Could Riku have been freed from XH's control earlier on in KH1?

[Xaelx]

Originally Posted by Ningacom

I think the fact that he turned into a Shadow instead of something strong was a sign of Sora's resistence against the darkness (lol, Hollow Ichigo rings a bell XD)

Thats very much possible

Originally Posted by I<3Roxas

The fact that he became a shadow i think is either because he had only a little bit of darkness in him, or because there were only 2 kinds of "real" (non emblem) heartless at the time - the shadow and darkside. Thus, if he were a darkside, how could kairi save him? He'd be way too big to hug and bring him back lol I woulda thought that he'd be a darkside because that's what his inner darkness did in his Awakening. *shrug* guess we'll never know.

Thats true.
It would have been fun having control over a dark side lol.
But limitations in other parts of the story like sora returning to normal would be too hard to control

[TwoAcross]

Honestly, I think the reason that Xehanort's Heartless didn't go back to Xemnas was that his heart wasn't just "released" or "defeated"... it looked more like the light utterly decimated him (with the exception of what remains in Riku's heart), so he didn't merge with Xemnas because there was nothing to merge with Xemnas