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The decline of Kingdom Hearts



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Imo the series began declining after DDD. Thats when it became obvious that SE is just another money grabbing company. I was pissed off when i saw the trailers for that game back in 2011 when i was still in HS. The entire game was an excuse to reuse assets from previous games, it was the 4th game to reuse KH1 Sora, and was a cheap shot so that SE could have a title on 3DS. And the story was dragged on and came to a complete stallmate, not that they cared ofc cuz it was written subsequently, the priority was to make a "new" title.

This game was 100% uncessary, it did nothing besides introducing flowmotion and making the story 100% nonsensial. The KH story was complicated up until DDD but it made sense, there was were rules, there was cohesion. But DDD threw all this away, introduced an uneeded time travel which makes 0 sense and it repurposed Org 13. And the fanbase will pull mental gymnastics such as "well, in KH2 they never said that nobodies CANT regrow hearts" in order to defend the 180 shift in writting. I also have asked many people about time travelling and their responses make 0 sense they literally have settled for some time loop s*** with no beggining which had no reason to be there at all. Again, its all marketing, they didnt know what to do with the story so they pulled the old time travel trope but in the worst iteration made. Even Nomura knows its BS, notice how in his interviews most his replies are maybes and perhaps its cause he might recite everything in the future lol.

The game was just laziness, an excuse from SE to not make KH3 for the PS3, though i have heard people say that SE didnt have good relationships with PS3 but that stil doesnt make DDD a moneygrabbing mess of a game. And it was followed by money grabbing collections and the worst offender, 0.2 AFP which is accepted as a demo for KH3 yet its nothin like KH3 at all. Different protagonist, different setting, different atmosphere, some Soulsborne inspiration perhaps. Its a demo of a game that was never made lol and it was made in such way to milk the fanbase. Cause if it was an actual KH3 demo people wouldnt buy it they could just wait for the full game. But SE made it to look different, stiched it together with some other s*** and sold it as a collection.

KH3 was an incomplete game, you could say the same for KH2 as well but you would have expected SE to have changed this habit after 13 years. Nope, now its DLC time, the problem is that other games with DLCs like Dark Souls were already fulfilling games on their own, DLC was just extra content. In KH3's case DLC is an integral part of the game , the orgiginal was incomplete and despite 7 years of development it was still somehow rushed. People have been arguing that BBS was the downfall but it wasnt cause that game was hinted throuout KH2, it was ambitious, it setted lots of the series' lore and fitted, though not perfectly, with the other games. 3D lacked the same ambition, it recyced assets AGAIN, added possibly the worst story in a video game and some unexaplained hax from Sora and Riku. Up until BBS characters, had powers that made sense, they were tehnciques, but from DDD and on, Sora and Riku have some reality warping s*** and the power of waking in 3 which make 0 sense and are just a**pulls for them to win against overpowered villains.
 

NoWay

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I don’t understand why there are still so many people creating the narrative that KH3 was incomplete. It was a complete experience like any other vanilla KH game. Just because it didn’t contain content many fans demanded (Data Battles, Oblivion and Oathkeeper) , it doesn’t mean it was incomplete.
ReMind did add a lot of new features and also expanded further on the KG cutscenes but it’s not like it wasn’t complete in the first place. The only thing I’d say wasn’t that well fleshed out was Roxas’ return and Scala ad Caelum. Some parts were rushed but not incomplete.
 

Elysium

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To me, the decline of KH was 2-Days-BbS. Coded started an uptick in quality, imo, I enjoyed all of Coded, 3D, 0.2, and KH3.

I believe the reason KH3 feels incomplete to so many people is because of the lack of a proper midpoint in the game (Radiant Garden) and how teeny tiny Keyblade Graveyard is.
 
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ust because it didn’t contain content many fans demanded (Data Battles, Oblivion and Oathkeeper) , it doesn’t mean it was incomplete.
ReMind did add a lot of new features and also expanded further on the KG cutscenes but it’s not like it wasn’t complete in the first place. The only thing I’d say wasn’t that well fleshed out was Roxas’ return and Scala ad Caelum. Some parts were rushed but not incomplete.
in 2019 a game without postgame is incomplete. even vanilla KH1 had decent postgame
 

the red monster

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in 2019 a game without postgame is incomplete. even vanilla KH1 had decent postgame
i don't remember FF VIIR, spider-man, and ton of other games having post game.
KH3 had ultima weapon grind and battle gates, not saying it's a good one, but it was there.
post game is a bonus for people who really enjoyed the base game and it's not really necessary to have one in the first place.
 

Oracle Spockanort

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I’ll be damned. A topic I sort of agree with but also am scratching my head over.

Yes, I would say that the lore sort of started to unravel with KH3D. To this day if you really try to dig deep into KH3D’s story and lore, it breaks itself. KH3 further erodes things by breaking more lore, especially things introduced in KH3D.

I wouldn’t say 0.2 milked fans of their money, though. It was a project that fans desperately wanted to see happen and Nomura knew couldn’t be released, so it is rather amazing they were able to rework BBS 0.2 into 0.2 and deliver it to fans in the way they did.

Also these issues that popped up in 3D were only the culmination of issues that plagued the series’ narrative since KH2…KH3D’s were just more noticeable because people weren’t interested in theorizing around the concepts introduced in that game like prior games.

I don’t agree with the rest of your post, though lol
 

Face My Fears

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in 2019 a game without postgame is incomplete. even vanilla KH1 had decent postgame
I'm sorry, but how do you dictate whether Nomura's project is "complete" or not?

If it were up to the fans to decide whether a game was "complete" or not, then no game would ever be complete because fans always want more.

Vanilla KH3 had: the hidden Mickeys, the fruit mini-games in each world, the world specific minigames (Frozen Slider, Verum Rex etc), Classic Kingdom, Little Chef's Bistro (which includes searching worlds for ingredients *cue Donald's line*) and the Battlegates. All of that may not be what you wanted, but it shows that Nomura put something in there and tried. Honestly, I loved the idea of the hidden Mickeys because it forced you to explore the worlds more - which really makes you appreciate the level of depth the worlds have. The ingredients were also a nice way to have to search worlds.

Trust me, I have my issues with KH3, but in many regards I actually enjoyed it more than the "perfect" KH2. If KH2 didn't feature Roxas, Namine, nobodies and The Organization so much, I wouldn't care for anything else in it really because they didn't serve the DISNEY worlds as best as they could. I still get upset watching the iconic Mulan scene on the mountain be replicated... with no one there.
 

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As a person who extremely dislikes what DDD did to the series I have to agree with Oracle on this one. I don't like what DDD did to the lore of the series, and KH3 didn't really help matters. But I don't feel like KH3 exacerbated the so called "decline" DDD was certainly the series low-point but KH3 was never going to be complete enough to satisfy everybody. It's still a complete game.
 
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Yes, I would say that the lore sort of started to unravel with KH3D. To this day if you really try to dig deep into KH3D’s story and lore, it breaks itself. KH3 further erodes things by breaking more lore, especially things introduced in KH3D.
i always felt it was out of nowhere, i was like "time travel?". Also Young Xehanort is so bland in my eyes as a villain, they didnt bother giving him some attitude and gestures to make him interesting. most of the time he just stands there and talks like he is reading a script. and the problem isnt the voice actor, its just how he is written and animated
 
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I'm sorry, but how do you dictate whether Nomura's project is "complete" or not?

replay value is a thing for games. Final Fntasy X had lots of postgame content that encoruaged the pplayer to grind and obtain the celestial weapons.

ust me, I have my issues with KH3, but in many regards I actually enjoyed it more than the "perfect" KH2. If KH2 didn't feature Roxas, Namine, nobodies and The Organization so much, I wouldn't care for anything else in it really because they didn't serve the DISNEY worlds as best as they could. I still get upset watching the iconic Mulan scene on the mountain be replicated... with no one there.

I never said KH2 was pefect. I mentioned that vanilla KH2 was an incomplete game too. And the disney worlds were bad too. The issue is that KH3 should have the Remind DLC by default and perhaps have other DLCs too. KH1 had better postgame originally than both KH2 and KH3
 
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As a person who extremely dislikes what DDD did to the series I have to agree with Oracle on this one. I don't like what DDD did to the lore of the series, and KH3 didn't really help matters. But I don't feel like KH3 exacerbated the so called "decline" DDD was certainly the series low-point but KH3 was never going to be complete enough to satisfy everybody. It's still a complete game.
You know I get it. The problem for me was that DDD dragged out the story which led to KH3 being even more overhyped. If it was released earlier, maybe people wouldnt be so judgemental about it. Another issue might be that they released the trailers waaaay too early
 

Oracle Spockanort

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i always felt it was out of nowhere, i was like "time travel?". Also Young Xehanort is so bland in my eyes as a villain, they didnt bother giving him some attitude and gestures to make him interesting. most of the time he just stands there and talks like he is reading a script. and the problem isnt the voice actor, its just how he is written and animated
Nomura was in a time travel phase. Also it’s sort of SE’s favorite theme. It’s practically in their DNA.

I don’t agree with Xehanort lol. I love all iterations of Xehanort.
 

Face My Fears

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replay value is a thing for games. Final Fntasy X had lots of postgame content that encoruaged the pplayer to grind and obtain the celestial weapons.



I never said KH2 was pefect. I mentioned that vanilla KH2 was an incomplete game too. And the disney worlds were bad too. The issue is that KH3 should have the Remind DLC by default and perhaps have other DLCs too. KH1 had better postgame originally than both KH2 and KH3
I replayed vanilla KH3 three times before ReMIND, then played it twice again and ReMIND twice. The game itself is fun. Maybe it's just me, but I actually prefer main story stuff over side stuff in all my games. I almost NEVER do any of the side stuff in Final Fantasy games and put them down after I beat the main story. KH is really the only game that I go out of my way to do extra stuff for... and even then, I hated doing the Mushroom XIII crap in KH2ReMIX, so I stopped after doing like 3 or 4 of them.

I'm not necessarily sure that ReMIND should have been in vanilla KH3. Maybe Oathkeeper and Oblivion, and the PRO/EZ Codes... and the Final Fantasy characters and the Data Organization. But the bulk of the ReMIND story actually works better as a DLC. Imagine if vanilla KH3 had you go through the end game twice to reach the true final boss. People would have been pissed. This separation gives some breathing room for the story ReMIND is telling.

You also pointed out how KH3 was rushed but had so much time. You do know that they had to scrap the engine they were working with and start from scratch? That took away 1-2 years worth of work on the game. Also, Nomura had demands from DISNEY to get the game out ASAP. On top of that, Nomura was stressed out because of how Square treated him with Final Fantasy v13 or 15 or whatever. Also, if I'm remembering correctly, some of his staff were booked working on 0.2 and whatever remakes were left for the PS4.

KH3D introduced some new stuff, but I don't think it caused more confusion. I think it actually explained some things, granted conveniently to rein in all of the out of control stuff from before. Nobodies growing hearts was suggested/theorized since CoM. It does make sense for all the humanoid nobodies' to have their bodies try to regrow their hearts or for a heart to grow to fill the emptiness. After all, they only present as humanoid nobodies if they have extremely strong hearts prior to the transformation. Which is why I think this phenomenon doesn't occur in the field nobodies. The time travel thing is somewhat confusing, especially the way it was used in KH3 where Sora kind of changed the future - although I think that is why he dies (since Master Xehanort says that he broke a natural law). Xehanort's time travel wasn't even time travel since he did nothing in the past, he just brought his past hearts into the future. I like that they limit the actual time travel to just the heart and to the body that heart belongs to in the past or future. It kind of reminds me of the movie Arrival.

Also, the most important thing that 3D did was summarize and explain everything up until that point. I don't know if you read the journals in 3D, but Nomura tried his best to explain stuff that people complained had no real explanations. I thought 3D was a positive sign that Nomura does realize that the story is all over the place and he needs to tie it all together. Even post-KH3, if my faves like Roxas and Xion are written off, I wouldn't mind if I see Nomura is aware that he needs to tighten up the story and cast - and that Phase 2 is the perfect time to do it. KH3 - in a way - gets a lot of passes from me because Nomura sort of wrote himself into a corner for over almost 2 decades. If he keeps his old ways up in Phase 2, I may be more critical of him.
 

Elysium

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in 2019 a game without postgame is incomplete. even vanilla KH1 had decent postgame
This. KH1's Final Mix was just extra icing on a cake, whereas KH2's FM content was an attempt to repair the trainwreck quality of the original release. I haven't played ReMind content, but I feel like it probably walks the line between those two examples. I remember watching some of the new additions on YouTube and didn't feel like it added that much?

Also, the most important thing that 3D did was summarize and explain everything up until that point.

Definitely.
 

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You also pointed out how KH3 was rushed but had so much time. You do know that they had to scrap the engine they were working with and start from scratch? That took away 1-2 years worth of work on the game. Also, Nomura had demands from DISNEY to get the game out ASAP. On top of that, Nomura was stressed out because of how Square treated him with Final Fantasy v13 or 15 or whatever. Also, if I'm remembering correctly, some of his staff were booked working on 0.2 and whatever remakes were left for the PS4.
The only thing I personally felt...rushed, is probably how everything had to be shafted to the end. And...with how the story's designed, it felt impossible to make Aqua & Ven's rescue a midpoint. It felt like a midgame wasn't even possible. But maybe it's just my gripe with how the KBG played out. Especially with Terranort just...bodying everyone.

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

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

If you really want to say where the decline in KH is, then just remember that the Disney aspect of the game had importance. That's been gone since 1. KH3 is...somewhat in the right place, but that's just me not being satisfied with the amount it had compared to 1.
 
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