Why Did They Turn Riku Into Sora?

I've thought this for a while, but replaying Reverse/Rebirth has cemented my opinion.
Why were they so insistent on making Riku drop all original characteristics in order to make him a Sora clone?
But that, I mean in Dream Drop Distance Riku has lost every unique attribute that made him unique from Sora. He doesn't have increased jump height. His dodge roll is exactly like Sora's. His combos are functionally far more similar to Sora's than his combos in R/R
There used to be so many unique little details to Riku. His finisher didn't ave the AOE of Sora's. His aerial slash was two handed and much faster than Sora's.
It' like they drained all of his unique abilities out with half his personality.

 

You're right ... maybe he is trying to avoid being corrupted again?

 

First, on gameplay. Not at all. Dark Mode a functionally different thing entirely. I'm talking about Riku's base combos. They're not nearly identical, they're VERY different. Riku's moves are much longer and sweeping in DDD, more in line with Sora's typical moveset. Riku also jumps higher by default in Re:CoM, mirroring his ability in KH1. Re:CoM Riku is stiff and more surgical, DDD Riku is flowing and round, like Sora. His dodge roll is identical to Sora's now, too. In Re:CoM he'd do a flip that ended with a slight pause, making him feel very different from Sora.

I never said that Riku losing half his character was good or bad. He just has far fewer distinct characteristics now. He's more mature, that's a definite thing, but you probably can't pick out as many distinct characteristics with Riku now as opposed to KH1 or CoM. For me personally, that makes him a touch more boring, as the world of KH is full of extreme characters, so in a weird way he just sort of sticks out now. To me, Riku being arrogant, confident and ambitious made him interesting. Now he's submissive, passive, basically a walking plot device without much going on for him
I'm not the kind of person who thinks characters should be forced to stay in the status quo in order to be good, but becoming 'mature' doesn't equate to eliminating all your flaws

 

I completely agree with everything you're saying. The gameplay mechanics of Sora and Riku differ on a huge level towards the end of the game, when you get all of abilities for Riku. You can really mimic Dark Mode with those abilities and attacks if you chose to, but the attacks honestly aren't as effective and overpowered as they were in Chain of Memories, which could be a good thing rather than a bad one. Riku's character development is also the most believable out of all the characters in the franchise and I think that makes him the least boring, honestly. Not that I even find the characters boring, because I think they all offer something different, but Riku definitely takes the cake for being the most interesting due to his humanity and, I don't know how young you were when you played Kingdom Hearts, but growing up with the series (I'm 17 now and played Kingdom Hearts when I was 7), I feel like Riku is the most relatable and genuine because he's like a teenager coming to maturity and learning to become more of a man, like Riku has done, and his character development sort of gives off a certain inspiration to do some inward thinking of your own.

 

I still appreciate Riku as a character. He hasn't been put through as much of a blender as, say, Lea.
The gameplay honestly wasn't very useful in terms of gameplay, but it made me feel like I was playing as a different character than Sora. By the end Riku has a different dodge anyways, so they clearly aren't against making him play different from Sora. The thing is, by the end of the game it doesn't really feel like I'm playing as Sora OR Riku, most of their unique abilities are more or less ripped from BBS.
The thing is, Riku IS more thoughtful than Sora, and I wish that was exploited more. Riku has since Days retired himself to being a background character to Sora, this is exemplified in Country of Musketeers, where he is LITERALLY backstage while Sora does the real fighting. I don't think Riku needs to be loud or angry, but he's lost so much initiative and drive since even CoM. Riku has the potential to figure out things Sora couldn't, and interact with the world in a very different way from Sora, and that's sorely underused. Like in Symphony of Sorcery, it makes sense for Sora to try to bash the music in with his keyblade, but when Riku is presented with the same challenge... he has the EXACT same response.
But yeah, Riku's not terrible or anything, but compared to the other extremes in KH he stands out and is a bit obring. He would be at home in a Final Fantasy game, but KH doesn't really respond well to being down to earth.
And here's the thing. A three dimensional character IS an interesting one. But what has Riku done to show he's 3d? what facets does he have? Like, what does he have going for him besides his darkness plot? Sora has more depth, we've seen him in more situations and can glean details from that, and Ventus has shades of this too. When has Riku even talked about something not plot relevant?

Here's the thing about relatable characters.
They aren't relatable for being really well developed, or something like that, they're relatable for being the opposite.
It's a lack of detail that makes people relate with a character en masse. Otherwise a relatable character is really only reletable to a few people because they become too specific. That's why, for example, in so many media characters are who might otherwise be extraordinary are treated ordinarily. Giving superheroes a job and money issues makes them more relatable than they otherwise would be because most humans can relate to that.