i m glad he stated these goals it relives me alot

Not too excited about the mobile aspect, but oh well... especially ones the West end up not getting.

More than likely, this sort of mindset can help to push the series to new heights, as well as continue to improve the quality of future games through these goals, so that's kind of exciting.

Yeah, I remember when I saw the trailer and at the end it said, "KH3 news will be at this Winter," my friend was upset and was saying, "Dude, why even tease us by showing the logo if you're not saying anything?" But honestly, it's true that if they DID talk about KH3 at all at E3, it would have overshadowed 2.8 hardcore. Yet they still had to include that "Hey, just so you know, we know you guys want to hear more about KH3, just be patient" part at the end of the trailer or else they would never hear the end of it.

Show your friend the Dengeki interview where Nomura revealed the intentions behind that message.

Right now people think II.8 is a throw away useless title that is stalling KH3 which is absolutely incorrect. They need to get word out there that 2 out of 3 of the content included is brand new and it's all for their precious KH3.

While I'm sure this is true there are also people who know that 2.8 is "important" but resent it for adding another layer of backstory to the mudcake that is KH's mythology. A lot of the reason I've heard people clamor for KH3 is not because they think it's being delayed, but because the longer it takes to come out the more time there is for Nomura and co. to decide we need another superfluous game to serve as a building block towards an increasingly alien endgame which seems perpetually out on the horizon somewhere as opposed to a concrete idea which is being firmly established with each new development. And this interview...kind of makes that perspective feel prescient. The three main ideas when developing KH3 were...all related to more effectively marketing the franchise and "pushing it" into the future? I don't know, as a fan I'm hopeful that the emphasis was to create a satisfying narrative and gaming experience which realizes an appropriate conclusion rather than breaking into the mobile market even at the risk of unnaturally prolonging this saga's lifespan.

FWIW I am grateful for the HD Remixes, though my jealous collector's side hopes they aren't undercut by an especially appealing PS4 set...

Except they would have gotten all of this anyway. If Nomura didn't break 0.2 and DDD off from his plans for KHIII we would have gone a truly bloated experience.

"The KH3 I had first envisioned got too big volume-wise, so I cut the details between the new journey and KH2, and KH3D and KH0.2 were born. "

Never mind simply being bloated. Think about how rushed all of these stories probably would become if everything was crammed into a single game. The story would stay just as complicated as always, but it would probably become even more incomprehensible and poorly told.

Three words: Kill your darlings.

We can't speak for 0.2 yet, but the majority of the events of DDD don't change anything in terms of the long term outlook of the story. Xehanort's ultimate plan remains pretty much exactly the same with the addition of some needless convolutions (like 13 darknesses and 7 lights, we have a third way to summon/access KH now just because) and its "impact" on the story is mainly rooted in circular logic-- for instance, the character of Young Xehanort only really serves the purpose of filling in as one of those darknesses, otherwise he never would have needed to be introduced into the plot. The time travel plot device only serves the purpose of making Young Xehanort's inclusion in the story possible. Etc. etc.

As for X, the other part of the 2/3 new content making up 2.8, even Nomura called the original PC title a spin-off in early interviews (of course, that's after he explicitly and repeatedly stated he wasn't interested in making a game about the Keyblade War, so...). It wasn't intended to have any bearing on the main plot and now that it does fans have to contend with yet more mythological baggage which comes off as increasingly superficial given how casually it's decided that games will be made to "tie into KH3" at this point.

Personally, to me it's a question of merit: is something offered through a game which the story would be irreconcilably different without? I accepted BBS/Days/Coded as a legitimate trilogy which doubled as an experiment in world building, character development and (primarily for BBS) set up for the last chapter in this saga. There was a clear culmination of ideas threaded between all of them. DDD undercut a lot of that imo, and now X/Back Cover appears to be making the case that the series should refocus on a series of events which, sans yet another subversion of the plot as it has been established, should have really limited bearing on anything that has happened thus far.

I'm not in a hurry to get KH3, personally, and I don't really care if the series wants to read like The Silmarillion but there are fans out there who find the retread of the same narrative antics tiresome and I guess I just don't find the series' reputation to be unearned in that regard.

I think I gotta have to agree with this on most points.

With Blank Points from BBS, the ending of Re: Coded and Signs of what's next, Re: Coded's first secret ending, we already had a setup and prospect for KH III that established both the "rescue the suffering ones" and "return of Xehanort" points to serve as the main driving force.
BBS FM gave us the Fragmentary Passage teaser with the prospect of several gaps in the already existing story being filled and allowing to see the viewpoints of other characters and thus giving them much needed additional focus and screentime.

All the whole X-stuff, no matter how possibly intriguing, cute or well done does nothing but add further baggage to the already bloated mythology. There are still so many unanswered questions and open mysteries from the previous games that there would be clearly enough material to weave an interesting story out of without needing to add anything from X[chi]. Furthermore, X[chi] also adds yet another bunch of new characters to an already bloated, mostly only half-developed cast of major original characters and makes it even harder to properly focus on the characters as individuals.

I get that Square wants to have a foot in the mobile market, but they could have easily done that by letting X[chi] remain a mostly non-canon, free to play and lighthearted true little spin-off. Nomura's apparent need to connect everyone and everything to the main overaching story may start to hurt the whole package as the often lackluster writing of the games does not manage to integrate and present all these elements in a satisfying way for the audience.

2.8 could have been easily the true BBS v2 holding all the potential gap filling material alongside DDD HD and thus have possibly a playable Riku and Mickey in the new KH III system as well.
As for the "movie" part of the package, they could have covered the year Terra-Xehanort was an apprentice under Ansem the Wise with the POV switching between (possibly) amnesiac Xehanort (maybe including some additional mental "battle" scenes between Master Xehanort and Terra inside the new Xehanort, giving Terra much needed screentime and possible more depth), Ansem the Wise himself and either Leon, Aerith, Cid or one of the other FF cameos to provide the view of a regular Radiant Garden citizen.
This would also have allowed more appearances and insight on already existing characters like Braig, Aeleus, Ienzo, Even, Dilan, Isa and Lea and if done correctly water people's mouths for the possible roles all these characters might take in the upcoming KH III.
There is enough material for an one hour movie in this time period as well and they could even sneak in a preview for one or more possible new FF cameos.
The finale of that piece would then obviously be Maleficent's invasion.

Instead we get X[chi] with the usual prophecy of doomy dooms cliché and a cast of characters that is majorily either totally unrelated to the current storyline (as they should all be dead by the current time period) or just another set of clones forcibly "connected" to the main characters somehow.
At least for me, the only universally positive things coming from X[chi] are Chirithy, Apocalypse-Coaty and his damn sass, Skuld and Ephemera.

Instead we get X[chi] with the usual prophecy of doomy dooms cliché and a cast of characters that is majorily either totally unrelated to the current storyline (as they should all be dead by the current time period) or just another set of clones forcibly "connected" to the main characters somehow. At least for me, the only universally positive things coming from X[chi] are Chirithy, Apocalypse-Coaty and his damn sass, Skuld and Ephemera.

While I was disappointed about KH3 not being at the E3 at first, I'm starting to understand the reasons. I've never seen 2.8 as a useless "filler"-title, but I realize many people do. So if there had been KH3, many wouldn't give a damn about 2.8 anymore and that's something the game really wouldn't deserve.

I;m pretty sure that Kingdom Hearts delving into the mobile market is an impulse response to the booming mobile gaming industry in Japan.

Exactly, which is why 0.2 makes sense from a narrative standpoint. I'm actually glad it's not a full-sized game, hopefully that will keep its purpose on point so that we get more answers than questions.


It would have also precluded the need to answer definitively whether or not X represents the facts of the Keyblade War as it happened. Part of the appeal of that kind of mythological setup is that it remain mysterious and "legendary," emphasizing the role it plays in determining what characters (like MX, King Triton, etc.) believe about the world they live in. A fairy-tale like spin-off about the Keyblade War as it may have been passed down in stories and legends would have still left room for the audience's imagination to do the important work of reading into the material.


Brilliant. Imagine that, a KH story which actually provides answers while expanding the role of its secondary characters so that they seem more like people than plot points heading into the final chapter. No, we definitely needed another round table of one-note fantasy avatars cryptically spouting lore.
Maleficent's invasion of Radiant Garden will never get a proper depiction in the franchise despite being replete with dramatic potential. The FF characters + Merlin leading a resistance against the darkness, Cloud becoming separated from the others, who knows if Sephiroth got involved at some point...


FWIW I do think the Book of Prophecies is an interesting bit of lore and I hope it lends Maleficent some villainous material to work with in KH3 but it would be so much better if we didn't actually know where it came from.

As much as I enjoy the complexity of the series, I do agree that the secondary characters haven't gotten enough focus and could have used more screen time. Hopefully KH3 will rectify that. And who knows? If BBS 0.2 can have illusions of things that happened in worlds before they were destroyed, perhaps that could be used to provide glimpses into the early days of Maleficent's little villain club, or the early days of the Organization, since I'm sure they had a hand in a few more destroyed worlds besides Radiant Garden. THAT is something I really want to see in 0.2

When it comes to Chi, I'm kind of conflicted. Ever since we saw that BbS teaser and then soon after, learned about the 'keyblade war', I always wanted to know more about it. I didn't want a GAME about it per say, I thought something like that would be perfect as a self contained movie that wasn't too attached to the plot other than it being in the past and part of the lore... and what do you know, we get a movie about it.

I'm not sure how I feel about it being so integral to the future plot? Again, I'm quite conflicted. I like the reincarnation theory (not like, copy and paste characters, just the vague similarities is interesting to me), but at the same time, I feel like Nomura has too much fun making his 'spin offs' so relevant to his plots. He could have easily left Chi in lala spin-off land, but he always seems to grow fond of everything related to KH and makes it more important that it needed to be.

That said, after all the stuff he alluded to in KH2... I felt that games like BbS, DDD, and maybe even 0.2 were kind of necessary. As much as I enjoyed KH2, whenever I look back on it, I can't help but feel they tried to smack way too much stuff together. If they had done the same thing with KH3...

I mean, I wouldn't mind if they committed to making a super long game. Can you imagine, a KH game that's over 100 hours. (ok, maybe that's too exaggerated, but HEY) Maybe as technology advances, Nomura will have more space to fit these stories into less games.

As an example (ignoring how obvious the 'endings' are),
KH1 and CoM could have been one game
358/2 Days and KH2 could have been one game
BbS and 0.2 (volume 2) could have been one game.

As for Coded... not really sure where it fits in the grand scheme of things with this formula. And Chi could have truly been left to just a cool Kingdom Hearts movie.

Do you guys think that story was stretched too thin giving the illusion that ti was convoluted and confusing?

The "illusion" of it being convoluted and confusing comes more from the story not actually being told through the primary medium enough and mediocre script writing that hurts the overall ability to grasp it.
The mythology and lore was indeed vastly expanded, but it was done with a seriously shitty presentation and way too perfunctory on some fronts leading to a somewhat halfbaked result.

I'm sure if there were less games and they were mostly on a home console, people would shut up about it being IMPOSSIBLE to understand. It's convoluted yeah, but it's not ridiculously so. If you just play the games, you might misinterpret things (like, one might come to the conclusion that Ven is the one who gave Sora the ability to wield the keyblade when that is not the case), but it's not really that big of a deal.

Maybe I'm too deep in it, but I can't think of anything super ridiculous that happened in game that Nomura had to explain in an interview because the game just finished with no explanation ever (not counting something that was explained in a later game)

You know, I feel like sometimes developers are in a tough situation. People want to play more of your game, but you can only write so much about your main character and main villain right? Sometimes, you want to fill in the spaces and some fans will appreciate that and love almost everything you do with it. But not only do you risk the chance of your story becoming a little confusing and bloated, you run into fans who are 'purest' and insist only the MAIN games are important which kind of hinders how much you can reference other games in the series, which will confuse purest even more (note: How little KH2 referenced CoM and many people not knowing Namine's importance or some of the organization members, it's gonna be 10 times worse now than not knowing a few characters)

They really tried by putting all the games on one console... but I guess we'll see how effective it's gonna be. I think they were trying to save themselves the headache of purest spitting on the 'side games'. But yes, some of this could have been avoided if the games were a little more compressed over the years. I never quite liked the idea of "One KH game a year" goal that Nomura gave himself.

Even I was getting somewhat confused at the lore when the games were being released on other systems. Your explanation makes sense, I knew there was a reason why the series wasn't that confusing but I couldn't put it into words.



They tried with the Remix games but some of the players who use to play KH when they were kids/teens and even some fans have moved on. The series lore was being filled up with portable games but I kind of suspect that some players just wanted another KH on the console.