Of the enemies players are put up against inKingdom Hearts 2, many of the Nobodies stand out, due in part to a lack of variety that makes each individual one more impressive. Among this enemy type, few say as much aboutKingdom Heartsprotagonist Sorathan the Samurai variant that follows his own Organization doppelganger Roxas.
This self-reflection ofKingdom Hearts 2’s Sora through the Samurai comes from how many of the other types of Nobodies behave and are designed throughout the rest of the game. Specifically, it boils down to the fact that each type of Nobody is modeled after the Organization member that commands them, with only a few select exceptions like the Dusk and Creeper.
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How Nobodies Reflect Their Commander
Many of the standard Nobodies that players will face off against throughout the series have a commanding member, originating fromKingdom Hearts 2’s Organization 13. This turns in multiple aspects of these enemy’s designs being more stylized versions of the more human members of the Organization, including direct visuals and combat styles. As a result, each enemy becomes a bit of a tutorial for how the eventual boss fight against each of these members is going to behave, in some cases down to the key gimmick needed to beat them.
A strong example of this includes howKingdom Hearts 2’s Sorcerersprepare the player for the final boss fight against Xemnas, since he personally commands this class of Nobody. However, in the case of the Samurai Nobody, these enemies seem to replicate an enemy that players never actually fought, at least not in the original version of the game. These special enemies are under the control of Sora’s Nobody Roxas, wielding two swords in a way that their commander made iconic in at the end of the game’s elongated prologue.
Roxas Mirrored in the Samurai
The most obvious parallel between Roxas and the Samurai is in the way that each one dual wields their weapons, though the lower class Nobodies only get a pair of plain swords instead of Keyblades. While the origins of Roxas' dual wielding would later be retconned inKingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, it’s an aspect to the character that had been seen as early as thesecret ending toKingdom Hearts. On top of this, the reaction gimmick from the Samurai was also eventually incorporated into the boss fight against Roxas that appeared inKingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix.
What makes the Samurai so interesting as a case study of the connectedcharacters inKingdom Hearts 2, however, is the way that they then connect to Sora through Roxas. Considering that Roxas is Sora’s Nobody through a complicated set of circumstances that have also been retconned more than once, it makes sense that the Samurai appear to emulate the protagonist as well as his doppelganger. This is most apparent when looking at Sora’s combat style throughout the games, and especially the way that he sometimes picks up the dual wielding style for himself.
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Sora’s Fighting Style
There are a few ways thatSora changes throughout theKingdom Heartsseries, but at the same time, there are plenty of ways that he stays consistent from game to game. For the most part, the combat of each game where Sora is the playable character has stayed mostly the same, using a single Keyblade with two hands. Then there are the drive forms fromKingdom Hearts 2and the Keyblade transformations inKingdom Hearts 3that give a short period with multiple weapons at a time.
It would be a bit of a stretch to callSora’s Keyblade wieldinga one-to-one with a samurai’s sword fighting technique, or modern kendo, but it would explain why the Nobody that fights similarly is also called a Samurai. So, to a degree, it appears that this specific type of Nobody could imply some of the inspirations for how Sora fights throughout the series with his signature way of holding his Keyblade. This would certainly be a far step from some of the original designs for the lion-boy Sora with a chainsaw sword, but could go a long way to explain why no Keyblade wielder has ever decided to pick up a shield throughout the series.
Kingdom Hearts 2is available now for PC, PS2, PS3, PS4, and Xbox One.
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