tammaiya | More photos, plus Re:CoM.

Still behind on comments, though <3 for all the compliments on the last post. Really, though, the people who deserve the credit are Leareth for the costume, my hairdresser, and my mother for doing my makeup. XD

Anyway, first of all, I was tired last night, which is why I forgot the first photo and was too exhausted to resize the second two, hence a slight addendum to the photos.

One more Alice and Queen of Hearts photo from the party.

Paris Hilton, complete with "Free Paris" t-shirt.

And then Tristan and Kathy as kinky cops (complete with fuzzy handcuffs from Adultworld which I spent a large portion of the evening cuffed by) with Adrian, AKA Brian Burke.

That being out of the way, I finished Re:Chain of Memories (Riku side) tonight. It took me about a quarter of the time Sora-side took, over all, which I find mildly funny. Probably because there are about a third the number of cutscenes. To be fair Riku was also 13 levels lower than Sora, and there's one less basement floor, because Riku gets no Winnie the Pooh minigame floor. D: This is the TRUE reason for his emo, clearly.

Anyway, since I was too busy/lazy/etc to make any posts about Re:CoM while I was playing it, I'm going to take this opportunity for a little post-mortem game-blogging, mostly on the differences between CoM for GBA and Re:CoM which are quite considerable. There are a few changes to the plot, but the changes to the gameplay are more than enough reason to try out Re:CoM if you can. Frankly, I kind of loathed CoM because a lot of the time it was boring and the battle system was frustrating. I actually really loved Re:CoM, and no one is more surprised about that than me. The 3D PS2 environment makes a huge difference to the battle system; reaction commands have been incorporated and in Sora side they added in all the super-abilities like high jump and glide, so with that on top of being able to run around and dodge and jump and guard, battle feels a lot more natural even though you're still fighting with cards.

The 3D also makes a big difference to the feel of the plot scenes, as does the addition of voice-acting. It's hard to connect to what's going on when the room has no depth and the characters have no real facial expressions or body language; games in that style have to have a lot better quality plot to compensate for it. I was fed up by the end of Sora side in CoM, but with the graphics and voice-acting, it was a lot more fun. Probably didn't hurt that I knew what was going on this time, or that they added in a skip scene function which is incredibly handy for hard boss battles.

Also, voice-acting and 3D = heaps more gay. Which is hard, I will grant you, but never underestimate the added emotion that accompanies tone and expression. Axel is SUCH A WOOBIE. <3

There were a few other additions of note on the extras/gameplay side of things. The Winnie the Pooh floor has been turned into a minigame level, which works a lot better on the ps2 as you might imagine. There's a save clear data option when you finish either mode, and to get all the cards and thus complete the Jiminy memo it's necessary to have clear data for both Riku-side and KHII. But to unlock Riku-side, you need to have cleared Sora-side. Cunning. There's another aspect to the clear data saves, though, and that is one of my favourite additions: Theatre, which allows you to rewatch any of the cut scenes.

Which brings me to changes to the actual content of the game, finally. They weren't that noticeable, unlike Final Mix+ apparently is, but they are definitely there. I think they may have rewritten some of the dialogue from something I read in the ultimania, but I'm not sure, because even if I COULD remember that far back, I played it in English the first time.

There are some definite changes to the last few floors of Riku-side, though, to smooth over the transition to KHII-- like a scene with DiZ giving Riku an OrgXIII coat and explaining it will help him go undetected. They changed a scene between Lexaeus and Zexion from scheming to take Sora out before he fell into Marluxia's hands and lamenting that a hero of light was necessary to their leader's plans. The aftermath of the battle with Lexaeus has added Ansem-taking-over-Riku in it. There was also a fight with Zexion which never happened in the GBA game, kind of like how the fight with Roxas in KHII apparently was turned from a cutscene to a real battle.

Other than that, and most readily apparent to me, were the additions to both Sora and Riku-side endings. There are a number of short clips during the credits; in Sora-side they added a scene with Repliku running into Axel (link to Axel turning up with Repliku in Riku-side) and a scene with Roxas walking past the Twilight Town gang in his street clothes. Meaning? I don't know. But in Riku-side, there was a similar scene where Hayner et al had sea salt ice cream, Roxas stops and watches as they walk past him with a wistful expression, then Axel comes on screen and grabs his shoulder and tugs him away. Next scene is Axel and Roxas sitting on top of the station with the clock eating salt sea ice cream together.

IT TOTALLY BROKE ME AND I CRIED, OKAY. What confuses me is that logically it has to be post the beginning of KHII, because otherwise: why is Roxas looking wistfully at his Twilight Town friends, and why is he wearing Twilight Town clothes? Mysteries. I feel it will probably be explained by KHII:FM+.

And then there was an extra bit with Roxas and the Twilight Town gang which is a fairly self-explanatory bridge to KHII.

In conclusion: shiny! And now I'm going to try and make myself write more boyband!X. YOU CAN DO IT, SELF.