KH III and NPCs

[Anagram]

It is certainly not limited technology at all.
Best example is Final Fantasy XII with big cities like Rabanastre or the Imperial Capital of Archades. They're filled to the brim with NPCs wandering around and FFXII is a PS2-game.

In KH, it seems that it just isn't on their priority list at all to include characters outside the story important ones.
KH 1 is the only one to truly have unimportant NPCs that are not related to the story nor a shoutout.
Most of the NPCs in Twilight Town and Radiant Garden in KH 2 were actually shoutouts to more obscure side characters from Final Fantasy (like Biggs, Wedge, Jessie or Wantz).

Which is just really lazy imo. I can understand not having a sprawling world but at least make the towns freakin populated. Or certain arenas when theres cheering.

 

[Ballad of Caius]

Wasn't the lack of NPCs making the worlds feel empty addressed to Nomura in one of the many interviews? I swear, I think I remember something like that.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

Seeing as John Lasseter is working closely with Square Enix to ensure that Disney Animation (and potentially) Pixar worlds are as faithful to their source material as possible, I wouldn't be surprised if he requests NPC's to be added to the worlds in order to make them more believable (that's always been a policy of his: making Disney worlds believable).

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Which is just really lazy imo. I can understand not having a sprawling world but at least make the towns freakin populated. Or certain arenas when theres cheering.

To some it may be lazy indeed, yet Nomura and the majority of the development team may also simply not see it as an important issue as most work besides recreating a world's environment faithfully goes mainly into the battles and the battle system itself (that's why each KH introduces at least two new battle system gimmicks).
Most of the towns are intended as battlegrounds to battle mooks in and perform flashy moves as well so unimportant side NPCs would only get in the way of that. There are one or two areas in each world so far that are not intended as battlegrounds, and those areas (like the Throne Room in Land of Dragons or the Market Place in Radiant Garden) do have some NPCs in the console titles and when there are cheers for Mulan at the end of the first visit in KH 2 there is a insinuated crowd at the Imperial Square for that cutscene.
Yet the crowd in Olympus Coliseum was never seeable throughout the entire series if I remember correctly, so this could by now almost count as a deliberate running gag.

Since KH III seems to intend on scrapping the whole "connected rooms"-idea of worlds in general, we might get to see an entire new concept of how the worlds are built though.

Seeing as John Lasseter is working closely with Square Enix to ensure that Disney Animation (and potentially) Pixar worlds are as faithful to their source material as possible, I wouldn't be surprised if he requests NPC's to be added to the worlds in order to make them more believable (that's always been a policy of his: making Disney worlds believable).

It's certainly possible that they will jump onto this boat for at least one or two areas per world, but I certainly wouldn't expect them to turn it up to Final Fantasy XII-levels.

 

[Launchpad]

Honestly, it's shitty not to make full use of the Disney stuff they've got access to. One of Hunchback's proposals for innovation, ironically enough, was having large crowds of background characters, unlike anything seen in any animated film before it, achieving this by mixing 2D characters and randomized 3D characters in the background. It looked amazing, and DDD did the POLAR OPPOSITE. gross

 

[Alpha Baymax]

Honestly, it's shitty not to make full use of the Disney stuff they've got access to. One of Hunchback's proposals for innovation, ironically enough, was having large crowds of background characters, unlike anything seen in any animated film before it, achieving this by mixing 2D characters and randomized 3D characters in the background. It looked amazing, and DDD did the POLAR OPPOSITE. gross

Next time a Kingdom Hearts opinion survey arrives, we shall flood the gates with NPC requests!

 

[lehahiah]

This has been one of my biggest gripes with the series, but even if they don't add in wandering npcs I hope they can at least recreate the cut scenes better, and also give us enemies besides heartless, and nobodies, and I don't mean a new type of enemy, but more like enemies that are restricted to their worlds like bandits, pirates, soldiers, the hun army that should have been in land of dragons or maleficents goons in her castle in birth by sleep

 

[Venx]

I don't know....I thought they were lazy,too but when I played BBS again and phil told me "listen to the crowd" and the camera shows all these emptyseats...it's an awesome running gag. But lot more NPCs would make everything better, true.

 

[Nazo]

If the invisible Coliseum crowd returns in KH3, I don't know if I'll be nostalgic or pissed.

 

[Morgenstern]

If the invisible Coliseum crowd returns in KH3, I don't know if I'll be nostalgic or pissed.

Ah the invisible Coliseum Crown, ever the cocktease for people wanting to get the Vanish spell in Kingdom Hearts

 

[Venx]

I would laugh and cry at the same time.

 

[lehahiah]

When was this, and is there an image?

 

[MegaWallflower]

When was this, and is there an image?

If you mean the invisible collesuem crown, it was in BBS when they were clapping and cheering for Terra.

He looks as confused and offput as the player probably is as the invisible crowd cheers him on.

I wonder if the dancing scene in Tangled will be only Rapuzel, Eugene, Sora, Goofy, and Donald. If that scene is there. If there aren't NPCs, I hope they at least avoid gesturing to or mentioning a crowd like there's someone there.

 

[lehahiah]

No I was talking about what launchpad was saying about that proposal for an innovation for hunchback.

 

[Knuxpyro56]

I really hope Disney really convinces Square to use NPC's. Disney literally has archives for just crowd characters. I mean could you imagine San Fransokyo now as a barren wasteland with open lights and cars... that's going to jarring to watch. Especially considering that a Super Hero team is to protect the civilians.

 

[Morgenstern]

I really hope Disney really convinces Square to use NPC's. Disney literally has archives for just crowd characters. I mean could you imagine San Fransokyo now as a barren wasteland with open lights and cars... that's going to jarring to watch. Especially considering that a Super Hero team is to protect the civilians.

Maybe it'll be the prequel to a Cars world

 

[lehahiah]

Maybe it'll be the prequel to a Cars world

Oh damn I hope not that would be really weird, and not a big fan of the franchise

 

[CyberCrown]

LOL I remember that scene from BBS I felt embarrassed when i watched it

 

[BufferAqua]

If you mean the invisible collesuem crown, it was in BBS when they were clapping and cheering for Terra.

He looks as confused and offput as the player probably is as the invisible crowd cheers him on.

They were probably invisible in Terra's perspective, haha.

The KH games feels so empty thanks to the lack of many NPCs. If we interact with others more, we could actually get more characters to care about in the worlds.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

LOL I remember that scene from BBS I felt embarrassed when i watched it

Birth by Sleep was the worst offender of lacking NPC's. In the Cinderella ball: there's barely anybody there.