#masterodin

Sep 2

Long since the last Dark Road ending post, I've watched the ending as well as other people's reactions to them. I feel like I've gotten a much better grasp on what's revealed in the ending means for the series, and I can't wait to discuss them here. I think it goes without saying that there are major spoilers ahead so scroll at your own risk! So without further ado...

I enjoyed the Dark Road ending a lot despite how tragic it was for Xehanort. Having everyone from the upperclassmen and lowerclassmen die (Except for Eraqus, Odin, and Bragi who comes up later) in such a short period of time.

Seeing Master Odin discussing the True Darknesses vs normal darkness with Vidar cleared up a lot of questions I had about a couple of concepts from Union X. Another big reveal in that same conversation was the real way to summon Kingdom Hearts (which had had several different interpretations on how to summon it in the past) which entails using darkness to consume 13 lights to summon it. It was a crazy revelation that Vanitas was born of true darkness instead of being born from the separation of light and dark from Ventus' heart as well as 7 of the 13 original darknesses being found inside the lost masters (Including the Master of Masters).

I will say, the way they utilized Disney worlds in the last few chapters were really clever and actually made a lot of sense. For instance, Xehanort talks to the Magic Mirror from the Dwarf Woodlands or the fact that the underclassmen go to Hades in the Underworld from Olympus Coliseum and talk to the actually dead upperclassmen. ProdigyxCD made a great video discussing some more of the ways that Disney worlds were used in the Dark Road ending which you can find here:

Finally, the introduction and fleshing out of bloodlines in the series was something that I wasn't expecting, but kind of makes sense in the grand scheme of things. A common theory before the ending released was that the Player from KHUx was reincarnated into Xehanort, but Nomura had other plans. Turns out that our Player from KHUx was eventually reincarnated into the blue-cloaked figure that raised Xehanort. So we didn't become Xehanort, but we raised him. Great... Anyways, the post credits scene in my opinion sets up the upcoming story of Missing Link really well and I can't wait to start playing that when the open beta comes out later this year.