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KH Fans what are your plans for the future of the franchise? and Will you move on or stay till the end?



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Launchpad

i remember the OLD khinsider
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I was feeling like I was okay with hopping off a little bit when KH3 came out. I liked it enough, but I haven't really given too much of a hoot about the story since... BBS?????? And Osaka has NEVER been spectacular with the combat, or balance, or scaling, or fluidity, even in KH3, so I felt like there wasn't a whole lot to look forward to.

But then they snapped.

KH3 ReMind has me all sorts of excited for the future of Kingdom Hearts. Osaka Team has TRANSFORMED. They changed KH3 so much with patch 1.09 that it barely resembles the game it used to be. Combos are smooth, they have mid-range utility, proper cancel windows, start up way faster, and are safer all around-- They're honestly more fun than a lot of the transformations. And these BOSSES they created in ReMind. The secret boss is actually one of the greatest, if not the greatest fight in the entire franchise. It's so well designed, so skill based, so rewarding. Osaka NEVER made anything like this. Phantom Aqua was well designed, but plain, and trapped in a game with relatively poor and boring mechanics.

The storyline moving forward will likely be doodoo. We're probably going to have to suffer for some time without Donald and Goofy, and Nomura's angsty pushing of his old buried Versus XIII vibes will be more prevalent than ever.

But for the first time since KH2, the gameplay will be worth sitting through the schlocky story.
 

AdrianXXII

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As of right now I'm in it for the long run. Kingdom Hearts has been part of my life since I was 11 years old and has been a source of joy for me. More often then not it's the only game series I want to play, seeing no other brings me the same satisfaction. When ever I needed a pick me up thinking about the series characters or playing the games could deliver that.

Over the years my opinion of the series clearly changed, going from blindly loving everything to questioning and criticizing it for it's faults. So while I now can admit that it's a deeply flawed series, it does get me emotionally invested in ways few things still can.

I feel connected to the cast of characters even when the series doesn't develop them or spotlight them the way it should. The story can get crazy, but more often than not I actually like the ideas presented, even if I don't always care for their execution. Besides Union Cross the series has also never failed to deliver an experience I've found fun to play.

Neither 3D and KH3 managed to shake my affection towards the series in the long term. I'm still excited to see where this ride is going, what we might learn from Dark Road or "DDDv2". I want to learn more about the universe even, if in the long run it wont matter and gets retconned.

Even if I'd eventually decided to leave the series, my experience with Pokemon proofed to me that a certain amount of interest will always linger, even if the investment lessened.
 

Elysium

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I've always been consistent that I would play as long as Riku and Sora are among the main characters + Disney. Of course there are caveats to that. If Riku and Sora got new voice actors, I'd probably quit, because new VAs rarely work for me. And I probably would drop even with Disney still in the game in the right scenario. The fact that more modern Disney films + PIXAR, and who knows what's coming next, are taking up most of the roster now would make it easier to drop if Sora and Riku aren't in the game either.

Of course I don't play the mobile games at all anyway. I probably wouldn't be able to buy all the various systems if they start spreading all over the map again this time around either.
 

Foxycian

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Don’t know if I’m the only one sharing this though but there are stuff I really would like to change in kingdom hearts and they are...

1) I don’t want two characters sharing one voice actor anymore it feels weird seeing them interact with one another sharing the same faces and voices plus imagine the voice actors talking with each other Ahem Awkward... I really want that to change.

2) i feel like Disney is consuming kingdom hearts, the franchise is still great but growing up I always saw the KH characters as final fantasy type of characters but now in kh3 I can’t take some of them seriously, they become full time Disney comic relief characters, specially Sora and Lea, Sora friendship speech and repeating the word heart 24/7 every time his on screen and Lea with his phrase “Got it memorized” I know he usually use it often in all KH games which what I like about him, but here in kh3... every cutscenes having him he has to use the “Got it memorized” or make reference to it... it wasn’t like that before this phrase of his wasn’t used every time his on screen from what I remember, I used to take Axel/Lea seriously but now I feel like his a comic relief next to Sora with the way he acts in KH3, this is all my take on it I don’t know why I see it that way...

3) I’m happy we are getting many spinoffs specially the xehanort one but tbh I was getting tired of just playing as Sora all the time... don’t get me wrong I love the guy I grew up with him but I want to play as other characters too, I’m not asking to remove Sora from his protagonist role, i just want to play as The other characters too

what makes this franchise great is its flaws it’s not perfect, that’s why it has special place in my heart, some will probably Agree with my opinion and some will not, either way I hope at least one of the 3 I listed comes true.
 

Ink Ribbon

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I'm in it for the long haul. Just when I think I have things sorted out, KH turns a 180 and throws more insanity my way. I crave a story that always has me guessing no matter how convoluted it may be. KH has many different issues but there's so much charm to outweigh that negativity.

My current hopes and gripes:

I hope they don't fully nix Disney in the series. It originally was the reason I got into the series in the first place. However Disney does need to give some leeway to Square instead of strangleholding them creatively. I wouldn't mind if it lessened a bit as long as we get more Square related and original stuff as a subsititue. I guess it's just a matter of finding a happy medium and that's not always an easy thing. Just one of those wait and see kind of things.

Like others, I'm not interested in the mobile treatment. I won't ever play on my phone, only watch videos of it. My hope is we get some kind of movie or episodic game that comes out on modern consoles. The UX storyline is far too ingrained in the overall plot now and Project Xehanort is likely to be just as important. Seems a waste not to capitalize putting it on PS/Xbox. If not, atleast release the updates in a more timely fashion.

The Verum Rex stuff has been giving me hype since it showed up in Toy Box. I don't know anything about Versus 13. So when I see so many make the comparisons between the two, I have no idea what anyone's talking about lol. Maybe that's a good thing because I'll be more surprised even if they do reuse assets.

My biggest hope though is that we will get some more information on characters we know so little about. It's just my personal preference, but I want to learn more about Braig (the real person and Luxu), Elrena, Luxord, Lauriam and Demyx. They're my favorite characters outside of certain ones in the main cast. There does seem to be hope for some of those I've listed but I guess time will tell for others.

Regardless of any of those things though, I'm still sticking around. I've got too much time invested into this journey.
 

SuperSaiyanSora

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I'm staying until the end. This shit is my life. Favorite thing in the world. Not once have I felt like quitting the series, and I've been a fan since 2003. I actually love the ridiculousness that comes with the series, many people don't, but I sure as hell do.

I never cared about shipping characters, I just love the lore and wanting to find out who's next up on catching the Keyblade smoke. Exploring the Disney worlds is really fun too, which is why I'm glad KH3 nailed it.

So nah, I think the franchise is in the best place it's been in a long time, and I definitely don't have any plans on dropping it.
 

saintfighteraqua

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Pre-KH3 I would have said I'm in it forever.
Post KH 3, I am still mostly in for the main titles...but with the UX drag and how disappointed I was with KH3 (even if I did enjoy it) and then the underwhelming DLC,I am slowly losing my passion.
I'm still all in for what we get next and though I'm not optimistic for Dark Road, I'll give it a try and hope it doesn't have the (imo awful) structure of UX.

I am very excited for a new mainline game or one in the vein of BBS.
 
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I, uh... I don't really know right now. I need to see concrete evidence of what this series will be moving forward, and I need it to be released in the relative near future. Anymore filler games, console bouncing, and significant hiatuses between titles, and I'll probably feign interest again like I did after 358. Perhaps I should explain my history with the series?

I received KH1 as a Christmas gift back in '02 without knowing anything about it. I tried it soon thereafter, and immediately fell in love with the game -- the characters, the visuals, the mythos, the music (and I hated music as a kid! lol), etc. Admittedly, it took me literally years to get some real mileage on the story... As an 8-year-old, I was genuinely afraid of the Heartless and what they represented. So scared of them that I couldn't really bare to keep playing once Destiny Islands fell to the darkness. Yup, I just kept replaying the prologue, ad nausea for years as a kid. Once I finally grew up a bit and made progress, I got maybe halfway through the game before I got stuck in one of the Disney worlds, unable to find the keyhole. I still don't know if I missed something, or if it was some kind of glitch in my copy. Despite never finishing KH1, it remained one of my favorite games all through my youth.

I again received CoM as a Christmas gift in '05, I think? I never played much of it, as I couldn't understand the combat system as a kid, and was really underwhelmed by much of the story just being a remix of what I'd already done in the only other existing title in the series. Despite this, I still periodically returned, hoping to better understand the combat or advance the story to a point where I'd learn something new about the world, or at least see Sora and his friends go on a new adventure.

I got KH2 shortly after its release in '06. I was 11 by then -- more mature, better equipped to handle the dark themes and capable of playing the combat efficiently. I remember being absolutely enthralled by Roxas' story and engaged by the villainy of Organization XIII. I adored the entire cast, the multi-faceted story with a complex mythos made this one of the first things to not just earn me as a fan, but completely encompass me with its wonders. I played for a few hours after school almost every day for probably two months before I beat the game. Man, I could never truly tell you just how proud of myself I was for beating such a massive game. I was also kind of the kid at school who got everyone else into this series. Needless to say, KH2 probably elevated itself to the title of being my favorite game through my childhood. The whole ending of the game starting with TWTNW is still among my favorite game sequences. Exciting new material that pushed every character to a new place, a scary environment with appropriately challenging, but not entirely insurmountable enemies and bosses. And then such an emotionally satisfying conclusion to everything that'd happened in the series up to that point. In retrospect, I almost wish the series had stopped with Mickey's message in a bottle.

I was 15 when 358/2 Days came out. Still being young, that four year hiatus did a lot to ween me off of the series. I was still terribly excited for the game when it came out, though. Ultimately I ended up being hugely disappointed when I quickly realized that 358 abandoned pretty much everything that I wanted it to be to then force a completely unlikable new character down my throat, and then undo itself by the story's end. I hated it.

I took my time picking up BBS maybe a year later at age 16. I'd spent years excitedly intrigued by the secrets of the Keyblade War teased in the secret ending to KH2, but the years between KH2 and 358 and the misguided story of 358 both served to really wain my interest in this series. I tried to be cautiously optimistic. A prequel explaining away the series long mythos sounded like it could be perfect, and well, it was another dud for me. Like 358 before it, BBS teased the following of one plot thread, and then instead focused on a separate set of only half-connected stories and characters, and did pretty much all of them the worst way possible. I quickly saw the game for not being what I'd wanted out of it, and put it down. I probably only played a few hours with Ventus and then left...

I didn't bother with Coded because it sounded like a spiritual successor to CoM and continued the trend of ignoring where we'd left off with KH2. Hard pass for me.

I didn't even know that DDD had existed until maybe a year or so after its release lol. I was happy to hear that they were finally continuing the story from where KH2 left off, but I thought the 3DS was a shitty console, so I just never bothered with DDD at the time. I think at this point, probably at the age of 18, despite having great childhood memories with KH1 & 2, I considered myself to be done with the series. It just didn't become what I'd fantasized about after KH2.

Then there was seeming years worth of US releases of HD Final Mix remakes/ports of existing titles, resulting in, what, a six year hiatus from new games? When I'd became aware of these, it confirmed to be that this series was basically dead.

Then, unexpectedly to me, while watching showcases from E3 '18 at age 23, there it was, Kingdom Hearts 3. At long effing last! You'll never understand how quickly my heart beat in such rapid succession. After something like eight years away from the series, Kingdom Hearts was finally back and in the form of what I'd be wanting out of it for twelve years. I thought I was done, but after I saw that amazing trailer for KH3, I was back in. I knew that I had to buy KH3 as soon as it came out.

I was very hesitant because I'd skipped Coded, Dream Drop Distance, and Fragmentary Passage. I never finished KH1, CoM, or BBS. I didn't remember everything from KH2 and 358. From my understanding, KH3 was intended to be a culmination of everything that preceded it, and be a definitive end to the series. How do I pick up with KH3 in that state?

Thankfully, The Story So Far released on the PS4 a few months before KH3's release. A $40 two disc collection of HD Final Mix remakes/ports of everything. I was 24 at that point. It'd be a 16 year journey then. I started as a child and was engaged then, could I still be this involved as an adult?

Yes and no. Replaying and completing all of the games at my leisure, on and off over the course of about six months was a very mixed experience for me. As an adult, I see now just how horribly written the story and dialogue are. Like, holy crap, this is razzie award level bad sometimes. The gameplay gimmicks in all of the spin-offs were really daunting to me. I felt alienated. I flat out hated CoM (although I did rather enjoy Riku's Reverse/Rebirth story), 358, and Coded, which comprised something like 40% of the series. Not a great way to get excited for the imminence of KH3. Regardless of the terrible writing, I still find myself in love with most of the ideas presented by the series. Just what a shame that nearly every character hardly has a semblance of an arc outside of a few tropey traits assigned to them in their first scene. I realized that most of what I initially liked about these characters were a combination of subtle implications and fanon.

So yeah, great ideas, really bad execution. Mostly tedious gameplay (except KH 1 & 2, which I think both worked really well), and dismal writing. Constant retcons, poor characterizations, random changes in lore, too much recycled assets across the series, and far too much of a hesitance to actually explain anything, let alone do so well. I still don't understand many things in this series!

I loved finally getting into KH3. It was a really fun, if suspiciously easy, game to play, and I was tantalized by the myriad of story threads. The worlds were massive in comparison to the previous titles, and it seemed every character was finally an active player with their own missions. And then we got to the Keyblade Graveyard... At first, I thought this was only roughly the halfway point of the game, and thought that the story was about to massively escalate now that all of the main characters were together. And then I realized that this was the end of the game already. I thought they promised like an 80 hour epic? I'm only about 20 hours deep... I guess all of those unresolved plots are either totally forgotten about, or just thinly veiled sequel bait again! Wait, this can't possibly be the end of the series?! Oh, it's just the end of Xehanort's saga? But we still hardly know anything about Xehanort!

I don't think I've ever so quickly dropped from such pure giddiness, to such sinking disappointment.

ReMind angered me. I still feel like my money was stolen, what with how cheap that was with so much recycled content and hardly anything new.

Confirmation of a Xehanort mobile prequel game being the next title? Come on!! Enough with this nonsense. No more pay-to-play mobile games. No more spreading titles across different platforms. No more recycled content. No more misguided prequels and midquels that focus on the wrong thing. No more several year long hiatuses between titles. No more Xehanort. His saga is over. Yes, there's plenty that wasn't done with his character, and lots that still don't make sense. But Nomura, et al. already fucked all of that up. It's over with. Let it go.

Constantly retreading the series' misfires is a sure fire way to chase right back out all over again right after you just got me back in here. I don't want to go. I want to see this series through to its end, and I want to see that on a single console, and within a reasonable amount of time. It's been 18 years now.

Give me an HD console remake of Union X so that myself and many others can actually experience the story and better understand the series' lore. And then, give me straight sequels that actually advance the story and fill me with positive experiences. I don't care if they're numbered sequels or not. I just want a full effort on the part of the development team. No more bullshit.

I swear, it almost feels like they keep throwing crap at their own audience just to see how much we'll endure before leaving. Stop treating me like that. You want my money and adoration, don't you? Then make me outwardly optimistic about this series' future. I'm not going to touch Union X, and I probably won't touch Dark Path either, if it follows a similar route as the aforementioned.
 

Keyblade07

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Kingdom hearts and Final fantasy are both Great series that I grew up with and I don’t planing on dropping yet, for kingdom hearts I won’t deny I’m on the edge, not because I’m not liking what’s happening in this next saga but Cause I am satisfied with the ending of the saga we followed since kh1, and not really a big fan of the mobile games we are having recently, they don’t interest me as much, I will gladly still follow kingdom hearts and preserve it from afar, till at least I can finally feel satisfied and decide to move on! Both kingdom hearts and final fantasy tough me many meaningful things in life and I’m Grateful, growing up with these characters,

Sora Riku kairi, kairi’s grandma (I love her) Namine, Roxas Axel Xion, ventus Terra Aqua, vanitas, Ansem the wise, Xehanort, Ansem SoD, Xemnas, the whole organization 13 and the twilight Gang and pretty much all the Kingdom hearts characters and final fantasy characters and Disney characters I didn’t mention in those beautiful franchises

I can be a little nostalgic freak Haha, really love this franchise, there are also many beautiful quotes in kingdom hearts but there is one that captured my heart the most, the quote from kairi and xehanort❤ this game and all the characters,

this game will always have a special place in my heart.

“,there are many worlds out there but they all share the same sky -one sky! one destiny!,”.
 
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I don't know how to answer this. I'll still follow khux and interviews to keep my facts straight. I'll still read some fanfics to experience the characters being characters since the games seldomly do that. Oh, all the characters I invested so much care into. I feel indebted to continue KH for that reason alone.

  • Will I like the new plot lines and story structure? No, haven't since re:coded. However, the lingering, unanswered questions bother me to no end. I must know things!
  • Do I still think KH is well-written? No, haven't since re:coded, but goddamn is it a unique, attractive/addictive dumpster fire of contrivance.
  • Will I continue to enjoy the gameplay, FF element, and Disney element? I guess, only played FF1, and that has always been the least important aspect to me.
..... Honestly, I feel as if I'm in a pseudo abusive relationship with KH. I'm 24. If I don't move on now then when the hell will I?
 

cakito123

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No I dont plan to ever quit the series. I'm not a story freak, I like KH because of its gameplay, so it is easier for me to enjoy almost every game released (the only one I dont like is CoM). I will say however that I dont give a damn about Union X's gameplay, although I'm watching and following the story on Youtube, so when the next REAL game come out, I will be ready to play and understante everything. I'm liming the story for now but I dont know how much more time I will feel invested in the series if they dont release a big game soon. But I know anyway that even if I do srop gollowing the series, somehow I'll always come back to see how is it doing!
 

DarknessInZero

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KH3 was hot garbage for me but I'm staying on cause the Union Cross writing is the best the series ever had tbh. The Yozora thing is such a meta asspull that I'm interested how far that'll go too.
 

SuperNova

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I was close to quitting but I'm not going anywhere. I liked KH3 well enough despite its flaws. But that ending really left a bitter taste in my mouth. The only thing keeping me interested right now is new mysteries surrounding Yozora and the Foretellers. Lets hope they do this arc better than the Xehanort one.
 

Grey Skies

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I've been playing these games for like 18 years, and I was iffy on the games from BBS to 0.2, but KH3 restored some hope in me for the series being great again some day, with plot threads maybe not taking years upon years to conclude. The Xehanort shenanigans are over. I'm hoping the future games won't complicate the story and lore much further and instead tell new stories with the pieces already there, but knowing Nomura, the series is going to be flipped on its head every few years for as long as it keeps going, or for as long as he's the director. I'll always keep up with the story in any case.
 

redcrown

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I sort of have one foot ready to step away from the series, and the other stuck in it like tar. I've never planned to stay with the series until it ends (if it ever does) just for the sake of it, but I'm somehow still here after all these years even with the disappointing directions and choices it's taken. I have absolutely no interest in the UX plotlines or mobile games whatsoever, and I've never been interested in the Organization stories as a whole either. I guess I'm still "here" since it's goal of leaving breadcrumbs of potential for me to hope will pan out the way my imagination fills in the blanks works as intended.

I'm with Tartarus in that I don't think I'll actually leave unless they drop Sora and Riku as main characters, since they're the core of Kingdom Hearts to me; it just wouldn't be the same to me without them, and I feel they still have potential for new journeys and arcs of self reflection to explore, and Riku's "period of absence" game still has yet to come out (maybe I'm foolish for thinking it ever will at this point, or thinking the UX/time travel nonsense won't infect it somehow)

At the very least I'm not going to preorder KH games anymore, the Remind DLC taught me that lesson hard. If a game comes out that looks good and goes a direction that I like, I'll support it and buy it after the release.
 

Foxycian

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Kingdom hearts has always been my favorite franchise growing up, so For now I will keep going and enjoy it, I don’t plan on stopping the adventure yet at least not now, of course the time will eventually come when we finally decide to move on, and I’m ok with that, it was a long satisfying journey, and When the time finally comes I will move on with a smile, my heart is already filed with happiness and joy all thanks to this wonderful franchise that I grew up with.

I am grateful

“My Friends Are my Power and I’m theirs”
 

PStuder12321

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I love KH it’s my favorite franchise Video game of all time... but I feel like for me it’s time to move on from my obsession to it, many decided to leave after KH3 the end of the main saga that started it all, and many still playing and will continue to play, but what about any of you? How long you plan on continuing? I’m planing on becoming a casual fan and by that I mean, basically Kh won’t be my main concern 24/7 when it comes to video games, I feel like the story is a bit messy the more titles they make I still love it, to begin with the story never interested me it was the characters, the story started to become interesting in khbbs where the main villains first appeared, Anyway it was a hard decision but I decided to finally drop off here, Not saying I’m quitting the franchise it just won’t be my main focus in life anymore now that the main saga is over:) so what are you thinking of now?will your drop it? Or be a causal fan and pay less attention to it then usual? or still big fan and stick till the end?

Either way Good luck with your decision

“May your heart be your Guiding Key”

So I am still a DIE hard fan. Though I am really hoping they start pulling things through with KH4. It will be hard to remain so in love with it if they keep doing things like how they ended KH3. Other then that Im still a huge fan!
 

Absent

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I always said that I would slowly start to step away from Kingdom Hearts when I realized I did that before 3 came out. I’m much older with different priorities and I find myself not that invested with new developments. I used to scour this site and others religiously for content, and now I find myself only approaching certain threads. I don’t even comment on the UX threads because I just don’t care for that plot line and characters.
I know I’m disillusioned from what’s become of this series but I still hold the early parts close to my heart—how am I suppose to finally part with something so close and dear to me?
 

Foxycian

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Though I am really hoping they start pulling things through with KH4. It will be hard to remain so in love with it if they keep doing things like how they ended KH3.
But they probably will, they are using a smart method mostly used by companies, and this method is basically like this (in video games ofc)

“they give you plenty of unanswered questions,
Those unanswered questions will be answered one by one, but at the same time the unanswered questions will increase, and by that time you would’ve already known about the old information but you still want more answers for the new ones, which will get answered one by one yet again, but at the same time the questions will keep doubling”

a never ending system just to keep you captivated and interested in the story,

tbh that’s a smart method video game company’s tend to use often, so it’s not really a new thing.
 
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