Backlog Dialogues

It's time for Terra's second speedrun of Disney worlds, with visits to Disneytown, Olympus Coliseum, Deep Space, and Neverland! In Disneytown we take our first dip in to Pete's backstory (and his secret history of playing both a heel and a face) along with Rumble Racing, the worst kart racer ever. In Olympus Coliseum, Hades is the next villain to pick up on the fact that Terra is an easy mark, but is disappointed when Terra doesn't really DO anything and so enlists Final Fantasy cameo Zack instead. In Deep Space, Terra befriends the ornery Experiment 626 and manages to see past Jumba Jookiba's admittedly weak deception skills. And in Neverland, Terra finally manages to get one up on his deceivers... but only after Hook tricks him in to fighting Peter Pan first.

Terra visits Radiant Garden, eventually. First he has to stop in to talk to various old keyblade masters in the Mysterious Tower and the Badlands, yet he doesn't manage to learn anything. Lots of discussion about Star Wars interweaves throughout as we dig in to how much Terra's arc resembles Anakin's from the prequels and how Braig and Xehanort totally pull a Count Dooku gambit to draw out the darkness in him. Also we begin to put together a theory of how sketchy Merlin actually is. Spoiler: Its pretty darn sketchy.

Let's start Terra's story in Birth By Sleep! After breaking down the specific character controls, we get right to the core of our new bad decisions man, here just in time to replace Riku. Terra fumbles his way through Enchanted Dominion, Castle of Dreams, and the Dwarf Woodland, being picked out as an easy mark by every card-carrying villain Disney has to offer, and some new ones too! John has a hard time telling the difference between Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Many tangents are had. Xehanort looks like a nice guy.

It's the prologue to Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep! We discuss how the game works as usual, and then dive in to some scenes without much context before we get to meet our new trio of heroes, Ventus, Terra, and Aqua as we get the opening act to the tragedy that will recontextualize all we have seen thus far and set up the story that is to come.

CONTENT WARNING - This episode contains some discussion of suicide and suicide ideation.
This season of Backlog Dialogues Kingdom Hearts, we're turning our attention to the prequels, and where better to start than the tragedy of Roxas during his time at Organization XIII? That's right, it's 358/2 Days, where we spend all day visiting Disney worlds to do same-y missions and all evening hanging out on the clocktower eating ice cream. Or we would do the first one if this wasn't mercifully just a cutscene compilation, thus we get to only go over the good bits! We really dig into Axel as a character in this one, and meet yet another person that came from Sora: the mysterious 14th organization member, Xion. We also delve in to just how much an abusive cult leader Xemnas is, and most importantly, we truly and finally lay to rest the most important question: Do Nobodies have Hearts? (spoiler alert, they do)(Also DiZ is a dick)

It's our second Minilog, talking about one of our favorite games, the cult hit indie JRPG Cross Code! And we manage to avoid making jokes about balls!
Follow the not-so-silent protagonist Lea through her adventure in the game-within-a-game Cross Worlds as she traverses cool jumping puzzles and complex puzzle dungeons, solves the Zelda problem with some excellent game design, and goes through one of the most satisfying video game stories to date about what makes a person. If you haven't played this game yet, dear listener, you really need to.

It's the completion episode for Kingdom Hearts 2! First we try our damnest to talk about Atlantica and even as we do our discussions meander off in to other places. Nice try, John. Then we visit the Hundred Acre Woods for existentialism, alchoholism, and drug induced vision quests with Winnie the Pooh. We do a sweep of all the assorted minigames in the world, including a sidequest to beat up a bunch of mysterious black cloaked mushrooms. Finally, we finish with a sweep of the hard content, starting with Sephiroth. Then we take trip through one of the hardest optional dungeons in gaming, the Cavern of Rememberance, and its absurd trash hallway, the Transport to Rememberance. At the end of the hall we find data battle rematches against all the members of Organization XIII, and finish off with one of the best optional fights in gaming, Lingering Will.

It's time for part two of our World That Never Was extravaganza! We take the fight to the Organization's main base to finish off Xigbar, Luxord, and Saix, discover why exactly Riku looks like Ansem and what other shit he's been up to, discover the 'secret' identity of DiZ as Ansem the Wise, and take on Xemnas in an epic multipart final battle! We would have had a secret ending but John refused to do Atlantica. We'll see how long that lasts.

It's part one of a two part finale for Kingdom Hearts 2! While we were mucking around in Disney Worlds, Hayner, Pence, and Olette were figuring out the plot, and found us a way to The World That Never Was! We bid farewell to Axel and deal with the roughest fight in the main story for Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix: Roxas. Then we get super indulgent and devote roughly half an episode to discussing one scene. Do Nobodies have hearts? What is a heart anyway? And why is DiZ such a dick? The answers to some of these questions may be in this episode!

Time for round two of Disney World Revisit Speedrun! We start in Agrabah to finish the Return of Jafar story with some annoying flying carpet minigames. Then we visit Halloweentown to find that no matter what, Jack Skellington is unable to quit Christmas. Back in the Pride Lands we continue to grapple with just how powerful Scar is, even in death. And in Space Paranoids we confront the Master Control Program to restore Hollow Bastion to its true name as we build to the finale of Kingdom Hearts 2.