Is Kingdom Hearts poorly written?

[Raz]

You can be as pissy as you want about mobile games but that isn't "poor writing."
It's "writing which exists somewhere I don't want it to."

It is poor writing to assume audience familiarity with the lore of the mobile game and throw it into your major sequel with little to no explanation or foundation.

 

[The_Echo]

It is poor writing to assume audience familiarity with the lore of the mobile game and throw it into your major sequel with little to no explanation or foundation.

Again, platform/delivery of the narrative is not a function of the writing itself.

And I don't think that it's out of line for a long-running narrative to assume the audience is caught up.
Kingdom Hearts already has a bad enough habit of staring the audience in the face and vomiting exposition as it is. We don't need characters constantly recapping games you may or may not have played on top of it (actually, KHIII kind of already did this on a few occasions).
If anything, that can only make the writing significantly worse.

All that said, this is no different than when KHII proceeded from where CoM left off without a word about that game's plot, or the myriad other titles doing the exact same thing despite significantly more flagrant platform-hopping than a free mobile game.

 

[Raz]

Again, platform/delivery of the narrative is not a function of the writing itself.

And I don't think that it's out of line for a long-running narrative to assume the audience is caught up.
Kingdom Hearts already has a bad enough habit of staring the audience in the face and vomiting exposition as it is. We don't need characters constantly recapping games you may or may not have played on top of it (actually, KHIII kind of already did this on a few occasions).
If anything, that can only make the writing significantly worse.

All that said, this is no different than when KHII proceeded from where CoM left off without a word about that game's plot, or the myriad other titles doing the exact same thing despite significantly more flagrant platform-hopping than a free mobile game.

Well, no, actually. Form and content are inextricable. But that's not even what I'm getting at.

It isn't out of line to expect the audience to be caught up, to an extent. But I don't think the mobile games really count. I feel like if you made a pie chart of games fans have actually played that the mobile game would make up the smallest percentage. Some might not even know it exists. I'm sure some folks sought it out on YouTube. Or read the Wikipedia page. Neither of which are wonderful ways to absorb a story.

I do not think that lore dumping is great writing either. There is nothing worse than a Yen Sid explaining something scene. All I'm saying is, in making aspects of the mobile games so crucial to the plot of KHIII -- the black box, the Xigbar reveal, and the furries -- some effort could have been made to into cluing the audience into what the hell is happening. Maybe by doing more with the Xehanort/Eraqus chess frame narrative that only appears twice.

KHII proceeding from where CoM left off is more forgivable because the player would be in the same position as the protagonist, confused and disoriented. If anything, that could be construed as somewhat clever writing.

 

[Absent]

KH2 uses the disconnect between the games to create purposeful confusion in its prologue. It works for what they were trying to do with Roxas and the player. That alone is why I always insist for new players to ignore the placement of the games in the collections and play 2 before 358/2 Days. KH2 also introduce Namine and DiZ to new players in a more natural way. The memory snarls in the prologue paired with DiZ's comments suggest that Namine may have something to do with it. Her appearance at random times hints at her connection to Sora and the memories. On the last day, we get confirmation of her abilities and the role she has. DiZ on the other hand gets an introduction with the robed man who is going by Ansem. We know his motives(revenge) and as the game develops we learn who he is.

So the remaining intergame mysteries are:

• The fallen Org.13 members
• How and why Sora lost his memories.
• "Thank Namine"
• Pluto

Kingdom Hearts 3 on the other hand....Had a more difficult job in tying together every "interesting" idea and character Nomura and crew thought of.

So while 2's story ain't that good, it sure does a way better job of connecting things and appearing to have a sound ending.

 

[The_Echo]

It isn't out of line to expect the audience to be caught up, to an extent. But I don't think the mobile games really count. I feel like if you made a pie chart of games fans have actually played that the mobile game would make up the smallest percentage. Some might not even know it exists. I'm sure some folks sought it out on YouTube. Or read the Wikipedia page. Neither of which are wonderful ways to absorb a story.

It just seems rather arbitrary to separate UX in this way when the core issue is "the next game uses plot elements from a previous game without explaining those elements."
Like, why is UXDR any different in this way from CoM, Days, BbS, coded, DDD?
Is there a real answer here, or just personal distaste for the mobile platform coloring your perception of the same situation we've had in this franchise for over a decade and a half?

KHIII is the highest-selling game in the franchise. Millions of people who played KHIII not only didn't play UX, but had never played Kingdom Hearts at all. At which point is KHIII no longer responsible for picking up the player's slack?
And why should it have to do that in the first place?

 

[*TwilightNight*]

Millions of people who played KHIII not only didn't play UX, but had never played Kingdom Hearts at all.

Wow, that must have been a very egregious study you did to come in claiming this as fact. How many KHIII players did you sample and where did you find them, as well as what parts of the interweb did you conduct this statistical research on? Is there a thesis? Where are the numbers? How many countries?

 

[Raz]

It just seems rather arbitrary to separate UX in this way when the core issue is "the next game uses plot elements from a previous game without explaining those elements."
Like, why is UXDR any different in this way from CoM, Days, BbS, coded, DDD?
Is there a real answer here, or just personal distaste for the mobile platform coloring your perception of the same situation we've had in this franchise for over a decade and a half?

Because the mobile game's plot is so separate from the main storyline, temporally. Yes, BBS is the TAV game but you can still connect their names to faces going into III if you've played coded or DDD. Days is the RAX game but those characters are also a part of the plot of other games. Whereas major plot points from UX don't really feature in the main series at all, beyond vague references to a keyblade war. Playing III there's no reason to believe that Ventus is from another age, for example.

The way UX elements show up in III is just crappy writing.

Clearly, Nomura was inspired by the MCU while writing III. But the story fails to deliver on those ambitions. To understand an Avengers film you don't really have to know who Antman is or what happened in his movies, so there's some narrative handholding to help the audience through it. Then you might be inspired to go rent Antman and see what's up with him. There isn't the same incentive in KHIII, just a lot of head scratching about why Xigbar isn't Xigbar anymore.

 

[kirabook]

Not getting involved with the whole mobile game situation much, but I must say, I think the "mobile" game was better off when it was just a browser game and almost entirely part of the past. It could've served such an interesting role in exploring what happened before the events of the current timeline.

But even the mobile games I feel fell victim to the "Everything has to tie together and be relevant RIGHT NOW"

Just a story about the Keyblade War showing us all the key kids dying would've been enough... even MoM would've been fine... but... why couldn't it have just been it's own thing, warning of future "copy cats" or parallels rather than literally being the next part of the story...

 

[redcrown]

KHII proceeding from where CoM left off is more forgivable because the player would be in the same position as the protagonist, confused and disoriented. If anything, that could be construed as somewhat clever writing.

I want to agree with this because it's a logical opinion and the premise works on paper, but my anger and frustration at KH2 for not explaining what happened to Sora and the events of CoM, while also infuriatingly not giving that burning need to know the mystery why Sora woke up in a pod in a strange mansion in a strange town a year later to Sora himself (the protagonist we're playing as and have to run around with for 40 hours) still leaves a bad taste in my mouth all these years later. Even if they released the English ps2 remaster of CoM not long after I played KH2, I'm still mad about that.

Not actually trying to argue your point or anything, just remembering it awoken my old feelings over it lol.

Also about the Maleficent baiting; I'm sort of glad she wasn't prominent in KH3 since imo it would have done even more damage to her image of power and villany. Heck I don't think she should have come back to life in KH2 either, she just floundered about with Pete and got worfed hard.

Maybe if she just hung around the edge of the story and chatted with Riku once in awhile and that's all, I honestly wouldn't mind.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Now days, Nomura deliberately uses carrot-on-a-stick storytelling, always creating more questions than answers. The last straw for me was the black box. I remember the first trailer for KH3 was Maleficent asking Hades if the black box was in his world, so it seemed obvious to me that this is what KH3 was going to be about, and they would absolutely answer that question.

KH3 ended up more being Nomura saying "yah yah I'm bored of Xehenort, let me set up the master of masters storyline more". We waited a damn decade for what was billed as a conclusion, and ended up being essentially a prologue.

I agree with this one mostly, Nomura uses often single well-done scenes and much symbolism and additional imagery to create expectations and "feeling good" impressions for what the future might hold, also including the already mentioned area of the characters coming together.
The most striking of those are Birth by Sleeps secret ending "Blank Points" and a large part of Dream Drop Distance as a whole.
There are many instances where for example the hurt and suffering of the missing characters is dragged into the front seat for the audience sprinkled with cameos creating fuzzy feelings and hopes for things to come, no doubt assisted by Shimomura's masterful music arrangements.
It's shots like this one which are the best examples:

Additionally questions are brought up how this might affect Sora both in short- and longtime consequences (a thing that Coded first brought up).

And then there comes KH III and delegates the whole "saving the suffering characters" to a B-plot that takes place mostly behind the scenes with only a few instances sprinkled in where it actually seems to matter like when while in Twilight Town the focus is shortly on helping Roxas then it gets immediately dropped to be ultimately resolved deus ex machina-type during the already overcrowded final segment of the game.
Saving Aqua is dragged out painfully long and in the process two Keyblade Masters, Mickey and Riku, are made to look like incompetent idiots as no one can apparently get anything done without Sora personally intervening and while the actual scene of Aqua being restored and the whole group-hug thing is very heartwarming and beautifully done it is ultimately a wonderful scene that doesn't feel too earned and "fed" by KH III's story itself, only fueled by any already present feelings for Aqua and her fate from BBS and 0.2. respectively.
Ventus has at least a little build-up with Vanitas' involvement both in Monstropolis and at LoD, again at the cost of making an otherwise competent character (Aqua) look stupid just so Sora can do all the work and the whole supposedly important close heart connection between Ven and Sora is almost completely glossed over and not addressed at all. Again the little scene with them shaking hands and finally meeting in person while Aqua, Donald and Goofy watch on fondly in itself is very well-done, but feels only like the icing on the cake of an overall issue that could be so much more.
Naminé and Xion as a whole are arguably both handled the worst out of all the characters supposedly needed to be saved so I won't elaborate on them further, with Terra in my opinion being the only one who got his "saving" both handled at least semi-adequately and is arguably the most fitting to be saved during the already mentioned final segment of the game.

Then you get some bare minimum scenes of the characters interacting before the whole final battle sequences where they first serve as cannon fodder and then as props for the setting, not as acting characters actually setting their score with Xehanort with the whole Scala ad Caelum section where they all arrive only after the final battle is already over and then again its only Sora addressing Xehanort and more focus being put on Xehanort's lame excuses for his crimes rather than all the victims he created driving the last nail into the coffin of one of the (supposed) central plot points all the other older games built towards.
Re: MInd tries to somewhat remedy/repair in this field by adding the whole segment of them all fighting the Xehanort Replicas with some in-battle banter between them again using the carrot-on-a-stick procedure to imply dynamics and relationships between the characters and yet that is also again partly undermined by having the need to bring again in Sora as the great savior which then (thankfully) in the last segment is taken over by Mickey.
Then Re:Mind actually adds a rendition of the opening scene of DDD to let all the characters (If I recall correctly it even includes Kairi this time) blast armored Goat-Nort apart, in itself certainly a satisfying scene worthy of inducing giddy feelings and satisfaction, yet again it does not have the overall impact it could have had when the whole build up, including more focus on the feelings and motivations of the people involved, had been better.

The culmination was then of course the long rendered cutscene of all of them finally being together and partying/having fun at the beach on Destiny Islands, which yet again by itself is a heartwarming, funny and rewarding scene but in context of the whole of KH III it doesn't feel earned enough and a tad weird because you got no actual build-up between all those characters throughout the whole journey.
The bit of Sora disappearing then completely ruining the mood is of course another severe problem with it.

Or to say it shorter:
In large swaths KH III feels like a continuation of the whole "baiting for more"-procedure BBS Blank Points, Re: Coded and Dream Drop Distance already did for KH III.

---

Yeah, the more I play and the more I see of KH III I too got the vibe that Nomura got more or less fed up with the Dark Seeker Saga and wanted its baggage out of the way asap.
So what was essentially done is working off a check-list of all the beats that had to be addressed in order to come to a conclusion, but it feels like not very much care was put into it in form of exploration and presentation to make it actually fit in-universe. So many things you'd think would be addressed weren't.
To give only one mundane example: Heck, does Mickey know by now that Ansem the Wise, who is supposed to be a friend of him, did survive and resides now in Radiant Garden again? They didn't meet even once over the course of KH III.
I do think that all was because Nomura was totally invested in getting the setup for the next saga done, sacrificing the more emotional, non-world-threat-related side of the current saga's conclusion in the process.

You get a heart reaction for this alone.

The impact of whatever happy ending that supposed beach scene was rang utterly hollow because we have no idea how these characters got there from where they left off last time we saw them. We can just assume. The only reunions we saw were for the blasted trios. As a Roxas fan, he got robbed. His connections don't rely on and don't consist of only RAX, period. Would have loved to see HPO react to seeing him for the first time and welcome him.



Exactly.

The guy doesn't give a damn for cohesive storytelling and well written narratives that aren't caked in bs to fit whatever idea he decided to retcon or add in. He just does whatever he fancies because he...can.

Many thanks.
It just happens to be that KH III ruffled some feathers on my side which Re: Mind admittedly only partly managed to remedy.

The reunion scenes in itself were largely fine and also well done in my opinion, but that is again Nomura's "single-well-done-scenes"-syndrome working because they don't fit fully in the context. Also perhaps partly because for these characters themselves most of their grievances, pain and problems were treated as if they suddenly were gone with the snap of a finger, not to mention there being no actual resolution for them with their tormentors and the deeds they did to them. Re: Mind added this whole "snatch the X from Xemnas"-bit for the Days crew which was never even remotely hinted before to be an actual tangible thing instead of having them actually resolve their whole issues with Xemnas himself. It feels this whole thing was added only to yet again include Sora in the whole process when RAX should have done that on their own. Sora already saved/restored two of them, he doesn't need to do or be involved with everything.
With the BBS-crew it was even worse because their main tormentor was Master Xehanort himself, the big bad and final boss, but their resolution could have been done in Scala after the final battle like they at least attempted to do with them and Eraqus (which was too kind of half-baked imho) but nope.
Vanitas imho doesn't count as he's a) more of a personal enemy to Ven and b) such an unrepentant ass that trying to reach a resolution with him seems to be a waste of time, although of course kudos for Sora and even Ven, his main victim, for trying.
Don't even get me started on Naminé and the plethora of missed opportunities, also since Marluxia and Larxene were also present.

Yep, the narrative and all attached to it has to always bend to Nomura's current interests and concepts he wants to try out, be it harmful to coherency or not. Despite the story being often up in polls to be one of the parts many fans are interested in, Nomura doesn't seem to treat the status of the story top priority at all. The worst offender being possibly the whole issue of 0.2 unnecessarily adding Aqua into the events of the finale of the first Kingdom Hearts, doing both said finale and herself no real favor.

I'm convinced at this point it's part love for the character designs/previous characterisation and part Stockholm syndrome that keep people invested

Add the almost universally well-done music to it which undoubtedly helps selling both situations and the characters.
Almost every single character theme is wonderful to listen to and as I already mentioned above the ability to make single, well-done scenes that pull on people's heartstrings may also be a factor.

I don't really know what you expected out of a KHIII which focused primarily (exclusively?) on the story of the final confrontation with Xehanort.
Which, actually... is kind of already what it did.
Yes, there are more hooks and future plot threads compared to KHII, but the bulk of KHIII's journey still concerns collecting the Guardians and defeating Xehanort. The nods to the χ storyline probably take up less than 10 minutes of the game all told, and Yozora/Verum Rex even less. These moments just stand out because they're new and mysterious compared to the relatively straightforward and predictable endgame of the current arc.

DDD already set the stage for the final battle. They ended the game with Xehanort going "see you at the Keyblade Graveyard, assholes." You're basically sitting at the doorstep of one big battle before KHIII even begins.
I found myself concerned that KHIII wouldn't have enough plot to justify a 30-some-hour ARPG because there was so little to do between then and the final battle. In a way, I was right, with the main plot being largely absent through the middle of the game (not that this is a unique issue to KHIII).


I was only saying that it was a conclusion in response to someone claiming it wasn't.
Whether or not it was a "fulfilling" conclusion is another matter altogether.

And yet the "collecting the Guardians" part of the story is so lackluster and the actual saving and involvement of said characters is so negligible that it feels like a background B-plot rather than an actual crucial part of the story.
When these characters are present then there is almost nothing worthwhile done with them outside a few battles, they're just props standing around or used as cannon fodder.

You could have easily filled out the "30 hours" with making the collecting of the Guardians and rescuing those suffering characters which had been baited since Birth By Sleeps "Blank Points" a central task of the plot, having the audience with Sora learning more about them throughout the whole on-going plot of the game.
With a little skill one could even have woven the Disney worlds themselves into important settings to help getting those rescues done. KH III has some build-ups set for it like the whole "hearts in toys" in the Toy Story-world which could link to Xion, but they weren't further followed.
The whole "Sora-has-to-regain-the-power-of-waking"-mission could have been dealt with in the first half or even third of the game, with the rest being focused on saving those characters and in the process involve them more. The whole thing a task for SDG as well as Riku, Mickey, Kairi and Lea to tackle who could have joined in some worlds as an additional guest party member like the FF cameos did in KH II.
It would also have done wonders for the pacing and prevent the whole clutter at the end during the Keyblade Graveyard segments.
With the other characters around before and already partly involved in interactions you would also have more the feeling of a true full team arriving at the Graveyard. Heck, you could have had Aqua already involved by assisting the training of Lea and Kairi. The possibilities are manifold without even to have think about some deep convoluted scenarios nor to have to neglect the Disney part of the game.

The problem with Kingdom Hearts III is that the next saga had better presentation than the end of the past one. In terms of amount of time: yes, the Seekers of Darkness Saga far surpasses any sequel bait amount that we got.

But quality over quantity.

Correct, the overall set up for the next saga overshadowed the conclusion of the current one.
It undoubtedly is a conclusion, but all in all a largely unsatisfactory one.

Lol remember that stupid box?

I remember already disliking that stupid box the moment X Back Cover introduced the damn thing.
Already felt back then that it is an additional out-of-nowhere mystery that ultimately is unneeded and doesn't factor into anything related to the current storyline nor did it have any real importance in KH III itself aside from giving Maleficent her few instances of screentime which could have been used otherwise.

So,... just so we're clear: technically achieving a conclusion means the quality of the writing is good? (/thread?) Or are we still distinguishing whether we got one however half-baked? Half-baked is still a whole conclusion? Something, something, math.

Just making sure, but, I mean, I guess I'll confirm with an Ultimania, interview or KH4's inevitable in-game wall-of-text summaries.

Nope, technically getting a conclusion means only that, the thing that was stated to be concluded is concluded. A conclusion got written and delivered, but its execution and presentation was lackluster in many areas and mired in already setting up the new story in the middle of it all.

Not even KH II did that. While Xigbar did drop a hint in dialogue about "other Keybladers" and Final Mix added the whole scene of him and Zexion speaking about the chambers of waking and repose, their contents and connection (a plot point and all surrounding it that was dropped and never addressed again except one scene between Axel and Saix in Days) the setup for the next story (BBS) was fully delegated to the secret ending where imho such stuff belongs.

It is poor writing to assume audience familiarity with the lore of the mobile game and throw it into your major sequel with little to no explanation or foundation.

Poor writing coupled with poor planning on top I'd say.
I remember that the whole ReMix-boxes were advertised to finally bring the scattered and cluttered story parts together with Nomura even acknowledging how spreading an interconnected story around so much didn't really help the majority of the audience to understand it and yet they're repeating the whole fiasco they had with the different handheld titles now with the damn gacha phone games whose pace of updating actual meaningful story content is also slower than Slowpoke Rodriguez.

A damn, sorry, looks like I am back to my essay-length posts including some rambling.
It seems to be needless to point out that while gameplay- and design-wise KH III is a very good game, story-wise especially in the area of the characters and their dynamics it is a sore disappointment.

 

[Ballad of Caius]

It undoubtedly is a conclusion, but all in all a largely unsatisfactory one.

Yes, and we've got another game in the KINGDOM HEARTS franchise that ends a Saga, and we can compare to KHIII: KHII ending the "Sora looking for Riku & Kairi Saga". That story was over, but it still had elements of foreshadowing the future that didn't overshadow the story that was closed; Sora, Riku and Kairi receive a letter from Mickey; the fate of Xehanort, seeing as how both his Heartless and Nobody were defeated; the three armored figures from the secret ending plus the bald old man and the guy wearing Rikunort's armor.

 

[The_Echo]

Wow, that must have been a very egregious study you did to come in claiming this as fact. How many KHIII players did you sample and where did you find them, as well as what parts of the interweb did you conduct this statistical research on? Is there a thesis? Where are the numbers? How many countries?

Its... not that complicated.

KHIII reached what, 8 million sales around launch? And the previous best in the series was around 5 million (KH1).

So, yes, it's immediately clear that a significant portion of KHIII's playerbase were starting the franchise with KHIII.
Really not sure why people are jumping down my throat about completely basic and reasonable statements.

 

[Cumguardian69]

That story was over, but it still had elements of foreshadowing the future that didn't overshadow the story that was closed; Sora, Riku and Kairi receive a letter from Mickey; the fate of Xehanort, seeing as how both his Heartless and Nobody were defeated; the three armored figures from the secret ending plus the bald old man and the guy wearing Rikunort's armor.

Except that KH2's ending was definitive - SRK were reunited, MDG went back to do Disney antics, and the big bad threats of dorkness were defeated. The amazing FMV we got with it and 2FM were both callbacks to the PAST - this much was certain by 2007 if not 2008 when Days and BBS were finally getting PVs in Japan and re:riplay bluray discs. KH2 was the end...until Blank Points came along and forced Sora back into the fold (same as Coded tbh)

 

[Squood!]

Honestly I think the true problem is just the struggle to balance Disney stuff and Original stuff.

Like, this is the one game that absolutely needed more original stuff spread out throughout the game instead of backloading it and keeping Sora excitedly running around Disneyland without a care in the world while at the same time making him and VenVen obsessed with heading straight to the RoD in order to keep Aqua from basically becoming KH's Nelo Angelo.

 

[Raz]

I want to agree with this because it's a logical opinion and the premise works on paper, but my anger and frustration at KH2 for not explaining what happened to Sora and the events of CoM, while also infuriatingly not giving that burning need to know the mystery why Sora woke up in a pod in a strange mansion in a strange town a year later to Sora himself (the protagonist we're playing as and have to run around with for 40 hours) still leaves a bad taste in my mouth all these years later. Even if they released the English ps2 remaster of CoM not long after I played KH2, I'm still mad about that.

Yeah, I'm not overly invested in thinking that the in media res opening of KHII is clever. More like it had the potential to be clever if, say, a part of II was Sora somehow regaining those memories so that he could thank Namine (and have it mean something...) at the end.

Also, totally agreed with everyone re: saving the guardians offscreen while Sora piddled around in Disney worlds killed the momentum of III. Imagine if saving Xion was an active part of the plot of Toy Box. Like, if at the end of the world, we accomplished bringing her back and she participated in the final boss fight against the toy heartless? Making Disney a fundamental aspect of saving the guardians and giving each of them their moment to shine would've really helped with the pacing and made that bloated finale more palatable.

I've always said that one of my favorite parts of KHII is that it has a mid-game climax in Radiant Garden, where Sora finds out about how Xemnas is using him to collect hearts and Malifcent saves him from Saix. III didn't really have something comparable.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

One of my favorite video essayist posted this today which I feel highlights what is wrong with Kingdom Hearts as a franchise:

 

[*TwilightNight*]

Its... not that complicated.

KHIII reached what, 8 million sales around launch? And the previous best in the series was around 5 million (KH1).

So, yes, it's immediately clear that a significant portion of KHIII's playerbase were starting the franchise with KHIII.
Really not sure why people are jumping down my throat about completely basic and reasonable statements.

That is not a reasonable or basic statement. That's pulling some random sales number out the wazoo with no back up, and right now you're not even sure of said number with that question mark. So why even say this in the first place?

KHIII last time I checked surpassed or reached the 5 million, no such thing as 8 million. Before we even continue your flawed and unsupported claim based on nothing but assumption rather than statistical analysis, find the link or sales report where you got that number from.

 

[The_Echo]

That is not a reasonable or basic statement. That's pulling some random sales number out the wazoo with no back up, and right now you're not even sure of said number with that question mark. So why even say this in the first place?

KHIII last time I checked surpassed or reached the 5 million, no such thing as 8 million. Before we even continue your flawed and unsupported claim based on nothing but assumption rather than statistical analysis, find the link or sales report where you got that number from.

I can't remember where I saw the 8M mark. Sue me for not doing extensive research for a forum post.

Product A sells one copy. Product B sells two copies.
Assuming everyone who bought Product A also bought Product B, that means one person who bought Product B did not buy Product A.
That's the logic I'm operating under here.
Surely you can grasp something as simple as that, and how it applies to Kingdom Hearts III. It hit 5M in the first two weeks, so obviously it exceeded the previous sales record for the series.

End of the day the raw numbers don't actually matter, I was only using it to exemplify a point in a separate conversation.

 

[Absent]

One of my favorite video essayist posted this today which I feel highlights what is wrong with Kingdom Hearts as a franchise:

"The fact that fans are so forgiving, about an individual piece of medium, a franchise that they like. It lays the groundwork for people behind those franchises to take advantage, and to string you along on the hope that it'll be worth it in the end."

Boom there it is.

 

[*TwilightNight*]

I can't remember where I saw the 8M mark. Sue me for not doing extensive research for a forum post.

Product A sells one copy. Product B sells two copies.
Assuming everyone who bought Product A also bought Product B, that means one person who bought Product B did not buy Product A.
That's the logic I'm operating under here.
Surely you can grasp something as simple as that, and how it applies to Kingdom Hearts III. It hit 5M in the first two weeks, so obviously it exceeded the previous sales record for the series.

End of the day the raw numbers don't actually matter, I was only using it to exemplify a point in a separate conversation.

Then don't mention it on your post. It just shows you're making baseless claims to argue with no proof to back it up.

KHII, reached what, 4MIL, and III is 5MIL. How is that "millions" of people "not only didn't play UX, but had never played Kingdom Hearts at all". It seems to me that's the number of people that have already been with the series, or came back for III to conclude a game that had been left hanging for years. This isn't even adding in the compilation of games that came after II, which would have brought in new players from various platforms. That was such a hot air comment.