Joshua Noel and Christian Ashley dive deep into the often-overlooked mobile games of the Kingdom Hearts series in this episode, all in the lead-up to the franchise's big 25th anniversary next year. They kick things off by exploring the narrative significance of titles like Coded and Union X, revealing how these games fill in crucial lore gaps while also poking fun at their often convoluted storytelling. Both hosts, being self-proclaimed Kingdom Hearts aficionados, share their thoughts on the games’ mechanics and how they connect to the larger franchise, even if they admit that playing mobile games isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. As they banter about the future of the series and the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts 4 announcement that’s just around the corner, listeners are treated to a mix of insightful analysis and cheeky humor. So, whether you're a die-hard fan or just dipping your toes into the Kingdom Hearts waters, this episode is packed with plenty of geeky goodness to keep you engaged!

Diving into the Kingdom Hearts universe, Joshua and Christian kick off their exploration of the franchise by discussing the often-overlooked mobile games that chronologically set the stage for the entire saga. They reflect on their own experiences with these titles, which many fans only know from cutscene compilations rather than actual gameplay. The conversation flows naturally as they express their excitement for the upcoming 25th anniversary of Kingdom Hearts, teasing about the potential twists that might arise in the next installment, especially with fan-favorite characters like Donald and Goofy possibly venturing into Hades. They cleverly weave in anecdotes about their latest geeky obsessions, like Christian's foray into classic sci-fi short stories and Joshua's comic book adventures with Godzilla. Amidst the banter, they delve into the plot mechanics of mobile games like 'Coded' and 'Union X', pointing out how they expand the lore and introduce pivotal characters that impact the overarching narrative. With a mix of nostalgia and humor, they critique the awkward transitions in gameplay, such as the rhythm game mechanics in 'Kingdom Hearts 2', and ponder the philosophical implications behind the Master of Masters and the unfolding Keyblade War. The episode is not just a recap; it’s a heartfelt celebration of a beloved franchise, with laughs and insights that resonate with fans old and new.

Takeaways:

• Joshua and Christian are on a nostalgic journey through the Kingdom Hearts series, gearing up for its 25th anniversary in 2027, and they’ve got plenty of thoughts to share about the mobile games that kicked things off.
• The mobile games, though often overlooked, carry significant lore that connects the dots between major titles in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, showcasing the intricate web of storytelling.
• Christian highlights the importance of character development and backstory in the mobile games, emphasizing how they enrich the narrative experience for fans of the series.
• The banter between Joshua and Christian adds a fun layer to the discussion, making it clear that while they are serious about their fandom, they can still poke fun at the sometimes convoluted plot of Kingdom Hearts.
• Listeners are reminded to check out D23 for new Kingdom Hearts announcements, suggesting that the excitement around the series is only going to grow from here.
• Joshua expresses his disdain for the Little Mermaid world in Kingdom Hearts 2, illustrating the passionate opinions fans have about different aspects of the game series.

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Foreign Twilight ends, a new day begins. But that does not mean we're going to be getting a new Kingdom Hearts at daybreak. Or ever.

Today we're gonna doing more of a let's talk about these mobile phone games since they're the first that happened chronologically and everyone's definitely played them all, both of us included. We've played all of the mobile games all the way through and didn't just watch the clips day one download. Yeah, yeah.

So that said, Christian, what have you been geeking out on lately?

Yeah, I've been listening to the Lost Sci Fi podcast, which has been really fun. The narrator is extremely great. He's been going some really old sci fi short stories and alike.

You got your Heinlein, you got your Wells, Bradbury and so much more on there. It's been exactly what I needed right now. Some short stories I never read before but I get to listen to now.

Nice, Nice. I've actually so I heard of a comic series that just started that is a follow up to a comic book series I haven't read apparently.

So Godzilla kills the Multiverse or destroys the Multiverse. Just started.

Yeah.

And I saw who the team on there was being led by Dr. Doom as a protagonist and I'm like, no, having infected Godzilla. And I'm like, okay, time for me to read what happened before this. So what I'm geeking out on is Infinity Roar. That is. Yep, that's what it's called.

Another I just love all these Godzilla Marvel crossovers they keep doing. I'm having fun with them.

It's a bunch of comics nonsense. And you know what? Just shut your brain off and enjoy.

Sometimes the more nonsensical it is, the better. And if you believe that, you're going to love what we have to say about Kingdom Hearts today.

Nice transition there.

Yeah.

So with that, guys, please make sure you rate and review our show wherever you get your podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever it helps trick algorithms into thinking our show is important so that other people find the show and you know, that's what we want to do. Trick people into listening to us with that. Also want to thank, of course, one of our financial supporters. We're especially thankful for all of them.

But today we're shouting out Jonathan Augustin. Thank you so much for supporting our show, Jonathan. Jonathan also supports my other show, Holdchurch Podcast. He's a great guy.

I want to get him on the show sometimes. He's a big geek, big Lutheran geek, you know, so hopefully we'll have him on and if not, it's still cool to just get to say Jonathan's name.

If you want to hear me say your name though, you can get your own shout out by becoming an official member of Systematic Ecology on our our website. That's down. There's a link down in this show's description. Same website, you can get some extra free content.

If you just want to hear us talk about other things that didn't make it to the podcast. You can buy some merch over there to support the show. You can leave a one time financial gift. If you don't like the whole membership thing.

You just want to help us once, we'll take all the help we can get, you know. Yeah. So with all that, thank you all so much for listening.

If you want to hear the rest of our Kingdom Hearts stuff, there will also be a link in the show's description for that. Lots of links down there, lots of helpful ways to follow and see what else we're doing and just be a part of the. The geeky goodness, you know.

So all that said, it is time to jump into today's episode, which Kingdom Hearts we're talking about Christian's favorite favorite things, mobile games. But before we do Christian, I want to just, you know, we're hyping up for Kingdom Hearts 4 for the 25th anniversary.

A lot of people looking at this trailer, looking at some of the, you know, freeze frames or whatever, they're like, whoa, Donald and Goofy are definitely in Hades. What do you think?

Yeah, I'm right there with them. It makes perfect sense.

You know, as we talked about last time, you know, the actor you don't want to be named has already recorded lines and said that he's recorded lines for it. It makes perfect sense that they'd be willing to go to an underworld thinking that Sora might be dead.

So who else would know about it other than the king of the underworld, the God of the underworld? So, yeah, I'm all for that. Is quadratum tied to it in some ways that more of a purgatory kind of a situation? Hard to Tell. We'll figure it out.

Yeah.

For those who don't know, Quadrantum is the world that we've seen in all the trailers, which seems to be the only thing they want to show us, which causes so many fans to be so troubled for whatever reason. Like, it's Kingdom Hearts, we know it's not going to be all on one world.

I'm going to be surprised if it's all in one dimension, to be quite frank with you. Like, that's not what they do. Yeah. Yeah.

I also think it'd be funny if they now that Disney's leaning into the Percy Jackson series and that's doing pretty well, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they tied Hades into some of that stuff. If they want to do more live action stuff, that would be an interesting use. I don't expect it. You wouldn't be super surprised.

Also, last time I left out my least favorite world when we were doing our favorite least favorites, I talked about my favorite worlds, but I didn't mention what my least favorite was. And I just have to say, because I'm still upset. I get upset about it several times a year because I play these games too often.

Little Mermaid in Kingdom Hearts 2. Bad, bad time. You took what was a fun dynamic in Kingdom Hearts one where I can swim and there's like, up and down.

Like, there's a whole new dimension to my gameplay. And I see it in Kingdom Hearts 2 and I'm like, oh, I'm going to do that again.

And they're like, nope, you're going to do a rhythm game now that you have to do to proceed. If I wanted a rhythm game, I would have bought another Guitar Hero game. I like. I don't know. Stop.

I'd play Melody of Memories or whatever it's called. Yeah.

Honestly, I think if Little Mermaid in the first Kingdom Hearts wasn't so good, I wouldn't be as upset. But it's just so disappointing, that's all.

You do get, like, good upgrades for getting the songs done, So I suffer through it for that. But it's definitely not like, I am so happy to be here right now pressing these buttons because my reaction time is so great as an old man.

Yeah, it gets worse.

And for some reason, like, now I'm an old man who doesn't like to wear his glasses or, like, squinting, and I have it on my handheld and I'm like, what's that say?

The X kind of looks like a triangle to me.

It's fine. Nothing to worry about.

Yeah.

Yeah. So with that out of the way, we're still looking forward to D23. We'll probably get more news that we'll talk about in the next episode with that.

For now, though, Christian, what are these mobile games? What were your expectations for them when they were announced and came out? And then how important did they turn out to be for the overall story?

Right. So for us, for once they've been released, we have Coded and we have Key, Kai, X, however the heck you want to say it.

Where, okay, my expectations were none, because I didn't know they existed until after they had kind of shut down. I, having played way later on than most saw, you know, the different movies and stuff that they have on, you know, the 1.5, 2.5 and all that.

So watch the stuff about, you know, Coded, watch the stuff about X, Key, whatever.

And like, okay, I don't know why you exist outside of certain plot points and backstory filling ins that maybe you didn't feel confident enough to put into a mainstream game or. I mean, the answer for any mobile game ever isn't. I mean, not say there. You can't. Can't have artistic integrity making a mobile game.

But the answer is always money. You want to find as many whales as possible, that being a specific term for dolls.

Don't know who are going to spend the most money possible on your game. So you can keep making money and keep making money. So like most people, they'll give up.

They might throw a couple of bucks, but these people will throw money after you for, you know, decades if you'll let them play. Yeah, so there's that. So Coded takes place literally right after Kingdom Hearts 2, if I'm remembering correctly.

And Jiminy finds in his journal this note that says thank nominee. And obviously they don't know about what happened there with that because they lost their memories.

So they decide to explore Sora's memories through Data, where we once again will have to play through the events of Kingdom Hearts 1. This is the third time that's happened. Fourth time, melody, not counting remakes. Yes. So can Data have a heart? Is kind of the end goal there.

Which does lead into speculation. Like, they probably put that there sort of when the reveal about nobodies is made. Now all that makes a little more sense. Well, Data can have a heart.

Surely they can too. There's been some speculation. Then we have Key, where we get into the far distant past of Kingdom Hearts lore, where all worlds are merged into one.

Correct.

It started off as one. So this is before they broke yeah, yeah.

And so you'll still go to different Disney worlds, including new ones from gameplay that I've seen.

And you'll meet characters like Gaston appears for the first time in the mobile game instead of, you know, the two opportunities we've had where he's shown up. And your goal is you are a new recruit to one of the different Keyblade guilds, as it were.

There's what, seven of them, and all of whom, their leaders are named after one of the deadly sins. So I wonder what that. That could be about.

There's this whole thing with the Master of Masters organizing events behind things we had taught all these people, but now there's, like, who's going against who? We've got this prophecy about a betrayal happening, which one of them did it? So.

And we get a little more backstory, where characters we wouldn't have expected to show up, like Marluia and his actual real name, which escapes me right now. And Venta show up too.

Yeah. Now, I do think it's five factions. So if I'm.

If I'm remembering right, it's five, and then the Master of Masters would have been six, or the person he sent into the future would have been six. One of the two, because there's seven lights and six darkness, I think. So that goes back to your 13 thing. There's some symbolic lore things later on.

If I get information wrong and I misrepresent them, you can yell at me like, I'm sorry.

Yeah, so it's five, and then Master Masters is the six. I don't want to swear on the symbolicism behind the 13 and all that.

Like, I know there's organization 13, and then there's six and seven with the lights and the darkness and six. Seven. That kingdom hearts started that. Apparently, I don't know everything either.

So, yeah, don't take our words for a lot of the stuff, because when I said we definitely played the mobile games, I meant we definitely knew that the mobile games existed.

That.

That's what I meant. Neither of us.

And I think most Kingdom Hearts fans, instead of having actually played them, just watch them, because you can't even get, like, a ROM or anything of them that I can find. Like, they can't find a way to actually play these games, which is pretty. Pretty aggravating, actually. But, yeah, Union Chi, Union X, whatever.

I think that's probably the most important one. Dark Road has some interesting stuff when it comes to the history of Master Eraqus and Xehanort. You know that that stuff's kind of fun.

Maleficent time traveling is interesting. That's a big part of the games. But really, I think the Master of Masters is the most important part.

When we're talking about, like the future of Kingdom Hearts, I don't think most of these characters are coming back. I definitely think Master of Masters is probably going to end up being our main antagonist for the next. I'm going to say sega.

If you think of like everything that's happened until Kingdom Hearts 3 is the Xehanort Sega. I think we're moving on to Master of Masters and kind of being the main antagonist forward, but I'm not sure.

So in Lore, from what I recall, which is always a dangerous statement to say in Kingdom Parks, it's involved. Yes. You can only time travel to somewhere you existed previously or visited previously. Right.

Unsure. I know you can go to the future, but I think that's where you've already been. Yeah.

This is a dream drop distance thing where it's brought up.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. And they have to have the Ark, which is what Maleficent is looking for.

And a lot of people think that's what's in the box that Maleficent's looking for in the third game of Hearts, but we're not. We don't know.

So my question was, how was Maleficent able to do this? Having obviously not played, she found the.

Ark, which allows her.

Sure.

Also a lot of your Union X games. Annoyingly, mind you, this game took six years to play through because the way mobile games worked, it wasn't like there was just a game.

It was like they were updating it every so often and they just stopped updating it. And then it went away for a long time. You were building up to the Keyblade War. Everybody died in the Keyblade War.

And then ever said we woke up and what Keyblade War? There was no Keyblade War. What are you talking about? And it turned out that a lot of them were in before they ever did. Coded chronologically.

The Master of Masters created a digital version of that original island that broke off all the other worlds. Do you remember what the island was called?

I have no clue. Whatever it's called. Is that. Is that data? Like many final worlds, it's unclear. Why do they exist? They're kind of here because we say so.

I want to find it because in a weird way, even though this was the original world and all the other worlds broke out from it for some reason. Yeah. I can't find the name of it.

I'm sorry, guys, I'm a bad podcaster, but for some reason, this world, the castle that's on it, that was in both the data and not data, and it has, like, reflected version, is also the place. That's the last level of Kingdom Hearts 3.

Because when we all complained about having lots of mobile games and it seems like this lore might be important, they said, no, of course we're going to make so much of Kingdom Hearts 3 incomprehensible if you haven't played the mobile games. And then we're going to delete the mobile games.

So I'm seeing something about Daybreak Town being built over to become Scala ad Caelum.

Masters is what I'm thinking of. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. The final world in three.

Yes. Yeah. It's also apparently where everything breaks off of time is weird, even in Kingdom Hearts.

One of my favorite things to do with Master Masters creates a special keyblade called the Gazing Eye and gives it to one of the followers to go into the future.

And that person, basically all he does is be present at all these events and see what causes the keyblade war, because the Gazing Eye gives all that information to the Master of Masters. So he doesn't time travel.

He just lets someone else go live their life and see all the events, and he has something that sees what will eventually be recorded by the Gazing eye. So he's able to see the future in that way by having someone else just live out their life.

It's simple, right?

Kingdom Hearts magic, you know? Yeah, there's some interesting games.

I mostly do think it's just important so you can see the history of Xehanort, Master, Eraqus Ventus, even a little bit, and then kind of see who the Master of Masters is, because I think that's going to end up being important. Also. I want to just kind of pinpoint Master. Master's motives are always kind of fuzzy. He doesn't seem to be just evil.

He seems to want control and, you know, balance. But for him, balance doesn't happen unless you have the Keyblade War.

So he sets things up to intention, have a giant war that caused lots of people to die. Kind of makes him a bad guy. But it's not because he wants evil. It's just he thinks that's what causes balance.

And it's weird because he'll do good things sometimes if he thinks that causes balance and then evil things sometimes, because balance.

Yeah, I can't remember where it was, but I. I saw Someone heard someone saw someone describe the Master of Masters. As if somehow someone let Deadpool be in charge of an organization that was designed to protect people, and this was the end result.

And, you know, it's not that far off.

Correct.

Okay, and now that Disney owns Marvel, that could even be true. Deadpool could be the Master of Masters. You heard it here first.

That's Headcanon. Now, okay, I do want to say so Master of Masters, his followers that lead the factions. You had Envy, Gula, Ira, a kad, or Aced, and Ava.

I'm probably saying a lot of these wrong again. I just watched the videos and read little things about them. The factions are like all different ones.

So there's Gallopa, there's Unicornists, there's your sis, there's Vulpie, whatever.

The reason it's important is they basically, they wanted a way for everyone to fight in the different factions so that the mobile game, you're like, competing with one another, and everyone's like, oh, I'm team this. They were trying to create, like, what Pokemon did with Team Yellow, Team Red, but that just doesn't work unless you're Pokemon.

But anyway, the way that they explained the factions happening is the Master of Masters left a book of prophecy and told all of them, gave them all a slightly different version, and told each one of them separately that there was going to be a traitor. So they all expected one another to be the traitor again, intentionally setting up a giant keyblade war.

So they told their followers, whatever team you're on, oh, hey, you got to be careful. Those other people could be the traitor. And obviously, eventually it led to a lot of tension and fighting and etc.

I think the clips are actually really interesting. These five characters I would like to get to know better. And I'm sure if I played the game, I would have known them better.

But they actually seemed interesting. The one seemed suspicious because, oh, that guy's just a brute.

And the brute was suspicious because the other people are conniving and trying to be secretive. And I'm like, you know, I actually. I get it.

The idea that everyone having the wrong scripture, basically, and then the most expecting each other because, oh, well, they're not quite like me. It does make a lot of sense, and I wish I could have explored it more. But I also don't like playing mobile games, which is a huge hindrance here.

I also have an addictive personality and a desire to win. So playing mobile games is a bad thing for me because I will spend actual money to Win.

I've had to curb that instinct playing Pokemon Go right now because that's why I stopped in the first place all those years ago.

So you would be with Gula the.

Leopardess when it comes to this. Yes.

So those are some fun things. Dark Road. What do you recall out the story of Dark Road with Ansem and Eraqus here?

Dark Road. Let me remember real quick. It's been a while.

Does it remember me?

No, Remember is not me and Google in this circumstance because it was showing their backstory beforehand, how they kind of teamed up together, what was going to lead into the canceled mobile game Missing Link, which is going to be a new one, if I remember correctly. That was also going to bridge the gap a little bit between, you know, birth by sleep and the end of the original mobile game.

But I'm struggling to remember exactly what happened.

I think everyone does.

Like, honestly, the main thing that I do remember was Xehanort actually being a good guy, and you kind of play through and you see how unintentionally all the actions he did ended up causing the darkness. And he was like, so it doesn't really matter what I do. Everything's prophesied. Everything's kind of set in stone, whatever.

And that's where he starts turning into the organization, trying to manipulate people, because his mind is. This whole system's broke, so I'll just create a new system. And he does that whole justifying thing over and over.

It's supposed to kind of explain his actions and why in Kingdom Hearts 3, Ghost Master eraqus, because, you know, we need as many different versions of Ghost Mark Hamill as we can get. Kind of is able to comfort him, and he sees, oh, yeah, I messed up kind of deal of like, oh, yeah.

I kept justifying this, thinking we needed to have balance.

And I stopped thinking of what is actually right and wrong because he got so lost in thinking that anything he tried to do right would end up with the same results that he started pursuing something else that led him down the dark. You know, to the dark side of the Force or something. I don't know.

Something you said triggered a memory. I want to say there was an.

I can't remember names, proper nouns here, but someone was trying to summon Kingdom Hearts and Dark Road, which Kingdom Hearts, your guess is as good as mine in this. And the goal was to kind of reset everything back to zero, is in, like, return everything to darkness.

And, like, therefore there would be no conflict or anything like that or something to that effect.

Yeah, I think that's what. Okay, that sounds right. That makes sense, y'. All. If you're confused, we are too. And everyone who's ever played these games is also confused.

Yeah.

And don't remember if it's in this or in another cutscene, but there's. At some point Xehanort is met by the character Master. Master sings with the Gazing Eye.

And because Xehanort has kind of a breakdown of like, anything I do is just evil. And the guy's like, oh, no, Hey, I know the future. Evil's good.

We need this many members of Darkness in order to complete the Keyblade Ward and create the Chi Blade. X Blade, whatever. Which only exists because they can't call it the ultimate Keyblade. Because there's already an ultimate Keyblade.

Yes.

So instead of saying Best keyblade, they're Chi Blade, but it's pronounced exactly the same, which is written with an X so that if you don't have captions on while you play Kingdom Hearts 3, you're sitting there fighting with Keyblade, fighting other people with keyblades, and they're all talking about how they need a keyblade. Huh? And also, if you haven't played the mobile games, you're like. Even if with captured on, you're like, what? Why is there a X symbol?

And none of it makes sense. Welcome to Kingdom Hearts.

Don't we also learn that Xehanort is like the great, great, great, great whatever grandson of Ephemer from the original mobile game? Perhaps something like that is. Yeah, I think that's true. Which is one of those.

Okay, so creates interesting things in a timeline for how long that would have had to have taken the events to happen in X Key Kai, whatever you want to say it to Dark Road. So enough time has passed for there to have been a great something grandson.

You also have a weird thing of why Ventus is so important. And later Sora and etc, etc, etc. Everyone connected to them. Vanitas, Roxas, whatnot.

Because Ventus was actually one of the original people who were one of the Union X Keyblade Masters. But he wasn't chosen by Master, the Master of Masters.

And once that was discovered, he was basically because reasons put on ice because they couldn't figure out how to make the timeline work so that he woke up at a much different time. Which is where we see him in birth by sleep.

Yes.

Yeah, because reasons where he would be.

Naturally studied by Xehanort later on because of the events that happened in the past that weren't in Stone at that point in time when the game was made, but now we're going to say they were.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So rather than continuing to confuse ourselves and our listeners, we do find out some things about main characters from games we care about, like Birth by Sleep, like Roxas in Kingdom Hearts 2, Xehanort in all of the Kingdom Hearts, because everyone's Xehanort, Eric is in Birth by Sleep.

I think generally, before we get to specific people, we learn that the world is as it is because imperfect people were given imperfect information and therefore, as a result of that, made imperfect choices that caused a lot of death and devastation. Now, once again, as you said earlier, the Master Masters is really hard to understand because is he on the side of light?

Is he on the side of darkness? Is he more balanced? Where is he at? Is hard to know because he leads to death and devastation on a grand scale through the Keyblade War.

But at the same time, it's to prevent at least what he says further terrible things from happening.

So lying to someone willingly, multiple times over with, like I said, the false scripture ideas is a good way of putting it, that causes these people to believe so fully in this idea. He trusted me. I need to carry on his legacy.

After everything he did for me, let me go and do the same for the people under my charge to make sure that we're not the ones who cause something bad to happen, even though that's exactly what happens because of, you know, false information, because of all these things happening.

So the world that our characters inherit, starting Kingdom Hearts 1, or technically birth by Sleep, you know what I mean, is a world made by the imperfections of imperfect people, which is always going to be the case, yet not the exact same way, obviously. But like, we inherit an imperfect world because of the imperfect people who came before us, and we will be imperfect as we go on.

So how can we not be as imperfect in our own lives and actually be a better mentor in other ways to people and teach people well and them well? That's a great lesson to learn from that.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think in general, one of the most interesting. Oh, also, I forget, there's a whole thing in the Dark X where Odin is There fights. Who's it?

Balder.

Yes.

Yeah, we're just gonna throw some green gods.

Norse gods.

Yeah, Norse. Norse. My bad, my bad. You know what? That's so that when they add Marvel Loki Millionaire makes sense.

I'm only half joking because, like, they really could do that.

That's Loki confirmed his master masters instead of Deadpool. Maybe it's both of them. Maybe one is playing him in this scene and the other's playing him in this scene. That's why he's all over the place.

Oh, man. So there's a character, Luxo, or Luxo. That's the character who ends up with the gazing eye. Luxu. Yeah.

So that's the character who ends up with the gazing eye, who I mentioned earlier.

His whole role is basically to just have that Keyblade exist for all these events so that the master of master sees what happens and can manipulate things so that happens. What he wants to happen happens. And what he wants is the Keyblade War. He does not care who wins or loses, light or darkness.

He just wants the war to happen because he thinks it's necessary for him to get the G blade. That's why all the mobile games exist. The simplest form. That's why they exist. To explain the master master's motives.

And though he explained it in the Kingdom Hearts way, so none of us understand it still. But. But that said, I think what's interesting, especially about Union next. Union Key, whatever. I think the game was necessary.

I just wish it was different, if that makes sense. Like, I wish it would have been like a MMO or something. I don't even like MMOs, but I was more likely to play that.

But like, I think it was necessary because it felt like In Kingdom Hearts, 1, 2, et cetera, you were the top of the world. Everything your story is what matters. All the worlds are going into darkness. You're the savior of the galaxy. All this stu.

But then all of a sudden, when you see the story of Union Key, you're like, oh, man, we were just a small blip. This is all part of somebody else's huge scheme. And we were just like pawns, you know? And I think it helps seeing that.

That version of there being so many different factions, so many different other keyblade wielders, etc. Because makes it feel like a bigger universe. So I think it actually helped the series in that way.

And I think it helps for me build anticipation for what comes next in Kingdom Hearts after three. Because I'm like, all of this, it turns out was just the Master of Masters wanted the Keyblade War to happen. Now it happened, we won. He doesn't care.

He just wanted it to happen. So now what? Now that it's happened, does he show back up? Does he time travel? Do we encounter the Master of Masters?

Is he going to turn out to be a good guy who had weird, you know, justifications for what he did to get that weapon? Why does he want the weapon? Everything really just opens up a lot more questions. But it makes the universe feel bigger, and I do like that.

Again, I just think it would have been better if it was like an MMO and something instead of a mobile game that they know not everyone was going to play and we miss a lot of the lore.

I'll avoid answering more because we do have a bonus question in mind. Outside of that, though, I love the backstory idea in this of every world being one world at one point in time.

And due to the fracturing of the Keyflake War and all this other shenanigans going on with Kingdom Hearts getting messed up, then the different worlds were made to where. Yeah, there were. They existed before, but now they've always been separate, as it were, even though they were somewhere else.

And the barriers between worlds and the result of we don't want to bring them back together because we don't know what's going to happen. Or it could cause Heartless to invade or something like that.

That's why it's the canon reason for why Disney didn't want a lot of their characters interacting. And to know that they were in movies or something like that is all the way back in Kingdom Hearts 1.

The idea of keeping the world order that Donald is so adamant about, and yet they screw it up almost every single time they go somewh.

Muddling.

Yeah, no muddling at all. And. But when you have such strict, strict restrictions, whatever, on an idea like that, it promotes creativity.

And this was a good way to be creative with, like an outside force of a company saying, you can't do this. Well, what can I do with that?

Oh, well, it used to be where we could do the things that we can't do now, but because of the rules, outside of universe, inside of universe, this is why that happened. I am a okay with that because I think that was a master stroke.

Yeah, yeah.

That's just poorly introduced.

Yes. Yeah, agreed. Also, hearing that explanation and remembering, like, what fraction the world in the first place was that first Keyblade War.

Now we have a second Keyblade War. I'm just saying, last time as a joke we did a bonus question and I was like, hey, you know, everybody's complaining about it looking too realistic.

What if they just did live action Disney movies? Now I'm thinking about it going, wait a minute. Second keyblade war. Maybe that doubles the fractions.

Now there's a Moana world in a live action Moana world. And again, I won't put it past them. I don't put anything past them.

I am not a fan of live action Disney remakes. So I won't say anymore.

I. It just depends. Some of them are great, some of them are awful. On average, we could do without them. And I think that's where I fall overall.

But yeah, anyway, all I said, there's, there's a lot here to unpack. We don't have time to unpack all of it, nor do we know enough to unpack all of it.

But I think what's interesting to me is everyone being told that there's a traitor means you expect everyone else to be the traitor. And eventually everyone kind of becomes a traitor. You know what I mean?

Like they betray the others, justifying it because I know one of them's a traitor so I have to keep them from attacking us.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

Yeah, a self fulfilling prophecy. Genius like Master Masters, I don't love him. But like, if you wanted conflict, that was a great way to create conflict.

Yes.

But I do think that that's an interesting thing for us to talk about on a Christian show that deals with pop culture in the world and whatnot. The amount of times we're told the enemy is out there and how often that causes the other people to be the enemy, I don't know.

To me, in a game, I'm like, oh man, you see what they did there?

But in real life, it just is really frustrating because I do see a lot of times where people who I love, who aren't, you know, super involved with the church, think all Christians are a certain way because they're told that Christians hate gay people. Christians hate this, Christians do that. And you know, I think you can be gay and Christian. Christian Ashley does not think that. But guess what?

I know Christian Ashley. I still don't think he hates gay people.

I think the problem is we don't want to get to know each other because we keep being told that the other one is he's a traitor or they hate us. So many people in the church are told that Hollywood hates him, these people hate them or whatever that Film's woke.

The amount of people who saw Superman and thought it was woke blows my mind. I'm like, that just what? But it's because you're told they're from the other team. They're traitors. They're the bad guys. So guess what?

You go and watch the movie, you go into whatever thinking they're the bad guys, and you find a way to turn them into the bad guys. And then we have more conflict in the world. And that's part of why I think our country in America today is so polarized.

Well, it's one of those things that you start off with a true premise. We have enemies, we have evil in the world. We as a church, are supposed to fight against enemies, supposed to fight against evil. True premises.

But how you then interpret that and go about it becomes the issue. You can end up becoming ultra pharisaical, as it were, and you start inventing rules or saying, well, yeah, you know, you shouldn't get drunk. Okay.

That means you don't drink at all. Or, you know, homosexuality is a sin, therefore we should kill all gay people. Hold on there. I know where you started from.

But that doesn't justify enacting other things that have nothing to do with the original premise. And that's precisely what kind of happens here. And so one of the things we need to do is to be careful about that. It's like, how do we fight evil?

Well. Well, you don't become evil in the midst of fighting evil. Otherwise you are then part of the problem.

Like, I am grateful we live in a country that we do. I disagree with many decisions that are made with current administration, previous administration. It.

I kind of don't like anyone at this point in time, to be perfectly honest. But I get to have that opinion and say it out loud and no one's gonna gun me down. That's great. Or at least that's how it should be.

So when it comes to these things, we need to make sure that we are as pure as possible without becoming not pure. Puritanical. Because if you actually look at what the puritans were. Awesome. People who were doing the good work. Yes.

There were people who took advantage of things and we're doing what they're supposed to do, as is the case for any group, which is what we're talking about. But, like, in the sense of we become zealots without cause, and that is helpful to exactly no one. You. You become God in that moment.

That has absolutely nothing to do with spreading truth and loving others.

Yeah, yeah. And I don't want to get super into politics, but, like, it's just such a good example because it's so relevant in the world that we live in. It does.

It just. It bothers me so much. If you look. Just stats, just look at the numbers.

How many death threats coming from both sides go to members of the Supreme Court and how much that's increased just in the last 10 years. Gosh, it is mind blowing, terrifying, disheartening. Because guess what?

The more death threats come, who's going to actually want to be on the Supreme Court? Probably not the best we got. Best we got are going to do a better job.

And you hate.

Yeah. And then what really kills me is a lot of this comes from.

We don't want to assume that the other people have anything in their minds or hearts other than evil. Like, we don't want to assume good faith. And that's just so hard. And I will say, certain times, like Donald Trump, I have a hard time.

I don't think that man does things in good faith.

But I think a lot of people who support Donald Trump, even though I think they're dead wrong and borderline stupid sometimes, I still assume good faith until I get to know someone, you know, like. And I feel like that's just the best way to go about things. And it's how we've done politics for so long.

If you go back and watch the debates of, like, Mitt Romney and Obama, yeah, they disagreed on everything, but they assumed good faith. You're wrong about this, but I don't think you're wrong because you hate the country and you're coming up with an evil plot.

I just think you're wrong.

Yes.

And, like, that's. I just. We need to get back there as a country. When you get that there's a church, the church has kind of got away from that, too.

And it's just as a world. I would like us to get back to that.

That's all.

One, one more thing I want to point out, and we'll start wrapping this up.

The other thing that's interesting, Master of Masters wants a Keyblade war to happen no matter what, because good, bad, whoever wins, the chi blade gets invented. He wants that.

It recalls for me how many times in the world, and I find this, like, disturbing and just weird, how many people who call themselves Christians just want the end times to come. So, like, oh, yeah, of course we got to turn against Israel. We got to do this.

These world events, like, they're cheering things on because that means the end times are coming. And I'm like, I don't necessarily want the end times. Like, I'm cool with the end times in the desert, you know, it's fine.

But like, I think of like Moses and so many of the old prophets. They were never like, yeah, God, come kill them sometimes.

But like, overall, the ones that really pull on my heartstrings when I read the old Bible stories were, well, what if there's two still in that city that love you, Lord? You know, not the people who are like, God judge them now Abraham sitting there like, okay, but what if there's 50? What if there's 10?

What if there's two who still love you? Or like Moses being like God, just hold off your judgment a little bit longer for your people's sake.

And like, when I look through the Bible, those, those are the, like, the men of God that I want to be like, not the ones who are like, oh yeah, let's. The keyblade ward has to happen. Doesn't matter who wins. Not like, oh yeah, well, we have to the end times Apocalypse. Get super involved with that.

But only let's beg for more time, for more mercy, for, for our fellow humans to have the space they need to become people of God one day. I just, I don't know, I feel like that heart's not there with the people who are like, egging on the Apocalypse, you know, I think to most.

Of them that I'm. I've interacted with, it's being improperly taught on what these things are.

They had a pastor or a leader who told them, if you don't think the exact same way I do on how end times theology is, then therefore you're the enemy and you're going to be someone I'm going to fight against when that time comes. And I would be so happy to do it. It's like, no, like, it's going to happen.

Yeah.

There's not been a prophecy he's delivered that hasn't come true except for the ones that haven't been fulfilled yet. That's going to be one of them. And how it happens, I don't know. Is it going to be a literal seven years?

Are we going to get raptured at the very beginning? Is the rapture real to begin with? Like, you're going to have 50 different answers on these things.

At the end of the day, matters isn't which side am I on at the end as far as like fighting in this war? What matters is being on the right Side being with God.

So that regardless of what happens, you are as prepared as possible to fight or to be called back home, whichever happens first. Like to fight well, to love well. Part of fighting well as a Christian is to love well. And. Yeah, I'm with you right there. It's like, I want more time.

I don't want it to happen right now. You know, I mean, I'm not married. I'd love to one day have a family and have kids and move on there.

But at the same time, I also to know if you decide to come back right the second Lord, that's your will, not mine. Let your will be done.

Yeah. Yeah. Couldn't have said it better. Hard pivot. Sorry, guys. Can't think of a good transition. But next time, Birth by Sleep is the next one coming up.

And I think that's Christian's favorite of the Kingdom Hearts series. It's not my favorite as far as, like, the gameplay, but, man, I get Mark Hamill, we get Master Ericus.

We get to see some early Xehanort, we get Ventus, we get Vanitas, we get Aqua, our girl Aqua. We get Terra. The characters in this next game are so good. I am so excited. I'm planning on trying to play through it in the next two weeks before.

Before we get on here because, yeah, it's a good game. I can't wait to talk about that in our next episode. We're gonna be trying to do this about every other week.

Keep doing more Kingdom Hearts stuff and see where we end up at. But for now, let's start wrapping this one up.

Christian, we're gonna have a bonus question at the end for our people who sponsor the show financially, and we're gonna ask, how could these stories have been brought to games that we would have liked better? Same stories, but better games. What would that have been like?

Christian, are gonna give some ideas if you guys want to hear or chime in with your own ideas on fourth wall, you can comment. Listen to that, the clip if you're a member and we appreciate your input, just like that one song says.

So we're going to give our recommendations here. Christian, do you want to start off with a recommendation for everybody?

Yeah.

I don't know what triggered the memory, but the other day I just got thinking about Batman, the Brave and the Bold, the cartoon that Came out a couple years ago and you know what it is solid, good, corny fun.

Sorry, I'm trying to find what I was going to say because it's not Runaways. So I've been playing Marvel Midnight Suns. Everybody knows that I got stuck. My life has been put on pause because of a dumb card deck building game.

But whatever. One of the characters I like the most in it is Nico Minori. Something like that. I'm trying to remember Minoru. Yeah, I loved her from the Runaways.

Seeing her in this game and like, wow, there's a lot of story with her that I haven't seen yet. So picked up and just been reading some stories that she's in. Back in last year.

Yeah, there was a series, Strange Tales she was a big part of and I, I really liked it. So I'm gonna recommend Marvel Strange Tales if you like Nico from Runaways. She's in it. It's a good fun. It's a good fun.

I don't know, I don't know what my, what my words are doing right now, but it's fine.

No, Midnight Suns was one of those games where I was like, I'm gonna hate this because of the card building aspect of it. But then I actually played it and like, you know, it kind of Stockholm me into loving that part.

What I really love was actually having character interactions with these different Marvel characters. It's like, oh my gosh, this is so fun.

Yeah, yeah, you get to actually like build relationships and unlock new characters and if it hadn't gone on sale on Steam for $10, I would have never got this game. Don't care about deck building games that much. Actually I don't mind the deck building aspect. I just don't like Turn based combat.

$10 And it's Marvel. I was like, eh, I'll try it. And I'm stuck. I am simply stuck. Can't do other things. But I'm gonna finish it and play Birth by Sleep before this.

Next committing to putting my life on pause for video games for you listeners. Not because I want to, but guys rate. Review our show wherever you get your podcast. It helps us a lot. It gives me more time to play video games.

Don't ask how, it just does it helps algorithms. Notice our show so more people listen so I can justify spending my time doing this better. We also want to thank thank our financial supporters.

They were especially shouting out Jonathan Augustin. Jonathan, you rock. Thanks so much man for your support. Means the world to us. Guys, if you want your own shout out like Jonathan.

You can be like Jonathan just by becoming an official member of Cismak Ecology. Using the link that's in our show's description for our website, same website, you can get some free extra content.

You can buy merch, or you can just leave a one time financial gift if you don't feel like becoming a member. Doing the subscription thing, you just want to help us one time again, we'll take all the help we can get. We really appreciate it.

We really appreciate each of you. If you want to hear the other Kingdom Hearts nonsense we're up to, I will put a link for that in the show's description as well. So check it out.

There's a lot of links in the show notes. I spent a lot of time on them. So you know, check them out.

Lots of ways to follow us and be a part of all the geeky goodness here on Systematic Ecology. And with that we just gotta ask one, one more thing of you extremely important. Remember, we are all a chosen people, a geekdom of priests.