Hi, Im Kaci. I play too much Kingdom Hearts. If you've got questions, I've got answers.

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unrelatedtouserboxes:

timefortigers:

unrelatedtouserboxes:

it turns out that when disney allowed donald duck and goofy to be sora’s companions in kingdom hearts, they only allowed it as long as neither character was ever shown wielding a sword, which is why they have a staff and a shield respectively… but honestly disney… let donald have knife you close minded bastards…. he was in the navy he knows the fragility of life let him defend himself with his own hands instead of some bitch ass magic wand

ok wait but what about mickey mouse. mickey mouse has a keyblade. is this some kind of like. is he the only one allowed a sword so that the others may not usurp him

disney has no control over mickey tbh. he goes where he wants and does what he pleases. they dont own him. he owns them

(Source: liepard)

The Voice of King Mickey: A Tragic Piece of Disney History

thekingmickey:

If there’s one thing that bugged me about being in the Kingdom Hearts fandom, it’s the fact that it seems to be the general consensus that the new voice of King Mickey isn’t as good as the old one.

Which I can actually understand because it’s like night and day when listening to King Mickey in Kingdom Hearts 2 compared to Birth By Sleep.

And when asked what’s wrong with the new voice, most of the time people say they’re not really sure… it just sounds off.

But I just learned something. Apparently the new voice (Bret Iwan) was originally hired to just be an understudy to the old voice actor (Wayne Allwine) so essentially Bret was going to learn from the master and essentially have Wayne as a voice mentor.

Unfortunately, this didn’t end up happening as Wayne tragically passed away from complications caused by diabetes a short time later.

Which means that Bret was suddenly hired as the new voice of Mickey Mouse with basically no professional training. Bret could still do the voice, but couldn’t obtain any of the knowledge about Wayne’s experiances that spanned for over 30 years. Any personal tips about inflection, emotion, or even inner character interpretation was lost.

And what was one of Bret’s first gigs as Mickey Mouse? You guessed it, Birth By Sleep.

So imagine. The legendary voice of Mickey Mouse passed away before Bret could really learn anything and now he is suddenly forced to voice a generally happy go lucky character in a serious light that is vastly different from anything else the character has ever been in. That must have been terrifying.

So I’ve always felt bad for Bret. He was given the short end of the stick and did as best he could, again, without any real training from Wayne Allwine before he tragically passed away. It’s a real sad situation for all involved.

And not to mention that Wayne voiced Mickey in Chain of Memories…. but it was around the time when his health really started to decline… he sounds tired and you can really tell he was very ill while voicing that game. So not only do we have an entire game where Wayne was really sick, but this is also the last prominent voice for King Mickey before he passed (excluding non-verbal noises in 358/2 Days).

So essentially the Kingdom Hearts games hold a tragic turning point in Disney History. It captures the slow declining health of the legendary Wayne Allwine right before he passed away (which honestly makes it difficult for me to replay Chain of Memories) and it captures the slow climb for Bret Iwan who didn’t even have the chance to learn before becoming the new voice for King Mickey.

In the end, I’m glad that most people have learned to accept Bret over time. He’s definitely grown into his role and you can tell the difference between Birth By Sleep and the newest instalment, 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage.

It’s just really sad that Bret’s transition to be the new voice of Mickey Mouse happened in this genuinely devastating situation for all involved. They did their best in bringing the voice of King Mickey to life despite the challenges they both faced and I have the highest amount of respect for them.

Thank you Wayne Allwine

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and Bret Iwan.

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You both are kings to me.

@onmelonchloehill

“I don’t like Disney.”

There was a question today on Reddit, and it was a sentiment I hear very often: “I don’t like Disney, so why would I like Kingdom Hearts?”

After all, Disney is an ever-present theme in the KH franchise - they appear in every single game in one way or another.  Often, you are involving yourself with Disney characters and plots.  So what if you don’t like Disney?

First thing’s first: I’m not a huge Disney fangirl. Growing up, I wasn’t into the Donald/Goofy/Mickey thing. I didn’t care at all for Tarzan or Peter Pan or Hercules. I actually I hated Hercules.  In the first game, I think the only movie I really loved was Alice, and that level drove me crazy! Oh, and Halloweentown. That’s not to say I don’t like Disney, but the Disney stuff I liked didn’t have KH levels, i.e. Fox and the Hound, Aristocats, Beauty and the Beast (though Beast and Belle appear in the first game and they get a world in KH2!). Now I like Frozen and Tangled and Big Hero 6 and two of those are coming in KH3! But eleven year old Kaci, with KH1 and my selective taste in movies?  Nah.

When the game first came out I absolutely refused to play it because it was Disney. Then KH2 came out, I saw the awesome Deep Dive video, and played a little bit as Roxas and Sora for the opening of KH2 and was like “Oh man, I gotta play this now!" Now here I am. I have 100% completion on all the games. I run a KH blog. I’m completely hooked on this stupid phone game. So no, I don’t think being into Disney is required. 

The relevance to Disney is literally that each individual world has characters from a specific Disney movie. Probably 70% of the worlds are Disney worlds, but they are still great to experience. Not because they are like the movies, but because of how exciting and intricate the level designs can be. It’s a whole new way to experience the content. But still, my favorite worlds in the game are places like Radiant Garden and Twilight Town - unique to the KH franchise.

The story in itself is exceptional. The cast is about 50% original characters. A lot of Final Fantasy characters are there, too, between FF6 and FFX-2. But I’d never played any FF games before KH1 either and it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the game. I think they add a lot of depth and easter-egg-like value to the franchise for Square fans, and it fills out the cast nicely.

The bottom line is, Disney’s involvement is mostly there for padding. Going through a game where you go to 12 different worlds, each with their own story and resolution, and then bouncing to the next, would be a colossal undertaking. You’d find a lot of the padding pointless and boring, and often you do with the Disney worlds as well. But now they are telling a story that has nostalgia, a clear and concise conclusion, and you feel content to never see Tarzan or Mulan again. The use of Disney in the franchise is just great game design, that’s all there is to it.

Short version: Disney is there for nostalgia and padding out the game’s timer, with very few exceptions. Though Disney content is abundant, that’s not why it gets the love and praise it gets. As long as you don’t outright hate Disney on principle, you’ll adore the franchise.