It's struck me that the fact I want that for Christmas is so irredeemably sad.

Aw who am I kidding, that's awesome!

Pikachu and stormtroopers holding a keyblade? I've gone cross-eyed.

Its nicely done from my memory. great that its profit is going to a charity.

I love the spartan that holds the keyblade in the video.

That was the weirdest crossover is history.

Damn you SquareEnix for your bizarre weapon designs and what you did to people´s minds.

A nice replica, but only 35% going to Child's Play?? I suppose it is better than nothing though!

And on a side note, as a fellow cosplayer, seeing some of those photos of cosplayers just made me feel a little sad - some of them are so bad... >_> People who are going to put in at least some effort shouldn't be allowed to cosplay!

@Kiriphii: The seller is actually giving the entire winning bid to Child's Play - yes 100%. There are certain reasons why he had to put 35%.

Glad to see some of this is going to Child's Play.
I am not a fan of the keyblade and I think it shows the bizarre direction that Nomura has taken artistically.

Let me know when they have Futch's Muaramasa from Suikoden, because THAT would be worth bidding on.

That kicks ass, shame I can't afford it...Oh well, it's for a good cause :)

again...i think their hearts (no pun intended) are in the right place but these gaming auctions REALLY need to up their percentage to at least 50% imo...

personally vast majority are using charity to get their bids higher to make profit instead of giving to charity...

That's pretty kickass. Both in manufacturing and sentiment

@Shiroi:
I see.....

@Lackshmana:
I fully agree with you in regards to Nomura's wavering art direction over the past few years. I think after he finished work on Final Fantasy VIII and Parasite Eve II (which included some great stylised drawings of Aya and also the profile shots of all FF8 and PE2 characters), he was given too much freedom by Squaresoft and went into Kingdom Hearts and things of a similar ilk.

From there he's be spiralling more and more in making his characters appear 'edgey' and 'mysterious', yet it seems to me the only way he knows how to accomplish this is by increasing the amount of belts they wear or making their bodily appearance look like a triangle. So far, the furthest this has brought us is with Subarashiki Kono Sekai ([dsmedia.ign.com]) where reasonable art style is thrown out the window in favour of making the characters look what can best be described as 'street'.

Looking at his profile on Wikipedia and seeing he has at *least* seven projects on at the moment (though there are sure to be some unannounced ones, such as Parasite Eve 3), it makes me worry just how well or badly these projects will turn out to be.

@Kiriphii: Subarashiki kono Sekai was deeply flawed (my eyes can only operate on one level at a time, thank you), but it definitely doesn't fail in the art department. It's unclear how much of the character design is Nomura's though (most sources suggest it's all Gen Koboyashi's work based on some rough ideas from Nomura).

I wouldn't totally blame him for the keyblade either. I imagine Disney probably pushed to have the main character use a weapon that wasn't a sword.

That being said, I definitely think he's been growing pretty stale lately though. He peaked with FFVIII and the Parasite Eve's and everything since then had been very samey and not as inspired. The teaser image for Third Birthday (the Parasite Eve sequel/mobile game/kick in the nuts) looked good, so maybe it's just his family or teen audience designs that are growing old.

@Kiriphii: he does work on a lot of projects, but mostly just surpervising or doing the character design. hes doing all three ff13 games as character designer, all three kh games as a superviser/director, the character design in ff disidea. the only game he is full time on is ffvs13 and the engine isnt even done for that. since square puts a lot into the dev teams for ff and kh all will be fine.

i personally like his art a lot, so im not complaining (although ff9 did have my favorite characters ever).

man o man would that be sweet to have. i cant imagine having it.

@Kuraudo:
Mmm, some of the music was great for the game, but I couldn't enjoy the gameplay as much as I wanted to due not being born with fly-like compound eyes... >_>

Also I'm in total agreement with you over The Third Birthday poster, it is amazing; however I just hope he keeps a similar style (reigns in his belt obsession) for the rest of the artwork in the game.

To be honest, I'm enjoying the current Akihiko Yoshida stage that Square-Enix seems to be going through at the moment. With FFT:LW, FFTA2, FFIIIDS, FFIVDS and FFXII all employing his character designs. For me, his version of moogles and the way he trys to fit in multiple ethnicities into his titles (ie. Fran from FFXII etc) shows his much more subtle approach to character design as compared to Nomura's "Okay, I need someone not white in FFVII...hmm, let me crowbar in a Mr. T parody, there...I'm done!"

It's cool that they put all that effort into making that keyblade, but they should have at least done it correctly since the Ultimate Keyblade isn't gold.

I really liked Kingdom Hearts 2. Kingdom Hearts (1) was interesting, but I have a pathelogical hatred of Disney.

I'm serious. I HATE Disney. I can't really provide for you a rational reason for this hate, but it's there. I can't watch a Disney movie. I refuse to set foot within 100 feet of a Disney store. I've speculated that this is similar to the reaction Damien had to being baptised in The Omen; that I might be some kind of "Anti-Walt". But I digress...

Despite my loathing for all things cuddly and song filled, Kingdom Hearts 2 grabbed my attention and didn't let go until I'd beaten it. I especially liked that I only needed a passing knowledge of the events of the first game to understand it's storyline.

If, for any reason, you've skipped this series, be it a dislike of Nomura's post Parasite work or a hatred of anthropomorphic celebrities, as a gamer you owe it to yourself to at least rent this one and give it a spin. At worst, you find that your preconceptions about the game were correct. At best, you discover a great game, and a new series to anticipate the next entry in.

@InsomniaBob:
Bought and played Kingdom Hearts II and it turned out to be exactly what I was worried it was going to be like. That was after I had slogged through that bloody opening... :/

My fears for the KH series aren't getting any better for KHIII, with Nomura teasing it with trailers at least 2 years if not more before it will be released...and most likely KHIII will be nothing like the Final Mix trailer, just like how Deep Dive bore almost no resemblence to the final KHII product.

Its made out of wood, which is totally lame. It is spray painted gold, which is also lame. A portion of the proceeds (35%) goes to Child's Play which is not lame. If I could find my dremel, and wanted to make a stencil this would be easy to craft. Wake me up from the turkey induced torpor when someone crafts this out of metal, and makes it actually cool.

Wood sword FTL. Replicas should be made out of steel!

Next time I auction something videogame-related can Kotaku post a link so I get a higher price? What's the minimum charity kickback threshold to get mentioned?

15 lbs?! WTF...

If i had money, I'd be all over that shit.

Its...beautiful!

Have seen this around the florida convention circut. Its not that impressive. IMHO, however I am all for charity and I hope it sells for a lot so Child's Play gets more.

IF you want to see some rather STUNNING keyblades check out these bad boys: [images.cosplay.com]

I just saw Hello kitty, pikachu, a strom trooper, and Leonidus all weilding a keyblade.

I can go die happy now.

@Kiriphii:
I agree.

Parasite Eve 2 designs...awesome.

Belts...please stop it. They aren't even holding anything.

I honestly think he draws crazier and crazier stuff just to see how far he can make cosplayers go.

@Belain: wasn't the ingame Ultima sword Gold / white metal as well? if memory serves me well ... hmmm reminds me ... i need to beat the game for the X'th time (I'm a KH freak ^_^)

@黒天使: Yes, correct, white metal and gold. This is cheesy spray painted wood. Which does an incredibly poor job of simulating metal of any color.

I want it T_T <~is mega-UVER-huge-kh fan

@Kiriphii: KH2 had its natural faults for being a sequel. KH: COM was epic, but KH2 had major plotholes, the Disney storyline had nothing to do with the real storyline, gameplay was too easy, missing a lot of things from the original, Maleficent was an absolute waste, etc. Was good but missed a lot of things it needed.

However, this is why I majorly recommend Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+. It is so different from KH2, with all of the added content, like new cutscenes, being able to fight all of the Organization members (all of them), it is MUCH HARDER, new boss fights, like fighting the soldier from the KH2 ending, new keyblades, drive form, features, it is just...it fills in alot of the holes KH2 left behind, as well as offering a 3D remake of Chain of Memories, with new features like new cutscenes, story elements, and it in itself is worth the price. Do buy it.