Did Nomura learn from his past mistakes after kingdom hearts 3

[Foxycian]

Kingdom hearts 3 was considered mediocre by fans until Re:mind came around, they received soo much feedback back then, and many complained about the story and the floaty gameplay, And the lack of characters being playable, Even tho I love the story now as it is I feel like Nomura’s randomness might strike again soon, tbh Nomura needs to hire a real story writer, ofc not to take his Kh story from him and write it instead but to just Aid him when he writes himself into a corner and doesn’t resort to confusing plot that make fans have headaches.

 

[Keyblade Knight 1st Class]

I really hope that he'll learn from the mistakes that he made with KH3. Whether it's the lack of Final Fantasy characters, small and relatively unimportant roles for certain characters, a smallish lineup of Disney worlds or how rushed the overall story was. Despite these many issues (as well as others that I didn't mention) I still love the game but I do believe that the series (and the fans) deserve better in the future.

 

[blank points]

I'd like to think that he has. As we saw with Re:Mind, he and the rest of the team do clearly listen to the fan feedback, and now the that the convolution surrounding the Xehanort arc is over, there is room for a bit more of a cleaner slate. Often, I think that Nomura gets a bit more flack than what he deserves. Don't get me wrong, there were a LOT of better decisions he could have made, but considering that KH wasn't actually intended to be a series in the beginning, he wasn't really allowed to plan the series out, so he had to improvise. I'd say the writing in this series is 50% not his fault, and 50% his fault. From what we saw in MoM, it does seem like Nomura actually has a plan for the next saga, considering that he had plans to continue the series since long before KH3 was even announced. Of course, I may well be eating my words by the time the next game actually comes out, but I'm willing to give Nomura this chance at crafting a better thought-out arc.

 

[okhi12]

He and the rest of the team involved with ReMind listened to fan feedback, but that didn't last long. Melody of Memory came out, Kairi wasn't playable in her game and in the end she was benched again when Riku went to Quadratum.
Does Nomura really care about what the fanbase perceive as mistakes? Not at all, he'll keep doing whatever he wants with his series without paying much attention to the fans. That's not entirely a bad thing, but it'll be hit or miss as usual.
I agree now that Xehanort is out of the picture he could somewhat improve, but when I think about Union X, Dark Road and how they could tie into the future of the series I'm afraid nothing's gonna change.

 

[Ienzo]

I do think he learned from his past mistakes and I think with them creating a game with unreal and not having to relearn things that the next game will be good.

 

[Katsagu]

Damn if every following game is as "mediocre" as KH3 was at release I'll be an happy fan lol

The biggest problem with nomura, and I'm not even sure if it is nomura's fault, is that he still hasn't been able to consistently integrate disney worlds well into the overarching plot of the game. There have been good attempts, Space Paranoids being the best I can remember. This has led to the plot being sidelined for the majority of the games, so the characters could go on their disneyland trip. This has been the case ever since BBS honestly.

Honestly, right now I feel the future of the series is looking very promising, the story achieved a kind of "reset" that opened new and exciting possibilites for focusing the series. Disney seems to be taking KH more seriously so more budget can be allocated to KH (I know this can be a double edged sword taking into account the Frozen world for example). And from what Re:Mind showed, the dev team clearly listened to fans about what they expect out of a KH game and the basis for future UE4 developed KH games is already done.

So I guess we'll see.

 

[Sakuraba Neku]

It's too soon to tell, but I don't think Nomura will stop overestimating his own writing skills.

 

[Absent]

I mean have we considered that perhaps Nomura doesn’t see his past decisions as mistakes and is doing whatever he wants? I mean we’ve seen this happen with almost every popular creator with mainstream content.

 

[Vulpes XIII]

He is definitely not going to learn from his mistakes in my opinion in fact I honestly think that the whole Nomura doing whatever he wants thing is going to be worse than before as despite the fact that Nomura says Verum Rex is not Versus XIII it definitely is doesn’t matter if he admits it or not. Nomura had Versus XIII taken away from him before to work on other games and what Versus XIII became was probably nothing like what Nomura originally imagined . So if Nomura wants he can put all those unused ideas he never got to use in Versus XIII and put them all into the Quadratum storyline and complicate the plot further, plus we still have all the Union X stuff to deal with and given Union X isn’t even finished yet Nomura still has plenty of time to come up with even more ideas and can’t forget about whatever the implications of Dark Road might have on the plot.

 

[Sign]

I mean have we considered that perhaps Nomura doesn’t see his past decisions as mistakes and is doing whatever he wants? I mean we’ve seen this happen with almost every popular creator with mainstream content.

Pretty much. This series is Nomura's brainchild and extremely self-indulgent. It's a big part of why he'd do things in KH that he wouldn't even consider for FF. He didn't ask for this series to be as popular as it's become. Dude just wants to work on his game in peace.

Of course that doesn't mean it's all free from criticism though.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

Kingdom hearts 3 was considered mediocre by fans until Re:mind came around.

Kingdom Hearts III has its fair share of problems but to call the game mediocre is revisionist history. Kingdom Hearts III ultimately made more of a positive impression than it did a negative one. The implementation of the Disney worlds in the game is the best to date in both environmental design and narrative implementation. The implementation of summons is also the best to date with each summons having an equivalent value of usefulness compared to the previous games. The Keyblades in Kingdom Hearts III are arguably the best in the series as they all have relatively equal value, unlike the previous games that clearly gave you stronger Keyblades as you progressed through each Disney world.

And for all the praise Kingdom Hearts II gets, let's not forget that the game reuses Hercules, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and The Nightmare Before Christmas. The world design in Kingdom Hearts II was limited to corridor and hallway like structures and it's the most notable game to introduce the "Kingdom Hearts is too complicated" stigma to the franchise.

Damn if every following game is as "mediocre" as KH3 was at release I'll be an happy fan lol

The biggest problem with nomura, and I'm not even sure if it is nomura's fault, is that he still hasn't been able to consistently integrate disney worlds well into the overarching plot of the game. There have been good attempts, Space Paranoids being the best I can remember. This has led to the plot being sidelined for the majority of the games, so the characters could go on their disneyland trip. This has been the case ever since BBS honestly.

Verum Rex and Quadratum were introduced through Toy Box, the future of the Kingdom Hearts franchise was highlighted in a Pixar world, I'd argue that's the best integration of Disney worlds as you can get. And even then, every other Disney world in Kingdom Hearts III has been important to the overarching narrative of the game which is even more impressive considering the licensing restraints of each Disney property featured.

 

[Smithjara]

Still no game, just frequent cutscenes. Ugh...SquareEnix really dropped the ball on the DLC AND the game itself.

 

[Elysium]

It depends on what you consider mistakes, since we all differ on what the word would apply to. I think some here have said Nomura has said publicly that he regrets exxing out the FF characters in 3. We'll have to wait for the next mainline game to see if he's really changed on the subject of FF characters though despite his statement. I don't think he's said anything about regretting Kairi's past depictions? Most of what he's said on the subject of Kairi has come across as breadcrumbs to appease the fans, but they (and MoM) don't seem to indicate any real change in course for her. She's never really had much relevance to this series outside opening / ending cutscene fodder, so it's hard for me to consider her being in the background as a "mistake" exactly if he was never trying to do anything with the character in the first place.

He'll probably continue to lose interest in his plots halfway through the same as KH3 showed a lack of interest in properly resolving the first saga. I only say that because it always seemed like the Foretellers and the mobile games were what the main story was going to be, but then 3 came out and now Yozora and the re-purposing of the lost FFXV into KH seems like the main plot going forward. I'm sure he'll try to tie them to one another somehow, but I don't think Yozora and Quadratum were ever planned prior to his version of XV getting the ax. I'm still in a place where I'm not sure what to make of that. I've never been interested in the Foretellers and the Keyblade War of the past, where at least Quadratum and what it might be has peaked my interest. And the latter taking over probably gave Riku more to do since he's clearly being setup to fill Noctis' role in whatever it is.

 

[maleficentfan123]

KH3 had its flaws...but I think some people are just way too hard on the game.

One of the complaints I see about KH3 frequently is about how nothing happens until the end of the game. Um, did we forget about KH2, where literally nothing of importance happens unless you're at the very beginning, middle or end of the game? KH2 had the WORST Disney worlds of the three main games. It's honestly not even up for debate. And honestly, neither KH3 nor even KH1 did a great job "integrating" the Disney worlds into the overall story, but at least 1 and 3 made an effort.

Here's the thing: I really don't think Disney was going to go for their properties being overly involved with the original characters/main plot. Even in KH1, which had probably the best integration, the Disney villains were all interacting with each other, other Disney characters and Sora/Riku (and kind of Kairi). We saw in KH3 just how limited Square/Nomura was with the Disney properties. I think they did the best they could with it given the obvious restrictions, and honestly, I don't know how I would've done it differently. For plot reasons, we can't have the Organization getting defeated until the end of the game (Keyblade War) and we've reached a point where the Disney villains who aren't Maleficent or Hades are very underwhelming to SDG and therefore the player. Why do you think Mother Gothel and Hans had to become Heartless?

KH3 easily could've just taken the plot of the movies for each world and called it good, but (for the most part) they didn't. They at least made an effort, and a darn good one. Vanitas in Monstropolis was done really really well; he was literally resurrected from the negative emotions the world was producing. What more did you want? Marluxia had the flower theme and interactions with Mother Gothel, Luxord had the prior connection in The Caribbean. Was it done perfectly? No, but I think it was done really well still. Certainly better than any other game in the series, barring KH1.

I used to be in the boat of, "let's rescue Aqua and Ventus earlier!" but here's the thing. Once they were rescued, we would literally have no reason to care about the Disney worlds anymore. We would rush through them just to get to main plot stuff. We do the same thing in KH2, but at least in KH3 the Disney worlds are well done and fun to explore. There just wasn't a good way to do anything before the end of the game while still making sure the player cared about the Disney stuff.

Not to mention, we did get cutscenes after each Disney world filling us in on what was going on. That's a hell of a lot more than KH2 or even KH1 does. KH1 isn't perfect in this regard either; you can literally skip Olympus, Atlantica, Monstro, or Halloween Town and you will miss nothing of importance. The game will literally just go on.

So, tl;dr the Disney worlds and overall plot were done as well as can be expected in KH3, and some people just need to lower their expectations.

 

[Dark Rot]

He must feel some embarassment. That quote about KH3 where he was like, "I wouldn't release a game if I didn't think it was a good game" or something along those lines... you wouldn't need that kind of low-bar qualifier if KH3 was actually a good game! Someone who's done such incredible work in the past has to know that KH3 is his worst yet. He might not care that much. It felt like a product of obligation, and it basically was. He was fired from his dream game to make something he was clearly less passionate about. So we got the bare-minimum for what could pass as a KH mainline console title. Maybe that's enough for you, but it will never be for me!

I think it's highly likely that the next game will have a much better story. Because it's a story Nomura actually seems to want to tell. But the gameplay......... Osaka is lost. As much as I can imagine Nomura stepping up the aesthetics and emotion in Quadratum Quest, the series desperately needs new blood (or old blood!) in the combat and movement department.

 

[2 quid is good]

I'm not sure if you've played KH3 post 1.09, but it's like night and day, I'm not even very attuned to the combat differebces but even I can feel how much snappier the new abilities are

 

[AegisXIII]

I'm not sure if you've played KH3 post 1.09, but it's like night and day, I'm not even very attuned to the combat differebces but even I can feel how much snappier the new abilities are

The new abilities are added to your inventory after you complete the main campaign unfortunately. That leaves the main game untouched and still unbalanced. The post game though is rock solid.

 

[Cumguardian69]

Is too early to say for sure. We havent had a 3d action kh game yet.

Pros of remind: fast paced responsive combat.

But the cons include kbg retread, lack of integration with kh3, and more

 

[Dark Rot]

I'm not sure if you've played KH3 post 1.09, but it's like night and day, I'm not even very attuned to the combat differebces but even I can feel how much snappier the new abilities are

I played a little... and I agree they make using the keyblade a much smoother experience, especially against enemies like Demon Tide and the Titans. It just doesn't change the fact that, for me, they didn't come up with any good ideas, aside from allowing multiple pages for the magic quickbar. And even that feels kinda worthless because all the spells are functionally the same now! It feels like they mashed the gimmicks from BBS & DDD onto a KH2 skeleton, with seemingly little regard for how the pieces fit together or balance each other out. I just personally find it too uncool.

 

[2 quid is good]

And even that feels kinda worthless because all the spells are functionally the same now!

Ah yes, this bothered me, the way only water and aero had some utility, with everything else being a nuke/aoe nuke.