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Specific Points You Were Disappointed In KH3



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FudgemintGuardian

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Welp, here goes.

Kairi: Nuff said, KH III Kairi WAS the biggest joke of 2019 and potentially one of the biggest ones in gaming in general. Hyped them up only to repeat the same thing they've already been doing with her and that has sparked criticism since 2006. The fact that the journal states that she and Lea were "unprepared and unexperienced" and that's why they got the shaft completely clashes with the very same reason why they were training in a different dimension underlines just how no one in the writing team has any interest in seeing Kairi as more than a romantic interest and a damsel in distress.

Lea: Basically the complaints Kairi gets, it's baffling how the cold and calculating killer who was the true diabolical mastermind in CoM in KH III is a comic relief character who during what was supposed to be his big fight concerning Saix Roxas and Xion literally stands on the sidelines making sad faces.

Keyblade: That Keyblade lore proves to be retconned and inconsistent is nothing new, but inconsistent within THE SAME GAME, that's a whole new level. Riku lost the Keyblade that (and I quote) Ansem the Wise describes as the very memento of his redemption arc, a testament of the newfound strenght he got in hope, because a swirling tornado of shadows was too stronk, and he literally laughs it off, getting a replacement not from his heart or some important event, but by taking ANOTHER Keyblade Yen Sid had somewhere off-screen. Keyblade also looks ugly as sin.
Lea has his Keyblade broken (also got called a fake but no further contextual clue was given) and a couple scenes later he has it again.
Mickey's is so nonsensical and doesn't ultimately add anything that I don't even want to describe it. He could've just stuck with Kingdom Key D and it wouldn't have made any difference.
The X-Blade is formed by 20 warriors fighting one another... no wait: now you just need the hearts, even if plucked from the person... no wait: now it's a clash again, except even just crossing the blades once is enough to constitute as a clash, but it works only once... no wait: now all the clash does is generating a No Name Keyblade, when 13 No Names are together they turn into the X-Blade.
The X-Blade somehow has less powers and attacks than the BbS version.

Main characters: At least Kairi and Lea are far from alone in the sad corner. Terra, Ventus, Roxas, Xion, got so little screentime I start wondering if I didn't immensely misunderstood what BbS and Days were about and if I was INTENDED to gain that these guys were a one and done time only.
Terra has no interaction with anyone, including Riku and Xehanort. LW in KH II Final Mix had more lines of dialogue.
...LW in KH III has more lines of dialogue, almost.
Ventus' journey was all about meeting friends and promising to come back to them and nothing about that gets done (though admitedly Hercules was probably all that remained for him in KH III). Also he's as generic as BbS did NOT make him out to be.
Xion is a Nort and it's not explained in the game whatsoever and we had to wait a month to read what that was about.
Riku himself wasn't in the most flattering of roles, but I guess he can't really complain after looking at what others got.
Roxas has this one big scene, doesn't fight Xemnas which I deem almost criminal (I never bought this "Xemnas is Sora's archnemesis" talk) and proceeds to have an auto-battle that wins itself. People have defended it by claiming it's a scripted fight commonly found in jrpgs, but still. One thing is having Cloud in KH II destroying generic Heartless before you can get to them, another is having an AI-controlled Roxas who just robs you of an Org member fight.

Aqua: She deserves her own topic. "Aquanort" is such a bait. An "Anti" that doesn't look like all the other "Antis", dressed up as a possessed/Nort I can only assume on purpose to stir hype. Her own corruption story doesn't lead anywhere, goes against what 0.2 brought to the table and was spoiled to no end. Not counting leaks but only promotional material, we see Aqua attacking Guardian and Ansem without a Keyblade, getting grabbed and thrown, appearing as Anti-Aqua, getting the Keyblade, attacking Riku, we saw gameplay footage of Sora fighting her, and his hand reaching to hers.
Nomura even went on record saying that's all they could show, which I totally believe.
They couldn't show anything else because there really wasn't anything more to it.

Handling the cast: The Guardians should've been allies to bring around and interact with even before being playable, that's what the Gummiphone should've been about. Instead, Aqua doesn't even pose (not a true JoJo fan).
I could go on and describe what each character could've added to the experience but I've been told I make people sad and depressed when I do it.

Villains or presumed as such: Vanitas became the one-dimensional arsehole his haters always claimed he was. So much potential wasted for no apparent reason.
Xemnas doesn't talk anymore about Ventus and the Chamber which was supposed to be the thing that drove him for years.
Vexen has a redemption arc that doesn't fit him at all and isn't explained in the slightest. Someone should tell Nomura that having evil characters you love to hate isn't a crime. Also his character arc is the same exact one Saix has.
Ienzo fueled at least 20 YT channels with theories about all that he possibly knew and do to counter Xemnas and Xehanort, and ended up being the Grand Central Station of Expositionary Dialogue, in the most boring way possible.
Demyx straight up disappears without a sound.
Xemnas suddenly discovers he loves his pals and that comes out of complete nowhere.

Isa/Saix: Also deserves his own thing because screw him, seriously. Remember Severus Snape and how people who worshipped him as a saint who did nothing wrong after the last book got rightfully mocked because Snape, while a hero, was also a bad person who loved sadistically abusing and tormenting 11 year old kids without a reason? Yeah, that's how Isa/Saix be.
Isa took part in the 10 year-long Heartless invasion and world corruption started by the Organization and Ansem, kept messing with the world order, humiliated and emotionally tormented Sora and Roxas, kidnapped Kairi and did to Xion... well, what Snape did to Neville Longbottom: emotional and psychological abuse of the highest grade.
All of this because he was jealous. After helping out (read as: sending other equally repentant members to do the actual work) the good guys he still shows up at the final battle and doesn't hold back at all. When it's all said and done, he doesn't acknowledge or apologizes for anything he's done, says he's jealous and claims he won't even say it again and disappears.
His absolution comes at the hands of Lea, who while tied to him was, also because of this, the least qualified person to do so (what about Roxas and Xion?), and after that I have to put up with him frolicking happily with a bunch of children he either doesn't know at all or tried to hurt.
I know the fanfic scene is huge about him and his possible futures, and as long as that stays there I'm totally cool with it, but as far as I'm concerned he just worked as a boss I wanted to fight against.
Screw Isa.

Not a very Organized Organization: Master Xehanort doesn't foresee and accounts for anything this time around. The vessels only interact for twirling moustache-evil discourses or for admitedly good banter and that's it. Also they're still pretty much relegated in pre-established groups so we were denied the beauty of a Xemnas-Terranort, Luxord-Young or Vanitas-Larxene interaction.
The game utterly fails in giving you a sense of menace and threat from these guys and a reason to go and fight them, also due to the fact of still not really understanding what they can/can't, should/shouldn't and will/won't do. Everytime one vessel speaks about it, it only makes it even more confusing such as when Terranort mentions they could just use their hearts and that only opens up a bunch of new questions.
The final fight segment is so empty. The scenery is great, but Master Xehanort has like 3 moves total and the fight is a huge block and punish when you can (so rarely).

Context, please: Even admitedly good ideas and concepts such as the Final World would really benefit from a more consistent and satisfying explanation instead of just abruptly happening. A lot of stuff just gets imposed onto the player with no real context or agency to it (nor consequences for the most part). Especially towards the end, instead of a fluid narration it just seems a bunch of different what if scenarios.
Kingdom Hearts gets fully unleashed and nothing happens. If something does happen, it happens off-screen and far from us.
Whatever Ansem did in KH1 was much more telling in what it was and several times more disastrous and effective.
What even is Scala, why and how are we there and why should it matter to me.

Union, but not quite: The X Girl gets mentioned but acts more as a hole-filler than an actual answer to many questions, also because it's a new mystery in itself.
Xigbar is Luxu, proving anyone can literally be anyone and no clues will ever be given to the player.
Maleficent and Pete got sent on a goose chase that explained nothing more about the box and only served to take them both away from the main adventure.
Demyx, Larxene, Marluxia and Luxord get a tease about their past, then the scene abruptly ends when the writers realized had they kept going it wouldn't have been a mysterious mystery anymore. Luxord deserved better for his Ux tie reveal.
"May your heart be your guiding key" has been retconned as something Yen Sid kept saying all along just very quietly and I'm left wondering if there's even some tiny speck of the first games Nomura likes the way it is and doesn't feel like changing.
KH was always about getting the next chapter started, I can't honestly say that giving Ux space in KH III is that much different than KH II FM talking (and showing) the BbS stuff. The only problem is that KH II still told its own story plus some. A bunch of stuff in KH III gets "non-solved" by dropping elements that don't actually answer anything and are just there to say "Yo, download Union X if you haven't already."

New lore pillars: Game really wants us to care about the Power of Waking and new Princesses of Heart who don't even do anything yet.
The Power of Waking muddles the whole narrative and it's more annoying and cumbersome than anything, Sora gets sent on a journey that clearly has nothing to do with it, so the first 20-30 hours are just a huge and easily foreseeable fail in getting it back.
Sora then gets the Power back in a way that only underlines how it could've been done from the very beginning easily.

Disney: Zeus' grand entrance in the series is as shallow as they come, doesn't interact with SDG and only plays the two scenes he has in the movie. Hades gets robbed of a great fight for the saga he's been a part of since forever.
There is an entire thread still ongoing about the flaws in Corona and Arendelle.
Monsters Inc. surprises us all in just how little any of us cares in visiting the factory portion of the movie rather than the town or the lively parts of the corporation.
Caribbeans really outdid itself with one of the worst movie retellings to date.
San Fransokyo is so rushed and empty.
Pooh is the one and only time I felt I was literally getting spit in the face as a fan.
Remember when Beast got his spell undone in the credits so you could keep using him? They spent so much time on Rapunzel's hair, and it's one of the least utilized assets.

Other Worlds: Destiny Island and Radiant Garden aren't explorable when they 10000% should've been. Twilight Town is nothing except one really beautiful area and then the same old front gate with nothing new to it.
Surprising a considerable amount of people this time, the Graveyard was better in BbS. At least there you could kinda move around at the beginning of the Keyblades part. It was cool, if nothing else. KH III was that nothing else.
Castle Oblivion gets undone in a very shallow and undeserving way, Land of Departure is empty and despite being a fully explorable model it disappears forever from the map, giving a pretty descriptive tell of just how much the people in charge cared about the important stuff.
The whole Keyblade Graveyard sequence from the beginning to the Org fights is the embodiment of chaos. I still don't know what to make of anything, every single instance it's its own thing completely detached of all else.
You never understand what Master Xehanort thinks or hopes it'll happen during many of these moments.

Hayner!Pence!Olette!: I can understand if fans like these three even more than other, more relevant characters. I personally don't, because average kids who talk about ice-cream and homeworks and going to the beach (friggin' normies) are the last thing I care about in my fantasy game full of magic and Darkness.
What I don't like is that the writing team also liked them way more than other characters.

How do you do, fellow kids?: Game focuses more in 4th wall breaking and creating ground for memes and shitposting than it does telling a story and building tension.
"Yeetus Vanitas", "Hey loooser!", "Look Ven just referenced Dream Eaters", "Lea said Ven and Roxas look the same" definitely gave some people something, frankly I think it comes off as forced and only enhances the feeling of disconnect between the team and the fans.
Self-aware products exist and sometimes are a real treat, but in these instances it just seems like the team tried to do what they THOUGHT people would like rather than what they liked about their own product and characters. An hearty laugh can only come if you feel part of the joke.
We're a far cry off from the delicious candy Endgame treats its fans.
It's not an "anti-fun" stance, mine that is. I just think some jobs are for fans and some are for official developers, and the two shouldn't amalgamate. Kinda like when that one Ux conferece wasted so much time talking about that "God Pence" thing.

The Devil refuses to wear Prada: Lea refuses to change into his clothes that were there for him to wear because he argues that wearing a coat will help him stand out when fighting 13 possibly coated individuals.
If either the fact that clothes for him were made OR him showing up with new clothes during the credits was omitted it would've been better, but with both scenes it just seems... why? Why is Lea not changing clothes even a thing?

Maybe it really was border?: Isa is on the beach playing (ugh) and so are Hayner, Pence and Olette, despite "protecting the world order" was a thing since KH1 and still is a thing in KH III.
It's just unnecessary and yet another blow struck to the dying horse of logic and internal coherency.

More Lore going offshore: I was BIG in the KH lore, but now I just ain't. It's hard for me to care about Ux stuff due to how it's being handled, Heartless and Darkness just aren't what they used to be, the Keyblade is dead as a concept, Guardian was ultimately disappointing. Yes, it makes sense for it to be Terra: but it's a bland conclusion anyone could've written and robbed an iconic figure present since the first game of being something more.
No Heart, carried on for YEARS by official sources constantly referring to him as "No one truly knows who's behind it, No Name doesn't prove anything anymore, it could be anyone" ended up being "Xehanort has two sets of armors. He just does."

The gameplay, I guess?: Classic Kingdom is 20+ minigames from decades ago thrown into my ps4 game just because Nomura really likes them. Still haven't heard a single soul claiming they're good or fun for more than 30 seconds.
Transformations and Links tried to be Forms and Summons but were too much like Styles and, well, Links for their own good.
Enemy design plummeted, new enemies almost always suck to fight and some older ones also got worsened considerably (Nobodies).
With the exception of Aero magic felt really underwhelming and current games showed you can do so much more with elements and particles effects nowadays.
Attractions have no business being that useful or existing at all, they're not well implemented and always feel random and out of place.
The Corona one is the only minigame I honestly liked for a ps4 game.
The Devil bosses are now basically just reutilized assets to avoid coming up with more bosses. And since they're not great bosses themselves, it isn't a great solution.
Game is choked full of giant bosses which aren't great most of the time.
The way the game feels. It has some merits to it, it just isn't to my liking, hence why it's a dissatisfacion I have. I just don't feel the sense of weight and space in any fight.

Welcome to Squareland! We accept only Hypedollars: One of the things that makes me the most livid is the absolute disgrace that was the marketing campaign for the game, which revealed/spoiled the majority of it. Literally, it gets to a point where you're hard-pressed to think of what WASN'T in trailers and screenshots and events and the like.
It was a greedy move, fueled by intellectual dishonesty (final bosses) and the general idea that there was going to be so much more, a la "We're not SAYING there's more, but since we're showing you THIS... *pause and silence*".
The amount of stuff we've seen about Scala, the Graveyard, the Final World is just in bad taste and it only achieved in finally opening my eyes and making me stop listening to anything Square says or shows.
I'll judge their content when it's out and only then, as it should be.
Can we just think at how much different many of ours first playthroughs would've been having we not been spoiled on so much stuff. Disregarding the leaked copies, of course.

I think that's everything or close to it.
Writing these essays in another language is though stuff. I jumped from present to past so many times.
KH III was a lot of dissatisfactions for me.
I could always excuse this or that game for their shortcomings up until now, but KH III is so bigger, was so hyped up, had so much on its plate and doesn't accomplish so much... it's hard for me to keep going.
Ultimately, if I have to be direct and to the point: the game feels soulless. I watched the credits roll after the first playthrough and felt absolutely nothing, and that's a first for a KH game in my life.
Maybe it's because I'm older, maybe we'll discover some hidden gems (I doubt that, times are different and we're so much more thorough in these things), maybe DLC will fix it all, almost surely the next game will be better, or at the very least freed of so many expetactions and costraints.
But regarding my own experience, this was the wrong misstep at the wrong time.

Imma go and write what I liked about the game in the other thread as soon as my arms will stop hurting. Been on this post for more than an hour.

EDIT: fixed most typos and errors of this mammoth of a post -.-'
I really want to make some remarks, but I don't even know where to start. lol But your post is amazing!

Go take a rest. You deserve it after making this.
 

SweetYetSalty

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Well I had a list but DarkosOverlord pretty much covered 80% of my complaints so I'll stick to my main ones.

Lack of character interactions and screentime. They set up this 3 hearts to a box thing with Sora, and I'm thinking "Oh! This is how they are going to give Ventus and Roxas attention until the finale and how they're going to re-introduce Xion to everyone instead of just ignoring her until the end" Nope. Sora's motivation for Roxas disappears midway, he doesn't seem that concerned about Ventus until it's actually time to wake him, and Xion is indeed ignored until the very end. DLC can't get here fast enough.

I'm also disappointed we never got a scene with all 13 Seekers of Darkness interacting and playing off each other. You had one with Marluxia, Demyx, Luxord, and Larxene earlier. It was good, don't get me wrong, but other then Luxord and Demyx being from the Union X era, it didn't tell me anything new. I already knew Demyx and Larxene didn't like one another from Days. Show us something new with these guys. Organization XIII is like my favorite element in KH and I feel like many of them were wasted in terms of interactions. We don't even get to see these guys sit on their thrones like in DDD.

And of course the main cast lack of interactions. SKR, TAV, and RAX all in one room interacting was something I've been dreaming of. It was the number one thing I wanted in the game. I was denied that mostly. Riku and Terra don't talk at all to one another. Aqua and Kairi were nothing special. Roxas and Ventus is reduced to a meme. Nobody reacts to where Xion came from and why she looks like a black haired Kairi. Kairi and Namine don't get any screen time together at all, making Kairi's desire to free Namine mean nothing. And we don't get any of them just talking to one another normally. I couldn't believe a series that had built up so many lovable characters and friendships dropped the ball so hard on their biggest game to date. I don't know if this will get DLC. I might have to look to the KH3 manga to get this.
 

Soldier

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What was a royal missed opportunity for me was the execution of 100 acre wood. When they mentioned that Pooh's connection to Sora was fading, I was honestly hoping that they would tackle a story that revolved around Sora growing up (he's 18/19 at the time KH 3 comes around, that's pretty old) and not having such a strong connection to the childlike pooh bear. But no, it's always "Xehanort did this, so that happens".

Also Frozen, everyone here already knows of my particular dislike with the film and I predicted that it would be handled poorly due to Disney's meddling. And here we are, with it in the game as a gigantic waste of time, falling down the same mountain thrice because we can't tell the actual story! Honestly we would've been better off with a Brother Bear world, but you all asked for it, so now we all must live with the consequences.
 

FudgemintGuardian

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I wonder how Frozen fans feel now knowing Disney considers them and the film to be complete shit.

Like, seriously. What happened with Frozen cannot be described as Disney protecting the film's integrity or whatever. They actively made it terrible. "Just throw in the Let it Go scene! That's all those stupid fans care about!" is what Disney was thinking.
 

Oracle Spockanort

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What was a royal missed opportunity for me was the execution of 100 acre wood. When they mentioned that Pooh's connection to Sora was fading, I was honestly hoping that they would tackle a story that revolved around Sora growing up (he's 18/19 at the time KH 3 comes around, that's pretty old) and not having such a strong connection to the childlike pooh bear. But no, it's always "Xehanort did this, so that happens".

Also Frozen, everyone here already knows of my particular dislike with the film and I predicted that it would be handled poorly due to Disney's meddling. And here we are, with it in the game as a gigantic waste of time, falling down the same mountain thrice because we can't tell the actual story! Honestly we would've been better off with a Brother Bear world, but you all asked for it, so now we all must live with the consequences.

Sora isn’t 18/19. He’s like 15/16. It’s only been a month after KH2 at best in the game.
 

SweetYetSalty

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I wonder how Frozen fans feel now knowing Disney considers them and the film to be complete shit.

Like, seriously. What happened with Frozen cannot be described as Disney protecting the film's integrity or whatever. They actively made it terrible. "Just throw in the Let it Go scene! That's all those stupid fans care about!" is what Disney was thinking.

As a Frozen fan myself, I can tell you I was greatly disappointed. When I first saw the movie Frozen I thought it was tailor-made for Kingdom Hearts and was dreaming of how well they could adept it into KH3 for years. There was so much potential with Frozen with it's theme. They could have added the whole "Frozen Heart" thing as a game mechanic or something to make a special Heartless out of that Xehanort or Maleficent could want. Maybe use Evil Elsa and her snowman army from the early drafts and make them a army of Snowman Heartless. Sora helping Anna save Elsa the same way he saved Riku. So much they could have done. For me, Frozen goes down as the most disappointing KH world due to all the potential it wasted.
 

FudgemintGuardian

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As a Frozen fan myself, I can tell you I was greatly disappointed. When I first saw the movie Frozen I thought it was tailor-made for Kingdom Hearts and was dreaming of how well they could adept it into KH3 for years. There was so much potential with Frozen with it's theme. They could have added the whole "Frozen Heart" thing as a game mechanic or something to make a special Heartless out of that Xehanort or Maleficent could want. Maybe use Evil Elsa and her snowman army from the early drafts and make them a army of Snowman Heartless. Sora helping Anna save Elsa the same way he saved Riku. So much they could have done. For me, Frozen goes down as the most disappointing KH world due to all the potential it wasted.
giphy.gif


Or how Elsa can create life with the wave of a hand. That should have caught the Organization and Vexen's interest.

Even as someone that wants the film to burn in a dumpster, I was sad seeing all its potential thrown away. All we can hope is maybe with how the next movie seems to be going, Disney will be a bit more open with having at least SDG in the world's plot than the background.
 
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SweetYetSalty

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giphy.gif


Or how Elsa can create life with the wave of a hand. That should have caught the Organization and Vexen's interest.

Even as someone that wants the film to burn in a dumpster, I was sad seeing all its potential thrown away. All we can hope is maybe with how the next movie seems to be going, Disney will be a bit more open the having at least SDG in the world's plot than the background.

Lol, Now I wish Vexen was there to be jealous of how Elsa did that with a wave of a hand, while he has to go through all the data and memories just to make a Replica. Just imagine the outrage on his face. Another thing we could have gotten from Frozen instead of the lame retread of the movie.
 

2 quid is good

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Sora isn’t 18/19. He’s like 15/16. It’s only been a month after KH2 at best in the game.
I don't know why it is but Sora potentially being 15 in KH3 bothers me immensely, especially when DDD mentioned that it's been a dozen years since BBS and Blank Points says it's been a year since KH2, BUT NO, The ultimania says that HPO are on the same summer vacation from KH2.



Urgh, it's such a small but annoying detail, I don't accept him being 15
 

FudgemintGuardian

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Lol, Now I wish Vexen was there to be jealous of how Elsa did that with a wave of a hand, while he has to go through all the data and memories just to make a Replica. Just imagine the outrage on his face. Another thing we could have gotten from Frozen instead of the lame retread of the movie.
Vexen not being the Org. member in Arendelle was such a huge missed opportunity! And it's so much more in character for him to observe from the background than Larxene.

And use freaking ice....

I don't know why it is but Sora potentially being 15 in KH3 bothers me immensely, especially when DDD mentioned that it's been a dozen years since BBS and Blank Points says it's been a year since KH2, BUT NO, The ultimania says that HPO are on the same summer vacation from KH2.



Urgh, it's such a small but annoying detail, I don't accept him being 15
Time flows differently from world to world, blah blah...

I can buy this excuse for the Disney worlds, but I don't see any point in doing this with an original one. Also, my knowledge is fuzzy, but aren't Japanese summer vacations approximately just a month? (Not that this'd mean HPO's summer vacation is that short, but this was made in Japan, so would probably go by that.)

Interestingly, this makes Sora acting like it's been so long since he visited Twilight Town more than just a joke over the gap between KH2 and KH3. For Sora, it really has been a year since he's been there.
 

*TwilightNight*

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Or how Isa is suddenly forgiven and Roxas and Xion are totes okay with all the abuse they suffered by his hand and they're all now friends because writing is haaaaaaaaaard. Same with the apprentices. Yeah, let's just hand characters forgiveness instead of them actually earning it and be worth something

This is one of the aspects that enormously bothers me. He just cries about how he did so because he was jealous and thought Lea forgot about Xion 2.0 (Subject X/Skuld; retconned female character forced randomly into a trio with no mention whatsoever that she was ever a factor). Which rings hollow. And that's it. No personal apologies or conversations with Roxas or Xion. He just shows up on the clock tower, like, hey, BFFs and it's just uncomfortable. And the fandom already is romanticizing this badly mishandled development.

You need character interactions for this to be natural before the end result. KH3 was abysmal in that department.

Other points of contention for me:
- Roxas and Riku running around with each other for the same reason as above. I can't remember one positive interaction these two had with each other.
- Riku and Xion also could've had a conversation. Different from Roxas', as their relationship was different. He was actually understanding with her. This is coming from someone who doesn't give a shit about her.
- Sora and Roxas. Sora spends a good portion of the game concerned on returning him, was build upon in DDD, and all we get is a nod. Same with Kairi and Naminè. That poetic rendition of how her Nobody's life mattered should've gone somewhere.
- Similar to Roxas and Naminè. How are you going to have the dude flash through Sora as he gazes at the Old Mansion's window (Naminè's room) and have Sora name him as a person who misses her when it led to nothing. What's the point?
- Also true with Roxas+TT trio. That's a reunion that needed to be there.
- Naminè's return being used as a trophy prop to put closure on Riku Replica's character arc. I mean, screw her own arc and connections, right? Screw her opinions or thoughts on the matter. Maybe it would have been somewhat sensible if she was shown to give a shit about him in over a decade.
- Larxene's motivation to be in the Organization being Marluxia. Ooof, how much lower can Nomura drop with female characters. Oh wait.
- Kairi.
- Trio reunions were resolved in five minutes, then they became background deco.

Shallow, shallow, shallow. The DLC won't fix any of it.
 
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DizneyXBirds95

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So many to list but as far goes as dissapointments in KH3 their's quite a few and that includes some Disney worlds:

  1. Olympus: Hard to say what's disappointment wise but more than likely Phil not speaking and having not much of a role in this world
  2. Toy Box: No Jessie and Bullsye along with rest of the Toys following the world's restoration during credits.
  3. Kingdom of Corona: Again see my post for my disappointments. But I would say SDG not growing suspicious with Mother Gothel after their first and ONLY encounter with her and the world feeling forced and linear.
  4. Monstropolis: No Randall Boss fight.
  5. Arendelle: Lack of character interactions with the cast.
  6. 100 Acre Wood: No other locations and minigames to explore other than Rabbit's house.
  7. The Caribbean: No Brethren Court, lack of Davy Jones crew.
  8. San Fransokyo: Baymax being ONLY party member in this world, only two rooms to explore.
  9. Not going inside buildings/structures due to development team focusing on the wall running and open world (e.g. Old Mansion, Rapunzel's Tower, Elsa's castle)
  10. Wreck-It Ralph and Lilo & Stitch not included as worlds
  11. No enough Exploration on Twilight Town.
  12. Time travel on Organization XIII (sorry still don't know if Young Xehanort and Ansem brought them back through time travel once again or just used replicas on half of them)

Hans basically popping out of nowhere as the generic bad guy without a hint of motivation. The Frozen world hasn't been well handled in general.
I can agree but when compared to Mother Gothel (even if they didn't intereacted with him and knew that guy was Hans) at least SDG know something was up and detected his evil intentions. With Gothel they, especially Goofy (who is supposed to be the intelligent one of the trio) didn’t grow suspicious with Mother Gothel especially when she coldly dismissed them and said they were “useless and of no help” after their first and only time meeting her. I mean If I was present with them and after our first encounter with Gothel once she dismiss us and leaves, I too would be the first to question and feel suspicious about Gothel especially when she coldly dismiss us as “useless” and wether if she really is Rapunzel’s “real mother” (which she isn’t)
 

Face My Fears

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I wonder how Frozen fans feel now knowing Disney considers them and the film to be complete shit.

Like, seriously. What happened with Frozen cannot be described as Disney protecting the film's integrity or whatever. They actively made it terrible. "Just throw in the Let it Go scene! That's all those stupid fans care about!" is what Disney was thinking.
Arendelle was handled so poorly. You can even tell how much Disney wanted you to revisit the world because they put SO many things in Arendelle that you need to get Ultima Weapon and get all the trophies. It had more than any other world and basically required you to do the most there.
 

Veevee

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Darkos, I love your long post. It's too long to quote for me though, I still agree with you on basically everything and want to add something:

Kairi: It bothers me so much that everyone insists on her being given "proper training" before she can do something. I'd like to recall that Sora in KH1 just got a keyblade into his hand and had to face a boss and kinda got through it. The keyblade is just a magical baseball bat, you should know how to swing it - and magic? Sora visited Merlin, shot fire at some chairs and learned upgrades randomly when completing worlds. This is such a stupid ludonarrative dissonance where Sora just magically gets stuff during gameplay and Kairi has to do weeks of hyperbolic timechamber training to still not do anything. Yes, you couldn't have sent her onto Xehanort without training on a whim, but I'm convinced that there's not that much to learn. Heck, Sora lost his complete set of abilities for EVERY game and still manages to pull through and Kairi as a Princess of Heart with crazy light power resources should at least have a better basis to do something than average teenage boy Sora.

It also infuriates me how her PoH powers are completely passive and Kairi never tried to look into that or tried to use it actively.

Plus: The paopu scene in KH3 which many people consider as THE confirmation of the one true pairing, is so ridiculously awkward that I'm baffled people can interpret it in a romantic way. The first thing Sora does in this scene is to keep staring at Riku who is kinda talking to himself and wondering why he doesn't sit with them - how terribly romantic, thinking about how your best bud is not sitting with you when you're soo immersed in your lovely moment here. The dialogue feels quite stiff and he doesn't look happy to be handed the paopu at all - he only takes it when she breaks it down to "being a part of each other's life" and even concludes it with "that's all". Oh, yeah, pure romance here - and then he is still hesistant to take it and ultimately, all they do is to hold out some fruit to each other, they do not even bite it.
I'm not trying to bash SoKai shippers here, I'm really not - I just can't see anything for them in KH3.

Lea: I hated his role so, so much in this game. First of all, how he is constantly played as a comic relief even in situations where it really doesn't fit. "haha, you can't kill me, I'm popular" completely ruined the mood for me. His keyblade being called fake and it breaking and magically being fixed made me want to scream. In general, I hate all this buildup for NOTHING, Kairi's buildup, Lea's buildup, Dark Aqua buildup, Ven being the same stupid poopface and running all "Terraaaaa" into his friend AGAIN and gets irritated at Aqua when she pulls him back AGAIN, Sora's "I'm so weak now" which disappears after Olympus right away, it's all so infuriating.

The fourth wall breaking. Constantly. I despised this. You sacrifice your character's integrity and the serious impact of your story for a short laugh. "Yeetus Vanitas", haha, Vanitas is overpowered by a Disney character and thrown into a plot hole because he can teleport and come back but never does and thus looks like a total idiot. "there were some plot points that needed ironing out" - how funny. Good thing you had to do that right before the final battle. Also, I hated when they put themselves on some meta game level with Sora asking what the musical number was or him saying that he really doesn't know why he ended up in Rapunzel's world in the first place. How, game, how am I supposed to get invested in what I'm doing if even Sora has no idea WHY I'm even there and the world gives me besides a completely incomprehensible story no reason at all?


And I totally hate the Ux stuff because Nomura loves it - no, this is not some phase, but I genuinely hate it because of the points Darkos pointed out so eloquently. The Ux stuff just pops out as a means of giving reasons for stuff that seriously needed a real one(Subject X), surprise reveals without ANY prior buildup (Luxu, could I care less?) and totally random stuff (Ephemera in a demon wave, what?) and of course, the Foretellers who are the most intolerable bunch of one-dimensional character traits I have ever seen and who we never get to connect with before they died, but don't worry, they didn't! Nothing about this whole Ux stuff is being incorporated in a subtle, nice way, it's all literally thrown into our faces and we are supposed to get engaged and be excited for the next saga full of this bs - but hey, we can play cashgrab cross to tide us over until we get there and watch people chase cats, going to Agrabah, having cheesy friendship dialogue and get shafted on a monthly basis.
 

Sign

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Plus: The paopu scene in KH3 which many people consider as THE confirmation of the one true pairing, is so ridiculously awkward that I'm baffled people can interpret it in a romantic way. The first thing Sora does in this scene is to keep staring at Riku who is kinda talking to himself and wondering why he doesn't sit with them - how terribly romantic, thinking about how your best bud is not sitting with you when you're soo immersed in your lovely moment here. The dialogue feels quite stiff and he doesn't look happy to be handed the paopu at all - he only takes it when she breaks it down to "being a part of each other's life" and even concludes it with "that's all". Oh, yeah, pure romance here - and then he is still hesistant to take it and ultimately, all they do is to hold out some fruit to each other, they do not even bite it.
I'm not trying to bash SoKai shippers here, I'm really not - I just can't see anything for them in KH3.

Dunno if you've had the chance to read the VA interview from the KH3 Ultimania, but it does help to clarify the intentions of that scene a little bit?

ーSpeaking of Kairi, she and Sora sharing a paopu fruit before the final battle was another memorable scene.

Uchida:
I love that scene a lot and I think it's so important, and at the same time, I thought, what a heavy scene…

Irino: We recorded two versions of that scene: one where she had him eat one, and one where she didn't. At the time we recorded, it hadn't been decided which way it would develop. It looks like in the end they went with her having him eat one. I'm sure Mr Nomura was unsure how far he should go in depicting their feelings for each other.

Miyano: I'm sure that's because it definitely is a delicate scene, one where Sora and Kairi's pure thoughts and feelings are made apparent. My heart leapt watching that exchange. Although they didn't confess to each other, if there wasn't love there then that scene wouldn't have felt as romantic as it did (laughs).

Irino: I don't think sharing a paopu is an official declaration of love though?

Miyano: Hey hey hey, I never got a lucky charm from Kairi or anything now did I…

Irino: The promise charm?

Uchida: Sorry! (Laughs)

Miyano: And in KHI you secretly tried to have the two of you leave the island without me, right?

Irino: Maybe it's Kairi who made Riku turn to the darkness. Seeing her so friendly with Sora probably made him feel lonely, right?

Uchida: …I see, so it was my fault, was it? (Laughs)
 

FudgemintGuardian

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- Larxene's motivation to be in the Organization being Marluxia. Ooof, how much lower can Nomura drop with female characters. Oh wait.
In Larxene's defense, she's friends with him to some extent. If say, Hayner joined a group because Pence was part of it, no one would think anything of it and presume it's because they're friends. Larxene's motivation being a male character doesn't inherently mean something negative toward the female characters in KH.
 
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Oracle Spockanort

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In Larxene's defense, she's friends with him to some extent. If say, Hayner joined a group because Pence was part of it, no one would think anything of it and presume it's because they're friends. Larxene's motivation being a male character doesn't inherently mean something negative toward the female characters in KH.

On its own it is most definitely fine, but there is no way to deny that most of the original female characters of this series are driven by their male counterparts. Either they are driven by a male character (Kairi, Namine, Aqua, Xion), they don’t have much of a role at all (Namine to a degree, Skuld, Strelitzia), and/or they serve to motivate a male character (Skuld(?) as Subject X, Strelitzia both in UX and as Nameless Star, Xion, Kairi, Namine).

This is really why it is a problem.
 

FudgemintGuardian

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On its own it is most definitely fine, but there is no way to deny that most of the original female characters of this series are driven by their male counterparts. Either they are driven by a male character (Kairi, Namine, Aqua, Xion), they don’t have much of a role at all (Namine to a degree, Skuld, Strelitzia), and/or they serve to motivate a male character (Skuld(?) as Subject X, Strelitzia both in UX and as Nameless Star, Xion, Kairi, Namine).

This is really why it is a problem.
That is very true. Not helped that the majority of original characters are dudes. Not that I don't mind so many hot guys, but it makes it a tad difficult to not have a female character be motivated in some way by one when that's who they'll mostly be around.

On the other hand, we have Riku, who's whole character revolves around Sora, and most of what happens and what the male characters do are because of other male characters. It's more how drive between male and female characters are utilized differently where the problem lies.
 

Zettaflare

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Kind of surprised no one brought up the infamous "This might be a good spot to find ingredients". I myself wasn't to bothered by it but I know others found it annoying
 

DarkosOverlord

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On its own it is most definitely fine, but there is no way to deny that most of the original female characters of this series are driven by their male counterparts. Either they are driven by a male character (Kairi, Namine, Aqua, Xion), they don’t have much of a role at all (Namine to a degree, Skuld, Strelitzia), and/or they serve to motivate a male character (Skuld(?) as Subject X, Strelitzia both in UX and as Nameless Star, Xion, Kairi, Namine).

This is really why it is a problem.

Yeah, this right here.
I always liked that I could've talked about how Larxene, in its own "small" role, was at least there of her own volition and didn't need a male figure to work.
The Marluxia shipping was inevitable, but honestly? They don't even interact with one another in CoM. For real. Anytime Larxene and Marluxia are part of the same conversation, it's them talking to someone else (Axel or Vexen) and not between each other.

It's almost a nitpick in its own right, but I didn't mind it because it at least made them feel like their own separate individuals. Like, yeah, we're partners in crime, but that's a given to us so we don't need to be all up in the audience's face about it. It's definitely better than TAV having to keep openly stating just how much they are friends all the time in my book.
And it only makes the "Larxene was in all of it because of Marluxia!"'s reveal all the more feeble and suspiciously marginalizing. I was kinda okay with their relationship in Ux, mainly because it was established they lost their memories of that, but now you just made it like it didn't matter anyway.

I wonder if keeping Marluxia as female wouldn't have been better, despite the bad rep of having two prominent females being negative characters.
And that's a genuine question I have actually, I'm not sure about it.



Kind of surprised no one brought up the infamous "This might be a good spot to find ingredients". I myself wasn't to bothered by it but I know others found it annoying

More than that specific sentence, what bothered me was the way Donald spoke in this game. It's... off, and kinda annoying.
 
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