Current Events > Ok but seriously, what happened to Kingdom Hearts?

(+) Yeah! (+)

3 mainline games in 2 decades

More than half a dozen spin offs

Wtf

But the spin offs are essential to the story so are they really spin offs?

Licensing nightmares may be part of it.

I was actually really surprised and happy when actual music from the movies showed up in KH3. I remember being so disappointed in the Lion King part of KH2 especially because of how big an impact the Lion King's music had on me back when I watched it.

Sephiroth_C_Ryu posted...

Licensing nightmares may be part of it.

this.

Stuff gets stale over the years. Happens to most series.

Ive enjoyed the whole ride, Im more concerned because its now been 4 years since the last console title

FFXIII Versus turned FFXV happened

Interrupting Ultima with Stopga was a total chad move

All they had to do was get KH3 out before the 2010s, but nooooooooo

Let's start device hopping with spin-offs that are still essential to the overall story lore! Obviously now that's all moot because the collections have everything (unless you really wanted to play 358/2 Days and Re:Coded in full), but if I had things my way then the damn series would've finished up before the end of the decade.

They aren't spin-offs, they're all mainline games and that's worse. They made a fuckin rhythm game and made it canon instead of a silly little dance party using the cast of the series. We're lucky Sora's appearance in Smash Bros isn't part of the plot (yet).

Crazy that this started with them making Chain of Memories on the GBA and making it have an important plot, then following up with 2 on the PS2 again.

They eventually re-released them all on a single console but by then the plot was just random shit that retconned itself constantly

Gonna guess they got incentives to do portables so more people would buy the hardware

While Im very thankful that you can play all the games (for the most part- a couple are just collections of cutscenes ) on PS4 now, it was very off-putting that they put so many on several different handhelds.

Really wish they had just stuck to making one really good game on non-handhelds every few years. The first game and KH2 are both two of my favorite games. 3 is solid too. But, god, most of the handhelds are absolute chores to play

You know what happened?

The internal team at Square-Enix misunderstood what made these games popular.

Sorry guys, the convoluted mess of the Keyblade Wars and all the "Squeenix" stuff in there? It is only funny and intriguing because that overly melodramatic silly shit is being interacted with by Disney. The interaction of the main cast (Sora, Kairi, and Riku) with Disney IS Kingdom Hearts.

There's a reason why KH3 felt like... I dunno, a bit of a letdown, and it was because the Disney element of things was definitely put to the backburner to deal with all the "Square-Enix" stuff. Now that could be due to licensing issues for sure, but it felt deliberate. And it feels like KH4 is gonna move even further away from Disney stuff. And it's a mistake.

I never understood why Kingdom Hearts 3 couldn't have just been a sequel to Kingdom Hearts 2. Instead if I want to understand the story I'm literally forced to play some of the spinoff games.

PowerOats posted...

3 mainline games in 2 decades

More than half a dozen spin offs

Wtf

BlazinBlue88 posted...

But the spin offs are essential to the story so are they really spin offs?

What happened is, everyone could tell it was a cash cow and paid out the ass for exclusives. This strategy is obviously more effective if you can't skip a single one without being completely lost, so none of them are really side stories.

It was infuriating back in the day when Square apparently expected me to buy a new handheld like every year or two but I was a broke high schooler who became a broke college kid. I actually quit the series entirely because of it, and only got back around to it literally earlier this year.

And then they just screwed up the titles because it's what the cool kids do.

Sephiroth_C_Ryu posted...

Licensing nightmares may be part of it.

Don't forget the Disney executives that must be glaring over the project constantly like a pack of hyenas.

There's a reason why KH3 felt like... I dunno, a bit of a letdown, and it was because the Disney element of things was definitely put to the backburner to deal with all the "Square-Enix" stuff.

I don't know, if anything I feel the Disney stuff was so much of a focus the real plot only started near the end. Even the Organization felt like they were less impressive because Disney wanted to remind everyone how big they were, meh.

The only spinoff I finished was Chain of Memories. It is also the best of them. It was so much fun. I remember playing it before 2 came out and it felt like it was worth it considering how 2 starts and some of the characters that you meet. I felt like I had inside knowledge.

Sadly I stopped being able to play games through their entirety thanks to depression and my parents' divorce so I ended up being unable to complete the others. I didn't have a PSP and bought it for Birth by Sleep though.

Just never got to play through it all.

Necronmon posted...

I don't know, if anything I feel the Disney stuff was so much of a focus the real plot only started near the end. Even the Organization felt like they were less impressive because Disney wanted to remind everyone how big they were, meh.

Plot wise, the Disney stuff was absolute filler. The pacing issues in the game aren't caused by Disney, it's just bad writing.

This has been the case since CoM though. KH1 was the only time the Disney stuff and RPG stuff actually worked together.

After the mid 00s games stopped coming out. Development cycles are about 10 years.

Chain of Memories is my favorite, but I don't want to replay it. I still got my cartridge and plan to just keep it a great memory.

Necronmon posted...

I don't know, if anything I feel the Disney stuff was so much of a focus the real plot only started near the end. Even the Organization felt like they were less impressive because Disney wanted to remind everyone how big they were, meh.

KINGDOM HEARTS SERIES SPOILER TYPE STUFF?

I totally disagree. My only big memories from KH3 at all were all from Organization stuff and the Squeenix melodrama things. I know that Maleficent was still around kinda near the end, but otherwise the lasting memories (at least that I have) of KH3 were entirely about Organization 13, fighting multiple versions of Xenmas or Xehanort or whoever he actually was, and bringing back Terra and Aqua, etc. etc. etc.

Square Enix's whole dumpster fire with their Luminous Engine during that time really screwed up Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts.

After KH2, the whole PS3 era fucked over Square for one reason or another. Then Vs13's entire debacle happened. Their best recourse at that point to keep the franchise alive was to produce the handheld side stories. Which was great, imo. I loved having a new KH game every year or every other year. The fans were eating back then.

Then even that stopped, and we just got remakes and a gacha for half a decade. And KH3 eventually came out, but by that point it was the end of the PS4 era, and the development cycle for AAA games these days are waaaay longer than they were in the PS2 era, so I'd be surprised if we got more than a single numbered title per decade. Esp with Disney micromanaging everything the series does with their IPs. You'd think they'd have more trust in KH over the years handling their properties, but if anything they've become even more scrutinizing. If I recall correctly, they were in talks with Pixar for two whole years while trying to incorporate Toy Story into KH3, and that was one of the more lenient Disney world experiences in the game. Can't imagine the hell they went through to get Frozen in.

The real issue with the series at this point (besides the increase in time between game releases) is that they've settled on the "focus on gacha games" approach, where all the real meat and potatoes of the series is in drip-fed gacha stories with shit gamepaly that they can cheaply release over the span of years. Union Cross did it, and now we're getting Missing-Link...at some point. No more actual games on handhelds that you can buy and own and play through -- you know, REAL games -- just phone app garbage you have to stay updated on for years on end.

The series feels directionless at best, and dead in the water at worst, by this point. The only things that've come out since KH3 in 2019 are KH3's DLC, a recap rhythm game, and a second gacha that was canned within like two updates. KH4 was announced almost three years ago, with no updates since then, and Missing-Link has a promised 2024 release date still, but there's also been no news on that and it's almost the end of November.

Nomura's already half-joking about retiring soon, and this "new, second saga" of KH hasn't even actually started yet.

pegusus123456 posted...

Plot wise, the Disney stuff was absolute filler. The pacing issues in the game aren't caused by Disney, it's just bad writing.

This has been the case since CoM though. KH1 was the only time the Disney stuff and RPG stuff actually worked together.

This. And that's why I don't like the series. Between the spin offs that eventually weren't spinoffs and people thinking that I actually gave a whit about the OCs jammed into the story to override the concept of Disney x Square RPG missed the point of what made people interested in the first place.

The story is a complete mess, and I honestly felt like the gameplay peaked at kh2 final mix and never truly recovered. I heard recoded was good, but by then I couldn't be bothered because I wasn't sure if it was just fanboys or a legitimate claim.

KH3 should have just been original Disney things to end it. New trilogy with Pixar only. Then spin offs with Star Wars, Simpsons, etc...

Simplex Herpes is the WAY that you're spreading diseaaaase tonight

All the games are mainline except for the browser game and maybe the old Nokia game or whatever
a game which isnt numbered is still mainline

Rika_Furude posted...

All the games are mainline except for the browser game and maybe the old Nokia game or whatever
a game which isnt numbered is still mainline

See, the reason the KH series is stupid is that the browser game is also mainline.

Square is known for trying to shit storm a storyline to mistakenly mean it for depth. Look at Xenogears and FF8 if you need examples.

It died when 3 sucked

tripleh213 posted...

It died when 3 sucked

3 did not suck

Hambo posted...

We're lucky Sora's appearance in Smash Bros isn't part of the plot (yet).

Supposedly, Nomura even wondered over the storyline implications of Sora being in Smash.

I disliked 3 to the point I couldnt finish it. The physics and the nonsense story. The battle system feels so messy and overwhelming as well.

Lokarin posted...

3 did not suck

You are joking right

tripleh213 posted...

You are joking right

I just played through it on Steam not too long ago. I especially liked the part where the kickstarter backers attacked

The director may have been a little to ambitious for his own good frankly. Or was trying to milk as much from the franchise as possible.

If he didnt wait as long to finally make KH3 then they may have been able to produce a good game before Disney started enforcing their rules and regulations upon them.

Never mind all the crappy new characters he made only to bloat the story and take up essential time that could have been spent elsewhere.

Some of the spin-off games were basically full fledged games, like BBS and DDD. I played the PS4 collection all the way through and the summary videos for the 2 NDS games were sufficient IMO

Sephiroth_C_Ryu posted...

Licensing nightmares may be part of it.

disney owns kingdom hearts there are no licensing issues

AceMos posted...

disney owns kingdom hearts there are no licensing issues

They mean in how to utilize and represent the Disney IPs in the games. Square still needs to negotiate with Disney on that, and Disney of course has the final say.

Rharyx211 posted...

Can't imagine the hell they went through to get Frozen in.

and then they botched that big time by having the stupid snow giant no one gives a shit about be the party member rather than elsa

Solar_Crimson posted...

They mean in how to utilize and represent the Disney IPs in the games. Square still needs to negotiate with Disney on that, and Disney of course has the final say.

oh sorry my bad

AceMos posted...

and then they botched that big time by having the stupid snow giant no one gives a shit about be the party member rather than elsa

No way Disney was ever going to let Elsa be in the party and fight.

The problem with 3 is they give these little scenes that's almost like Nomura nudging us with his elbow, winking and saying"did you catch that reference" all excitedly. While also having practically no plot until the last 2 hours, and what little plot is given to you is literally just "Find out what this means next time on Dragon Ball Z!!!"

The last couple hours themself are incredibly rushed, emotional payoff people wanted is there, but it's just so damn abrupt and over in the blink of an eye.

Then you have the final boss and his reasoning for what he's doing, just being so anticlimactic and literally goes against everything he had done previously.

KH3 was basically one long ad for KH4 and beyond, while KH3 was rushed, felt like Nomura was just like "Let's get this shit done and move on to KH4."

Unknown5uspect posted...

No way Disney was ever going to let Elsa be in the party and fight.

they could've at least given us olaf

The first game had a simple enough story, than they added in Org 13, and kept adding more and more pointless lore. I just wanted a simple Disney crossover action RPG, not this convoluted mess.

Dark_twisted posted...

Square Enix's whole dumpster fire with their Luminous Engine during that time really screwed up Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts.

Finally someone that actually knows what theyre talking about.