Kingdom Hearts of Dapper · 12:47am Aug 20th, 2015
Kingdom Hearts is a long standing rpg that's grown over the years from purely light hearted Disney entertainment to a darker, mature path with each passing game. From what one would call childish innocence, we've delved into deeper meanings with 'Darkness', one man's journey to ultimate knowledge (Xehanort) and how one ordinary boy changed everything. With that being said, the setting of this particular story takes place two years after Dream Drop Distance.
Now without revealing too much to those who haven't played DDD, Sora failed to pass an important exam while, long term friend and keyblade wielder himself, Riku passed. Sora seems to be going down a path of understandable depression and envy. While keeping these emotions all bottled up, it's easy to see notice how Sora's mood fluctuates in and out of the story after meeting up with the Elements of Harmony. I admit myself I found the ending to DDD a tad unfair as a fan of the KH universe. Sora has saved the worlds twice over, liberated Riku from Xehanort's evil clutches and takes down an entire organization bent on replacing their hearts. Seems like our spikey haired protagonist got the short end of the stick. These reasons do however make it a perfect reason as to why Sora was sent to Equestria, in order to pull him out of his funk.
Sora comes down like a shooting star, similar to the games intro so points for that, and crashes down near the mane six who are busy observing the Star Gazing Celebration. Now a small tidbit I found odd was as to how Sora reacted so terrified to becoming a pony after he was a merman?, lion cub, a shadow heartless and a vampire. This form honestly looks the most tame considering everything else he's changed into. After his initial shock wears off, things are brought back to a mellow level a tad fast for Sora. Then again, he's stared down a colossal nobody the size of a city so he's understandably taking this like its an everyday thing.
Initial introductions do run a bit tight here with descriptions and how each character is presented to Sora. Pinkie does stay in character by getting up close and destroying any sense of personal space and forcing food down his throat. Annoyingly loveable, yeah, that sounds about right. Without wasting time, Mrs. Cake makes a brief cameo followed by Rarity. While we the fans all know these characters and grown to love them, putting so many into one chapter makes my eyes bounce around trying to keep up. I like to keep it as a rule of thumb, after learning from my earliest stories, that its usually safe to show off only two to three new characters with a significant amount of backstory, per chapter. Personal nitpicks aside, I had to laugh at Rarity's set of mind, it fits her to a T.
Dear Celestia, his face!
Though he looked her age, she couldn’t help but see that he still held much of his foalhood within his features. It gave him an almost marish quality that matched well with rest of his body.
She prayed to all that was holy that he wasn’t a coltcuddler.
I've said before that I'm not one for romance stories or shipping and its blatantly obvious at this point of the story that Sora has already captured the eyes of several mares. Having him just step into the room and every mare's eyes instantly roam over him? Eugh. I don't know why authors use it and I find the trope rather dull. Just my two cents on the matter.
Sora is kept strongly within canon in how he acts. He’s kept his mouth closed about other worlds and personal history with the keyblade. I like it in the sense he’s got a sense of responsibility but at the same time, it’s another sign of his growing older and losing the Disney like charm that made him a loveable character in the first Kingdom Hearts. Gotta take the good with the bad, I suppose but with his current predicament, it doesn’t seem ludicrous.
Now, peace can never last in the town of Ponyville for long. Heck, I’m surprised that if something wasn’t terrorizing the locals they’d be on edge because of prolong state of normality. Heartless arise and crash the ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party that Pinkie’s throwing for Sora. I pity these creatures, they’ve incurred the wrath of a party planner extraordinaire. Her vengeance shall be just and swift. Not giving a second thought to the situation, Sora dives right in and deals with the invasion. Amazing how his growth through the series with the keyblade he has become, despite not being a master.
Seeing as how the Heartless have come to take the Heart of the World of Equestria, it also means somepony or incredibly dark force is controlling them. Taking out the head honcho is next on Sora’s list of things to do, as its revealed that King Sombra has returned from the depths of Tartarus to wrekc untold havoc on his once conquered empire. Despite Sora’s willingness to fight off the Heartless for Equestria, Rainbow Dash doesn’t take so well to this.
Rainbow bounces around a lot in this story, showing well thought out logic but also having her pride take over her better judgement. She makes it apperant that she can take of this threat herself, even telling Sora to hand/hoof over the keyblade so that the ‘rightful’ protectors can save Equestria. So, this may be her vanity speaking but RD does have a point. She wants to protect her country and while this is admirable, she goes through rather crude ways of acting and explaining it. Can’t fault her for wanting to do the right thing but I do find her methods of accomplishing them, low brow…
Fate isn’t kind to our keyblade wielder as another wave of Heartless and a mini-boss, dubbed the Darkflower, makes another attempt for the heart of our little ponies. Tension rises as Sora nearly losses Twilight to an unknown figure directing the Heartless. As tempers rise between Rainbow Dash and the rest of her friends, Sora begins to fall deeper into depravity, his light nearly winking out. Forutnate for us, our herdoesn’t give into the darkness so easily.
Everypony goes haywire as the dawning realization of how serious the Heartless threat is becoming. The levels of trust between Sora and the rest are beginning to titter between friend and frenemy. Sora’s vagueness and quick, short worded responses aren’t doing him any favors as the mounting pressure on him reaches its apex with the news that the Crystal Empire’s finally returned. With three additional tag alongs, CMC who else, everypony saddles up and heads to the long forgotten kingdom of the north. As the infighting is put on pause, the bonds of friendship are growing thinner with each passing moment and they’re dwindling fast.
Though I didn’t see much of the same Crystal Festival in the show, the clash between Light and Darkness spurred me forward. At the showdown between Sora and the tyrant unicorn, Sombra, we’re greeted with an unexpected surprise. Applejack and Pinkie dive into their hearts to uncover a hidden power that’s been released with the help of Sora. Upon realizing the history of the elements, Sora and the two earth ponies return to the present with significant changes. Pinkie and AJ become keyblades themselves, as Sora takes on his Valor Form. The artwork for the keyblades almost seems too real to not be part of the game.
The fight scenes are rather well put together, given that we can imagine the game mechanics used in Kingdom Hearts. When you can slice through building with a blunt weapon, nothing seems impossible for Sora to accomplish, doubly so when you have Pinkie Pie on your side. I could feel the intensity raging on as Sombra throws everything at Sora but fails in the end.
Now without running the rest of the story, there are a few things I need to point out. Kingdom Hearts has an amazing soundtrack and Soul wastes no time I providing us with nearly every song in it. It adds an atmosphere, setting the tone for how you would feel in the situation so that’s a plus. However, I do feel that some points could’ve done without the songs to the point it felt like they were just shoehorned in.
Grammatical mistakes are here and there but that’s mostly just nitpicking to the extreme on my part. Some sentence structures are a tad confusing as to how its worded and how the situation is portrayed. Creative? Yes but it can become tiresome when I’m trying to hazard a guess what’s occurring.
Shifting between the scenes of Sora’s mind, Ventus and what I’m assuming is that tiny bit of darkness after his heart was devoured is another biggie I had a difficult time to comprehend. It’s hard to describe delving into the heart as it is to fully explain how one experiences an epiphany in life. Sora’s personal struggles are great yet I think there were parts that I can’t put together or they seem plain bizarre.
Final Verdict: 8.5/10. While this story isn’t finished, it does go well beyond the norm with personal struggles we can find ourselves in. Sora seems to be dancing on the line of teenage angst and retaining his usual upbeat personality but that may just be the gamer in me. Can’t wait to read more.
You can blame the grammar errors on me. I kinda bailed as editor after a while. Lost motivation.