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Is KH complicated or just a lot to remember?



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MrFranklin95

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I had come across a comment a video about Kingdom Hearts andnthat was one of the comment that explained why people find KH complicated but its just a lot to remember. I personally know what your guys opinion stands on that?

For me? I think its a large mixture of both because of the way the story is presented to us. It didn't help that all the games that are canon were regulated to handhelds, so exposure was a main problem with the story. And once I broke everything down, KH is not all that complicated to understand and it being a lot to remember is not exactly the main issue, I just don't think Kingdom Hearts explains everything in a natural way. In a way, that is part of its charm but also a significant downgrade of its story. Its a show dont tell mentality but done in a way that doesn't leave the viewer with a lot of answers, just a bunch of theories and questions. Which I guess is fine, every story needs that to move forward but do it too much and you feel like the story loses meaning or any sense organic feeling in the universe. And for me, it was always the case with every KH game, including KH1 but since that story was more simple and the first of its kind, a lot of those faults were forgiven, didn't need to be explained, and even somewhat improved upon later on

So yeah it is a lot to remember but that's not really the issue or that its even complicated, at least for those reasons. I think Its all in its presentation that makes it feel that way, which was espeically apparently during The Final World sgenent and how it ended that left most people scratching their heads as to what exactly happened at all.

Also doesn't help that those answers are told off screen in journals and Ultimanias.
 
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U.N. Owen

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It's really just a ton to remember. The lore is dense from light and darkness to dreams, sleep, and death.

I say this as a long time comic reader. KH is just like a comic book. It twists, it turns, and then it turns the twists.
 

Face My Fears

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I never understood how people said that the story was "complicated". The story itself is simple enough to follow, it's when you get into the nitty-gritty of the lore is when it's somewhat problematic. If you take things at face value like Xehanort used time travel, but not elaborate on how time travel works in KH, then it's simple enough. But when you dig into stuff, that's when the "complicated" comes up because a lot of the answers aren't in the games, but rather in interviews.

I would like Nomura to officially clean up the lore IN GAME -- KH3 would have been a perfect opportunity to do that, because KH3D sort of started that with the journal explaining so much (like the difference between the "real" Kingdom Hearts and the ones we encountered in KH1 and 2). He can include in KH4 journal entries (that become unlocked as you clear more side stuff) that will explain Kairi's keyblade, time travel, and all the other stuff we question.
 

Veevee

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It is complicated because we never really get actual explanations how things even work or they get overwritten at some point without any prior warning. Plus - most of the actual exposition is dumped onto Ultimanias and interviews and basically every Kingdom Hearts argument ever is a "look at this 10 year old Ultimania entry which completely denies what you just said", meanwhile Nomura didn't find that idea from back then cool enough anymore and changed it anyway.
No, really. Interviews and Ultimanias should add stuff, not explain the games. We have so many concepts in the game that somehow overlay each other - e.g. sleeping worlds, parallel worlds, book of prophecies worlds (= sleeping worlds? No one knows), at least three different concepts of time travel (the power of waking abused time travel, Xehanort's time travel, how the heck got the Foretellers into today and let's not forget the Cornerstone of light time travel) and three types of keyblades that don't really make a difference and four different kinds of enemies (who also don't really make a difference) and the list could go on and on. It's not hard to remember - it's that we don't really know how the current event is actually possible right now and most of it is just brushed over as a side effect of heart, friends, darkness or light. Telepathy? Darkness. Convenient bridge to the enemies' castle? My friends need me! Roxas warps onto the battlefield? My friends need me! Keyblade breaks and is magically fixed again? Oh, it was a sham, but since we don't know why, we don't explain it, let's just say "my friends needed me".

To say "it's a lot to remember" would, if you turn the statement around, mean that there's a logical, coherent explanation for whatever question you have and you just have to look it up - which is just not the case. Yes, you can look it up and most of the time the game offers you some really vague explanation at best (if any), so you just sit there and hope that the next interview or whatever external source will clear something up.
 

DarkosOverlord

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What Veevee said.

I agree lore is what makes KH complicated, the problem is that the lore is actually requested to properly understand the rest.
There is definitely stuff to remember, but more often than not that stuff is entangled with explanations (or lack thereof) about why or how is even like that in the first place.

You could argue knowing it was Master Xehanort possessing Young the one who Riku truly fought in DDD matters not in the grand scheme of things and you'd be (sadly) right, but still it makes anyone who doesn't know that factually wrong when they say "we fight Young Xehanort in DDD".

"Look, Data-Sora has a real Keyblade now!"
No he doesn't, that's still a fake one.

"Man, I wonder who's the voice that's been guiding Sora in the dream"
Mickey. Yeah, Mickey came into contact with Sora despite Riku still being the de facto Keyblade candidate. Don't ask.

Let's not forget the mess that is KH III Xion.
If we're talking about "understanding Kingdom Hearts", then there's a lot that goes into it, for better or worse. Sometimes it's just explanations missing or apparently contradicting what's been shown in the game, other times it's just real messy stuff.
I STILL have no idea what's the deal with Ux is (what is in the real world, what's just a dream? Where are the Leaders when they're standing in the chamber?) and the whole community is desperately waiting for the ENG release of the latest update to finally make sense of what Brain said about the world.
Now we also have "different worldlines" pairing up with time travel to keep track of.
I guess part of it lies in whether or not you consider pieces of info bestowed upon you without explanation or context "complicated" or not.
I think that if I had to explain Riku turning back into a boy from Ansem's machine exploding, and removing a blindfold because "his eyes couldnt' lie" to someone who doesn't know anything about it they'd probably find it complicated.

Also no one reads the Reports. I admin a KH group.
Try to guess how many times people have been asking why Vanitas has Sora's face.
 

Neo_

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Low quality image, but you get my point:

bfd10c4aeae0b890a9c9ea63c3d3e29b.jpg
 

Face My Fears

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What Veevee said.

I agree lore is what makes KH complicated, the problem is that the lore is actually requested to properly understand the rest.
There is definitely stuff to remember, but more often than not that stuff is entangled with explanations (or lack thereof) about why or how is even like that in the first place.

You could argue knowing it was Master Xehanort possessing Young the one who Riku truly fought in DDD matters not in the grand scheme of things and you'd be (sadly) right, but still it makes anyone who doesn't know that factually wrong when they say "we fight Young Xehanort in DDD".

"Look, Data-Sora has a real Keyblade now!"
No he doesn't, that's still a fake one.

"Man, I wonder who's the voice that's been guiding Sora in the dream"
Mickey. Yeah, Mickey came into contact with Sora despite Riku still being the de facto Keyblade candidate. Don't ask.

Let's not forget the mess that is KH III Xion.
If we're talking about "understanding Kingdom Hearts", then there's a lot that goes into it, for better or worse. Sometimes it's just explanations missing or apparently contradicting what's been shown in the game, other times it's just real messy stuff.
I STILL have no idea what's the deal with Ux is (what is in the real world, what's just a dream? Where are the Leaders when they're standing in the chamber?) and the whole community is desperately waiting for the ENG release of the latest update to finally make sense of what Brain said about the world.
Now we also have "different worldlines" pairing up with time travel to keep track of.
I guess part of it lies in whether or not you consider pieces of info bestowed upon you without explanation or context "complicated" or not.
I think that if I had to explain Riku turning back into a boy from Ansem's machine exploding, and removing a blindfold because "his eyes couldnt' lie" to someone who doesn't know anything about it they'd probably find it complicated.

Also no one reads the Reports. I admin a KH group.
Try to guess how many times people have been asking why Vanitas has Sora's face.
Sure the regular player doesn't read the reports, but it is nice to have the information in the game rather than having to scour the internet for interviews with Nomura that explains stuff. It would be so easy to slip into Jiminy's Journal under keyblade "Kairi's keyblade originated from X and Riku handed it to her during the events of KH2." The average player doesn't even care where Kairi's keyblade came from or why Roxas (and Sora in KH2) could dual wield or any other question that digs deeper into the KH lore.
 

AdrianXXII

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Veevee and DrakosOverlord summed it up nicely. While i think some of it is just a lot to remember, the other part is a constantly changing and vague lore, used to handwave things.
Retcons are as common in KH as they are in superhero comics.

Both Princesses of Heart and the Keyblades were introduced to us in the first game, but we still don't really know what either is really capable of.
PoH hold back darkness and, if your name is Kairi it allows you to perform miracles to save your crush, without explanation.

There are keyblades of Darkness, heart and Light, yet the only diffference is one can open path to the realm of darkness and the others can't. Also you need one of darkness and light to seal certain doors.

I would like Nomura to officially clean up the lore IN GAME -- KH3 would have been a perfect opportunity to do that, because KH3D sort of started that with the journal explaining so much (like the difference between the "real" Kingdom Hearts and the ones we encountered in KH1 and 2). He can include in KH4 journal entries (that become unlocked as you clear more side stuff) that will explain Kairi's keyblade, time travel, and all the other stuff we question.

It'd be nice if the LoD had a library where the player could go to get info dumps on the lore that actually clear up some of the hand wavey stuff.

Maybe KH4 could have you collect scattered books and when you return them to the library Naminé or who ever is maning the library would give you a bit of an info dump on the books content.

Conclusions could be drawn at the end of some of these explainations, like Sora going "Oh so that's how Riku could call upon Kairi's keyblade to hand it to her."
 

DarkosOverlord

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Sure the regular player doesn't read the reports, but it is nice to have the information in the game rather than having to scour the internet for interviews with Nomura that explains stuff. It would be so easy to slip into Jiminy's Journal under keyblade "Kairi's keyblade originated from X and Riku handed it to her during the events of KH2." The average player doesn't even care where Kairi's keyblade came from or why Roxas (and Sora in KH2) could dual wield or any other question that digs deeper into the KH lore.

The reports are definitely a far cry better than playing the "let's go through KHInsider's index and see what else Famitsu interview we missed", but still aren't sold in the best of ways. Reports after KH1 were admitedly more of a way to dispose of explanations that didn't make it to the main screen and to cover up some missing parts left.
And they can be a bit... well, dull. Not many people know about Naminé or Roxas in detail because they couldn't be bothered to read through 10 chapters of Ansem the Wise narrating how beautiful his home was and how much he hates Xehanort. They didn't have an incentive to do so, because stopping and reading was never made necessary or more appealing than just keep hacking and slashing away at enemies.

Though admitedly this has less to do about it being complicated and more about appealing game design.




It'd be nice if the LoD had a library where the player could go to get info dumps on the lore that actually clear up some of the hand wavey stuff.

Maybe KH4 could have you collect scattered books and when you return them to the library Naminé or who ever is maning the library would give you a bit of an info dump on the books content.

Conclusions could be drawn at the end of some of these explainations, like Sora going "Oh so that's how Riku could call upon Kairi's keyblade to hand it to her."

I've always felt KH games missed several chances to do things like that when they had very apt places to do so.

First example that comes to mind, the library in Hollow Bastion (KH1). It would've been great if you could actually select Azar, Mava, Sareg and the other books as items and reading some lore bits there (and if KH1 didn't have enough lore then, it could've been a nice thing to add in the collections)

The we have things like Yen Sid's "very important book" which says nothing at all, and all the diagrams in Ansem's study. Instead of saying things like "There's something written about Darkness" they could've expanded more by making them actually revealing something.
Or even better, examining each one of those unlocked some files at the main computer for you to read after defeating the MCP.

BbS too could've benefit by Land of Departure having a library section or something.
 

Face My Fears

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Veevee and DrakosOverlord summed it up nicely. While i think some of it is just a lot to remember, the other part is a constantly changing and vague lore, used to handwave things.
Retcons are as common in KH as they are in superhero comics.

Both Princesses of Heart and the Keyblades were introduced to us in the first game, but we still don't really know what either is really capable of.
PoH hold back darkness and, if your name is Kairi it allows you to perform miracles to save your crush, without explanation.

There are keyblades of Darkness, heart and Light, yet the only diffference is one can open path to the realm of darkness and the others can't. Also you need one of darkness and light to seal certain doors.



It'd be nice if the LoD had a library where the player could go to get info dumps on the lore that actually clear up some of the hand wavey stuff.

Maybe KH4 could have you collect scattered books and when you return them to the library Naminé or who ever is maning the library would give you a bit of an info dump on the books content.

Conclusions could be drawn at the end of some of these explainations, like Sora going "Oh so that's how Riku could call upon Kairi's keyblade to hand it to her."
I love that idea so much!

I feel like that would be a nice way to have the player interested in finding what information is actually in the books. It'd be a nice side quest and add some depth to the KH lore.

I know that reading can be dull, but I think that having it as a trophy to find all the books would be a nice incentive to actually make the players intrigued by what information is in the books. Average players don't even realize things get unlocked in the journal as you move throughout the story.
 

FudgemintGuardian

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The reports are definitely a far cry better than playing the "let's go through KHInsider's index and see what else Famitsu interview we missed", but still aren't sold in the best of ways. Reports after KH1 were admitedly more of a way to dispose of explanations that didn't make it to the main screen and to cover up some missing parts left.
And they can be a bit... well, dull. Not many people know about Naminé or Roxas in detail because they couldn't be bothered to read through 10 chapters of Ansem the Wise narrating how beautiful his home was and how much he hates Xehanort. They didn't have an incentive to do so, because stopping and reading was never made necessary or more appealing than just keep hacking and slashing away at enemies.

Though admitedly this has less to do about it being complicated and more about appealing game design.
KH3's Secret Reports are probably read even less because the text is SO DAMN tiny!
 

AdrianXXII

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It might just be my lazy dyslexic self speaking here, but i feel another way to make the reports more enticing would be to give an option to have them read to you. Maybe even add a (rwby) "world of remnent" type animation illustrating the whole thing.

Having the characters also interact and digest the information would probably also help make it more interesting and digestible.
 

DarkosOverlord

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Animated summaries would've been a nice addition, especially when games started needing to go through the same 2-3 recaps over and over.

KH3's Secret Reports are probably read even less because the text is SO DAMN tiny!

Luxu knew Master Xehanort's eyesight wasn't what it used to be (and he saw what it used to be because Young was around), so made it that way to prevent the geezer to read it all

The real pain in the butt was sliding No Name's eye all around the tiny text
 

Y. Alex A. R.

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It might just be my lazy dyslexic self speaking here, but i feel another way to make the reports more enticing would be to give an option to have them read to you. Maybe even add a (rwby) "world of remnent" type animation illustrating the whole thing.

Having the characters also interact and digest the information would probably also help make it more interesting and digestible.
Agreed!! The way Riku explained Replicas in K.H.3 made them waaaay easier for me to understand than K.H.:CoM & K.H.: Days did (although, I did manage to figure out the basics of it in those 2).
 
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Katsagu

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Honestly, for me, most of the stuff presented in KH is just hard to get conceptually when it is explained without the context of actually playing the games. And I believe there isn't really that much to remember, that matters at the end of the day anyway.

Low quality image, but you get my point:

bfd10c4aeae0b890a9c9ea63c3d3e29b.jpg

Like sure, this type of thing looks difficult as hell to comprehend when you look at it, but actually playing through the games, none of it was actually difficult for me to understand when it happened during the game.

But then again, I mostly take things at face value when it comes to KH, when stuff happens I don't really care or try to understand how it happened at a deeper level than how it is showed during the game.
 

Vulpes XIII

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Currently I don’t see the plot as complicated, probably the most complicated thing for me in the series so far was when time travel was first introduced.Although there is always the possibility Nomura might end up making the 2nd phase of Kingdom Hearts complicated with all the new stuff he is probably going to introduce in the new games.

However I can see why people might find the series complicated especially if you never played any of the games and someone’s trying to explain it to you or if you played the series and decided to miss out certain games as they didn’t seem important like the mobile game for example. Personally I think as long as you start from Kingdom Hearts 1 and don’t skip games you will be fine as you will eventually be able to connect the plot points and end up with a good understanding of the story. However if you are wanting to understand everything about the lore and not just stuff the game tells you then things might start to get complicated with all the information you need to find through interviews, characters files and Ultimania.
 

Devilish Destati

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Some things are more convoluted than they need to be, like the Dark Riku situation in KH3 for example. Overall though I think it's more that the plot is pretty dense so there's a lot to retain if you've played the games separately over the years. The HD collections helped make everything more coherent imo but the mobile/browser games stories still aren't as accessible so that's probably going to be an issue going forward if they don't get another cutscene movie or remake out eventually.
 

AegisXIII

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To be honest, the lore is not really that convoluted. The main issue the serie has is using deus ex machina that are explained much much later. Which goes a bit against all the notions of good writing. But maybe that's why we love it.
 
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