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Face My Fears

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So ignoring story stuff for second funnily enough despite them being visually clones.. I actually think in terms of gameplay at least there's a lot more unique potential for Xion and Roxas than Ven and Kairi. Ven is just Fast Boi who happens to hold his keyblade in a reverse grip and Kairi is.. Im not really sure how to describe the fighting style she got in RE:Mind it was fun though. But like with Roxas you have the constant duel wield gimmick built in. Xion was shown in 3 to still be able to copy powers via her well copying Saix's so she could act as something of a blue mage type, where you'd get only a base keyblade or two but instead of getting more keyblades and transformations and forms you'd get more weapons and powers from her friends and foes. Though obviously from a development standpoint that one is a LOT more work to do and.. is a bit more Devil May Cry or Bayonetta than Kingdom Hearts in concept. But yeah in terms of spin offs or if KH 4 does something where maybe each world on the KH side of the wall between Quadratum and whatever worlds surround it and the classic Disney + Original worlds has a different keyblade wielder as your playable character I would be much more interested in PLAYING a Roxas or Xion World (plus I think if they do Coco Xion is pretty much the absolute perfect character to interact with the themes of that movie)

Storywise Ven is obviously going to be forefront going forward though due to all the UX stuff coming in. Kairi is Kairi and I can't truly believe she'll be a proper main character treated as an equal in her trio until it actually you know happens, it's just burnt too many times there.
If they do Coco, it's definitely being handed to Sora given his current situation. I can just imagine Donald and Goofy being on the living side of the bridge and Sora being on the dead side. Xion (or Namine) is the prime candidate for an Inside Out world.

Roxas and Xion are definitely way more fun and have more creative styles of play... but are they really going to let them be playable again? Xion can be written off as not playable for sure since she didn't get anything in KH3. Roxas is a big MAYBE if he does show up again. It would be pretty horrible if Lea is the playable one while Roxas is around.

I also said to write off Roxas because Ven is definitely getting more screentime. If Roxas isn't going to get his own storyline, then he might as well not hang around.
 

Face My Fears

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I think they wanted to go with some easy questions that were lighthearted vs the more heavy-hitting lore stuff. In the end it failed because Nomura was just like “…you’ll find out one day”
WHEN WILL HE ANSWER WHERE KAIRI'S KEYBLADE CAME FROM!? IT'S BEEN ALMOST 2 DECADES.
 

Sign

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I lied, made another round of updates. Here are the revisions/clarifications.

On KH4:
  • Takes place after MoM, which is 1 year after Sora's disappearance in KH3.
  • Was torn between proceeding with Verum Rex or KH4 for the next title, but decided to prioritize KH4 because it'd be difficult to develop two big console games at the same time, and there were many fans who were worried about Sora. (Famitsu is the one who uses the word "prioritize" if you need to look it up, didn't see any other reports with that particular terminology)

On Missing-Link:

  • Key words: The Multi-Layered City of Scala ad Caelum (not multiple Scalas)
  • There's a base from where you can go out into the world map and explore to collect "pieces," which can be set onto your Keyblade to enhance abilities. These "pieces" take the form of figurines, like what you see in the trailer when the player uses an ability.
  • Start quests from the base and complete them to advance the story.
  • Quests and world map are the two main components of the game.
  • Nomura recalls dreaming of traveling to places that he'd like to visit but wasn't able to.
  • Thinks it wouldn't be very KH-like if you aren't able to go wherever you wanted and are instead limited by how far you can walk.
And all the VA stuff if that's something you're interested in.
 

Squood!

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WHEN WILL HE ANSWER WHERE KAIRI'S KEYBLADE CAME FROM!? IT'S BEEN ALMOST 2 DECADES.
At this point I'm sure this question only exists cuz Riku was holding it for three seconds.

Like,

Dark thing holding character down/still

flash of light

keyblade.

Same thing happened to Sora in KH1 only there was no one next to him just holding it there.
 

Chaser

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I used to want to know what Nomura thinks of, his plans and ideas. Now I want to know what he thinks of us. How does he sees us in relation to this series and how we perceive it versus him.
I honestly think he thinks we are too serious aha. He’s very jokey and self-referential and pokes fun at that, but then the fans try and find hidden meaning in everything.

I also think he’s over us and the complaining. The man had the dialogue in this trailer be like “if you didn’t like kh3, go play other games. There’s a lot out there. If you come back to us though don’t expect it to be like 1 / 2”
 

okhi12

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Quoting you again because we've gotten some more impressions with added context :)



There are some other stuff too, like a sales update for KH3 (6.7 million as of September 2021). I'm still making edits so y'all just peruse at your leisure.
Thanks a lot! That makes sense.
 

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You know I'm not surprised that Nomura was burnt out from KH3 and is over parts of the fanbase. I may not like some of his decisions but I respect the work he tries to put into the KH series and I don't mind the new direction since KH3 wasn't that bad.
 

MATGSY

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Q: When does Kairi finally get a game?
A: When she pries it out of my cold dead hands.

Q: Will Days and/or Coded ever be playable again?
A: What the fuck is Coded? I don't remember that.

Q: How fucking hard can it be to port some God damn PS2 games to Switch?
A: We had a budget set aside for that but I ended blowing it all on coke & hookers in Riku cosplay. After I woke up in a back alley dumpster the following morning with both kidneys missing, I realize we would have go to Plan Beta.

Q: Wait, cosplaying as Rikku or as Riku?
A: Yes.
 

SweetYetSalty

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I think the fandom, by and large, did not understand Axel nor his relationships very well. Axel was in a lot of pain over how much Saix had changed. You can see it very clearly in his diary entries. One of the main themes in KH is that Nobodies are "chained" by their memories. Axel and Roxas had a discussion about what they couldn't bear to lose. For Roxas, it was his present. But for Axel, it was his memories of his past. Saix was no longer the same person, but Axel couldn't bear to lose the memory of who he used to be, and that was the motivator for all of his actions. That is why Axel needed a proper backstory probably more than any other character, aside from Xehanort. Because without that, his characterization made no sense. And then we wind up with KH3 Lea who had all of his complexity stripped away.
I don't speak for the fanbase, but for me I've played these games for years. I understand Axel's relationships very well actually. Axel seemed far more annoyed with Saix then in pain. Only one diary entry was even about their relationship on Axel's part. In fact of all the things that concerned him, Saix's friendship seemed the least important, because he says he'd just rather miss it. I do believe he missed Saix throughout the game but he never fought to reclaim or save it. So I don't think he was his motivator beyond C.O. Ironically their friendship became the "make believe one" as time went on.
 

SweetYetSalty

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I mean, Axel almost killed Xion on Day 298 because he wasn't able to let go of his relationship with Saix. In one of the novel short stories, they show more of Axel's point of view during Roxas's 7 day summer vacation. This was Axel and Saix's exchange just before Axel was sent to eliminate Roxas on Day 6:
He knocked her out and brought her back. A chop to the neck is not "almost killing her" and it had absolutely nothing to do with Saix's relationship. It was a job he was tasked with. He'd do the same if Xemnas tasked him...which is what happens later. Axel's not doing it for Saix, he's doing it to keep his position in the Organization secure.
It's pretty clear that Axel was only going to kill Roxas because he was still clinging to his relationship with Saix. Sure, the novels are not the games, but Kanemaki was involved with the writing of 358/2 Days. She understood Axel's motivations.
Axel was ordered to bring back Roxas or terminate him by Xaldin, and he even argued in Roxas's favor. Again it has nothing to do with Saix, they are unfriended at this point. Axel himself states with Roxas that he's not willing to get turned into a Dusk for him in KH2. And with the Xion incident he told Roxas if he didn't bring her back then he wouldn't be safe in the castle anymore. Axel didn't pick Saix over them, he picked himself over them.

I've read the novels, I've collected them, reviewed them here and I love them. But if they contradict anything from the games then it is considered not canon, no matter how good or well written it is.
 

Face My Fears

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At this point I'm sure this question only exists cuz Riku was holding it for three seconds.

Like,

Dark thing holding character down/still

flash of light

keyblade.

Same thing happened to Sora in KH1 only there was no one next to him just holding it there.
You're right. If Kairi ran in to fight the heartless and a flash of light appeared and she had a keyblade, we would accept that without a real explanation.

But I think Riku handing Kairi the keyblade, then also just buying his new one after it broke kind of makes one wonder where Riku gets all these keyblades from? How was he able to change the form of his keyblade? In this same interview, he said that Lea's keyblade was broken, but Lea was able to keep using it. Why did Riku swap out Way To The Dawn? I'm kind of hoping Dark Road touches on some way that keyblade wielders can actually create/modify their keyblade beyond keychains.
 
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Before KH3, I never thought Roxas would come back, and here is how I interpreted that scene. In KH3D, Sora didn't know that he had Ventus's heart inside of him. All he knew was that Roxas felt different than him somehow. He didn't know why, he just sensed that Roxas had his own feelings that were distinct from his own. So, he told Roxas that he was his own person.

Sometime before the beginning of KH3, Sora should have found out the truth about Ventus's heart. The fact that there was a separate heart inside of him would have explained why Roxas never truly felt like he was a part of Sora. He had his own heart all along. And so, in KH3, Sora's goal would be waking Ventus's heart up. Since Roxas's heart was Ventus's heart, there would have been no need for a separate "save Roxas" plotline. Roxas was simply an alter ego of Ventus.



I couldn't help but notice while playing KH3 that the whole plot would have made a LOT more sense if Roxas and Ventus were treated as interchangeable. It just felt like it was intended to be that way, originally. Ventus was trapped in Sora's heart, and they didn't have any way of finding his body in Castle Oblivion without Aqua's help.



If Ventus was revived, he could make the dive to rescue Aqua. So, they thought they could get him a Replica body. Sora would still have gone to Twilight Town and met up with Hayner, etc. The plot wouldn't have needed to change all that much, which always led me to believe that bringing Roxas back separately from Ventus was a very last minute decision.

Frankly, I think the story would have been far better if Roxas and Ventus had remained the same. Things would have been less convoluted, for sure. And Ventus, now with Roxas's memories, could have had a more meaningful reunion with Lea at Yen Sid's tower before the final battle. Although many fans loved the RAX reunion in KH3, I thought it was badly written. IMO, Roxas never truly understood Axel. He never understood why Axel lied to him, or how much pain Axel was in during 358/2 Days. Lea and Roxas/Ventus had a lot of things to discuss through before they were ready for a happy ending.
Honestly, same. The possibility of them being the same character was always there... and I always dreaded it because I liked Roxas far more than Ventus. But after giving it more thought, I found a new, much better reason to dread it: role strain.

By that, I mean mixing Roxas' and Ventus' plotlines into one character. that is FAR too much to dump into one character. The amount of times that Ventus would've gotten amnesia, cured it, then got it again, then got someone else's memories entirely (Sora), locked inside a computer world, questioned his own identity, gotten split into other people (Vanitas, Sora, Xion, his "Roxas persona"), changed his group of friends, dreamed of rising up the ranks of keyblade wielders all the way to Keyblade Master, then desired to want a normal life and reject the keyblade, and all the while never remembering the UX stuff would've been INSANE.

And that's not even addressing the fact that Ventus would've been a human who became someone else's Nobody.

So in the end, where would Ventus belong? With Terra and Aqua? With the remnants of his UX friends? With the Darknesses? With Lea, Xion, and Isa? With, Hayner, Pence, and Olette? Inside some other data world because he's attracted to them like a moth to a flame? Or maybe he should be the new protagonist. With Sora's Roxas' and his own memories plus his truck load of connections, he'd certainly outclass Sora himself.

Aaaand exhale.......

Ask yourself: do you really want the storyline of a single character to be even half as convoluted and unfocused as the series in general?
 
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Chie

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I would agree that all of KH's "flaws" (and I don't like to take about something I like in terms of "points and flaws") are the result of trying to appease fan expectations and rando criticisms. The fake and pointless non-explanations of mechanics only started after KH had achieved notoreity as being "too hard to follow", after all.
 
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Personally, I just wish we had gotten the version of KH3 Nomura actually wanted to write, not the version he felt like he had to write due to the fandom's expectations.
We both agree that Roxas, Xion, and also Namine belong in the ground (just like how AtW and his apprentices belong in prison). Sure Roxas is my oshi and I care far more about RAX and occasionally Namine than any other group of characters, but I'm no fool. Of course the quality of the narrative is more important than my own preferences. I often like the supporting cast more than the main cast; I do this to myself, in a way. 😅

Frankly, I'd rather they stay dead than be ignored as if they were still dead. They'd be "functionally dead", and I find that far more insulting.

Now as for this being what Nomura wanted to write... I'm not entirely sure about that.

Nomura said that he had last minute doubts about it. There are certain things he won't budge on, but he will listen to fans when he's struggling. Not verbatim, but oh well.

I hate reading into the nitty-gritty of translated quotes because there's no such thing as a perfect translation. The connotations behind the words and phrases of any 2 languages are vastly different from each other. Thus, it's dangerous to analyze them as if the original speaker knew how it'd be interpreted in English. But alas, my Japanese is below infantile and I can't contact any fluent Japanese speakers so I have no choice. 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

It seemed like Nomura envisioned a route without Roxas and Xion, but then wavered on it himself. For what reason(s)? Don't know; won't speculate. He listens to fans when he is struggling. So, it seems he listens to fans only when he's already second guessing himself. The fan feedback was, again, seemingly, merely used to tip the scales.

May whoever translated that question please clarify this?
 
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Sign

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We both agree that Roxas, Xion, and also Namine belong in the ground (just like how AtW and his apprentices belong in prison). Sure Roxas is my oshi and I care far more about RAX and occasionally Namine than any other group of characters, but I'm no fool. Of course the quality of the narrative is more important than my own preferences. I often like the supporting cast more than the main cast; I do this to myself, in a way. 😅

Frankly, I'd rather they stay dead than be ignored as if they were still dead. They'd be "functionally dead", and I find that far more insulting.

Now as for this being what Nomura wanted to write... I'm not entirely sure about that.

Nomura said that he had last minute doubts about it. There are certain things he won't budge on, but he will listen to fans when he's struggling. Not verbatim, but oh well.

I hate reading into the nitty-gritty of translated quotes because there's no such thing as a perfect translation. The connotations behind the words and phrases of any 2 languages are vastly different from each other. Thus, it's dangerous to analyze them as if the original speaker knew how it'd be interpreted in English. But alas, my Japanese is below infantile and I can't contact any fluent Japanese speakers so I have no choice. 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

It seemed like Nomura envisioned a route without Roxas and Xion, but then wavered on it himself. For what reason(s)? Don't know; won't speculate. He listens to fans when he is struggling. So, it seems he listens to fans only when he's already second guessing himself. The fan feedback was, again, seemingly, merely used to tip the scales.

May whoever translated that question please clarify this?

After cross-referencing multiple recaps and impressions from both fans and press, most everyone merely say that a scenario in which Roxas and Xion weren't revived was under consideration, but Nomura was swayed at the last minute by fans who wanted them to be brought back. Only a few made the distinction that Nomura was proceeding with no-revival, but then he wavered and was influenced by fans to make a last minute decision to go in the other direction. Nomura's statement (as well as everyone seems to remember it anyways) does not make it clear when exactly he was debating between the two scenarios, just that it was a thing that was happening and pro-revival won out at the very end.

It seemed like Nomura envisioned a route without Roxas and Xion, but then wavered on it himself. For what reason(s)? Don't know; won't speculate. He listens to fans when he is struggling. So, it seems he listens to fans only when he's already second guessing himself. The fan feedback was, again, seemingly, merely used to tip the scales.

Correct. When it comes to critical story beats, Nomura will listen to what fans are saying only when he's being wishy-washy and can't decide whether to go with A or B. The fans' voices are only used to help him make a decision between the aforementioned A and B, which remain unchanged.
 

SweetYetSalty

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After cross-referencing multiple recaps and impressions from both fans and press, most everyone merely say that a scenario in which Roxas and Xion weren't revived was under consideration, but Nomura was swayed at the last minute by fans who wanted them to be brought back. Only a few made the distinction that Nomura was proceeding with no-revival, but then he wavered and was influenced by fans to make a last minute decision to go in the other direction. Nomura's statement (as well as everyone seems to remember it anyways) does not make it clear when exactly he was debating between the two scenarios, just that it was a thing that was happening and pro-revival won out at the very end.



Correct. When it comes to critical story beats, Nomura will listen to what fans are saying only when he's being wishy-washy and can't decide whether to go with A or B. The fans' voices are only used to help him make a decision between the aforementioned A and B, which remain unchanged.
This kind of lines up with how the games treated it. Revival for the Nobodies was teased but not given the level of importance that TAV was throughout DDD, and KH3. I also wonder how much Lea/Axel's DDD revival effected it? The whole "recompletion" angle was just a easy way to bring back the Organization regardless how it impacted the lore, but if they never brought Axel back would that have leaned more into not bringing back Roxas, Xion, and Namine?
 
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After cross-referencing multiple recaps and impressions from both fans and press, most everyone merely say that a scenario in which Roxas and Xion weren't revived was under consideration, but Nomura was swayed at the last minute by fans who wanted them to be brought back. Only a few made the distinction that Nomura was proceeding with no-revival, but then he wavered and was influenced by fans to make a last minute decision to go in the other direction. Nomura's statement (as well as everyone seems to remember it anyways) does not make it clear when exactly he was debating between the two scenarios, just that it was a thing that was happening and pro-revival won out at the very end.



Correct. When it comes to critical story beats, Nomura will listen to what fans are saying only when he's being wishy-washy and can't decide whether to go with A or B. The fans' voices are only used to help him make a decision between the aforementioned A and B, which remain unchanged.
When the world needed you most, you were there 🥲
 
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