Falling in and out of love with Kingdom Hearts in a post-KH3 world

[Nexale]

Same here. I have my gripes with KH3 and have voiced them on numerous Kingdom Hearts sites. But I still love this series and remain a loyal fan. I still have a blast playing KH3. My last Critical Mode run was nothing short of amazing. I want more Kingdom Hearts! I'm so sticking around for KH4 and beyond. ReMind can't get here fast enough! It feels like the wait for KH3 all over again XD

I agree with this. I would say I have more than gripes with KH3: there's almost nothing of the game that I have liked. But I also doesn't like Re:coded at all, and it never affected my love for the series. Yes, KH3 is a more hurtful hit because is a main game, and because all the hype that has been building up for years. But I like Union Cross plot much more that I expected, and I'm really interested in knowing about the Foretellers saga.

I know many people kind of blame KHUx for "contaminating" KH3 and, although I'm the first person who got angry about all the non-sensical connections between the two games that has appear, I don't think the problem is in KHUx details in themselves, but in the terrible writting KH3 had.

Because, yes, I think the KH3 plot is terrible, in an "objectively" way, something that I've never thought about KH saga. There's plot points along the years that I have liked more, and others that I haven't like. But there's not the same thing that has happened this time. DDD introduced time travel and free keyblades just for asking, and it was something I'm not fan of. But it was well told, so I'm ok. I didn't like TAV trio as I liked RAX, but I don't consider them bad characters: they were coherent to their personality, and I can understand why some people loved them even if they are not my favourites (and the plot of BBS was really good, too).

KH has always had some idiot plot here and there, some inconsistency, some miracolous solutions because of "friendship power" and so on. But I kinda like it too, like a "mark of the house". I like the convoluted plot, villains giving weird metaphysical speeches and that stuff. But the problem with KH3 is that is just doens't have a plot, because, like other users have said in various topic, there is not "cause-consecuence" effect, character development and it all seems like check boxes. More than that, there are inconsistence from one scene to the inmmediate after (Aqua disappearing from Vanitas fight in the KG, Lea's keyblade (no)broking...) and inconsistence between what's happening in the plot and the feeling of the scene (if I'm supposed to be shock by the failling of Guardians of Light, you just can't have Sora joking about "been disembodied" or all the characters been completely ok with what happened after they return, without any sign of fear, sadness or relieve).

So I'm terribly disappointed. I can't like the game, and it has really ruined the end of the Xehanort saga for me. But I still love almost every other game that has come before it, and even if I'm been careful of not letting my expectatives grow high from now, I'm waiting for anything that will come after. I'm not leaving the boat, not only because KH has been with me for more than a decade and is my favourite video-games saga, but because I believe there's more than room to make things right in the future.

 

[FudgemintGuardian]

I come to this thread, think about it, leave, come back, and repeat. That in itself probably says a lot.


KH3 is....something. I like some things. Complain about most things. But in the end I have an...unfeeling disappointment toward it.

As a whole, KH3's story looks like a first draft. Just general notes of what's to happen. Because of that, it can sometimes be hard for me to see this as the final product, though I obviously know that it is. (And Re:Mind isn't going to change any of that, either.) And whether its either ignoring plot points completely, avoiding its own plot at every given moment, or acting like just mentioning a character or just saying they want to do something is somehow just enough, and they don't have to do anything further. Like Lea mentioning Roxas is somehow "just enough" and Lea proceeds to have zero active (if any) involvement in bringing him back. Completely defeating the point of Lea wanting a Keyblade and even being there in the first place. (Lea did want a Keyblade because he thought it'd bring back his friends, right?) The story acts like it just doesn't care.

And in after doing all that, or...all not that depending on how you look at it, it tries to shove everything in the last 4 hours. Then Nomura acts like it couldn't be helped because there's just so much to cover. Like, dude, you do realize you had all this *flails arms across the whole game* and not just those 4 hours, right?

And yeah, not everything is Nomura's fault. He's not the only one working on KH, after all. Though some people in some places like to think this for some reason...

And it doesn't help the main story one bit when it makes an abrupt stop every time we go to a Disney (and Pixar) world. Oh sure, the antagonists had more involvement in the sense that they were the ones causing trouble....sometimes, but in the end every single one were just there to say "Hi, I'm just here to remind everyone I'm a character that exists." The Disney worlds maybe mentioned stuff occasionally, but it never moved the plot forward.

I could maybe get into more, but I'm pretty sure my grievances have been stated by me and others a hundred times over by now.

It just...kinda weird how I'll feel nothing toward this game. I obviously don't know how I'll feel about later games since they haven't happened yet, but how KH3 dealt with its own plot doesn't give me high hopes.


EDIT: Forgot a sentence.

 

[CaptFancyPants]

I'm really happy for a thread like this so I can just talk my heart out. I have a lot of mixed feelings about KHIII. If I had to say something more simple, I'd have to say that I was disappointed in the game due to my absolutely massive hype for the game, and I expected too much.

After revising the game, I've realized that it has a lot more gameplay elements and details to it that I didn't notice the first time around because I was so focused on the amount of content that the game would have. I expected more Keyblades, more worlds, more content that wasn't revealed to us in trailers and announcements. I significantly overestimated the amount of content that would be in the game because I let the hype overtake me. The game basically got elevated to legend status in my mind, which makes sense considering I've been waiting for it since I was 14 when the game was announced.

The writing is a little bit of a different story. Like a lot of other people have said, KHIII is a game full of missed opportunities. I'm happy that there was a little bit of acknowledgement to Ventus and Roxas being identical, but I would have liked more. I wanted more dialogue between certain characters, I wanted more backstories. I went into the game believing that there would be plot twists around every corner, and that isn't what I got. The game saves so much of it's plot until the very very end of the game. I was frustrated that Riku didn't get more time in the spotlight, but I also appreciated how the game wrote Sora, and enjoyed his character throughout the game.

Something that I feel like KHII did a lot better than III was having a more clearly defined middle. KHIII clearly defines it's beginning (even that's a little bit muddled with the whole 2.9 gag) and it's end, but there isn't much of a middle. KHII defines it's middle great with the big Hallow Bastion battle that brought some good fights and some great plot. KHIII didn't have that, if I had to rearrange the plot of the game a bit I'd actually put the section where Sora saves Aqua and Ven in the middle of the game to help space things out a bit.


Going back to gameplay for just a bit, the game actually didn't disappoint me there. I felt like the game massively improved on gameplay in previous entries and I'll be honest, I prefer it over KHII. I know Sora is way too light in KHIII so it makes the game a bit floaty at times, but my replay of the game in Critical Mode made me realize the problem isn't as bad as I remembered it being the first time around. I really love the way the combat is in the game. It's so fun and feels very organic.

As for how it affects me as a KH fan, the game upset me for a while. I genuinely bawled several times after I beat the game because of how disappointed I was compared to my hype for the game. I didn't think the game was necessarily bad, but I was hearbroken that it wasn't the absolutely ultimate Kingdom Hearts experience that I had been dreaming of for years, and that I had been using to help emotionally stabilize me at some of the lower points of my life. However, the game hasn't deterred me away from being a fan. I actually think it's helped me be a better fan, as I am trying my best to be critical and objective about the game while still loving the franchise as much as I always have. KH is really my favorite franchise and one of the things that I love most and brings me great happiness in my life, so disappointment wouldn't make me abandon it. I just know that I need to avoid trailers more the next time a KH game is getting hyped, be more objective about the comments made by the developers and Nomura, and to temper my expectations a bit so I can have a better experience. Sorry about the massive wall of text, I could keep typing for a very long time about several things but I wanted to get down some of the things that I felt were really important

 

[Launchpad]

I feel like every single KH game after the first one has put me through some version of this experience. KH1 was so perfect to me that KH2 being so wildly different was disgusting, disappointing, confusing, etc. I didn't know if I was a Kingdom Hearts fan, or a KH1 fan specifically, and the games that came after KH2 were WAY worse than KH2, tonally and from a gameplay standpoint.

Then KH3 comes out, and I actually kinda like it. But people are acting like the series has been one way up until KH3, and NOW it's different. I guess I have a hard time seeing the difference between KH3 and KH2? KH2 is structured better and has better combat, but the level design and cutscenes are just horrible, while KH3's combat is a little wonky and undercooked, and the pacing is garbage, but the core fundamentals and presentation are quite nice.

I've just been going through this for a lot longer than most people have. It's been a rough ride the whole way.

 

[Happyfunshineman]

I, sort of, fell back in love with the series.

Back when 3D came out, I made a really lengthy, largely poorly articulated, post about how I thought KH 3D was bad for the series. While I’m still not the hugest fan of the game, looking back on it now, I’m a bit embarrassed by it and my behavior. I was being very reactionary and having played though the series before KH3’s launch, there are some interesting aspects to the game.

I’m not bringing up my revelations on my reactions up to prescribe the term ‘reactionary’ on the various opinions on KH3. Instead I’m trying to say that this realization has allowed me to come to terms with how natural this all really is.

I mean, people love KH for all different kinds of reasons. If you just like the story for example, well KH3 is almost half cutscene. If the events of KH3 didn’t gel with you that means you didn’t like nearly half the game so its really no wonder that you didn’t like it.

We all may be fans of KH, but I think our reasons for liking the series are probably all really different. I thinks this is why we get such heated discussions about series like Avatar, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones, to name a few. Everyone is coming in from different angles, everyone has their own likes and dislikes.

I vaguely remember a thread called “How I divorced Kingdom Hearts,” or something like that, that was posted here sometime after 3D. The discourse in the community is nothing new, in fact I would argue that its been this way since Chain of Memories.

But man, its all so hard though. I can say all of this and yet I still feel a bit disheartened when I read people’s negative reactions to KH3. Its a natural response, I know, but I wish I could be a little better in that sense.

I’m excited for more Kingdom Hearts, but I need to let myself understand why some people might not be.


Anyways, all that said, that eleventh hour scene, right before the credits rolled, literally took a hundred years off my life. Despite liking the game quite a bit, when it happened I was like “God I need to take a nap.”

 

[Dandelion]

I feel like every single KH game after the first one has put me through some version of this experience. KH1 was so perfect to me that KH2 being so wildly different was disgusting, disappointing, confusing, etc. I didn't know if I was a Kingdom Hearts fan, or a KH1 fan specifically, and the games that came after KH2 were WAY worse than KH2, tonally and from a gameplay standpoint.

Then KH3 comes out, and I actually kinda like it. But people are acting like the series has been one way up until KH3, and NOW it's different. I guess I have a hard time seeing the difference between KH3 and KH2? KH2 is structured better and has better combat, but the level design and cutscenes are just horrible, while KH3's combat is a little wonky and undercooked, and the pacing is garbage, but the core fundamentals and presentation are quite nice.

I've just been going through this for a lot longer than most people have. It's been a rough ride the whole way.

I love you, Launchpad.

 

[Pandymint]

I've been playing Kingdom Hearts since the first time I rented the game at a Blockbuster back in 2002/2003, whenever it came out originally. I held fast at loving the games, then fell off the wagon for a bit after Birth By Sleep because I didn't own a 3DS so I couldn't have gotten DDD to keep up.

Then I went through that phase of "man these games are for kids..." as probably a lot of people do when they're a teenager and they're having that edgy phase. Didn't play the games again until the HD collections came out and I remembered why I had so much fun with them in the first place, had a blast with them. I had finally gotten a 3DS, so I decided to pick up DDD at last so I could play, at the time, the newest installment.

To this day I have still never finished DDD, 3DS or PS4. I just do not like that game and it left a sour taste in my mouth for a good while. Eventually, a friend convinced me to finally give Critical Mode in KH2 a whirl and man you know what? I fell in love again.

I ended up really enjoying KH3 for what it was and having a ton of fun, I felt like a kid again. Then Critical Mode came out and it gave me that challenge I craved. Now I'm ready for the DLC and whatever game comes next.


It's been a wild ride for me with Kingdom Hearts, but man it has given me some of my fondest gaming memories and some of my best friends. Thank you, Nomura, and the rest of the teams.

 

[Absent]

Growing up and experiencing many different games, movies, books and tv shows made me realize how many thing Kingdom Hearts didn’t do right as a series.
Taking first level writing classes didn’t help and replaying the series before 3 definitely worsened things.

I’m past it, I just don’t have the energy to be mad or bothered anymore. It’s done, we move on but I’m not going to bother getting my hopes up.

 

[kirabook]

I think I'll always love KH. There will probably always be something that will interest me in this series. I know for some people, KH3 was their first time questioning the direction and their love for the series, but for me it was DDD. I've long since accepted there will be stuff happening in KH that I find completely unnecessary or silly, but I have to accept or ignore those things to properly enjoy myself.

Time travel? Hate it.
Bringing back old characters over and over and over again? Hate it.
Reusing old concepts (organization 13) and making up new rules for no reason (7 vs 13)? God it annoys me so much.
Not understanding what the fandom wants and halfassing it? (Kairi) I honestly don't know how you could screw up so bad.

I love KH despite those things. I still enjoy a fanfic now and then. I like and save KH fanart all the time. I still RP with the KH characters in a bajillion AUs. I've been playing this game since I was 11-12. It's always in the back of my mind, I can't imagine my life without it.

I often wish to go back in time and tell Nomura it's ok to not make the plot over complicated and chill with the twists. But the past is the past, we only have the future. So I hope one day constructive criticism from the fandom from people who honestly want to see it be better will one day reach his ears and he won't make the same mistakes in the next saga. (based on khux, no likely but one can hope) Though, I feel right now the relationship between the fandom and Nomura is not good so....

Anyway, KH is kinda dormant for me. I'm not actively engaged in fandom because I have other interests right now. But, I won't deny it. The next time something big happens in KH, I'll be excited as always.

 

[KeybladeOrder]

While there are certainly some things that could have been done differently, KH3 rekindled my love for the series. I figured going in that most of the major things like Aqua and Ven getting saved wouldn't happen until the last third of the game, so my only disappointment there was that we didn't get one or two more Disney worlds in between Ven's awakening and the Keyblade Graveyard. I knew going in that KH3 wasn't the end of the saga, but I was still questioning what direction they could go in without Xehanort. So the epilogue managed to get me fired up and excited about where the story is going next.

 

[DarkGrey Heroine]

Came back to share my own impressions and falling out of love situation, now that I finally got to play the game. I'm one of the (many, apparently) fans who are disappointed with it, even though I was an optimistic KH fan diving into this game with an open heart, as I wanted to accept the new changes in terms of whatever gameplay or stuff it brings. However, I feel my heart has been thrown straight into a toilet and there was nothing I could do to feel good about it.

Spoiler Show

I had fun, pretty much, with the worlds, until San Fransokyo which was way too short for me to even savour it. They felt large, but the enemy mobs were ganky as hell (why are all worlds like Darkroot Forest from DS1??), I lost many hours exploring, and each cutscene promised stuff and gave lots of different plot build-ups (Kairi/Lea training, Hatsune Riku/Mickey searching etc.) and I was sincerely looking forward to the continuation to that. But no, after the worlds, the game ships you directly to the Keyblade Graveyard, that one place which instantly gives you BBS PTSD. Except it doesn't anymore. The bosses were a joke, you only have to spam X or magic to win in under 2 minutes (and I played on Proud, expecting a difficulty level like the BBS/DDD Proud, which was challenging, fair and fun), and the whole second half of the game felt like I only needed to move Sora 2 steps ahead in order to walk him into another cutscene, then into another, and then I realized I am watching a movie, not playing a game.

The gorgeous graphics didn't make up for this dissatisfaction I was feeling. I realized I played KH all these years for the solid combat too, diverse and different with each game, yes, but it felt always solid to me. I wished to get some tricky fights, and when I walked up to Xehanort as the predictable final boss, I wished to feel like I did when facing Terranort in BBS, Young Xehanort in DDD or, hell, even harder, like Vanitas Remnant who pulverized my ass so badly as a boss fight (and I loved every single death by his hands, like in the case of many other bosses). What I got in KH3 instead was: almost every world boss is a minigame, the final Organization battles were not challenging, NOT intimidating, not hard at all for Sora or anyone, nothing, they all died like "ok, you get a Mickey sticker for pretending to battle me while all I did was be insanely nerfed, now continue, good luck gorgeous spikey boi, thanks for killing me", I barely had the occasions to exercise blocking because that wasn't even necessary, NO "traditional" (not minigame) fight took me longer than 2 minutes. No fight was memorable to me. None.

The people who know me from the past, on the forums, know full well that I am a Vanitas fan, and I must say that while it was nice that we got an Aqua vs Vanitas fight, he felt nothing like he did when we face him multiple times in BBS, they only kept a few of his attacks, the same ones which I knew how to dodge/block easily (I know him by heart, but take this as my personal choice to replay his battles countless times in BBS because I enjoyed his design and he felt GREAT each time on my Critical Level 1 run), and while this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it becomes a bad thing when you realize they gave this kind of treatment to all Real Organization members, and ALL of them have been nerfed to hell. Look, at first I felt frightened and thrilled to deal with Larxene or Marluxia again because PTSD from other games, but the battles were a joke. Facing Xemnas again?? Same feeling, killed by the same realization that he doesn't get past Sora's plot armor. The combat, while smooth and flashy, feels empty to me and out of control. For a regular Proud playthrough, it felt like Beginner mode. I am left with such a sour taste (by the ganking and plot too) that I feel no motivation to replay this on Critical level 1 FOR ONCE.

The game also felt like a sidequest in order to progress to Nomura's vengeance plan, aka Verum Rex/Versus XIII whatever. "They massacred my boy", my boy being KH3 and for what? To make this a Movie Mode Prologue to the next game? I felt like they didn't care to portray characters adecquately/like they were in the past. Roxas, who is known to be one of the most emotionally-rich and expressive characters, or Ventus, who is supposed to be like a breath of fresh air in every room he walks in, and other characters as well were portrayed in a very bland way, with no interactions except for the mandatory "we meet, we hug, we cry" scene for every single reunited trio. I needed that, yes, but after those scenes it's like nobody had real personality anymore, other than Sora, kinda. Some things were very out of character, like Vanitas choosing to be separate in such a cliche way (all his damn life his ONE goal was to be or reunite with Ventus, and now that he was actually given the choice by a suddenly mature-speaking Ventus... he chooses to isolate himself sticking by a simple, 2-braincells "What I am is darkness" line? the more I think about it, the more out-of-character it seems to me) or Aqua simply dropping her keyblade at the KG (don't give me the excuse that she was Anti-Aqua for so long and it's understandable, because the game portrays her like there were NO consequences for her after falling into darkness and she still was brave OR cocky enough to face Vanitas alone when SDG were clearly there too to simply outnumber him). I will not even TALK about how KH3 killed Kairi in what seemed to me the most misogynistic way I ever witnessed in the games I played in my life. I usually never give much thought to the portrayal of female characters in JRPGs because most developers don't know how to write female characters anyway in traditional franchises, but Kairi was brutally murdered after the most promising build-up we ever got for her, in the first half of the game. I am eternally sorry for that girl. I think Terra was done well, I loved how he fought back and freed himself, and I loved Repliku coming back (of course, to die again! duh! but that's another side, another story), but other people were simply character-assassinated, like I said Kairi, pokerface Roxas and Ventus, crybaby Axel (the build-up of making him look actually hurt was effective, but after that it just got out-of-character again in my eyes), losing-10-times-in-a-row Aqua, also-losing-10-times-in-a-row Riku&Mickey, and even Xehanort whose redemption/acceptance/serenity while passing away WAS DISGUSTING. I FELT SO TRIGGERED BY SEEING THE ABUSER OF HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE AND WORLDS BE PORTRAYED IN SUCH A GOOD LIGHT. Same for Ansem SoD and Xemnas even though I love their characters, especially Xemnas. And then what?? He's not even the bad guy?? Because XIGBAR IS LUXU? Yare yare daze... But I refuse. Guys, we were right, the Bad Guy Behind The Bad Guy theories were true all along and honestly I never thought it would feel so shitty.

I'm sad to say the OST wasn't memorable to me, and I can recreate/sing the melodies of OSTs from past games by heart and get music memorized instantly, IF I find it meaningful. But music is tied to the gameplay and story in a game of course, so it all got fucked up and no, one metal theme for Vanitas that strokes my fan-ego doesn't make it any better. I don't even remember the track for the final battle.

I fell out of love with KH3, but not the other games. How could I, when the other games deliver me such well-balanced badass battles, the thing that I personally seek in games and which makes them stand out to me? Despite the huge amounts of bad/awkward/plothole-introducing writing, there were also some good parts of writing, but the bad outweighs the good parts in my case and I can't help but never want to touch the game again. Verum Rex/Versus XIII? I'll feel obligated to buy it, yes. But if it has more of this piss-easy combat and infinite Story Mode hand-holding shit, I will gladly just watch a playthrough on youtube and keep replaying Bloodborne or Hollow Knight or something.

tl;dr. I don't know how the post-KH3 games related to this series will be, but unfortunately KH3 foreshadows "A Dissappointing Resolution" for me, like this one Hyouka OST's title calls... They killed the combat, they killed meaningfulness and relevance of characters, they killed everyone, they killed Sora, they killed the game, all superficially.

Nomura & SE: "So, do you hate me for taking your friend (KH series) away?"
Me, after all these years: "Nah. I guess... I'm just sad."

But that's not entirely it.

I am empty.

 

[Soldier]

Wow, you know Nomura did something wrong when people who have left the forums return to speak their mind about KH3 and how it affected them. Glad I got to post on this thread.

 

[luuizhenriquem]

Well... I think I’m fanally ready to speak about this.

I’ll start with: I don’t deslike KHIII nor do I think it is the worst entry in the series... With that being said it definitely disappointed me... To be totally honest with you all I haven’t even got ultima and all this shit and only played the game once because I didn’t feel like coming back to it... I’ll probably do it when ReMIND is out and I have hopes that will fix some issues that didn’t made me like the game that much.

I definitely didn’t fall out of love with the series and the franchise, it has a really special place in my heart and it will ALWAYS will but I think I’m going to be “away” from it for a while... I’ll definitely get some kind of hype when they announce the next game but I think there’s some problems that will not be fixed that I really hate about the series... The way woman is treated in the series is definitely one of them, the whole Kairi situation was só frustrating for me.

I love that we all are able to talk about it and criticize or give our reasosns to why we fell back or out in love with the series without being negative towards the franchise it self.

For me it was really sad and annoying seeing people treating like some youtubers were, tbh that whole video of throwing the game in the dumb was disrespectful lol

Anyways, I’m weird towards the series and trully don’t know what will happen next... I’ll wait for reMIND for now

 

[Alpha Baymax]

I agree with the community situation. Back in the day, there were the KH1 and KH2 quotes (battle cries and death quotes etc). I can't even find KH3 ones. It seems like the community just doesn't care about KH3. I remember how things were when everyone was eager and optimistic about the series, I should say when people actually genuinely loved the series. I feel like somewhere along the way to KH3, it just became impossible to live up to the hype. I'm loved KH3, but I am so glad that it is out of the way. Even though I don't really know much about the KHUX stuff, I'm ready to start a fresh story. It's been more than a decade that we've been dealing with Xehanort, it's really time to get that KH1 feel of uncharted territory. I want to go into a KH game and have no clue who the main villain is or his goals. I'm excited for that, but it seems like most of the community isn't and resents KH3 for not delivering what they were expecting and also (in their eyes) favoring future games.

I honestly believe hype anticipation is just a Square Enix problem. Remember how they hyped up the new Disney world for Union Cross in 2016 only to have the world actually be revealed three years later? This company plays the waiting game on purpose, and Final Fantasy XV suffered hard because of it. It could be argued that Kingdom Hearts III is also a casualty of this but not as extreme as Final Fantasy XV.

You could also argue that people wanted a definitive resolution for the series. Problem is, having a definitive resolution doesn't make business sense for a franchise that has only increased in following with each new entry. Kingdom Hearts lore is a different beast compared to a decade ago and I think the unfamiliarity of everything from here on out (Union Cross and Kingdom Hearts III Secret Ending) is arguably scary to most fans who are so used to extensions of pre-existing plot threads (Organization XIII through 358/2 Days and the reveal of Xehanort through Birth by Sleep).

 

[Face My Fears]

I honestly believe hype anticipation is just a Square Enix problem. Remember how they hyped up the new Disney world for Union Cross in 2016 only to have the world actually be revealed three years later? This company plays the waiting game on purpose, and Final Fantasy XV suffered hard because of it. It could be argued that Kingdom Hearts III is also a casualty of this but not as extreme as Final Fantasy XV.

You could also argue that people wanted a definitive resolution for the series. Problem is, having a definitive resolution doesn't make business sense for a franchise that has only increased in following with each new entry. Kingdom Hearts lore is a different beast compared to a decade ago and I think the unfamiliarity of everything from here on out (Union Cross and Kingdom Hearts III Secret Ending) is arguably scary to most fans who are so used to extensions of pre-existing plot threads (Organization XIII through 358/2 Days and the reveal of Xehanort through Birth by Sleep).

KH2 had a reasonably definitive resolution. If everything in KH3 was about closing the chapter on Xehanort for good and then at the very end we saw the Luxu stuff, I think it would have been more surprising and would have gotten more people excited and interested in KHUX. I think the constant references to KHUX in KH3 during the main story got people turned off by KHUX because they feel robbed of the closure they "waited 13 years for!"

I think Nomura needs to just sit down and plot out a succinct story for each game, so that yes it builds to future games, but the story being told in that game gets an actual ending. He should look at KH1 and CoM for inspiration on how to write the future plots.

 

[SuperSaiyanSora]

I think this makes a big difference and I think that's why, like you, I enjoyed the game, (and also why I liked kh3d while everybody else seemed to hate it xD). I think to many people here, that's their biggest thing. But Kingdom Hearts is a story game series so it's fair. But yea, It's not exactly how I experienced kh3, so It was a great time for me. See you later

That's what made the difference for me, as well. I didn't have a grocery list of expectations or wish-lists. I went into this thinking, "let's put this old man six feet under!" and that's why I love the game. I knew RAX had to be resolved. I knew TAV had to be resolved. I knew Xehanort had to be defeated. And I got all of those. I got to see the Sea Salt gang again, I got to explore Monstropolis, walk amongst Gods, be the hottest new toy from the popular hit title Versus XIII Verum Rex, venture through the wilderness with a princess, build a snowman, sail the seas as a pirate, help out the heroes in their city, and I even got to visit old friends in a picture book. PLUS, I had a rat help me cook in a kitchen that gave me buffs, how cool is that? I'm a grown man and I'm getting hype over that, if I were my kid self again, my mind would've been blown.

I've never had a problem with the story at all. Even with past games, I never felt there was an issue because for me, I've always been so immersed with the adventure I'm currently experiencing. The story is great, but it'll come to me at the right time. And for me, I personally felt in KH3, it did. After each world you complete, you get an interlude of story development between that world and the next. I never worried about Roxas because it didn't seem pertinent at the time to be concerned with him if I'm flying to Monstropolis. I wasn't worried about Aqua because I knew if we had went to the Realm of Darkness at that point in time, Sora would've got his ass cooked. I wasn't worried about Ven, because he's not in any danger unless Aqua bites the dust permanently. And Terra I figured was on the Organization's side (not by choice), so he'd be the last on the list to take care of. I didn't even know how Xion was going to return. But for me, I enjoyed the story as it came. The ONLY parts I wished fleshed out more were Kairi's training, maybe Riku and Mickey's journey in the Realm of Darkness, and probably more Axel as well.

In fact, I feel like most of people's gripes with the game are actually Kairi-related and Keyblade Graveyard centered, which is why I found it very interesting that the ReMIND trailer was so Keyblade Graveyard-focused. People don't like the pacing for the game, but it's really not as bad as people make it out to be. Sora had no business worrying about anything besides the Power of Waking and getting stronger, that's literally exactly what everyone else was trying to tell him. Him getting the Power of Waking isn't a cop-out, because he let his heart lead him to every single world prior to waking Ven up. Had Sora flown right from Mysterious Tower to Land of Departure and the exact same scenario played out, there's absolutely ZERO guarantee that Sora could've pulled that off.

Remember, Yen Sid made it a point to say that Xehanort really screwed with Sora's heart to where he lost most of his abilities. That wasn't shown once, but twice. We needed 2.9 to make that abundantly clear. Yen Sid didn't know, so how in the world would Sora know? Yen Sid also isn't all-seeing and all-knowing either, you could argue that he inadvertently put Sora in the position to be tampered with in the first place. He knew either Sora or Riku would stage a reckless attempt at a rescue, so maybe that whole conversation was foreshadow.

And personally, I never got the complaints about KH3 being "sequel bait", because KH2 literally had the whole "That's not Ansem! That's Xehanort's Heartless!" and "You're not half the hero the others were". Also, the letter in a bottle at the end of KH2 that leads into DDD. And let's not forget the Final Mix secret movie being the part of the entire final battle at the Keyblade Graveyard in BBS, so it's not like they've never done this before. The box only gets mentioned a few times and then isn't really mentioned again until the epilogue, and same with most of the KHUX stuff. Most of any sequel "bait" would've been near or after the end, like it should be. It'd be dumb to put Back Cover in 2.8 and make a huge deal out of KHUX as whole, only to have absolutely no references in KH3 about the future. KHUX is about the Keyblade War, the very thing Xehanort wanted knowledge about. There's so much lore that can be expanded upon, you're fighting where warriors of old battled and lost their lives, that's a huge deal.

Idunno, I guess in the end, a lot of the things that people have gripes over are stuff that I personally enjoyed or didn't see much of an issue being there. All I know is, I'm getting more Kingdom Hearts games after 3, so I'm as satisfied as can be, never mind the ReMIND DLC dropping in the winter. Is it perfect? No, but I think it was a very good game with a very good satisfying conclusion, in my opinion... And in the end, that's the only opinion I have control over.

 

[allenleonardo]

@Audo:

I think you said it better than I ever could. I am also one of the seemingly few that just loved KH3. I have some aspects that I dont like but 99% of my time was spent with happiness and joy. From Sora, Donald and Goofy, to exploring the beautiful Dinsey worlds to the fun gameplay. KH3 is probably one of my favorite games I ever played.

Maybe its because I never truly sticked around and never had been the deepest of fan thus I did not have high expectations. I saw the trailer, was really happy that KH3 would finally come, sold a console and lots of games to get a PS4 just for that and was blown away.

And for the first time in quite some time I logged into this forum, ready to read happiness, criticism and good discussions. And just like you I found myself visiting less and less. I can fully understand that people did not enjoy it and as someone that enjoyed the FF 13 games I am used to be the odd one on discussion forums but I am still a bit shocked on how negative it is here. Heck even on reddit people seemingly enjoy themselves with nice memes and funny comics. But I think I will turn to lurking again. Its fine if you all dont really like it or want to drop it. There are games out there where I feel the same. But I also dont feel like wanting to post anymore with that heavy negative aura on this forum. I really hope that for some of you the next KH game will be better but its also fine and it happens if you grow out of something or dont like the route it takes.

So from me too (even if I had not that many posts anyway) I wish you all the best. Maybe there will be a time to post again.

 

[Face My Fears]

And personally, I never got the complaints about KH3 being "sequel bait", because KH2 literally had the whole "That's not Ansem! That's Xehanort's Heartless!" and "You're not half the hero the others were". Also, the letter in a bottle at the end of KH2 that leads into DDD. And let's not forget the Final Mix secret movie being the part of the entire final battle at the Keyblade Graveyard in BBS, so it's not like they've never done this before. The box only gets mentioned a few times and then isn't really mentioned again until the epilogue, and same with most of the KHUX stuff. Most of any sequel "bait" would've been near or after the end, like it should be. It'd be dumb to put Back Cover in 2.8 and make a huge deal out of KHUX as whole, only to have absolutely no references in KH3 about the future. KHUX is about the Keyblade War, the very thing Xehanort wanted knowledge about. There's so much lore that can be expanded upon, you're fighting where warriors of old battled and lost their lives, that's a huge deal.

And if you think about it, the almighty Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix which was released years before Birth By Sleep and Days threw in a TON of stuff that was basically sequel bait... for HANDHELD games. Sometimes I think people didn't get everything on their laundry list of demands for KH3 and default to "it's trash" because the long time between KH2 and KH3 somehow justifies "perfection" in their eyes.

I actually liked the build for the box. Having Disney characters Maleficent and Pete go after it made me think it was inconsequential, so I was curious but didn't think it would amount to anything more than a Maleficent/Pete boss fight. When discussion about the box faded out and we actually see Luxu with it at the end... that was a nice surprise for me and made me care more and made me think Maleficent will become more relevant in the next game. I mean, if we fought Maleficent in this game and finished her off for good... would this be the right time? The focus was really on the Organization, it would have felt flat beating Maleficent amongst all the other stuff going on. I rather deal with her without the immense weight of The Organization on the story's back.

Out of all the chaos and hate that KH3 got, the thing that bothered me the most was that there were KH fans who finished playing KH3 and did not enjoy it or did not feel overwhelmed with (good) emotions. I felt really sad about that because as a longtime KH fan I know how much KH3 meant. All I hope for now is that ReMIND can do to KH3 what KH2FM did for the people that hated KH2. I really just want KH fans to find something in KH3 that they like, not for KH3's sake, but for their sake as fans. I can't even imagine how devastated I would feel if I played KH3 and thought it was garbage.

 

[alexis.anagram]

I think I've come to contextualize my post-KH3 split with the franchise as just part of, or maybe a kind of flashpoint within, the larger ideological disaffection I've found myself engaging in with mass marketed media, esp. vis-a-vis the current trend of IP cornering/monopolization, in general. The future of the arts is looking rather bleak, and video games are uniquely positioned as, not quite nascent, but still fairly formative as a cultural installment: they've "come of age" in an era of rapid (frankly, unrealistic and unsustainable) production cycles and market turnaround that has the entire "entertainment" (read: advertising) sector of society hinged on never-ending advancements in technology intended to inflate profits and the rate and scale of return on investment at the expense of actual people and the varied kinds of stories they have to tell. So it shouldn't really be surprising that a lot of the creative output filtered through that system feels lacking in any essential, human element: by-the-numbers Event Hype Things that might well have had their narrative, cinematic, etc. elements inserted via computer code in post-production. The fact that KH3 feels like an imitation of an idea while, in the same moment, Disney is actually pushing out imitations of ideas and trying to pass them off as filmic (Renegade Cut refers to it as Late Stage Disney, which is delightful and on point) seems intrinsically congruous.

Giving this train of thought some more specific grounding: how does this reframe my feelings for the past and the future of the franchise? I guess the past is the past, and I still hold all of the fond memories I have for the previous entries intact, but I can't envision them as connecting to any kind of satisfying sense of closure so I'm left to regard them as self-contained, incomplete experiences. It seems to me there's still some richness to mine from examining the history of the series as a kind of experiment in approaching genre craft (and the individual stories often contain their own rewards), and while it was always sort of an implicitly cynical ploy, it's become transparently so now: to borrow the vocab of the mythos, it's a body without a heart, bereft of the creative impulse that sparked it into being and only continuing now because it has to, because it's a lucrative branch of hot intellectual property that simply has to remain relevant, even if it's no longer remotely relatable. All this really means is that I've lost the active, consumer relationship that tethered me to the series, which isn't altogether a negative thing as I can appreciate the iconography of the games and the sentiments I've attached to it without feeling any urge to "buy into" the most recent developments. I'm comfortable enjoying KH for what it was to me, even if there's a measure of dissatisfaction that lingers around just how much effort I put into keeping pace with the series only for the series to lose perspective on what made it gratifying and, to some extent, special. But then, again, there's a lot of that going around these days.

 

[Happyfunshineman]

I just finished a play through with one of my friends yesterday. It was a lot of fun.

I also just finished another critical run, but this time only doing required fights.

The more I play this game I become more satisfied with it. I really feel like I’ve come a long way in terms of understanding how this game works.

Like, for instance, just the other day I realized its really effective to close the distance on a boss by doing a short hop and taking advantage of Sora’s first sweeping arial attack. Usaualy I use air step, but for some fights like Aqua it was hard to get a good lock on the enemy. Now its like “Dodge, dodge, OPENING, short hop, attack!” and now I’m doing so much better in a lot of my fights.

I was devastated when DDD first game out, I found chi to be so boring, and I wasn’t really amazed by 0.2 (though I did have my fun). Perhaps my expectations going in to KH3 were low enough that I was able to get more out of the game than others, but I really don’t think that’s the case. I just really like this game.