If it Turns Out to Be Bad

[Twilight Lumiair]

Okay, so I'd like to propose a few curious questions that came to mind after the whole leaker debacle (and it's probably going to sound more complicated than it is): What if the majority are actually dissatisfied with this game? By that I mean, how do you guys think Nomura would deal with a noticible amount of backlash for this title (not neccessarily big, just apparent enough to make an impact) in general? Realistically, do you see him revising and changing up his overly convoluted storytelling formula, or do you think we're past the point of no return? Do you see him fixing up some of his bad writing habbits, or would you still be skeptical? Potential criticisms you predict can extend beyond the story as well (to things like gameplay direction for example). So like, if you feel he's focusing too much on flashy gameplay mechanics instead of polishing the actual the system itself, do you see him willing to fix that?

To clarify, this is purely a hypothetical scenario I would like to get everyone's opinion on (trust me, I don't honestly see this game being too poorly received if it performes inadequately at all). I myself am, and have always been keeping the possibility of being dissatisfied in my mind, but I'm mostly silent on that since it's only a singular opinion that likely wouldn't effect much of anything. That said, I'm still interested in how the general community sees this scenario playing out on a larger scale. What kind of impact do you see happening if any at all? How far do you realistically see them going in terms of taking/following criticism? Where's the cut-off point in your mind?

 

[Deleted member 246005]

I imagine the gameplay would be fun and the sales are solid.

The story might be the biggest sticking point but it depends on how you already felt about it. I think most of the gaming community(critics/fans/industry) saw it's story as a acquired taste anyway and weren't expecting much. Even if KH3's story was better received I don't see it getting the acclaim God of War 4 or Red dead redemption got. Which is fine because the meaning of entertainment is whatever you take from it. You don't need a best story award to find value in a story anyway.

I don't really see his writing habits changing but I don't really know Nomura as a person so who really knows.

 

[Perkilator]

I’m still gonna enjoy like it’s my GOTY 2019, but that’s not to say I’ll deny it’s faults, no matter how small (at least I’ll see them as minor nitpicks).

 

[U.N. Owen]

in the event KHIII fails to live up to the hype, let's face it: the game generated a metric ton of hype, your first reaction should not be to bombard anyone involved with threats, racially charged language, or permutations thereof.

The Last Jedi was hyped to the moon and back, yet when it hit theaters, people had the biggest fandom flame war I've seen since Jar Jar, not helped by social media. Do not turn into the Star Wars fandom.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

Then it's bad.

At the end of the day, entertainment is subjective. Don't follow the herd mentality of a game just because somebody has a convincing reason as to why it is good or bad.

If you have fun with Kingdom Hearts III then it's a good game, no matter how disappointed everyone else is.

 

[kaseykockroach]

Then all the easier to enjoy the memes!

 

[Muke]

Personally, of course I'll be disappointed then. I really want this game to be good, but if it's not, there's nothing anyone can do about it, really. At the end of the day, this is just another KH like BBS or KH2. It's not special or anything. I don't enjoy BBS as much as KH2, but I still play it from time to time, so I imagine if KH3 does end up disappointing me, it'll be the same case.

 

[Zettaflare]

Even if there is backlash I doubt it would be enough to make Nomura change his writing style. Heck he even said during TGS that even if the next saga's story started out simple he would just make it more complicated again.

 

[Muke]

Lmao if people tell him to change his writing style his style will just get worse. He keeps saying he does the opposite people tell him like when they say no more zippers he'll add more to spite them

 

[Twilight Lumiair]

Lmao if people tell him to change his writing style his style will just get worse. He keeps saying he does the opposite people tell him like when they say no more zippers he'll add more to spite them

True! Can't believe I forgot about this, lol. But yeah, I can agree that most would probably just treat this as another normal KH game. I just thought the finality of it and rather unrestrained hype of the fandom would differentiate it for most people. That said, I think treating it the way you described might also promote too much complacency amongst fans, and too much of that can be a bad thing IMO. Ofcourse, too much fan critique can also be extremely harmful to a series as well. Would the KH community be the type to find the right kind of middle ground in that case? Food for thought.

 

[Muke]

True! Can't believe I forgot about this, lol. But yeah, I can agree that most would probably just treat this as another normal KH game. I just thought the finality and rather unrestrained hype would differentiate it for most people. That said, I think treating it the way you described might also promote to much complacency amongst fans, and too much of that can be a bad thing IMO. Ofcourse, too much fan critique can also be extremely harmful to a series as well. Would the KH community be the type to find the right kind of middle ground in that case? Food for thought.

The KH community is extremely toxic and there are very extreme opinions to many sides if you get me. I doubt this fandom as a whole is ever going to find a middle ground like that. I've seen select communities be able to do it, but even within those are always extremists (people who criticise extremely without talking about the good and people who praise it to the heavens without acknowledging the bad). It happened with 0.2 too and with every game, really.

I myself do think that I'm able to be "neutral". I never just criticise or never just praise because there are always good & bad aspects to something. I hate DDD but even so I can appreciate the things it does well

 

[Ballad of Caius]

Nomura's an artist. He won't change his writing style so yes. Yes, he can try to make adjustments, but that just about it. And the next saga is already sorta "trapped" in this style, what with whatever games come after KH3 will be entangled by what's happening with KHUx.

 

[Twilight Lumiair]

The KH community is extremely toxic and there are very extreme opinions to many sides if you get me. I doubt this fandom as a whole is ever going to find a middle ground like that. I've seen select communities be able to do it, but even within those are always extremists (people who criticise extremely without talking about the good and people who praise it to the heavens without acknowledging the bad). It happened with 0.2 too and with every game, really.

I myself do think that I'm able to be "neutral". I never just criticise or never just praise because there are always good & bad aspects to something. I hate DDD but even so I can appreciate the things it does well

I appreciate you being a realist. I don't think I've personally ever seen a community pull it off, but I have heard that it's possible. I think it's hard to properly criticize work like this without one spectrum of the extremist trying to invalidate your opinions, and then the other spectrum jumps in, and eventually it just turns into another flame war between an increasingly split fandom. The KH community has definitely proven in the past to be toxic enough to be capable of something like this (of course that doesn't include everyone), so I think my predictions would probably fall more in line with yours.

Nomura's an artist. He won't change his writing style so yes. Yes, he can try to make adjustments, but that just about it. And the next saga is already sorta "trapped" in this style, what with whatever games come after KH3 will be entangled by what's happening with KHUx.

Edit: Good point. Ux was confirmed by Nomura to extend beyond Kh3 (not certain if it's significance does though, but who am I kidding, of course it will), so I suppose expecting changes too significant is kind of pointless (which could easily be a bad thing anyway). All the same, I'd like to hear everyone else's opinion. This is still a hypothetical we're talking about after all. At least at the moment.

 

[Elysium]

Then all the easier to enjoy the memes!

The silver lining.

If it turns out bad, I'll probably criticize it for its faults and hope the next KH game is better (and doesn't take as long). Hope springs eternal. Like I've said, I think the only thing that would really make me quit this series is if Riku died or they decided to reboot with a new cast of original characters. I don't think the reaction of the fandom would change much about the direction. We did end up with larger worlds 3D-onwards as a reaction to criticism of KH2 though; Atlantica also got sidelined thanks to intolerance for the swimming controls. That's the only examples I can think of so far. Hopefully negative reaction to the low number of Disney worlds will be large enough to mean more for the next title.

 

[robotman]

If there's a lot of backlash they'll probably try and address the issues that people have, like sorting out difficulty, removing the flashing wall effect, add the Coliseum battles back and add the data battles or something similar. It won't be sorted out quickly but if the backlash is big enough they'll definitely change some things.

The issue is that the damage will already be done and it'll leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth. As far as I'm concerned I'm probably going to always be a little negative about this game because I expected another Disney world.

 

[Laurel]

Well if it turns out to be bad, it'll be disappointing considering how much hype was built over the years, not to mention being the culmination of an entire saga. I don't expect the game to be perfect, no game or any other piece of media is, so flaws are bound to occur. As mentioned before, the writing isn't that great, and I think that's one of the game's biggest, if not that biggest flaw. Though I think the gameplay will save it since it does look exceptionally fun, especially since there's so many ways to utilize the key blade now.

 

[Ballad of Caius]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you keep your expectations low.

 

[SoulXaldin]

Damn, so many layers to this question lol.

If we take Nomura’s penchant for convoluted story telling into account, I wouldn’t be surprised if this story ends with so many plot holes and unanswered questions: it’s just kind of a curse the series lives with. But when you consider that we’ve sort of gotten a grasp on the overall narrative with the side games and Union X (which are supposed to help bridge these gaps and bring some sort of relative cohesion to all of this), then KH3 needs to make an attempt to try to weave all this stuff because any sort of conclusion needs to resolve arcs. Otherwise, this story’s gonna be a let down and it just wouldn’t be fair (if that makes sense).

Gameplay-wise, I reallly do appreciate that KH has been trying to implement elements of previous games into the traditional system. It feels fresh but familiar at the same time, you know. I just wish they bring back abilities and equipment like in the first and second game. Having abilities being tied behind and commands or Dream Eaters or whatever is kind of broken. Definitely not so much in BBS, but this is definitely evident in DDD. Pretty sure by the time you get to The Grid, you’d have at least a quarter of half of the abilities in the game if you take the time to grind early.

Going back to the Command System, I’m glad they got rid of the Command Deck for this one. If they hadn’t, I guarantee you there will be only a single command you’d use through the entire game and eliminate any sort of difficulty for the normal playthtough. The Balloon spell is broken and so is Magnet in BBS (trust me, it is).

 

[Paige712]

Regardless of how it turns out at least patches and dlc exist to fix, add and expand on different parts of the game in the future. Many great games started poorly but became much better once various patch additions came in to improve the experience. We’ll just have to wait and see. Story wise if its bad that can’t be helped sadly but I love kh too much to let convoluted plots ruin my love of the characters and overall themes of the series.

 

[Twilight Lumiair]

Regardless of how it turns out at least patches and dlc exist to fix, add and expand on different parts of the game in the future. Many great games started poorly but became much better once various patch additions came in to improve the experience. We’ll just have to wait and see. Story wise if its bad that can’t be helped sadly but I love kh too much to let convoluted plots ruin my love of the characters and overall themes of the series.

Whilst I will always respect a company for going back and trying to fix their own work for the sake of their fans, I'd be lying if I said that the need for continuous patching and dlc to deliver a more complete product didn't put a bad taste in my mouth. That, in and of itself, deserves both criticism (for overestimating their own abilities/time/resources/etc. & announcing a deadline they couldn't properly meet, failing to deliver a complete product, and also to incentivise making future projects more complete at launch), and praise (for taking the time to go back and fix a product that was clearly important enough to fans to warrant the extra attention).
It's almost in a weird grey area for me, and I've never been able to give a conclusive opinion on the subject. But in anycase, that's another very likely criticism to appear in the case of frequent post-release patching.