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Things you don't like about the series/hope will change?



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reimeille

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Ever since I was little (especially in my weeaboo phase), I insisted that Kingdom Hearts was the most perfect game ever and never seemed to notice any flaws with it.

Now that I'm 18, I see that there is a lot wrong with the series, and while I do still love it to death, there is so much I wish would be changed? What about you guys?

I could go on and on about my issues but I'd like to see other peoples responses first...
 

Divine Past

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Please give Sora and company a reason to care about disney worlds.
 

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Oh man...where to even start that kind of list. The series gathered so many issues to me that I had to just follow it casually to still care.

List:

-Keyblade Inheritance. I find this concept stupid. It was entirely unnecessary because we already had established reasons why keyblades choose people. It serves absolutely no purpose other than to try and make Terra and Aqua more important and more connected to the original group. (Kairi & Riku)
It didn't even need to done. Terra became Xehanort, Aqua is the reason Ansem found Xehanort and took him in, Aqua saved and met Kairi once, they was already as relevant as they needed to be. Birth by Sleep was meant to explain the Xehanort we saw in KH2 and it didn't need to be more or do more than that.

-Xblade. It took the mystical aspect of the keyblade away. Now every keyblade is a knock-off. It doesnt bother me as bad as the inheritance stuff but Xehanort just shrugging off BBS as him being "hasty" irks me.

-Heartless/Nobodies human selves returning. I realize it's not exactly new but I still do not like it. Xehanort is a troll so I could see him finding some BS to return one last time in KH3 but it feels just like an excuse to bring back everyone else just to have them.

-Days. A lot there I don't like. (unless it's the manga. the manga is beautiful~)

-Dream Drop Distance. That was such a clusterdiddly. Traveling to dreams? That honestly makes sense to me, it's Disney and everything is magical, but time travel? Hell no. That was something else entirely unnecessary and it is overly complicated.

-Xehanort. Interesting at first but now I kinda hate he ever came around. >_>

-Disney Worlds. I don't know what happened after KH1 but they've been nothing but filler since. Their continuous state of being empty of NPCs is also a gripe worth making.

--------

Got more but I'm to lazy to write them all. lol
 
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Blackdrazon

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Divine Past's point about the Disney Worlds is, to me, the biggest problem. That and poor irrelevant Kairi. Most anything else is going to seem smaller in the shadow of those two problems, considering they're so big they don't just hurt entire individual games, but multiple games.
 

redtutel

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I don't like how complicated and full of retcons the story became. I hope whatever story comes after the Xehanort arc will be more straightforward, with fewer midquels and unnecessary plot twists
 

Divine Past

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Divine Past's point about the Disney Worlds is, to me, the biggest problem. That and poor irrelevant Kairi. Most anything else is going to seem smaller in the shadow of those two problems, considering they're so big they don't just hurt entire individual games, but multiple games.

I did find it interesting trying to rank the main games in how well they used the Disney Worlds. Since I didn't play 3D or Coded I'll exclude them from this list.

1)KH1. I think this wins by default. Sora and by further extent Donald and Goofy had reasons to go to every world to seal a keyhole and look for their lost friends. The Disney villains were big threats to Sora so I can understand SDG taking a detour from looking for their friends to defeat the villain and seal the keyhole.

2)BBS:It's similar to KH1 in using the looking for friends reasons for the 3 heroes to visit worlds and it also let Terra and Ven get some character development via disney storylines which is nice.

3) Days I guess? Quite frankly I don't remember much from the Disney worlds except I have faint memories of Roxas getting character development and learning stuff about the worlds there. Due to self imposed limitation of not having Roxas interact with the disney cast much, there wasn't much potential here.

4)RE:COM. This was the definition of filler but given the limitation the game self imposed there wasn't much excitement that could have been produced.

5)KH2. This grade is mostly due to the failed potential. They could have had each organization member pull a Xaldin and control a disney world but nah let them have some scenes in the background. At Least SDG started the mission looking for Riku and Mickey so going to disney worlds made sense but after the 1,000 heartless battle it seems Sora lost all his ambition to find a way to save Kairi given that he might have mention that about 3 times in total before going to TWTNW. Sora found time to sing songs while Mickey/Riku/Kairi can be in major trouble. My favorite is at the end of the 2nd trip to Halloween town where Sora wonder out loud how bad of a gift giver and daydreamed dancing with Kairi while she was being held hostage by a group trying taking over the world and it never crossed Sora's mind of oh crap we need to hurry along to find her.

I can buy the excuse in KH1 of Sora not really in a rush to find Kairi because given his innocent mind, he could have thought there was a chance she was fine just like and Riku were and wasn't in trouble. That...didn't really apply 2nd half of KH2.
 

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Make Disney worlds interesting, especially reused ones. I want the flow of the plot to not get in the way of the Disney worlds like in KH2. After the Hollow Bastion siege I was too pumped and rushed through all the worlds just to get to the plot.
 

Blackdrazon

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I did find it interesting trying to rank the main games in how well they used the Disney Worlds. Since I didn't play 3D or Coded I'll exclude them from this list.

coded's Disney plots are mostly standalones, in a way cousins of KH1's weaker worlds. You know how in KH1, you occasionally saw the Heartless impact the situation, while almost every later game forgot the minor enemies existed? In coded, you really do see the impact of the glitches... but it doesn't go much deeper. Though it's phenomenal when Maleficent shows up at the end of Agrabah, essentially says "Hi no more of this crap, my turn now." and the Disney plots come to an abrupt end.

The game later looks back on its Disney plots during the ending chapters, which is a very nice touch, but does that stop the Disney worlds from being filler? It's like Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 1. The plots were mostly filler, but they became important to the plot later. Does that make them... not filler? This may be a controversial statement in ATLA circles, but I feel they're still filler, and Season 1 suffers for it. Season 2 and 3 deserve credit for elevating them. coded is the same way. The game is half fluff, the fact that the ending is good doesn't stop them from being fluff.

The first three worlds in DDD are there to build up a thematic base for the main plot, and to provide character development. It's not everybody's cup of tea, but I like it. The latter worlds are... about Mickey Mouse? They don't seem to have any relationship with the rest of the plot.
 
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redtutel

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I did find it interesting trying to rank the main games in how well they used the Disney Worlds. Since I didn't play 3D or Coded I'll exclude them from this list.

1)KH1. I think this wins by default. Sora and by further extent Donald and Goofy had reasons to go to every world to seal a keyhole and look for their lost friends. The Disney villains were big threats to Sora so I can understand SDG taking a detour from looking for their friends to defeat the villain and seal the keyhole.

2)BBS:It's similar to KH1 in using the looking for friends reasons for the 3 heroes to visit worlds and it also let Terra and Ven get some character development via disney storylines which is nice.

3) Days I guess? Quite frankly I don't remember much from the Disney worlds except I have faint memories of Roxas getting character development and learning stuff about the worlds there. Due to self imposed limitation of not having Roxas interact with the disney cast much, there wasn't much potential here.

4)RE:COM. This was the definition of filler but given the limitation the game self imposed there wasn't much excitement that could have been produced.

5)KH2. This grade is mostly due to the failed potential. They could have had each organization member pull a Xaldin and control a disney world but nah let them have some scenes in the background. At Least SDG started the mission looking for Riku and Mickey so going to disney worlds made sense but after the 1,000 heartless battle it seems Sora lost all his ambition to find a way to save Kairi given that he might have mention that about 3 times in total before going to TWTNW. Sora found time to sing songs while Mickey/Riku/Kairi can be in major trouble. My favorite is at the end of the 2nd trip to Halloween town where Sora wonder out loud how bad of a gift giver and daydreamed dancing with Kairi while she was being held hostage by a group trying taking over the world and it never crossed Sora's mind of oh crap we need to hurry along to find her.

I can buy the excuse in KH1 of Sora not really in a rush to find Kairi because given his innocent mind, he could have thought there was a chance she was fine just like and Riku were and wasn't in trouble. That...didn't really apply 2nd half of KH2.


Since I did play 3D and Coded, I put 3D between Birth By Sleep and Days. The Mark of Mastery Exam involved waking up the sleeping worlds by exploring the worlds' dreams, and these worlds either play with the idea of dreams, sleep and memory (like Symphony of Sorcery) tie into the themes of the game (like Prankster's Paradise the Grid).
Kingdom Hearts Coded takes place in a digitized version of Jimminy's Journal, so much like Chain of Memories, there is a reason for the Disney worlds, but it is mostly just filler.
 

Blackdrazon

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these worlds either play with the idea of dreams, sleep and memory (like Symphony of Sorcery)

Yeah, this is a fair way of reading Symphony of Sorcery, though I still feel Country of the Musketeer is just disconnected. But that's okay. Some filler is always fine. All filler is the problem.
 

reimeille

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Okay, I have more but here are most (lol)

The lack of different female characters: I notice that if you were to line up every exclusive female character in the series (standing at a whopping 7), only Olette and Larxene (and sorta Aqua) have any difference from the rest. All of the others are simply allusions or connections to Kairi, with no one able to hold their own. I'd like to see more girls in any form: villains, allies, shopkeepers, whatever! Suprising how many female fans there are and yet I don't ever hear this...

Cheesy dialogue: Characters always explain far too much (never letting the enviroment or feeling of the moment explain anything), occasionally are repetitive and always stick the the same shtick. Sora love his homies, Xehanort likes darkness, Kairi misses Sora. No one ever has side dialogue that gives more insight into them, or ever speaks casually. Disney has proven themselves beyond simple talk like this, so I don't know what's taking KH so long to follow suit.

My most loathed thing is when someone says something "funny" and everyone stiffs up and does this awful group-laugh as the scene fades out.

Lacking relationships/interactions: For a series that puts so much weight on friendships, it doesn't seem like many characters have any impacting interactions. We're just told they are friends, get a flashback scene of them group-laughing once in a while, and we're supposed to believe that they'd all die for each other. The most striking to me was TVA; I found nothing deep in their relationship and the only reason I knew they really cared about each other was because their bios told me that they do. Because of this I found it hard to really get involved with the story near the end, and only felt bad because of what each went through as an individual (like poor sweet Ventus getting screwed over by his teacher).

The only friendship I found myself invested in is Isa/Saix and Lea/Axel's because of the tensions they end up developing, and the similarities between their childhood relationship to ones I've had growing up, which is more of a personal bias. Also, Axel's and Roxas's because we actually saw it from the beginning and can see why they are close. The extra help from the secret reports written by Axel also were nice.

We also don't get much backstory on anything, making it difficult to understand why people are the way they are (i.e. how they grew up or where they grew up)

One-sided personalities: Everyone suffers from this! I've never really noticed it but everyone's personality is so flat with the exception of Riku. Some personalities I still like for the archetype they bring to story -- most obvious for me is Xigbar/Braig; not really much to him besides "I'm willing to give myself up for a keyblade and I won't ever tell you why [add snarky comment]", but I love that about him. However when most of the cast is a victim of this it becomes a bit old. No one ever doubts what they do, what they believe; no one ever seems to have fears besides just losing to the other side.

It bothers me the most on Sora because he is always described as having a big heart and being open to people. But I notice he has no sympathy for anything except the general good civilians and sticks to Eraqus's similar bullcrap notion of "LIGHT ONLY". It killed me dead when Sora never even once considers the plight of the nobodies... Yeah, they're after him and okay some of them are nasty dudes but, you'd have to be heartless to not even for a moment feel bad when Saix sadly asked for his heart when he disappeared in KH2. I'd have been heartbroken for him, even though he was a general ass (especially when he made Sora get on his knees and beg, and then was like "NO, LOL."). In the end many of them just wanted to feel validated or alive and were grasping at whatever they could to get it, and yet supposedly kind as Sora is, he does not ever listen or even reflect on it afterwards.

The more I replay the games, the less I like Sora, to be honest.

TL;DR: Need more female characters that aren't pseudo-Kairi, characters need more realistic personal interactions, stop making everyone so static
 

Blackdrazon

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Lacking relationships/interactions: For a series that puts so much weight on friendships, it doesn't seem like many characters have any impacting interactions.

You just reminded me of something that made my jaw drop when I replayed KH2: Sora had never heard of Daisy prior to mid-way through KH2. In CoM we see that Donald likes to keep that sort of thing to himself - even when he's worried about who he might forget, he doesn't bring Daisy up (because it would be inconvenient to the writers)... but holy shit, you never mentioned your significant other to your new "best friend!" I can't even decide which relationship is really faulty here: Donald and Daisy, or Donald and Sora!
 

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You just reminded me of something that made my jaw drop when I replayed KH2: Sora had never heard of Daisy prior to mid-way through KH2. In CoM we see that Donald likes to keep that sort of thing to himself - even when he's worried about who he might forget, he doesn't bring Daisy up (because it would be inconvenient to the writers)... but holy shit, you never mentioned your significant other to your new "best friend!" I can't even decide which relationship is really faulty here: Donald and Daisy, or Donald and Sora!

Donald witnessing what happen to female's in the series rightly thought he'll keep Daisy a secret.
 

Absent

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Okay, I have more but here are most (lol)

The lack of different female characters: I notice that if you were to line up every exclusive female character in the series (standing at a whopping 7), only Olette and Larxene (and sorta Aqua) have any difference from the rest. All of the others are simply allusions or connections to Kairi, with no one able to hold their own. I'd like to see more girls in any form: villains, allies, shopkeepers, whatever! Suprising how many female fans there are and yet I don't ever hear this...

Cheesy dialogue: Characters always explain far too much (never letting the enviroment or feeling of the moment explain anything), occasionally are repetitive and always stick the the same shtick. Sora love his homies, Xehanort likes darkness, Kairi misses Sora. No one ever has side dialogue that gives more insight into them, or ever speaks casually. Disney has proven themselves beyond simple talk like this, so I don't know what's taking KH so long to follow suit.

My most loathed thing is when someone says something "funny" and everyone stiffs up and does this awful group-laugh as the scene fades out.

Lacking relationships/interactions: For a series that puts so much weight on friendships, it doesn't seem like many characters have any impacting interactions. We're just told they are friends, get a flashback scene of them group-laughing once in a while, and we're supposed to believe that they'd all die for each other. The most striking to me was TVA; I found nothing deep in their relationship and the only reason I knew they really cared about each other was because their bios told me that they do. Because of this I found it hard to really get involved with the story near the end, and only felt bad because of what each went through as an individual (like poor sweet Ventus getting screwed over by his teacher).

The only friendship I found myself invested in is Isa/Saix and Lea/Axel's because of the tensions they end up developing, and the similarities between their childhood relationship to ones I've had growing up, which is more of a personal bias. Also, Axel's and Roxas's because we actually saw it from the beginning and can see why they are close. The extra help from the secret reports written by Axel also were nice.

We also don't get much backstory on anything, making it difficult to understand why people are the way they are (i.e. how they grew up or where they grew up)

One-sided personalities: Everyone suffers from this! I've never really noticed it but everyone's personality is so flat with the exception of Riku. Some personalities I still like for the archetype they bring to story -- most obvious for me is Xigbar/Braig; not really much to him besides "I'm willing to give myself up for a keyblade and I won't ever tell you why [add snarky comment]", but I love that about him. However when most of the cast is a victim of this it becomes a bit old. No one ever doubts what they do, what they believe; no one ever seems to have fears besides just losing to the other side.

It bothers me the most on Sora because he is always described as having a big heart and being open to people. But I notice he has no sympathy for anything except the general good civilians and sticks to Eraqus's similar bullcrap notion of "LIGHT ONLY". It killed me dead when Sora never even once considers the plight of the nobodies... Yeah, they're after him and okay some of them are nasty dudes but, you'd have to be heartless to not even for a moment feel bad when Saix sadly asked for his heart when he disappeared in KH2. I'd have been heartbroken for him, even though he was a general ass (especially when he made Sora get on his knees and beg, and then was like "NO, LOL."). In the end many of them just wanted to feel validated or alive and were grasping at whatever they could to get it, and yet supposedly kind as Sora is, he does not ever listen or even reflect on it afterwards.

The more I replay the games, the less I like Sora, to be honest.

TL;DR: Need more female characters that aren't pseudo-Kairi, characters need more realistic personal interactions, stop making everyone so static


Agree with everything, especially the bold. How am I suppose to care about their friendship when the game barely addresses it. Its so weird how they go from the Day's dynamic to BBS's forced chemistry.
 

Blackdrazon

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Donald witnessing what happen to female's in the series rightly thought he'll keep Daisy a secret.

Headcanon'd. And probably very wise.


Agree with everything, especially the bold. How am I suppose to care about their friendship when the game barely addresses it. Its so weird how they go from the Day's dynamic to BBS's forced chemistry.

This is... cutting, but true. Days' biggest success (among a lot of failures) is that its dynamic usually works. BBS, I can put myself into the position I'm supposed to be seeing things from, but it so rarely works (only really towards the end) that I feel like I'm running a puppet show all on my own?

Though with BBS, I feel one of the issues is that the characters themselves take a while to define. I feel more emotional about their relationships once I care more about them. After I've seen Aqua flip off Zack to fight a tag-team boss on her own, after seeing Ven in situations where he seems happy with new friends instead of pouty with family, and after seeing Terra stand up to Eraqus.

There's a writing lesson for you: relationships don't work until the individuals work.
 
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reimeille

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I don't like how complicated and full of retcons the story became. I hope whatever story comes after the Xehanort arc will be more straightforward, with fewer midquels and unnecessary plot twists

This is one of my biggest gripes for sure. I felt like the midquels were particularly useless and only succeeded in making the story more convoluted than it already was, lol. The only one I could somewhat tolerate is 358/2 for fleshing out Roxas, Axel and the Organization as a whole. But I felt like adding Xion was needless especially since she wasn't that great of a character anyways.

I hope most future side games are non-canon. Or like Chi where they don't do all this ridiculous canon warping and stuffing a single section of a timeline, but are still relevant.
 

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Great point about the revisits to the worlds in KH2 in relation to the plot. With the exception of Beasts Castle and Land of Dragons, they all come off as cheap direct-to-video sequels with no significance to the plot.
 

DarkGrey Heroine

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Sometimes I just can't believe how much KH fans can complain about their favourite game xD I honestly can't complain about it, I love this series, and if there is anything similar to a complaint inside my head, then I'd rather call it a "wish" as I wish for that thing to better in future games... Hmm... let's see what "complaints" I can squeeze out of my brain..
Give Kairi more personality and more importance. DUH. This one is something every KH fan has in common.
Make the good guy consider the bad guy's true reasons/feelings AT LEAST AFTER KILLING HIM . (Yeah, but this is just because I'm a Vanitas fan. I try to make it interfere with my opinions as little as possible.............................................................................................it's hard. I'll never forgive Ventus for that stupid and ignorant smile he wore on his face while Vanitas had desperation and sadness on his own. At least look at what you've done, Ventus, doesn't his expression make you think twice about it? That moment I had a change of heart: I was a Ventus fan and the next moment, I turned into a Vanitas fan, but forgot everything about it until recently..)
NO MORE RECYCLED WORLDS. NO MORE RECYCLING KH1. Seriously, KH1 got recycled in CoM and re:Coded enough already.
No more "all hail KH1" stuff, there's too much nostalgia influence here, it's almost worse than the nostalgia in the Pokemon fandom
Uh...what more...
..
.......
...
..

I start to remember..
..how much fun I had with each game, so I can't really find things nearing the 'shape' of a complaint. All the other things are wishes and expectations for KH3, that's all
 

Blackdrazon

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Great point about the revisits to the worlds in KH2 in relation to the plot. With the exception of Beasts Castle and Land of Dragons, they all come off as cheap direct-to-video sequels with no significance to the plot.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: it's not the second trip that's the shitty filler, it's the first one. The one that has nothing to do with the main plot, the one that recycles plots from Disney films I've already seen...

Sometimes I just can't believe how much KH fans can complain about their favourite game xD

Showing critical awareness isn't just a basic media literacy skill. It's what facilitates the product of better work, it's what stands as protection against manipulative media techniques as well. To not seek out any problems in a work is essentially to say "I am not aware of the product I am consuming," and I don't feel I really could say I thought of something as a "favourite" if I was not aware of its flaws as well as its successes. Or in another way: the delusion of perfection is the foundation of ill action. Or a third way: those who do not learn from history...

As a friend once said in a discussion thread for my favourite game: "It's like we don't even like the thing." Because we know what we like, we know why we like it, we know what fuelled that like and what impeded it. It's because we liked it enough to pay attention.

There's also just the simple fact that what's good doesn't need to be said, because it is obvious.
 

Some guy

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Sometimes I just can't believe how much KH fans can complain about their favourite game xD I honestly can't complain about it, I love this series, and if there is anything similar to a complaint inside my head, then I'd rather call it a "wish" as I wish for that thing to better in future games... Hmm... let's see what "complaints" I can squeeze out of my brain..
Give Kairi more personality and more importance. DUH. This one is something every KH fan has in common.
Make the good guy consider the bad guy's true reasons/feelings AT LEAST AFTER KILLING HIM . (Yeah, but this is just because I'm a Vanitas fan. I try to make it interfere with my opinions as little as possible.............................................................................................it's hard. I'll never forgive Ventus for that stupid and ignorant smile he wore on his face while Vanitas had desperation and sadness on his own. At least look at what you've done, Ventus, doesn't his expression make you think twice about it? That moment I had a change of heart: I was a Ventus fan and the next moment, I turned into a Vanitas fan, but forgot everything about it until recently..)
NO MORE RECYCLED WORLDS. NO MORE RECYCLING KH1. Seriously, KH1 got recycled in CoM and re:Coded enough already.
No more "all hail KH1" stuff, there's too much nostalgia influence here, it's almost worse than the nostalgia in the Pokemon fandom
Uh...what more...
..
.......
...
..

I start to remember..
..how much fun I had with each game, so I can't really find things nearing the 'shape' of a complaint. All the other things are wishes and expectations for KH3, that's all
I agree with everything you said.

... But Vanitas was so mean to Ven, and he hurt Aqua ... Of course Ven will enjoy Vanitas' demise (does this sound psychopathic enough?)
 
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