as a comparison) is some sort of magic scrying stone that the MoM made in order to cast some sort of magical divination spell on. This is because we know for a fact he is using it to see everything the keyblade has ever been aorund to see. So it might as well be the crystal ball of the MoM, but that doesn't sound as cool as saying its his eye. Kinda like the Eye of Sauron. We see Sauron in the prologue, so when we see the giant flaming eye later we know it isnt his real eye because we saw the dude in action. Though I will admit that there are a few occasions where the "eye of XXX"(insert character here) is ACTUALLY that character's eye that has somehow turned into a magical artifact. Such as the eye of vecna in DnD. But very often it's because the character is physically dead but too powerful to actually spiritually die,, and we dont know if the MoM is dead for sure.

Of all things to get upset over, it's an eye having magical properties in a fantasy story?

I don't think KH3s pacing is bad, but I do think they could have moved around a few moments to make it flow better. Why do you dave Aqua and then immediately go get Ventus? They should have had you save Aqua before moving onto the second sector and then 2 worlds later had you save Ventus to give Aqua some acclimation time. Thats my biggest one but theres a couple other scenes I think work better shuffled around, I just think the Riku-Aqua-Ventus storyline is the main sidequest and they pace the first 2/3rds of it perfectly but make the ending come too soon. I don't think its bad how it is, I personally loved KH3s story, but a couple small tweaks would make it that much better. Saying its worse pacing than 2 is wild though. While re-exploring the worlds when you are stronger is fun, it brings the story to a screeching halt for a few hours. Again, like 3, I enjoy it, its cool going back more powerful and having extra missions to do, but you can't deny that it side tracks your main objective for a while.

There were a lot of things here I wouldn't exactly refer to as a 'take'. A take is generally an opinion. The Gazing Eye being MoM's real eye is a theory, not a take. A few others have a similar issue.

I don’t think the Disney worlds should go, removing them would remove a major identity of the franchise, but I think they need to make them more interesting. They’ve done this in the past so idk why they can’t anymore. Maybe Disney is hampering their creative freedom idk. KH1’s worlds are by far the best ones as they tie into the story and worldbuilding of the game more than any game after it but I also like the way they’re used in CoM or Days or BBS as a way to emphasize the themes of their respective games or assist in furthering character development (Terra’s visits in BBS f.e. I think is really great character work). I don’t think it should come as a surprise that this take is a more recent one since the past two games where you visit Disney worlds (DDD and KH3) just didn’t use them to their fullest so they came off as filler content instead of as moments of significance. KH3 especially, it constantly felt like the devs included the worlds out of mandation rather than as an opportunity to enhance the storytelling and gameplay. KH3’s worlds also feel like such a slog to play through as each visit to a world takes up a significant time of your playthrough and you do them all in succession so fatigue sets in real quick, whereas other games break up the Disney sections with original content that breaks up the gameplay loop and makes the playthrough less monotonous.

I'm early into the video, but I do want to bring up two points about the whole "Did Nomura actually plan for Nobodies to have hearts as far back as KH2?" thing. 1. I can believe he did plan this out to some degree around KH2 for the same reasons I can believe that the Ventus/Roxas stuff was something he had in his head back then. It's hard to say whether or not Roxas having Ventus' heart was the reason for the different design from the start or if they just wanted Sora's nobody to have a different design and identity as a character and then gave it more substance later, who knows, but BBS was definitely swirling around in Nomura's brain by the time he'd finished with KH2 considering the secret ending. I get the vibe that whether or not a Nobody actually has a heart was left intentionally vague, and then he later decided that he'd officially confirm it in a future entry. That's not a retcon, that's just leaving things open-ended. 2. If people want to argue that the characters say "Nobodies don't have hearts" over and over despite the fact that they emote and express feeling like they do have one at times, then that would make there being more than 1 keyblade by the end of KH1 a retcon, because many characters express that Sora's is THE Keyblade, and Riku even says "There can't be two Keyblade masters!"(or wielders, I forget exactly), a statement contradicted by the existence of 2 more Keyblades appearing in the following hours. It's only a retcon if there's no evidence to support that the alternative interpretation could happen, and I feel like KH2 gives you a pretty open interpretation on the whole thing. Edit: Why'd I waste my time on this point when I could have been commenting on that eye rant holy fuck

Also to counteract a comment in the ‘Kairi is boring section’ where someone wrote “She’s a female character in a Square Enix game”, kinda true but also no. Square has a lot of great female characters, some of the best in all of video games. I could list a bunch but we’d be here all day. So it’s not a Square problem; it’s a Nomura problem. Even then, Aqua is a fantastic character, up there as one of the best in the franchise after Riku and arguably Xion, so Nomura definitely *can* write good female characters but for whatever reason he just doesn’t respect Kairi or is just not creative when it comes to her, and it becomes as glaring of an issue as it is because she’s supposed to be the female lead. If Naminé was boring or Larxene or honestly even Aqua I don’t think anyone would really bat an eye but because it’s Kairi, the love interest, the girl who’s fridged for the protagonist, the girl Sora sacrifices himself for, the girl that’s literally on the menu screen once you finish KH3. It’s hard not to notice the poor character writing for her. The worst part is that she used to be fun. She had spunk, she had charisma, she had chemistry with Sora and she had a better voice actress (sorry Alyson Stoner but you’ll never be Hayden Panettiere). But post-KH2 it’s evident that they just stopped caring about her and only care about her utility to the story.

that axel t-shirt goes so hard

About the whole Aurora heart thing, I swore Xehanort has a line about Terra not having the power to remove her heart

38:23 If this happened at the Hot Takes tournament, I would have been sorta angry. Not a KH2 Stan or Anti-KH3 guy, but me saying I dislike advocados wouldn’t translate to “You think advocados are worse than celery.” But this is a VOD-on the fly thing so nbd.

Odin plucks out his own eye to gain wisdom. I already saw this as a direct reference to M.O.M. his eye gives him wisdom and knowledge of the future! Also wouldn't it be crazy if M.O.M. was the final form of Luxu?! His eye was poisoned by darkness in BBS making it look funny. He hides it under an eye patch to keep it from seeing things and distorting the prophecy. Also hiding its visage from Nort so he doesn't recognize the eye. Crazy theory i haven't seen anywhere but my brain can't escape.

I feel like there needs to be a better definition for bad take than just disagreement, which is largely what this exercise devolved into. Apparently stuff like KH3 pacing is bad is only a bad take if we compare it to 2, which like, people can feel differently about the pacing of the two games. Just because you feel strongly that the beginning middle and end pacing of KH2 isn’t great doesn’t mean everyone else agrees. Both have problems, but to they’re unique to each game, and claiming that it’s a bad take to say 2 does it better feels like trying to say your opinion on story progression is objectively correct. Likewise, yes, movement and combat is much slower and, maybe not the most precise word, clunkier in KH1 compared to future games. Is it designed that way? To an extent, yes. But it’s also a game where you spend the vast majority fighting enemies; if movement and combat feels stiff, it’s not a bad take to express that opinion. KH1 is fun, but I do think clunky is a good faith criticism. For instance, Sora’s swings get deflected so often by enemies’ random invulnerability states that can occur, in some instances, mid combo. That feels clunky, it feels like you’re being cheated out of an opening you earned. Aerial enemies often have way more mobility, meaning you can whiff mid combo or struggle to land any his because Sora’s movement isn’t really designed to handle these threats. That Sora is slow and imprecise, while a legitimate design choice, doesn’t mean people can’t find it obtuse or awkward to play around. For as much as it contributes to the game’s atmosphere, I wouldn’t say clunky isn’t an apt way to describe the feeling I get playing KH1. I know that these guys like KH1 most and find 2 to be the weakest mainline entry. That’s fine, it’s a perfectly valid opinion and one I understand. It largely hinges on valuing the atmosphere and story of the games, particularly in 1’s case, over the prioritization of combat in 2 to the detriment of other elements. But it often feels like they take these preferences as objective truths, to the point where disagreement or praise of 2 over 1 or 3 is bad faith criticism of those games. 3’s gameplay is floaty, and by that, people mean that it just feels slower and less fluid than 2. This is easy to understand by comparing 2 and 3 side by side: the former feels fast and fluid, while the latter feels slower somehow. This actually has mostly to do with the animations. In 3, there seems to be a lot more pausing between hits compared to 2, or at least half second delays between two moves in a combo that create this feeling of sluggishness. I don’t think it’s a bad take to express that view by saying Kh3 is floaty, and pretending like this argument is thrown around without actual thought by most people who criticize 3 is disingenuous. I actually liked 3’s combat a lot, but I’d be lying if I said that compared to 2, floaty isn’t the feeling I get while playing 3. Just like a lot of hot takes, it feels like they have to align with these strong opinions you have of 1 compared to 2 compared to 3 without considering that not everyone has the same preferences or love of aspects of these games as you do.

Does the KH2 Prologue even take that few hours when you're skipping cutscenes and have semi-optimal movement and fighting?

Nah summer is definitely bottom half season for sure. (It is 110 degrees farenheit most days here.)

Completely disagree that 'kh3 has worse pacing than kh2' is even a bad take TT (Roxas), HB (first visit), TT (second visit) and HB (second visit), TT (third visit) and TWTNW, all serve as a clear prologue, act 1, act 2, and act 3 respectively, a classic story structure Kh3 doesn't have this neat of a structure it's just MO, TT as the prologue and start of act 1, then every single Disney world before KBG, TLW, and SAC as act 3 Having plot stuff happen in the Disney worlds with the new organisation might mean the plot additions happen more often but it's just breadcrumbs that do nothing to ramp up the tension or signify any changes in the goals of the characters The first world visits in kh2 were to reopen the lanes between, SDG knew the organisation were sketchy but while they collided with SDG, it isn't until act 2 where you revisit the world specifically to combat them after the events of HB (second visit) Good pacing for narratives is about a consistent ebb and flow, to use a food metaphor (because food metaphors being inherently bad is also a bad take) It's letting you save your current meal, and just as you're getting hungry, bringing out the next course, rather than just constantly bringing over little snack Sorry if this was a bit long-winded 😅 I wouldn't even really say I dislike the pacing of kh3, I just think it's nowhere near as bad as a take as something like 'donald is bad at healing' or 'disney worlds should go' It's a spicy take sure but not a 'you are basing this opinion on your own misunderstandings of the series core identity, plot points or gameplay mechanics' kind of take like the others

Donald is objectively bad at healing because he doesn't learn Cure until you beat Deep Jungle which is already like half the game if you think about it. So it's not that Donald is bad at healing it's that he literally doesn't heal for most of the time you'd want him in. Once you learn Cure why do you need Donald? It's a completely fucked up situation that put Donald in that only got fixed in future games by making Cure his starting Spell. Then you have to know to customize his AI properly so he heals more. Default Donald is objectively a bad healer.