Some don't want Disney in the next Kingdom Hearts games anymore

[Danrye001]

Just keep the Disney Characters.

 

[kaseykockroach]

Restrictions are not to blame, not inherently at least. The writing would still be bad without Disney's presence, just now less funny in its failure since we would not be able to cherish "Say fellas, did somebody mention the door to darkness?".

I hesitate to confidently refer to KH1's narrative as outright brilliant, but it's charming and has respect for the properties it's working with in ways that I haven't really felt with the series since (but I keep playing anyways because they're fun to play anyhoo).

 

[kaseykockroach]

Considering Mickey's character ultimately amounted to 'leaving Aqua stranded in Hell for ten years' once he was allowed screentime, I'm not sure restrictions are a bad thing!

 

[kaseykockroach]

I recognize that, but any issues I personally have with the series have nothing to do with anything Disney-related. And I'm saying that as someone who's not THAT big of a Disney fan! That is to say, since KH1 already repped most of my fav Disney movies (Alice, Dumbo, Little Mermaid), I haven't particularly cared about whatever Disney-related aspect the series has offered since.
You take Disney out of it, I can easily see a hypothetical KH4 just...spending twenty hours with Sora Donald Goofy sitting on a clocktower eating ice cream before suddenly remembering 'oh, right, Kairi exists!'.

 

[Absent]

When you look at it, KH is basically Nomura and friends playing with toys that don't belong to them.

 

[Danrye001]

I recognize that, but any issues I personally have with the series have nothing to do with anything Disney-related. And I'm saying that as someone who's not THAT big of a Disney fan! That is to say, since KH1 already repped most of my fav Disney movies (Alice, Dumbo, Little Mermaid), I haven't particularly cared about whatever Disney-related aspect the series has offered since.
You take Disney out of it, I can easily see a hypothetical KH4 just...spending twenty hours with Sora Donald Goofy sitting on a clocktower eating ice cream before suddenly remembering 'oh, right, Kairi exists!'.

I'm a Disney fan.

 

[Absent]

Nope, pretty sure it all belongs to Disney save for the Square properties and the merchandise conundrum. Case and point, the literal start screen of any KH game. Also V Cast says hi.

 

[the red monster]

What about a balance between Disney and Final Fantasy? In the next Kingdom Hearts game, they really need to regain that balance.

That's the issue, there's no balance. it's 90% disney and 10% OC. if it was 50-50 i would be ok with that. heck, even 60-40.
i don't want to visit disney worlds for 20 hours just to get 3 hours of OC.
ReMind was the best KH experience by far, for me.

 

[KeybladeLordSora]

When you look at it, KH is basically Nomura and friends playing with toys that don't belong to them.

I see it more like "giving up toys you made so you can play with the toys that don't belong to you"

In this case the former being the original characters and worlds, which are owned by Disney despite being created by Square simply because they're in a game with Disney in it.

 

[kirabook]

That's what I'm saying. The problem here is not Disney itself. It's a lack of balance or effort to actually adapt the Disney aspects into something new and unique for the KH experience.

If we look back at KH1, none of those Disney elements followed their canon counterparts really. In general it was sorta the same, but not really. It was changed almost entirely to fit the KH and FF narrative. The closer KH follows the original movies, the worse the world tends to be. If KH and FF are not affecting the Disney world in any way, it's boring.

So in that way, I don't think the Disney properties themselves are the problem. I don't think they need to be gotten rid of (because that's never going to happen anyway), but they NEED to be changed and balanced out way more with original and FF elements.

Let's take Elsa for example. Sora was shocked that she could use what is basically one of his blizzard spells. Wouldn't it have made more sense for Sora and Donald to be like "Oh yeah, we can do something similar. No biggie." and have Elsa for a moment questioning her insecurities? "Oh yeah, there are people out there with all sorts of powers!" Cause you know... this is a Disney X FF crossover so Elsa would basically be a Black mage or something. But anyway

When people say Disney is more restrictive, people mean as compared to the past where they were gripping onto Mickey Mouse to protect him from anything and everything, now they're doing that with almost all of their newer properties.

Frozen and Tangled I think suffered the most from this. They follow the movie plot almost exactly, nothing Sora and gang does there has an effect on the plot or really even the characters. They especially stand out as just movie rip offs compared to the Pixar movies or Big Hero 6 (which had its own issues but at least they did their own thing)

Disney clearly didn't care that much what Nomura and team did with the rest of the Disney properties in KH1. He was wildin'. Comparing those older properties from the newer ones.... you can just tell there was way more Disney than there should've been.

 

[KeybladeLordSora]

The Elsa bit irks me the most. I said before that I heard stories of people who worked with Frozen stuff having to follow a bunch of rules and design docs cuz Disney was uber protective of Frozen to the point where even having Elsa's pose mirrored so that she was facing another direction was seen as a problem.

 

[Elysium]

Disney has been just as restrictive with KH since KH1, where Nomura had to harshly negotiate Mickey Mouse's appearance in the game.
Where the Disney company did not allow Nomura to use Mickey as he would like.
They conditioned Nomura to use ONLY Mickey's silhouette, during a very limited time of footage, even conditioning the shot distance at which he should appear, also conditioned not to show Mickey's face at any time in KH1.

This was only because Disney was hesitant about a game series at all, especially with another company in charge at that. Mickey is the main symbol of the company. I'm actually surprised they weren't restrictive of Snow White, too. That's not quite the same as when Lasseter was in charge and he wouldn't even allow the films he worked on to be used at all without people at the company becoming involved. Hopefully that was a temporary overreach and it's over now he's gone. I take all the new video game series involving Disney characters in anime settings as a good sign that it is.

Despite that. In a recent nomura interview, he says that he no longer considers Disney or Final Fantasy characters necessary to develop the story.

This is why Nomura will never make a new installment that matches KH1. Disney or Final Fantasy didn't have to be essential in that game either--he could've made enough original characters backthen to background the Disney content the same way they are now. No, it's just in that game there was actually a reverence for the Disney and Final Fantasy content, a desire to involve them and utilize them in tandem with the original content. These days he treats Disney / FF as being a burden instead of part of the recipe for what this series was and should be as much as the fanbase does, and it shows.

 

[Absent]

These days he treats Disney / FF as being a burden instead of part of the recipe for what this series was and should be as much as the fanbase does, and it shows.

Preach

 

[KingdomKurdistan]

Disney's "vice grip" was the only thing standing in the way of KH3 being a series-ending disaster.

I don't know how anyone could look at the non-Disney parts and say "yep I wish the Disney scenes could have been more like this stuff right here." Apart from Frozen, the Disney worlds were the only ones that felt like finished products.

Mickey's role in the first game is one of the strongest parts of its narrative and is a crucial frame for the rest of the series.

A 15 years ago I'd have loved Disney to leave KH.

Now it's the opposite, I would prefer they went to another developer.

 

[Sakuraba Neku]

Kingdom Hearts without Disney isn't Kingdom Hearts, but they need to find the balance between Disney, KH original content and Final Fantasy which was lost in KH3. Fans have higher expectations for a numbered title than a "spinoff" title

 

[KingdomKurdistan]

Kingdom Hearts without Disney isn't Kingdom Hearts, but they need to find the balance between Disney, KH original content and Final Fantasy which was lost in KH3. Fans have higher expectations for a numbered title than a "spinoff" title

Can't disagree with the balance thing. There was a disconnect between the level of ambition, the available budget, the creative skill to realise that ambition, and the storytelling competence to tell it.

The spin off titles seem so much more aware of their own constraints and find creative ways of working within them or masking them. KH2 does feel like the product of near-unlimited resources and it's both at times outrageously impressive and others pure overindulgence.

Necessity is the mother of invention but KH3 feels like a product where the creators didn't think they had any material constraints until it was too late to do anything about it. It feels like an arbitrary sample of scenes from a much larger whole.

Imagine ripping out 40% of KH2 and pretending you didn't. That's what KH3 felt like. The only parts that felt "complete" were individual Disney worlds and I can't imagine how they would have ended up had Disney not imposed a higher standard of quality control than they bothered to do for non-Disney parts.

There are of course lots of real world events and complications that impacted this but project management is all about how well these things are, well, managed.

 

[2 quid is good]

Disney did seem far more aware and meddle some of KH3 than any previous title in the series, if you go through those interviews where they inspected the hairs on Elsa's head. You know, REAL KH stuff.

Personally I don't mind anymore how obtrusive and isolated the Disney worlds feel now as long as they do right by the other half of KH.

 

[Dark Rot]

I think KH would still be KH if it didn't have individual Disney worlds the way they've done it so far. You could have levels inspired by Disney movies that aren't necessarily those worlds themselves, you could have original themed cartoonish worlds (like those from early KH1 concept art) where several Disney casts intersect, you could just have the style of KH original worlds we've come to expect, but with Disney characters inhabiting them. Maybe something happens, and everywhere's like Traverse Town. Maybe a whole game of chaotically twisted Disneylands like 0.2. Maybe we have a setting explored through a hub instead of a map. You could even do a whole adventure with just Donald, Goofy and Maleficent involved, no other Disney characters, and that could be enough. The Disneyness of KH is more than the borrowed elements... And Kingdom Hearts is way more than a Disney crossover vehicle.

Also, I'd be fine with a game that was 90% Disney, as long as the developers were thoughtful about what would be the most magical and compelling movies to incorporate, taking into account the entire library, and were deliberate in making the most of them. The possibilities really are endless. They just need to take a step back... Hopefully this new Phase means what they did with KH3 will not be the standard going forward.