My thoughts on the Kingdom hearts 3 ending and Nomura SPOILERS

[Sync645]

First I wanted to apologize since this will be a bit of a rant. So please hear me out before attacking and understand this is my opinion. I'm open to discussing things. The ending for Kingdom Hearts 3 has left me questioning my stance on the franchise going forward and if I even want to take the time to play the game. I play this games primarily for the story and this game is a let down on so many levels in that department. Nomura claimed this game would at least wrap up Sora's story. I expected some sequel tease but for a new story and set of characters. We are left with so many unanswered questions and a dissatisfying ending. To make matters worse we're sequel baited incredibly hard. It's also lazy writing on Nomura's part. Sora leaves to find Kairi then suddenly we see them together before Sora disappears. We aren't told how he found her or why he disappeared or if what we're seeing really was her back. It's just left there unexplained and it's is definitely not a wrap to Sora's story. Now we have to wait and hope the next game does wrap things up there are so many ways this could of been written better and still set up a sequel while still giving people a conclusion if they wanted to stop here the epilogue just sequel baits us more and still leaves so many things unanswered. I expect the secret ending to do the same as well. This is just disappointing for how long we were kept waiting for this. I'm not sure if I want to stick with the franchise going forward if Nomura is involved. I've excepted the convoluted story in the past games hoping he would land the story to a good conclusion here. Instead he lands it lazily and sequel baits hard. This story has to end at some point and this was the perfect time and it's disrespectful to the fans who have waited and stuck with this franchise. On to my thoughts with Nomura himself. I'll admit I've never really been a fan of him as a person. In interviews he's always rubbed me in the wrong way but his recent interview pushed me over. His statements on worldwide releases are inconsiderate to the fanbase outside of Japan and would not fix a thing. Also this game wasn't a world wide simalteanous release anyways. I understand his frustration but how he reacted towards the leaks was overboard and he needs to understand we have been waiting awhile for this game. Again I apologize for ranting and thanks for your patience with this.

 

[Griewer]

I don't really remember him stating that he'd wrap up Sora's story. He said this is the final game of the Seeker of Darkness / Xehanort Saga and it really does seem like it. He actually said that Sora would remain the protagonist in future games as far as I can recall.

How the game ends holds many questions, yes, but I don't really think that is a problem. If the game ends in a kind of disharmony or cliffhanger, it gives a rather good reason for us to wait for the next one. Every game, including Kingdom Hearts 2, left off with a promise of a next adventure, and KH3 is no different in that sense.

It could've been written better, I agree with that. Possibly EVERY story in the world could've been written better. But please let go of this "still giving people a conclusion if they wanted to stop here" idea. No game will ever in the world do this, because what sort of author, creator would think that people want to stop following their stories? That is just a weird way of thinking. Quite the opposite would be true for anyone - they would want even more people to follow the story further.

 

[I_Need_ThemLeaks]

It's true that stories can always be written better but that's not really my main problem imo. I really hate the secret ending. The epilogue was cool but this secret ending is jusg the worst imo. It's not giving me much hype going forward to continue with the series. All the secret ending did was tell me that Sora is in fact still alive in someone way or going to be brought back. It's anticlimactic when Nomura has told us Sora will be the main character going forward. That fact is even more annoying when people try to say every fan doesn't know Sora will continue being the main character. Yes everyone who plays kh does not know but anyone deep enough into the lore of the game(such as people who watch the secert endings) will have read or heard about Sora's continuation as the main character as well as Xehanort's end of the Dark Seeker saga. Hell they'd even hear these things from a youtuber. I am so dissapointed in that secret ending yall. I wanna be hype for KH4 but now im in this weird limbo where I don't know if it's worth looking forward to anymore.

 

[Nazo]

I understand where you're coming from, but I think your frustration stems from the expectation that this game would give us full closure to everything thus far. It's been stated for years that KH3 will not be the end of the series and will only conclude this current arc of the franchise. Nomura kept his promise. The Xehanort Saga has concluded. Everything related to Xehanort and the plot threads of all previous games have been resolved. But we were never promised a perfectly happy ending where you could "stop here if you wanted to". We were only promised the resolution of the Xehanort plotline and that's exactly what we got.

 

[SerDuncan]

I think my biggest issue, and where I agree with OP on... is that this game DID give closure to most of what we've been building up to. It just gave us really rushed, awfully written closure. I don't want closure for the sea salt and BBS trios if it's going to be a 2 minute cutscene apiece after years of buildup and character development.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

I think my biggest issue, and where I agree with OP on... is that this game DID give closure to most of what we've been building up to. It just gave us really rushed, awfully written closure. I don't want closure for the sea salt and BBS trios if it's going to be a 2 minute cutscene apiece after years of buildup and character development.

I generally am in agreement with the apparently widely held sentiment that the characters who got saved more or less fell into obscurity and background eye candy after their reunion scenes and that certainly could be handled leagues better, especially when it comes to interacting with each other and the other supposed main trios.
Like what the regular ending shows with the whole big beach party would have been an even bigger impact if we could have seen all those characters bond more beforehand with each other.
Now that ending feels not entirely like a reward for the build up throughout the just closed saga but partly like a sort of "appetizer" in vein of "look, now they're no longer captive or comatose somewhere and everyone can start to bond with everyone for real".

Or to put it shorter: It comes over partly as if the saved characters are also used as sequel bait just like the whole Union X-shenanigans.

 

[Aws]

I am in agreement with OP as well.

Spoiler Show

The ending felt really cheap to me. I want to call it rushed but I don't think it would be accurate. The whole ending sequence felt quite compact, as if the development team had boundaries placed on them, whether in regards to time or to budget. To offer real closure there should have been more scenes after the final battle that showed all the characters interacting and had dialogue rather than just a few shots on the beach or on the clock tower. Also, that last gotcha moment at the end is the antithesis of offering players closure. It is pure sequel bait that unfortunately will probably never be properly resolved given Nomura's track record with Kairi.

I really don't understand why they decided to end it at that point if they wanted to give us a proper end with proper closure. It was quite a shock for me to find myself at a similar position to the position I was in with KH2's ending but with an even WORSE cliffhanger. KH3 was supposed to have been the remedy to the series' never-ending cliffhangers and gotcha endings, but alas it turned out quite short (I finished it in 25 hours on Proud mode, which is shorter than it took me to finish KH2 on any difficulty level). The fact that 95% of the main story happens in the last ~4-6 hours of the game did not help either, as I felt that everything happened too quickly and we never got a chance to spend any time with any of the characters outside of fighting bosses.

Uncharted 4 was the KH3 of the Uncharted series, the end of an era that promised closure and a finale and it actually delivered. It did that by allowing us to spend more time with the characters after the end and by including a playable epilogue which was FULL of content. If SE had done something like this for KH3, which I don't think would have been that hard to do given the amount of seemingly cut content (Mysterious tower. Twilight Town being the only hub world and being essentially one zone. No Radiant Garden. No explorable Dark World. No non-heartless Boss fights before the Keyblade Graveyard. 10 minutes long 100 Acre Wood) With all the resources this frees up I really cannot fathom why they didn't go all out on the story front and made the game longer by giving us more character interaction both during the final battle and after it. The ending sequence just felt short, and empty... watching 30 seconds of everyone playing on the beach and 10 seconds of Kairi crying on the tree next to a vanishing Sora is not what anyone could call closure.

The character interactions were quite weak in my opinion. The rescued characters disappeared after a few moments. Kairi and Sora had some nice moments only for her to be unceremoniously kidnapped, ending their interaction for the rest of the game. Her summarily execution was also a joke tbh as none of the characters cared after five minutes and this was quite literally stated at the end when Mickey tries to persuade Sora to not go after her. It was really all so brief when it could have been much longer and much more detailed. Nomura spent more time "Redeeming" Xehanort at the end than any reunion between the characters. I won't even talk about how salty I am about the ending Nomura gave Sora and Kairi because I already did on another thread.

 

[Deleted member]

Spoiler Show

Nomura spent more time "Redeeming" Xehanort at the end than any reunion between the characters.

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Xehanort is never going to be seen again in the series. All the other characters likely are. It's not the end of their arcs or their characters. There will be more interactions between them in the games to come, that's likely why the focus was more on the characters who won't be returning.

 

[Aws]

Spoiler Show

Xehanort is never going to be seen again in the series. All the other characters likely are. It's not the end of their arcs or their characters. There will be more interactions between them in the games to come, that's likely why the focus was more on the characters who won't be returning.

Of course, but the wait between KH3 and whatever comes next is going to be murderous with all this sequel baiting and lack of closure, which given the length of the game should not have been necessarily the case. (KH3 is shorter than KH2, at least that was the case for me).

 

[SerDuncan]

mmmmm I dunno about what you just said, Sephiroth. I mean, many of the characters who are never showing again (I'd say almost confirmed) didn't really get proper send offs.

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Ansem, Xemnas and Young Xehanort spring to mind, Vanitas as well (although in all likelihood he is returning). Terranort, I mean... they're all essentially Xehanort but at the same time, they should have gotten some development, some buildup, anything. Instead... they kinda fade away after a sentence or too. But even still, did Xion or Roxas really get the attention that the beginning of the game built up to? I mean, Sora takes an entire world trying to bring Roxas back, and then completely drops the plot. Is that really a fair way to bring him back to life? Literally dropping out of the sky? I dunno.

It is very cathartic to talk these things through with people. I played the game with my old roommate, but I feel bad just flooding him with my criticism, so it's nice to have someplace to talk about all this.

 

[mriku90]

Of course, but the wait between KH3 and whatever comes next is going to be murderous with all this sequel baiting and lack of closure, which given the length of the game should not have been necessarily the case. (KH3 is shorter than KH2, at least that was the case for me).

Disagree, I highly doubt we'll be waiting as long as we did for KH3 for the next installment, traditionally Nomura gives us a KH title every 3 years. I'd probably wager 4 years with the next one.

And if you're rushing the game then yes it is shorter then KH2, but I'm not rushing it. I'm taking my time enjoying all the immersive environments and doing all the side quest things and doing all the photo ops and there's plenty to do. Right now I just hit 28 hrs and I beat Pirates and I still have one more Disney world plus all the endgame stuff. I've been playing the game since Tuesday.

You rushed and that's your choice and enough with the "sequel baiting". Nomura even said in an interview he's gonna focus on the next part rather then crap out a year long DLC expansion ala FFXV. That is the farthest thing from baiting.

Nomura made it perfectly clear that this was not gonna be the end of KH nor Sora's story. You thought it would be closure for the series despite everything Nomura said is on you, nobody else.

 

[SerDuncan]

I think you misunderstand a lot of our points here, mriku90. Firstly, if you were to say, take your time with KH2, as you imply we didn't with this game, KH2 would end up even more significantly longer than this game. The average play time for this game seems anywhere between 25-40 hours, realistically, with all the endgame content being fiddly grindy and luck based content. Of course, KH2 at launch had many of the same issues with it's postgame, so that comparison is true. Kh2 tends to take anywhere from 30-50 hours. Besides that's not really the point. How a person plays the game doesn't invalidate their opinion, or devalue it. I could just as easily say "well, taking a long time means you're not experiencing the game quickly enough, you're losing plot points best experienced one after the other." It's not a valid position to argue upon.

Secondly, when we speak of sequel baiting, we're not talking about interviews, or anything outside the game. We're talking purely in game content. No other Kingdom Hearts games has quite as much foreshadowing or plot points that are irrelevant to the current game. Every other game in the franchise is essentially it's own self contained story. Instead, KH3 features many red herrings, entire world plotlines dedicated to unnecessary and unexplained arcs and threads, and ends without conclusively tying up much of what Nomura himself said would get tied up this game.

You can disagree with our opinion, that's fine. But you simply cannot take what we experienced and felt frustrated by, and say it's entirely our own fault when there is clear evidence to the contrary.

 

[Aws]

Disagree, I highly doubt we'll be waiting as long as we did for KH3 for the next installment, traditionally Nomura gives us a KH title every 3 years. I'd probably wager 4 years with the next one.

And if you're rushing the game then yes it is shorter then KH2, but I'm not rushing it. I'm taking my time enjoying all the immersive environments and doing all the side quest things and doing all the photo ops and there's plenty to do. Right now I just hit 28 hrs and I beat Pirates and I still have one more Disney world plus all the endgame stuff. I've been playing the game since Tuesday.

You rushed and that's your choice and enough with the "sequel baiting". Nomura even said in an interview he's gonna focus on the next part rather then crap out a year long DLC expansion ala FFXV. That is the farthest thing from baiting.

Nomura made it perfectly clear that this was not gonna be the end of KH nor Sora's story. You thought it would be closure for the series despite everything Nomura said is on you, nobody else.

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I really don't see how you can justify the ending as not sequel baiting. Of course this game wasn't going to be the end of Sora's story, but getting another cliffhanger ending was not part of the deal. I didn't rush through the game per se, I finished the game in 25 hours on Proud mode, which was quite easy. I didn't collect all the emblems and only did a bit of grinding but I explored every single world and made sure not to miss anything. But that's besides the point; the game is light on story content. The last 4-6 hours are essentially the entire main story that we've been waiting for for 13 years. That is quite frankly not enough, considering the number of characters. Character interactions had way more potential, but it all happened very quickly. And btw there is no way not to rush the end once you get to Keyblade Graveyard cause it all happens in rapid succession. Unless you force yourself to stop playing the game there is no way you won't finish it in one sitting because it isn't dispersed and isn't long either. I'm not complaining about the Disney worlds, I liked them quite a bit. I liked pretty much everything about the game actually, but the narrative potential that was wasted at the end leaves me salty, and having closure for the last 13 years is not mutually exclusive with the continuation of the series. The next saga was set up with all the things related to the box and the KHX/KHUX story-line. There was no reason for Sora and Kairi to be suffering at the end just to set up a new game. The epilogue is the setup for the next saga. The ending was just cheap sequel-baiting.

KH2 had a cliffhanger ending, and that was fine because we still had KH3 in the Saga to resolve it. KH3 has a cliffhanger ending. The saga is over. There should be no reason why we're carrying this plot-line over to the next game, as it is a direct consequence of Xehanort's actions. the BBS trio and the Days trio are back because the Xehanort saga is resolved, so why shouldn't the same be applied to Sora and Kairi? If this is resolved in a DLC that is released quite soon I'd be ok with it. Waiting idk how many years until Nomura is done with FF7Remake to get a proper scene between Sora and Kairi to resolve what happened in the Keyblade graveyard is unfair.

 

[Hardback247]

Nomura even said in an interview he's gonna focus on the next part rather then crap out a year long DLC expansion ala FFXV. That is the farthest thing from baiting.

I think that Nomura is now putting his full attention on the Final Fantasy VII Remake.

 

[Taochan]

Nomura claimed this game would at least wrap up Sora's story. I expected some sequel tease but for a new story and set of characters. We are left with so many unanswered questions and a dissatisfying ending. To make matters worse we're sequel baited incredibly hard.

No he didn't? He said it was the end of the Xehanort Saga, which it is. And it's been pretty clear that UX's story would span the current saga and the next saga, which it does.

I think you had expectations for the game that were never going to happen given what Nomura has said in interviews over the years. Like it or not, that's absolutely fine but he didn't make you any of those promises and it seems silly to me to criticize it for your misconceptions of the plan for the series.

 

[Johnny]

This game should have been wrapped up better at the end. They did well with the other trio's, but flopped with Sora Kairi and Riku.

Sora deserved a happy ending. I was more annoyed than anything that he wasn't on DI with everyone he saved having fun. Even more annoyed that Riku didnt say to him "I'm coming with you" and just let him go alone.

Time constraints and pressure to get the game created and done made it this way probably.