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Is Kingdom Hearts Writing bad?



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jahob000

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While I do like Kingdom Hearts, I'm just a long time casual fan more than a hard core one. The reason why I say that is because I am open to negative criticisms about the series. I won't be blinded by my liking of the games to not see things that are reasonably true or possible.

So I watched these videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R88XGClRibU , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhcqCIWc2wY along with a few others and thought that they do make fairly good points. In short, this video about how the story and writing of the games are bad. He is not bashing but giving a criticism.

I can tolerate a lot of things and in all honesty, the story isn't what necessarily keeps me attached to the series. I had to actually think about this. Why DO I like the series so much if I don't think much of the story? Well, I suppose is that the games are still fun for me to play, I LOVE the music and I do want to keep seeing what will happen with the story but it's not my main driving force.

I said it before in a different post but the flaw to any story is when you try to explain or over explain the origin to each and every little thing. I believe that to be true. It's almost like lying to someone and you keep adding things to it to cover up the lie. It ends up being a confusing mess that can't be tracked. Then you make more lies to make sense of the other lies you added to it.

I did always feel that the Keyblade should have always remained this mysterious object. While I did like the gameplay of Birth By Sleep and enjoyed seeing the backstory, I still felt it was unnecessary (I still love Aqua thought). I don't hate the story of the series but I do feel it took some twist and turns that the series would have been fine without. Now the story involves time travel, doppelgangers, multiple versions of the same people and a few other things.

It's not just Kingdom Hearts. There are plenty of series that have this trait after the first installment. Most of the time the story is meant to end after that or leave a small hole for something else to be connected to it which can be in an ungraceful way. A sequel to anything can be tough especially if it was never thought of during the original story.

So what do you guys think? Do you think there's problems with the story but still like the games anyway? Do you think the stories are perfect? Opinions? Reasons?
 
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Nukara

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I still love history in KH.
Yes, with some points overdone, both with time travel and the storyline in Coded, but this does not make the same DDD plot for me bad. There are still good moments in it.
If so to think Kingdom hearts is one of the few long-running series, whose plot and unconvinced turns still surprise.
Yes, and where you see characters that are a copy of another person and can be more interesting and much deeper than the original personality, such as Roxas.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that I entered this fond quite recently and I'm not a fan of nostalgia as many fans. Therefore, for me, the same KH1 and COM are not the best for the well-known fact that what you saw as a child often remains the best memory of the tempo, I already at the time of these two games was a little familiar with the plot of KH2 which interested me more.
The only thing that I still do not understand is that most of the critics on YouTube are overly critical of the plot in KH2, I've met and commentators who generally considered the story in KH2 the worst in the history of the Kingdom hearts. No, of course everyone has his own opinion, but still, as for me, such a statement is too strong.
And there were those who said that they were absolutely all the same on the Roxas and on his fate. But it seems to me to be "Thoroughbred heartless" so that the history of Roxas does not cause you anything at all.
But I moved away from the topic.
Think of me as a hardcore fanatic, but I love the story in Kingdom hearts with all my heart, yes it has flaws, and some where there are inconsistencies, but for me the story does not get worse.
And that I was able to draw a story (Even with these shortcomings) at a fairly mature age, much means.
 

Veevee

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Well, I don't think that KH's problem lies in EXPLAINING things because it rarely actually does. A lot of plot points kinda come out of nowhere and are never explained (For example, why did Riku have Kairis keyblade? How does time travel work exactly? What happened to Terra? And so on...) while others are explained in an unnecessary way (the loss of Mickey's shirt, what happened to Aqua in the Shadow Realm). Nomura often deliberately leaves plot points open (like Ven's past) or Mickey's connection to the BBS trio just to fill them with a lot of nonsense later because he has decided to tie this into the main plot and we get something like Ven being from a totally different era and Mickey never mentioning nor saving Aqua because it wasn't a thing in the first games. Most of these revelations come off kinda unorganic because Nomura tries to make them fit in even though they were added later and if he was trying less to make the series convoluted and to fill those holes and make whole games out of them, the writing might become better. In my opinion, it would've been a much better idea just to leave some things vague and up to imagination or not to make a connection at all. Instead of putting Mickey into Aqua's shadow realm story, they should've just said that he never saw her again after BBS, thus not knowing about her fate - the way it is now, he comes off kinda heartless telling people he respected a choice that was never a choice and didn't save her for an eternity even though he knew what was up. This is just one example of writing gone wrong in the series - something that wasn't explored in the first place, gets attention much later and thus puts things into question retrospectively, like we can experience with Lauriam or Ventus now. The fanbase usually tries pretty hard to fill possible holes and defend plot points and find story reasons for things that can't really have any, which would be less necessary if the plot points were just left vague instead of being given a strange explanation. It doesn't point towards complexity, but bad writing if you have to read interviews and Ultimanias and word of god to get answers for really important plot points because the game wasn't able to deliver those properly. A game should be able to stand by itself and be judged by itself, FF15 suffered the same fate and it was a mess, if one with a rich narrative split onto a ton of DLC, anime episodes and a movie, still without being finished.

That said, I like Kingdom Hearts. I like the music, I like the character interactions, I like a lot of the characters, but I prefer the older games that were not so convoluted like DDD or Ux.
 

Launchpad

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Yes, it is extremely poorly written. I could go on for hours. And yet...

It's made me feel things. I've cared when stuff happened to Sora and his close friends. I get excited and giddy when some stupid twist comes along and changes everything.

So yeah, it's poorly written, but it's damn effective.
 
D

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It's a good story that took a couple of wrong turns. That's more common than you think. Storytelling is a messy proccess so hopefuly with KH3 he takes a better turn.

If not, atleast the disney worlds would be worth it.
 

Nukara

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Veevee,But I can say that with Ventus from the very beginning it was not just that. If Ven was an ordinary guy, he would have been interested in Xehanort.
Even on the stained-glass windows in his heart, a cemetery of the Keyblade was painted, which at one time puzzled me. I think Nomura deliberately left Ven's history open to later develop something from it. And I think the meeting between Mickey and Aqua was planned for a long time. Recollect the secret ending of the Aqua story, where Mickey flies in the realm of darkness and where Aqua encounters Cinderella's castle, and given that some source was planned for Birth by sleep vol 2, it's likely that they could show Aqua and Mickey, but then all this transferred to 0.2. No, this does not mean that KH has no shortcomings, but these moments were specific.
Why is everyone so critical of the moment with Mickey's shirt?
Was I alone anyway for this moment?
I just immediately found that this garment protects from darkness and is made with the help of magic of light as for example the Sora form drive.
 
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Veevee

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Veevee,But I can say that with Ventus from the very beginning it was not just that. If Ven was an ordinary guy, he would have been interested in Xehanort.
Even on the stained-glass windows in his heart, a cemetery of the Keyblade was painted, which at one time puzzled me. I think Nomura deliberately left Ven's history open to later develop something from it. And I think the meeting between Mickey and Aqua was planned for a long time. Recollect the secret ending of the Aqua story, where Mickey flies in the realm of darkness and where Aqua encounters Cinderella's castle, and given that some source was planned for Birth by sleep vol 2, it's likely that they could show Aqua and Mickey, but then all this transferred to 0.2. No, this does not mean that KH has no shortcomings, but these moments were specific.
Why is everyone so critical of the moment with Mickey's shirt?
Was I alone anyway for this moment?
I just immediately found that this garment protects from darkness and is made with the help of magic of light as for example the Sora form drive.

Well, it is one thing to depict the Keyblade Graveyard on Ven's SG and another to have him come from a totally different timeline and to retrospectively imply that Xehanort was interested in him because the all-knowing-Xehanort knew this all along. This is what I mean with retrospective bullshit, now we interpret Xehanort's and Ventus' actions much deeper than BBS actually gives ground for in itself and that kind of annoys me. If there were actual hints for this, it would feel less forced to me, but Ux wasn't a thing in 2010 and to exploit stuff that was left vague on purpose instead of leaving it as it was, feels unnatural.
BBS Vol. 2 was a thing when BBS came out, yes, but Mickey meeting Aqua wasn't a thing back in times of the end of Re:Com where Mickey WAS already in the shadow realm along with Riku and had no reason not to look for her. You can't say "it's too dangerous" when you're already right in the middle of the danger and 0.2 showed that he was able to locate her via her wayfinder, so he could've found some way / time to at least look for her because as far as he could know, Ansem was beaten, the heartless stopped, the world was saved. 0.2 implies that he was aware where she was and deliberately chose not to help her in future titles which is in my opinion way worse than not knowing where she is thus not sounding like a douche when saying "I respected her choice, yo". I don't mind the clothes thing much, but it was kinda dumb and ruined the tension for me and I definitely could've lived with that inconsistency - it bothers me that they felt they had to explain THAT and leave out so much more important stuff, like how the hell can Terra communicate with Aqua there? The reason was along the lines of "bcs of the darkness, the darkness can kinda do all kind of stuff but it is never brought up again" as well as Riku being able to smell darkness and stuff like that which got featured in one game and was never mentioned again even if it might've been useful. It reminds me of Yu-Gi-Oh! where they sometimes featured special or awesome cards that were only useful in one situation or duel and thus NEVER mentioned or used again and it feld kinda forced since the characters are not really known for reassembling their decks in generel, not even for opponents they know, less for opponents they don't know.
I don't mind writers hinting at things and later diving deeper into stuff or being vague, but I do mind if there was no actual sign of something like that happening and they retcon stuff into deliberately left vague plot parts and it ends up getting messy. There are a lot of franchises where they didn't know that a continuation was about to happen, but you usually continue with something new, not with something that might collide with what you've already established and try to bend past entries to your new will. People were surprised about Lauriam being in Ux because there was not a single sign of that development in Re:Com.
People like plot twists because they can see where they are coming from / they make sense even though they didn't think of that as a possibility, so they are surprised and content. Or they did see it coming and feel good about being able to do that and they are also content. If you do a plot twist nobody could see coming because it was nowhere near the possibility range, it's not a fun thing. For example, if Terra was to show up suddenly and be alive and kicking, it wouldn't be satisfying even though it is a possibility, but not one that would be expectable anyhow because we haven't seen anything from him since BBS, so no buildup / no hints => bad plot twist.
 

jahob000

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Why is everyone so critical of the moment with Mickey's shirt?
Was I alone anyway for this moment?
I just immediately found that this garment protects from darkness and is made with the help of magic of light as for example the Sora form drive.

Haha. It's a funny but true point that people make. It's because it shows that they didn't have everyone and everything thought out, which is fine. As we've stated, creating sequels and inserting new ideas that you just came up with when they weren't woven into the original story is pretty difficult. The whole shirt thing leads into other points so that's why it keeps getting brought up. When you make a story and you know that you intend to have sequels following, then there should be INTENDED hints that lead you to the next games. I'm not talking about hints that fans try to force into place. I'm talking about where the creator knew AT THAT POINT AND TIME what would take place and embedded it into earlier games. That's the proper way to lead into a sequel. Leaving a few holes in things to fill them in with "something" is not the most efficient way to do a sequel.

For example, Ansem (Xehanort's Heartless) was on the Islands when Sora went into the cave. Does that mean that Nomura knew that Ansem had already done the time travel stuff and intentionally put him there? No. Was Nomura ever thinking that someone intended for Riku to get the Keyblade back when he was creating KHI? No. However fans will try to force link those events. Nomura, along with many other people that create things, found new story ideas as they were creating more. The problem isn't that he comes up with new ideas, the problem is that he keeps trying to link everything together when there is no need for it.

That's an issue that a lot of sequels have. The original will leave some kind of vague open plot hole without any specifics open so that they can claim that's when or how the event's happened. There's a lot of forcing things in the later stories of Kingdom Hearts when there didn't have to be.

Think about it for a sec. After you beat Kingdom Hearts I was there any part of the story you were confused about? (other than the Giant Door of Kingdom Hearts lol.) You pretty much knew what was going on while playing. You had to stop the villains from getting to the keyholes, you had to find Riku and Kairi and destroy "Ansem" Pretty simple right? There was never any point in the game where you felt severely lost to the story. That's because it was a complete story leading into another which we only knew at the end of the game when Sora, Donald and Goofy are traveling on the road. When I first saw that I figured oh nice! More Story! However a few games later, they went back to explain things that weren't needed, thus the forcing begins.
 

Nukara

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Well, it is one thing to depict the Keyblade Graveyard on Ven's SG and another to have him come from a totally different timeline and to retrospectively imply that Xehanort was interested in him because the all-knowing-Xehanort knew this all along. This is what I mean with retrospective bullshit, now we interpret Xehanort's and Ventus' actions much deeper than BBS actually gives ground for in itself and that kind of annoys me. If there were actual hints for this, it would feel less forced to me, but Ux wasn't a thing in 2010 and to exploit stuff that was left vague on purpose instead of leaving it as it was, feels unnatural.
BBS Vol. 2 was a thing when BBS came out, yes, but Mickey meeting Aqua wasn't a thing back in times of the end of Re:Com where Mickey WAS already in the shadow realm along with Riku and had no reason not to look for her. You can't say "it's too dangerous" when you're already right in the middle of the danger and 0.2 showed that he was able to locate her via her wayfinder, so he could've found some way / time to at least look for her because as far as he could know, Ansem was beaten, the heartless stopped, the world was saved. 0.2 implies that he was aware where she was and deliberately chose not to help her in future titles which is in my opinion way worse than not knowing where she is thus not sounding like a douche when saying "I respected her choice, yo". I don't mind the clothes thing much, but it was kinda dumb and ruined the tension for me and I definitely could've lived with that inconsistency - it bothers me that they felt they had to explain THAT and leave out so much more important stuff, like how the hell can Terra communicate with Aqua there? The reason was along the lines of "bcs of the darkness, the darkness can kinda do all kind of stuff but it is never brought up again" as well as Riku being able to smell darkness and stuff like that which got featured in one game and was never mentioned again even if it might've been useful. It reminds me of Yu-Gi-Oh! where they sometimes featured special or awesome cards that were only useful in one situation or duel and thus NEVER mentioned or used again and it feld kinda forced since the characters are not really known for reassembling their decks in generel, not even for opponents they know, less for opponents they don't know.
I don't mind writers hinting at things and later diving deeper into stuff or being vague, but I do mind if there was no actual sign of something like that happening and they retcon stuff into deliberately left vague plot parts and it ends up getting messy. There are a lot of franchises where they didn't know that a continuation was about to happen, but you usually continue with something new, not with something that might collide with what you've already established and try to bend past entries to your new will. People were surprised about Lauriam being in Ux because there was not a single sign of that development in Re:Com.
People like plot twists because they can see where they are coming from / they make sense even though they didn't think of that as a possibility, so they are surprised and content. Or they did see it coming and feel good about being able to do that and they are also content. If you do a plot twist nobody could see coming because it was nowhere near the possibility range, it's not a fun thing. For example, if Terra was to show up suddenly and be alive and kicking, it wouldn't be satisfying even though it is a possibility, but not one that would be expectable anyhow because we haven't seen anything from him since BBS, so no buildup / no hints => bad plot twist.

So like Terra contacted Aqua thanks to Namine because he was connected to the heart of Sora. But in general, when I first looked at this moment, he did not cause me any problems, I took it for a strong connection between Terra and Aqua, so at some point she was able to contact. Secondly, it's possible that Xehanort / Xemnas found Aqua and used its connection with Terra to find out where Ventus is. Personally, I have this perhaps the most favorite moment in the 0.2 due to a short confrontation between Terra and Xehanort.
I think if the creators did not explain the moment with Mickey's clothes, the fans would still complain.)) In general, perhaps the moments of interaction between Aqua and Mickey are some of the best in this game. I like that the game paid attention to the interaction between Aqua and Mickey and how they fought in combat looked really effective.
Even if there are inconsistencies there, they did not so masolin my eyes that I could not love these moments.
Yes, I think that the story of Ven and Marluxia should be told not in a mobile game. But it's better to let it do than not to do at all. Many will agree with me that Ventus is a pale copy of Sora and Roxas and that it has been made connected with the past will give him at least some chance to develop.
I'm surprised at the little things that you podmichaete, I would not have never paid attention to it. ;-)
 

Nukara

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Haha. It's a funny but true point that people make. It's because it shows that they didn't have everyone and everything thought out, which is fine. As we've stated, creating sequels and inserting new ideas that you just came up with when they weren't woven into the original story is pretty difficult. The whole shirt thing leads into other points so that's why it keeps getting brought up. When you make a story and you know that you intend to have sequels following, then there should be INTENDED hints that lead you to the next games. I'm not talking about hints that fans try to force into place. I'm talking about where the creator knew AT THAT POINT AND TIME what would take place and embedded it into earlier games. That's the proper way to lead into a sequel. Leaving a few holes in things to fill them in with "something" is not the most efficient way to do a sequel.

For example, Ansem (Xehanort's Heartless) was on the Islands when Sora went into the cave. Does that mean that Nomura knew that Ansem had already done the time travel stuff and intentionally put him there? No. Was Nomura ever thinking that someone intended for Riku to get the Keyblade back when he was creating KHI? No. However fans will try to force link those events. Nomura, along with many other people that create things, found new story ideas as they were creating more. The problem isn't that he comes up with new ideas, the problem is that he keeps trying to link everything together when there is no need for it.

That's an issue that a lot of sequels have. The original will leave some kind of vague open plot hole without any specifics open so that they can claim that's when or how the event's happened. There's a lot of forcing things in the later stories of Kingdom Hearts when there didn't have to be.

Think about it for a sec. After you beat Kingdom Hearts I was there any part of the story you were confused about? (other than the Giant Door of Kingdom Hearts lol.) You pretty much knew what was going on while playing. You had to stop the villains from getting to the keyholes, you had to find Riku and Kairi and destroy "Ansem" Pretty simple right? There was never any point in the game where you felt severely lost to the story. That's because it was a complete story leading into another which we only knew at the end of the game when Sora, Donald and Goofy are traveling on the road. When I first saw that I figured oh nice! More Story! However a few games later, they went back to explain things that weren't needed, thus the forcing begins.

O holy pasta! :)
Where and what is so complicated in Mickey's shirt that she is being pinned to the plot holes. )))
I am more than sure that with a probability of 100% people would complain that this moment was shown incorrectly.
In both cases, the critic leaves.
And I absolutely do not see anything difficult to understand the plot in 0.2
Yes, I do not argue that in KH1 the plot is simpler and clearer, but this is the problem, it can not surprise you at all and nothing interesting can show you (Well, except the crossover of Disney and SE) Tell me really interesting characters in this part for which really it was possible to worry? Riku begins to open only in COM and only Kairi and Sora remains. Kairi is in many ways a typical girl in trouble whose role is to be rescued. Plus, it is almost not disclosed. With Sora, everything is also difficult, he is in many respects a typical protagonist, and such types usually do not have interesting character developments. Perhaps who really was an interesting hero is Ansem, who was an excellent manipulator. In terms of drama, too, rather past by for a moment with the one where Sora releases his heart for obvious reasons can no longer be fully called dramatic.
And yes KH1 is still an excellent game with a good storyline and adventure story and the Disney theme here really is served perfectly.
However, I do not like subjects where you are fed from a mock and stuff the already prepared information without thinking. If you try to compare then take some porridge for example, it will be simple and you will eat it, but you will not get much from it and compare it with a cake and it is more harmful, but if you eat it you will get much more impressions than simple porridge.If it is more convenient for you, this is your right and I really have to respect it, but alas I'm not so inviting. Cartoons Disney 90 years have often sinned predictable plots and the benefit now in modern Disney cartoons all ceased to be too predictable.
 
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ImVentus

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Kingdom Hearts never really had professional writing. It started out very basic and simple with good vs evil. In COM the writing took somewhat a spin and naturally progressed while not revealing too much. KH2's writing went back to the idea of good vs evil while also further exploring more grey characters that weren't just pure antagonists on the surface. KH2 left a big room with questions for the larger aspect of the lore. Days took itself serious to develop it's cast with more complex traits. Yet even here, Days suffered in the execution and could have been written a lot better despite being one of the stronger arcs.

For all it's worth Coded helps explore Sora's character and put him in more obstacles on his own. His interactions in the 3rd act of the story is actually not that badly written compared to the obvious Disney paranoia in the first 2 acts. His connection with Roxas is one of his stronger moments in the series by far, seeing the contrast between the two and how this puts a (ordinary optimistic boy) in someone's else shoes, makes for some interesting exploration. I will stand for that his conversation with Naminé is one of his maturest and most human developments he's presented in the series. He actually asks questions and look for answers, instead of just (KH2 & DDD) No biggie!

BBS feels incomplete to some degree. It's always interesting to know what the very first draft was like, before the finalised story was decided. It seemed even darker and took it's trio more serious from what can be found in sources. BBS is one of those stories that is easy to follow and appreciate, but it's also one of those that feels too much like it's following a trope with no real risks. The potential just hasn't been accomplished.

DDD is a mess. To some degree Riku's character is given a pretty strong acceptance arc, even though it might be somewhat repetitive of his previous character development.
That being said, given the focus on Riku, Sora's character is dumbed down to making the protagonist foolish. Remember that this is the kid that saved the world's universe in two titles alone. How can you not have learnt some self awareness from that experience? There's nothing wrong with being open and expressive, but that doesn't excuse for his insane gullibility and desperate attempt to befriend everyone he meets. I know that's part of his character, but there needs to be some awareness and dimension so that he doesn't come of as a 1 dimensional naive boy. The only part of his arc in DDD that I tolerated in his belief was this
Neku: "Now were's friends? It's not that easy" Sora:"Not saying it is, but ... you can make it easier" He so totally burned down Neku with some level of wisdom. He also wasn't too bad in the TWTNW segment.

Now as for the future titles and UX ..... (Sigh) the writing went downhill.
There was and is so much potential for it to work, but it's a cluttered mess with so little care for it's real lore and it's driving me insane how they can just add characters while not exploring the one that need time for exploration and development. I really, really liked the lore of KHX and I appreciated the dark turning point with the Keyblade war. But they have got to given more care to the Dandelion subplot cause it's rolling in it's grave at the moment.

The writing was never great, but it was at peaks where it did make itself noticed as more than just a game. I don't believe KH3 can save it from it's status. But hopefully, it can tone it down from it's problematic fan service and fix some issues with the series.
 
D

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ThrillingDuck's the decline of KH video is pretty good. You should check it out.

I'd say people consider Nomura a bad writer because they don't trust his choices as a storyteller. Most threads on this reexamine some of the new additions he made to the lore/characters and conclude they were poorly executed or thought through.

DDD is that in a nutshell.
 

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So like Terra contacted Aqua thanks to Namine because he was connected to the heart of Sora. But in general, when I first looked at this moment, he did not cause me any problems, I took it for a strong connection between Terra and Aqua, so at some point she was able to contact. Secondly, it's possible that Xehanort / Xemnas found Aqua and used its connection with Terra to find out where Ventus is. Personally, I have this perhaps the most favorite moment in the 0.2 due to a short confrontation between Terra and Xehanort.
I think if the creators did not explain the moment with Mickey's clothes, the fans would still complain.)) In general, perhaps the moments of interaction between Aqua and Mickey are some of the best in this game. I like that the game paid attention to the interaction between Aqua and Mickey and how they fought in combat looked really effective.
Even if there are inconsistencies there, they did not so masolin my eyes that I could not love these moments.
Yes, I think that the story of Ven and Marluxia should be told not in a mobile game. But it's better to let it do than not to do at all. Many will agree with me that Ventus is a pale copy of Sora and Roxas and that it has been made connected with the past will give him at least some chance to develop.
I'm surprised at the little things that you podmichaete, I would not have never paid attention to it. ;-)

How was Terra in any way connected to Sora? Yes, Sora had Ven's sleeping heart in him, but that was it, I hardly would call that a connection. If this is a connection, we can find connections everywhere and why would Naminé (who was just recently born at that moment) even establish this connection and how is it anywhere near strong enough to transcend into another realm that can hardly be reached? Another problem with this is the writing of the BBS trio, I never actually bought their friendship. The game lets us see one incredibly awkward written evening of interaction ("stars are just like you, Ven, hahaha") and then they start picking on each other, showing open distrust and never show any sign of healthy communication that would be necessary in a long-term friendship. I played BBS 3 times and everytime I felt that those three had a forced connection that we as players are supposed to believe while I actually thought they would be better off without each other if their friendship is this stable. All the interactions between Terra and Aqua feel kinda stiff and rather emotionless to me which is not a good buildup to make me believe they could hold a discussion transcending over different realms by the inexplicable power of darkness and friendship.

I disagree with the part that character histories should be explored in a mobile game better than none at all, I prefer it the opposite way. I don't think every character needs some terribly complex backstory which HAS to be explored, I'd rather have a focus on actually important characters and their interactions (like between the BBS trio, I would have LOVED to see more of their friendship) instead of diving into a thousand years ago and make up some rather dumb story of five adults blindly following a shady guy trying to prevent a war by starting a war.

As an aspiring Game Designer in the section of storytelling, I have read and looked alot into the topic of storytelling. That doesn't say I'm oh so much better than anyone who didn't, but it makes it easier for me to not just notice what kinda went wrong but to deduct why it comes off in that way. A lot of this is personal opinion, of course and I'm not trying to bash certain moments, I'm just trying to point out inconsistencies in the plot and how those affect the whole series. I like Kingdom Hearts, despite all its flaws and BECAUSE it's important to me, I will talk about stuff that wasn't so great as well as stuff that was. Yes, I listed a lot of little things, but those are just for example, there is a lot of bigger stuff floating around and those little things stack and get bigger.
For example, I found DDD terribly annoying because Sora was blindly running around, falling into every trap while Riku was telling everyone about his past mistakes and how horrible that was and what a great bro Sora is. First of all, Riku hat TWO whole games for that redemption arc and seemed kinda okay with this at the end of KH2, so I kinda found it unnecessary that they brought it up AGAIN. And we KNOW about the bromance to Sora, we don't need for it to be spelled out, still the devs decided to waste dialogue on stuff like that instead of expanding the climax or actually explaining how the biggest revelation of the game - the time travel - worked. I finished the game and had heard like a thousand lines about how sorry Riku was and how he had to tell his story to everyone but had no clue how the time travel worked, which is kinda sad.
 

Nukara

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How was Terra in any way connected to Sora? Yes, Sora had Ven's sleeping heart in him, but that was it, I hardly would call that a connection. If this is a connection, we can find connections everywhere and why would Naminé (who was just recently born at that moment) even establish this connection and how is it anywhere near strong enough to transcend into another realm that can hardly be reached? Another problem with this is the writing of the BBS trio, I never actually bought their friendship. The game lets us see one incredibly awkward written evening of interaction ("stars are just like you, Ven, hahaha") and then they start picking on each other, showing open distrust and never show any sign of healthy communication that would be necessary in a long-term friendship. I played BBS 3 times and everytime I felt that those three had a forced connection that we as players are supposed to believe while I actually thought they would be better off without each other if their friendship is this stable. All the interactions between Terra and Aqua feel kinda stiff and rather emotionless to me which is not a good buildup to make me believe they could hold a discussion transcending over different realms by the inexplicable power of darkness and friendship.

I disagree with the part that character histories should be explored in a mobile game better than none at all, I prefer it the opposite way. I don't think every character needs some terribly complex backstory which HAS to be explored, I'd rather have a focus on actually important characters and their interactions (like between the BBS trio, I would have LOVED to see more of their friendship) instead of diving into a thousand years ago and make up some rather dumb story of five adults blindly following a shady guy trying to prevent a war by starting a war.

As an aspiring Game Designer in the section of storytelling, I have read and looked alot into the topic of storytelling. That doesn't say I'm oh so much better than anyone who didn't, but it makes it easier for me to not just notice what kinda went wrong but to deduct why it comes off in that way. A lot of this is personal opinion, of course and I'm not trying to bash certain moments, I'm just trying to point out inconsistencies in the plot and how those affect the whole series. I like Kingdom Hearts, despite all its flaws and BECAUSE it's important to me, I will talk about stuff that wasn't so great as well as stuff that was. Yes, I listed a lot of little things, but those are just for example, there is a lot of bigger stuff floating around and those little things stack and get bigger.
For example, I found DDD terribly annoying because Sora was blindly running around, falling into every trap while Riku was telling everyone about his past mistakes and how horrible that was and what a great bro Sora is. First of all, Riku hat TWO whole games for that redemption arc and seemed kinda okay with this at the end of KH2, so I kinda found it unnecessary that they brought it up AGAIN. And we KNOW about the bromance to Sora, we don't need for it to be spelled out, still the devs decided to waste dialogue on stuff like that instead of expanding the climax or actually explaining how the biggest revelation of the game - the time travel - worked. I finished the game and had heard like a thousand lines about how sorry Riku was and how he had to tell his story to everyone but had no clue how the time travel worked, which is kinda sad.
Terra is that person who must save Sora according to Coded. Namine apparently felt this connection. The problem is that Ventus needs to evolve beyond trio, and not reduce its development to friendship with Terra and Aqua. Sora and Roxas have separate arcs outside their friendship with their friends. I do not want to spice up Ven so I'm still the younger "brother" of Terra and Aqua that I always care about. This character is capable of something more. I really interesting why Xehanort was interested in Ven, what is so special about it? Why did the darkness in his heart produce Vanitas? I personally do not like the understatement for the same Naruto sinned by it.
For some reason it seems to me that the next arch will be dedicated to MoM, at least I hope so.
 

DarkosOverlord

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I knew before reading that one of the videos was the Turning Point by BB.

Terra is that person who must save Sora according to Coded. Namine apparently felt this connection.

Okay, I will give the thread my thoughts when I got the time, but for now: I did not get this from Coded at all.

Naminé: "Two of them, you have met. As for the third, I never realized it, but... you and he share a very special connection."

Sora met Aqua and Terra when he was a kid (also reinforced by Lingering Will's statement that the two of them met once), and did not properly "meet" Ventus, but shares a special connection with him.
So it's Ven, not Terra. I'd say this makes more sense given it's definitely Ven who shares the special connection with Sora. Sora and Terra barely interacted (if we can call battling to the death interacting.)

Even if the third one was somehow Terra, I'm not sure this means Terra has to save Sora.
 

Sephiroth0812

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So it's Ven, not Terra. I'd say this makes more sense given it's definitely Ven who shares the special connection with Sora.

Correct, although as so many issues with this series which also plays into the "bad writing" part this "special connection" is so far very hollow and unexplored.
There is much talk about it (just like the supposed "super-close" friendship between TAV) but nothing substantial is actually shown or explored about it.

Heck, as far as the current "canon" of the series goes while Sora may know that Ventus exists from some of Yen Sids/Mickey's speeches, he's still completely in the dark about this so-called very special connection or that he even has any connection with Ven at all because it is nowhere addressed outside of some superficial talking of Naminé or Yen Sid.
Outside of the one with Riku and perhaps Donald and Goofy, Sora's connections with other characters are so far pretty bland and unexplored overall.

In DDD they spent at least a little energy on Sora's connection with Roxas even if it was again only the bare minimum in terms of true interacting, but yet again did zero with Ven.

Instead we have now more useless convolution/complication by having Ven placed in a completely different era which also doesn't get any meaningful coverage so far so it doesn't help the character at all nor is it any help to better understand and flesh out his relationships and interactions with present day characters, be it Aqua and Terra or, when going by the supposed "very special connection", most importantly Sora.

Pretty similar to Kairi and I dare say the same applies also to Terra, Naminé, Vanitas, the Foretellers and quite a few others.

So the main issue of "bad writing" in KH when it comes to the characters and actually fleshing them out is that it is almost always only talk and no substance.
Instead we get evermore new characters which are often the same much talk without substance which bloat up these issues even more.

But that is no surprise I assume when the characters aren't even allowed to truly interact with each other more than once or twice a game because most of them are either trapped somewhere, in a coma, otherwise kept apart via plot devices or mind-controlled by the enemy for 90% of a given game's run.
And by "interacting" I certainly don't mean coming together to just beat up some mooks or a single boss.
 

Nukara

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All these comments again caused me to become depressed.((
If in KH the story is not very, then what is the franchise good for? (Well, in addition to the gameplay and music), because the plot in it plays an important role if you think so and if it's bad then what's good. Maybe I just have a bad taste ...
 

jahob000

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If you try to compare then take some porridge for example, it will be simple and you will eat it, but you will not get much from it and compare it with a cake and it is more harmful, but if you eat it you will get much more impressions than simple porridge.If it is more convenient for you, this is your right and I really have to respect it, but alas I'm not so inviting. Cartoons Disney 90 years have often sinned predictable plots and the benefit now in modern Disney cartoons all ceased to be too predictable.

Haha! I love your food analogies so I will do the same. So yes, cliche stories are predictable. However, sometimes it's not always about having twist and turns but about the ride from point A to point B. We'll use cake since it's a dessert for kids and all ages just like Kingdom Hearts.

Kingdom Hearts is like a cake that's above average. It's not cheap but it's not a gourmet cake but it is still on the somewhat fancy side. However Chef Nomura wants to take the cake to the next level. He knows the cake is good but he wants to make something non traditional. Something someone else has never had before that blow away their taste buds. Doing this there will always be risks. Of course some people will like it and some won't but there are still rules that chef creating should abide by. Everyone knows that blending tastes together is a science. So there still has to be balance in everything.

So Chef Nomura decides to add a little bit of chili powder to the cake. People are tasted and are instantly weirded out and not going for it but it's not terrible. They decide they're willing to go along with it. Then he decides to add Lime, mayonnaise and hot dogs. The cake's not sounding so good is it. He was trying to create something new but still there are physical rules about conflicting tastes that will make a person sick. He could have added other things to the cake that blended better and it could have still been something new and fresh.

In short, Yes things can be cliche and you try to break the mold but it still has to be things that make sense and in a way that fits with a story. It's not something that you should just keep piling and piling and piling onto the original story and expect it fit together well.
 

Nukara

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Haha! I love your food analogies so I will do the same. So yes, cliche stories are predictable. However, sometimes it's not always about having twist and turns but about the ride from point A to point B. We'll use cake since it's a dessert for kids and all ages just like Kingdom Hearts.

Kingdom Hearts is like a cake that's above average. It's not cheap but it's not a gourmet cake but it is still on the somewhat fancy side. However Chef Nomura wants to take the cake to the next level. He knows the cake is good but he wants to make something non traditional. Something someone else has never had before that blow away their taste buds. Doing this there will always be risks. Of course some people will like it and some won't but there are still rules that chef creating should abide by. Everyone knows that blending tastes together is a science. So there still has to be balance in everything.

So Chef Nomura decides to add a little bit of chili powder to the cake. People are tasted and are instantly weirded out and not going for it but it's not terrible. They decide they're willing to go along with it. Then he decides to add Lime, mayonnaise and hot dogs. The cake's not sounding so good is it. He was trying to create something new but still there are physical rules about conflicting tastes that will make a person sick. He could have added other things to the cake that blended better and it could have still been something new and fresh.

In short, Yes things can be cliche and you try to break the mold but it still has to be things that make sense and in a way that fits with a story. It's not something that you should just keep piling and piling and piling onto the original story and expect it fit together well.

For me, in the first place, it's important that the characters are interesting. And in later games it is, but in KH1, the characters are probably the weakest link in the game. (
 
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