Best way to introduce someone to kh?

[PARACOSMIC-M]

Hey peoples! So, my boyfriend really wants to get into kh, but says he doesn’t wanna invest the time into playing all 9 games. He keeps trying to go straight into kh3, but I think that’s a prolly a really bad idea if he actually wants to like, enjoy the game . I honestly don’t know what to recommend as an alternative either, so I figured I’d ask the experts! What do you all think are: a) the most essential games in the series, b) best way to get what you need to enjoy kh3 (summary videos, watching the cutscenes, reading manga/novels, something else, or a bit of everything?)
Thanks for the help!

 

[Absent]

Some people just can’t be convinced. Who knows maybe they won’t enjoy 3 and they’ll rethink to play the whole series instead.

 

[AR829038]

Instead of telling him he needs to play all nine games straight up (because that can be a daunting prerequisite for anyone), try this:
Start off trying to talk him into just playing the first game. He can test the waters with that one first of all, and if he likes that, then hopefully he'll be hooked, at which point he probably won't mind playing many of the other games. That might be more palatable to him than telling him he has to play all 9 (technically, it's actually 12) games before KH3. That makes it sound like a university course. Also, if he ends up not liking KH1, that'll probably tell him all that he needs to know for 3.
Keep in mind, he'll probably just do whatever he wants to do. If he wants to start with 3, that's his prerogative, even if he probably won't get hardly anything out of it. In a perfect world, we'd be able to just make people understand how necessary it is to play all of the games in order to get the real experience out of it, but many people just aren't that patient or willing, and gamers aren't really used to having their entertainment demand so much of them. Try to explain that jumping straight to KH3 would be like watching Avengers: Infinity War without seeing any of the other MCU movies, and maybe that might make him understand. But otherwise, there's only so much you can do with someone dead set on doing things the most expedient, if erroneous, way possible.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

1) Try to get him to play at least KH1 and KH2

2) Tell him it’s like reading/watching HP Deathly Hallows without the other books/films or, like AR suggested, watching Infinity War/Endgame without the other Marvel films.

3) If you can get him to play KH1 and KH2 and he seems really invested, he might want to try the others of his own accord. If not, sit down with him and have a little movie marathon with the cutscenes from the other games and then just let him play KH3.

 

[GonaldDoofy]

I got my girlfriend to play KH1, which she mostly enjoyed, and she is now on KH2. I told her about CoM after she finished 1 but she didn't seem interested, so I told her that was fine and just kinda gave her the basic plot and had her watch a few scenes to get the gist before she dove into KH2. Once she finishes KH2, I'll probably give her the basic gist of Days, maybe show a few scenes, and see if she's interested in BBS, which I'm gonna push for since I think that's probably the most important game outside of 1,2, and 3. If and when she finishes BBS, I'll give a one-sentence summary of Coded since that's all it deserves lol, see if she wants to play DDD, hopefully she does since I feel like that one's relatively important too and at least has some decent worlds, but if not I'll just summarize that too and have her play 0.2 and then head right into KH3 (0.2 only because it's short and leads into KH3 anyways. Probably won't even bother with Back Cover but might give a vague outline of the plot). So I'd say pitch the series more as like "you've gotta play at least 1 and 2 before 3, and it's pretty important to play at least BBS and maybe DDD to understand everything, but if not that's okay" since 3 games minimum and 5 games max is a lot easier to digest than 9 or 12 or whatever. And then just show youtube videos of cutscenes and whatnot, or have him read the wikis lol. Also, I find this to be a fun "explanation" of the lore of the series for the uninitiated:

, but maybe wait til he's played the ones he wants to play and hasn't started KH3 yet to show this. Hope that helps!