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The decline of Kingdom Hearts



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AmaryllisMoth

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even vanilla KH1 had decent postgame
KH1's Final Mix was just extra icing on a cake

Not super relevant to the conversation, but I did want to mention that vanilla VANILLA KH1 (aka the original japanese KH1 release) had basically NO post game to speak of.

When they brought the game over to NA/globally they added such things as:
-Sephiroth boss fight
-Phantom boss fight
-Kurt Zisa boss fight
-actual difficulty settings (vanilla kh1 didn't have options, just normal)

So technically vanilla kh1 was...incredibly bare-bones in terms of post game.
It's actually WHY Final Mixes exist in the first place. Fans here in Japan were very upset that they were cheated out of getting post game and so to try and make it up to them Square re-released the game in Japan with all that content + some as the Final Mix version.

Of course this created another loop for a while because then NA fans were upset that the FM had content they didn't get...until they finally packaged the FM content globally on the remasters.

KH3 originally vanilla release has far, far more post-game content that also wasn't restricted by region.
 
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I almost NEVER do any of the side stuff in Final Fantasy games and put them down after I beat the main story.

thats basically a middle finger to the developer's who bothered putting that stuff in the game for you to play.

Imagine if vanilla KH3 had you go through the end game twice to reach the true final boss. People would have been pissed

you are just projecting now

H3D introduced some new stuff, but I don't think it caused more confusion. I think it actually explained some things, granted conveniently to rein in all of the out of control stuff from before. Nobodies growing hearts was suggested/theorized since CoM. It does make sense for all the humanoid nobodies' to have their bodies try to regrow their hearts or for a heart to grow to fill the emptiness

it makes sense because they told you they do so

Also, the most important thing that 3D did was summarize and explain everything up until that point. I don't know if you read the journals in 3D, but Nomura tried his best to explain stuff that people complained had no real explanations. I thought 3D was a positive sign that Nomura does realize that the story is all over the place and he needs to tie it all together.

thats wasnt a bad thing at all actually, i never said it was.

You also pointed out how KH3 was rushed but had so much time. You do know that they had to scrap the engine they were working with and start from scratch? That took away 1-2 years worth of work on the game

thats still not an excuse. fromsoftware was able to put out a new souls game every 2 years. and nowhere in SE's history did it take them more than 5 years to make a game
 
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When they brought the game over to NA/globally they added such things as:
-Sephiroth boss fight
-Phantom boss fight
-Kurt Zisa boss fight
-actual difficulty settings (vanilla kh1 didn't have options, just normal)

this argument is dumb as shit considering most people here including me began playing the NA/EU release.
 

Oracle Spockanort

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ok so what do you like so much about him?
Why do I have to prove my reasoning to you? You can literally look at my username and get an idea of my favorite character.

this argument is dumb as shit considering most people here including me began playing the NA/EU release.

Damn, we just gonna ignore the Asian region which only received the barebones Japanese version until KHFM?
 

Elysium

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The only thing I personally felt...rushed, is probably how everything had to be shafted to the end. And...with how the story's designed, it felt impossible to make Aqua & Ven's rescue a midpoint. It felt like a midgame wasn't even possible. But maybe it's just my gripe with how the KBG played out. Especially with Terranort just...bodying everyone.
I disagree with Aqua and Ven. It would've been perfect for them to be rescued at the midpoint, and go to Radiant Garden to "rest up," perhaps train with Axel and Kairi there. Ventus just awoke from a decade's sleep and Aqua has been going and going and going for years at that point. Seems kind of crazy to want either one of them to go straight to the final battle from that, no wonder they lost.

If you really want to say where the decline in KH is, then just remember that the Disney aspect of the game had importance. That's been gone since 1. KH3 is...somewhat in the right place, but that's just me not being satisfied with the amount it had compared to 1.
I think it's more the disappointment that Square Enix isn't capable of holding onto two threads at once. When the fandom criticized them for the poor level design of KH2, I had no idea they would take that to mean nixing the original worlds down to almost nothing. I think the FF characters' cut is tied into that for being part of original world content. I really don't get how re-creating KH1's mix of strong original content with strong Disney content is that difficult...
 

Oracle Spockanort

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because it seems like you are just disagreeing with me to be a d***



you are so nice, here is a cookie for you
No, I literally love Xehanort. He’s my favorite character and all iterations of him are included. You brought up how you didn’t like him, I said I don’t agree because he’s my favorite.
 

WaltK

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That place. The place with the thing.
No, I literally love Xehanort. He’s my favorite character and all iterations of him are included. You brought up how you didn’t like him, I said I don’t agree because he’s my favorite.
This.

You don’t need to have a thought out reason for liking a particular character.

I really love Aqua. But my mind draws a blank when trying to come up with a reason why. I just do.
 

Face My Fears

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The only thing I personally felt...rushed, is probably how everything had to be shafted to the end. And...with how the story's designed, it felt impossible to make Aqua & Ven's rescue a midpoint. It felt like a midgame wasn't even possible. But maybe it's just my gripe with how the KBG played out. Especially with Terranort just...bodying everyone.

But yeah, it kinda seems...stupid to think that there wasn't a reason for KH3 to be released this long. I have my own gripes with the series, but this whole thread just seems like...one big-ass dismissal of the entire game.

I don't even fucking know what this mans means by 'Incomplete' The hell more can people want? More worlds? Cause that's a common complaint on here, which I somewhat understand lol.

If you really want to say where the decline in KH is, then just remember that the Disney aspect of the game had importance. That's been gone since 1. KH3 is...somewhat in the right place, but that's just me not being satisfied with the amount it had compared to 1.
Aqua and Ven being a mid-point was somewhat doable... it really just fell on planning out the story and having a really strong grasp of it. I feel like Nomura didn't have enough time to work on other characters' scenes during the main story and just shoved a lot of it to the end. That way he wouldn't have to create scenarios between Riku/Aqua/Ven etc. probably because if they were all free by the mid-game and he didn't do scenes with them, the fanbase would have gone nuts. So shoving it all at the end was really more convenience for him. Why he did it? I honestly think he did it because of the lost time from changing the engine and deadlines fast approaching. Nomura even admitted that KH3 was tough to do because there was so much to execute and so many things that people were hoping for. I actually feel like KH3 satisfied people's hopes across the board - even if minimally - meaning that every fan got a little something of what they wanted.

I think KH3 was the best that could have been done given the circumstances. The best thing about KH3 to me is that it really does give Nomura a reset and a chance to start fresh. Instead of hanging on to decades old storylines and lore, he can really tighten things up and use what he learned over the years to tell the story better. That's why I'm not coming down on him for future entries yet. If future games come out and he is still creating trios and clones of characters and have dozens of characters that go nowhere, then I will be more critical of him and the series.
thats basically a middle finger to the developer's who bothered putting that stuff in the game for you to play.



you are just projecting now



it makes sense because they told you they do so



thats wasnt a bad thing at all actually, i never said it was.



thats still not an excuse. fromsoftware was able to put out a new souls game every 2 years. and nowhere in SE's history did it take them more than 5 years to make a game
How is it a middle finger to the developers if I don't complete EVERYTHING in the game? I would think it would be more of a middle finger to them if I played an illegal copy of the game and didn't PAY for it. Would it be a middle finger to them if I bought the game then just stopped playing it or never even play it? Once I pay for the game, they shouldn't care what I do with it after.

I'm not projecting about people being pissed. I'm pretty sure that if ReMIND was included in vanilla KH3, people would be mad. Why do I assume this? Because people were mad that ReMIND was basically a replay of the last part of the game with new cutscenes and new playable characters.

Nobodies growing hearts didn't make sense just because the game said so. I think most people playing CoM/KH2/Days wondered how the Organization could be filled with being with no hearts - therefore no emotions - yet they were all colourful and at times emotional (see Axel/Roxas/Xion). Also, the lore was set up that nobodies were created from people with strong hearts. Just because they didn't explain nobodies in full detail from the get-go doesn't mean Nomura can't add to the lore. Do you get mad at JK Rowling because she didn't have Dumbledore immediately reveal that Tom Riddle's diary was a horcrux in the second book?

Just because some other studio is able to do something every 2 years, does that set the precedent for all studios? You don't know what the differences are behind the scenes between whoever does the SOULS games and KH games. One glaring factor that is easy to point out is the DISNEY factor. Nomura doesn't have the freedom to just do whatever he wants, every choice he makes has to be analyzed by DISNEY and approved - that already can be a massive delay. Not just story stuff, but design stuff too. If Elsa doesn't look right, they have to fix it, and so on.

Anyway, I don't think that KH is on the decline. It's actually the contrary. Maybe old fans have become jaded, which I understand, but KH3 actually brought in many new fans that don't have over ten years of waiting and heart ache attached to the series. Most of the new fans binge-played or even watched playthroughs online of the other games and then played only KH3. So I seriously doubt that KH is on the decline.
 

AmaryllisMoth

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this argument is dumb as shit considering most people here including me began playing the NA/EU release.

I mean it wasn't so much an "argument" as a statement of facts. The truth is, if you started playing the NA/EU release of kh1 first you were already playing an advanced version of the game with more content. I simply felt it was disingenuous to ignore the fact that vanilla kh1 post-game was vastly different between regions and to use it as an example of "good" post-game is shaky when only half the world got that content.
 
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No, I literally love Xehanort. He’s my favorite character and all iterations of him are included. You brought up how you didn’t like him, I said I don’t agree because he’s my favorite.
i gave my reasoning for not liking him but you fail to tell why you like him. you sound mentally ill tbh tbh, "literally" lol
 
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I think most people playing CoM/KH2/Days wondered how the Organization could be filled with being with no hearts - therefore no emotions - yet they were all colourful and at times emotional (see Axel/Roxas/Xion). Also, the lore was set up that nobodies were created from people with strong hearts. Just because they didn't explain nobodies in full detail from the get-go doesn't mean Nomura can't add to the lore.
he didnt add to the lore, he completely changed the reasoning of the previous games, why do you defend this so much? you sound like a sheep

o. I think most people playing CoM/KH2/Days wondered how the Organization could be filled with being with no hearts - therefore no emotions - yet they were all colourful and at times emotional (see Axel/Roxas/Xion).

they had memories and used those to imitate feelings. roxas could act emotional due to having a connection with sora and some argued he was using Ven's heart. Axel was just relying on his memories. Also, nobodies regrowing hearts competely beats the point of recompletion. if they have hearts and you kill them then they should die instead of being recompleted. They aren't rly "Nobodies" if they can just regrow a heart. Its all a plot convention to bring Xemnas back as a time travelling heart. With this new narrative Master Xehanort has Xemnas' heart inside of him

I'm pretty sure that if ReMIND was included in vanilla KH3, people would be mad. Why do I assume this? Because people were mad that ReMIND was basically a replay of the last part of the game with new cutscenes and new playable characters.

or maybe they were mad cause the new DLC content wasnt what they were hoping for?

behind the scenes between whoever does the SOULS games and KH games. One glaring factor that is easy to point out is the DISNEY factor. Nomura doesn't have the freedom to just do whatever he wants, every choice he makes has to be analyzed by DISNEY and approved - that already can be a massive delay. Not just story stuff, but design stuff too. If Elsa doesn't look right, they have to fix it, and so on.

thats a fair point. The games are always comprimising things which is why they are so bipolar and the story doesn't match the gameplay.
 

Elysium

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I mean it wasn't so much an "argument" as a statement of facts. The truth is, if you started playing the NA/EU release of kh1 first you were already playing an advanced version of the game with more content. I simply felt it was disingenuous to ignore the fact that vanilla kh1 post-game was vastly different between regions and to use it as an example of "good" post-game is shaky when only half the world got that content.
No offense, but even without the Phantom and Kurt Zisa bosses, KH1 would still be more strongly constructed than KH3 and especially KH2 were. That game still had the coliseum tournaments, trinities, White Mushrooms, and dalmatians side quests. And KH1's Normal Mode alone was more of a challenge than 2 or 3 on Proud, so...
 
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I mean it wasn't so much an "argument" as a statement of facts.

no reason to bring it up then

. I simply felt it was disingenuous to ignore the fact that vanilla kh1 post-game was vastly different between regions and to use it as an example of "good" post-game is shaky when only half the world got that content.

so Japan is half of the world now? lol, ok.
 
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