Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Retrospective

[BlackOsprey]

Wow, this retrospective has barely begun and there's already discourse.

I love it!

 

[GrovyleTheThief]

I watched NicoB play through BBS for the first time and he kept mentioning throughout Ven's story that it would arguably make sense in hindsight to do his story before Terra's because you keep hearing about these things that Terra does in the worlds and so it would give a sense of mystery before you play Terra's story and actually see what went down.

 

[Blackdrazon]

They certainly do introduce them "quickly", but the "efficiently" is absent in its entirety. It is the main problem of BBS that they rushed the whole issue with the TAV trio and made more telling through reports and later (sparse) flashbacks than actual showing in regards of their supposed close-knit relationship.
BBS would really have benefitted from something similar to the "Destiny Islands part" of KH 1, maybe starting the story actually one or two weeks before the night of the exam and have an actual mission/short story arc in Land of Departure itself.
It's almost as if too much of BBS' actual fleshing-out story landed on the cutting room floor, leaving out too many parts that could truly enrich it and instead focusing solely on Xehanort's "Master plan" and making visual parallels to the other games.

This is definitely true, yes.

The audience gets to see already during the proper Prologue that there is something "wrong" with Ven when they show him on Destiny Islands and the damaged heart station with nearly one quarter missing where he himself states that his heart is "fractured"/injured, so assuming that Aqua's behaviour might have something to do with this fact is not exactly a quantum leap.

Ah, yes, this. I actually addressed this in a rough draft of my first response to you and then deleted it, sorry about that. For starters, the possibility that Aqua might be misinformed is still open for a new viewer, ie that she might be too young. But moreover, something that I was worried about during my first playthrough: there's nothing actually specifying that the prologue is a flash back and not a flash-forward to later in the game? Indeed, with Aqua's statement that Ven has always been there, it wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude that if Ven has always been on the Land of Departure, then the scene with Xehanort must be a flash-forward.

The Prologue is also not really about already teaching players about things but to raise impressions, impressions that can and will change once one plays more than one character.
If there is already such a problem with just one line from Aqua, there will be many more to pop up over the course of the whole game due to its admittedly not very narrative-friendly structure.

Yes, but I feel raising the wrong impression- and to repeat, in this case an exact opposite impression - is a waste of narrative energy, and if I'm not allowed to critique that, what am I even here to critique? I'm afraid this is not going to change, this is simply the level at which I critique. Likewise, the Retrospective feigns a first timer's impression as they are going along, and so critiques have to be of-the-moment or within a small window, so I can't and won't reach that far into the future when addressing an issue of the moment.

Yea, IF you play Terra last but you're not supposed to do that. Terra is meant to be played first, the scenarios for each character were written with Terra's coming first in production, that's also why he's the first in the list on the character selection screen and in Theatermode, so saying that someone who plays another character first is supposed to feel towards a certain direction regarding another character is a bit thin I think.
The developers certainly didn't had that in mind when developing the storyline as otherwise there would be no need for a recommended order of play.

The developers leaving the order of play open to the player leaves them open to critique that arises from alternate play orders. I'm not going to restrict my critique to their planned order when the option exists to do otherwise.

Even not counting that though, the Prologue does not only consist of Aqua lying but also clearly shows off that she cares for him in her other lines directed towards him.
If a Ven-player only takes away from the Prologue that "Aqua is a liar" and completely disregards the other stuff like her suggesting he take a blanket with him when doozing off outside, affectionally ruffling his hair and the whole Wayfinder-issue I'd say he or she didn't pay enough attention.

There is absolutely nothing about Aqua being nice to Ven that prevents her from being a liar, the two are distinct issues. Aqua lying is an issue in-and-of-itself, contrary to her central character. Even if I were to agree that Aqua lied to protect Ven, her lying is still wrong to the character and a bad first impression.

 

[Muke]

I actually have to agree with Blackdrazon, especially with this part.

Aqua lying is an issue in-and-of-itself, contrary to her central character. Even if I were to agree that Aqua lied to protect Ven, her lying is still wrong to the character and a bad first impression.

 

[VoidGear.]

I actually don't see exactly why lying is wrong to Aqua's character. I never felt like she was displayed (or supposed to be displayed) as a character that cherishes honesty over everything else. She actually lies multiple times throughout the game and always for similar reasons. To Ven, to Terra and even to herself.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

This is definitely true, yes.

It is actually one of my own main gripes with BBS as a whole since it wastes so much admittedly existing potential by going down this route.
It might have to do with it being a prequel but that is certainly no excuse, especially if many of the things introduced and shown in it, among them the supposed central characters, are still going to play an important role in the future of the whole series.

Ah, yes, this. I actually addressed this in a rough draft of my first response to you and then deleted it, sorry about that. For starters, the possibility that Aqua might be misinformed is still open for a new viewer, ie that she might be too young. But moreover, something that I was worried about during my first playthrough: there's nothing actually specifying that the prologue is a flash back and not a flash-forward to later in the game? Indeed, with Aqua's statement that Ven has always been there, it wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude that if Ven has always been on the Land of Departure, then the scene with Xehanort must be a flash-forward.

There is indeed no definitive confirmation about the Prologue being a flashback until Terra speaks with Xehanort and hears his white-washed version of how the injury of Ventus' heart happened, as we see Xehanot holding Ven in the Prologue parts and he's a broken wreck there by then it can be deduced that it is a flashback.
(They were lazy and never bothered to make younger models for TAV in the flasbacks, Aqua and Terra are supposed to be 15/16 during those if one assumes them to be 19/20 in the present while Ventus is especially glaring as he should be 10/11 during the flashbacks, thus a child and not a teenager.)
The whole thing happening four years before BBS proper can also only be deduced when one has seen the final part of the ending where 4year-old Sora is identified as the "newborn heart" that already helped Ven once and connects the dots him/herself.

Yes, but I feel raising the wrong impression- and to repeat, in this case an exact opposite impression - is a waste of narrative energy, and if I'm not allowed to critique that, what am I even here to critique? I'm afraid this is not going to change, this is simply the level at which I critique. Likewise, the Retrospective feigns a first timer's impression as they are going along, and so critiques have to be of-the-moment or within a small window, so I can't and won't reach that far into the future when addressing an issue of the moment.

And casting Terra in an even more negative light isn't also raising a wrong impression? Terra isn't the type to lie, he simply keeps silent and says nothing at all.
That being said though I can get behind the "waste of narrative energy"-bit of it, there is much of that when looking solely at some dialogue choices, especially when knowing that the original Japanese version had better/more fitting dialogue in some parts.

I personally just didn't see it as such a big issue because it doesn't really damage Aqua as a character in the long term or strains her relationship with Ven in any way.

I never said anything about not allowing to critique it, I was merely curious as to why such a seemingly little thing was picked out so prominently, that's all.

Ah, I see, well, if it is written from a purely on-the-moment viewpoint then it makes more sense.

The developers leaving the order of play open to the player leaves them open to critique that arises from alternate play orders. I'm not going to restrict my critique to their planned order when the option exists to do otherwise.

This is certainly completely correct, as they did give the option to play in a different order to begin with.
Yet these discrepancies coming up when actually doing "playing out of order" actually shows that the entire way how the narrative was set up in BBS wasn't the brightest idea.
DDD does much better in this regard.

There is absolutely nothing about Aqua being nice to Ven that prevents her from being a liar, the two are distinct issues. Aqua lying is an issue in-and-of-itself, contrary to her central character. Even if I were to agree that Aqua lied to protect Ven, her lying is still wrong to the character and a bad first impression.

It does not prevent her from lying in that instance indeed, but does show that she's not actively trying to do harm with it or hide something actually important.
She's also lying to Zack when flustered by his advances and honestly I do think you will nowhere find a character that never lies at all.
Furthermore, isn't the text of the Retrospective itself giving the "caring Team Mom" and "relatively calm" first impression for Aqua as a character?

But I see the point in its entirety by now so it's clearly just a difference in opinion on the importance of it for the overall picture.
That being said, I never intended to propose or, beware, "demand" anything being changed in the Retrospective itself, I was really just curious on the reasoning behind its prominent inclusion.

 

[Hirokey123]

I actually don't see exactly why lying is wrong to Aqua's character. I never felt like she was displayed (or supposed to be displayed) as a character that cherishes honesty over everything else. She actually lies multiple times throughout the game and always for similar reasons. To Ven, to Terra and even to herself.

Really because I can't think of any times, perhaps you can point out all these multiple lies? Er I know reading that it sounds a bit curt and sarcastic but it's genuine question sorry.

 

[Midori]

I don't see why Aqua lying is out of character. If anything it could just be her being loyal to Master Eraqus. If he gave them orders to keep Ventus in the dark (for his safety) I'm pretty sure they would follow.

 

[Muke]

There's not much to say other than: good entry! I look forward to many more Idiot Ball Moments.

 

[Hirokey123]

Enjoy the retrospective so far but I don't think from what we know the Unbirths or the story were ever going to touch on the soul, the soul as we know it in the western world is what the heart is based on in KH while the soul in KH is just energy for the body. It was just going to be more heart elaboration covering where I guess regular hearts come from. Cause I mean we know the process it takes for a heart to form and be born, but new born babies don't have that kind of cognitive ability. So it does make sense that for a regular being their, I guess heart seed if you will, comes from somewhere else entirely. "Does the heart exist before birth" that was the story BBS was going to tell but since there is the whole abortion issue they didn't want to make a social commentary on that. So they just removed the part of the story entirely which overall seemed to damage the story pretty heavily.

Now it's a new born heart instead of a heart before birth connecting to Ventus. Which honestly feels more nonsense IMO because I dunno the idea that there is this knowledgeable consciousness of a person that exists separate of their own mind that exists until they are properly born and shackled to a body make sense to me. Especially when compared to new born babies being knowledgeable, conscious, and capable of speaking in full sentences but only if they talk with their hearts? Likewise the Unbirths can't be...whatever if it was they were going to be so they change it to a more vague Unversed title with an even more vague explanation that could simply fit both. And then...the Unversed are kind of just dreadfully boring because whatever plans there were for their backstory was stripped away and we are left with a plot element the game seems to sort of try to ignore and lots of random moments about them that don't really make a whole lot of sense in the scheme of things.

BBS felt like it was always supposed to be so much more than we actually got. Also that topic you linked lead to a topic with an old BBS trailer in it and I have to say it's a lot more clear in that trailer that Mickey at the start of the game was taking a test/training from Yensid. What with dodging thunderbolts in the room and Yensid looking pleased with Mickey's determination. I really wish they had kept that instead of inserted a random callback to Fantasia that is so much more unclear.

Also Nomura said a LONG time ago the first enemy that Deep Dive was referring to are the Disney villains. First Disney villains, then heartless, and now Nobodies of course you can choose to retroactively view it as unversed if you so choose I suppose.

 

[Blackdrazon]

Also Nomura said a LONG time ago the first enemy that Deep Dive was referring to are the Disney villains. First Disney villains, then heartless, and now Nobodies of course you can choose to retroactively view it as unversed if you so choose I suppose.

Huh, that's interesting, does anyone remember if he says anything more than that? Or did he just say that and moved on?

 

[Elysium]

I hadn't heard that before? But I don't stay familiar with Nomura's words anymore.

The Unversed are my least favorite part about BbS. I wish they had just used the Heartless.

 

[Zettaflare]

I hadn't heard that before? But I don't stay familiar with Nomura's words anymore.

The Unversed are my least favorite part about BbS. I wish they had just used the Heartless.

But Emblem heartless didn't exist before Xehanort's experiments. If it wasnt for the unversed, the enemies would have had much less variety

 

[Hirokey123]

Huh, that's interesting, does anyone remember if he says anything more than that? Or did he just say that and moved on?

He was saying a whole bunch of stuff about the teaser but I mean most of it was just playing coy and vague, and reaffirming that this is all merely concept. Frankly I think the benefit of him not actually having it clearly shown in the trailer (or maybe it was there are TON of words that flash during that thing and a lot of its japanese) is we can sort of retroactively connect these scenes.

Like how retroactively it makes a lot more sense in KH1FM to be talking about Ventus when he speaks to Sora than Roxas, even if it absolutely was Roxas originally the way the series formed itself later on made this sort of difficult to believe.

 

[KHHacker6595]

I actually rather like The Unversed as a Proto-Heartless. Its interesting considering Vanitas is technically a Heartless himself.

 

[SkeithTheTerror]

I may be a bit late in saying this, but allow my to give my two cents on why the game has Ventus act very childish. I think that the writer's intention was to completely contrast him from Vanitas and show how different their pure hearts of light/darkness are. Throughout the game Ventus acts very much like a child and sees the wonder in everything, whereas Vanitas acts more mature throughout and even at one point destroys Ventus' wooden keyblade, saying Ventus has outgrown childish things like that.

 

[KHHacker6595]

Another great read but I'm curious as to why you consider BBS to have the flatest level design in the series? I genuinely don't see that at all, it at least attempted to bring back some platforming and interactive level design elements where as KH2's only platforming is in the Cavern of Rememberance.

 

[Blackdrazon]

I think it has something to do with BBS' propensity to make its flat areas larger, like a world made up of arenas divided by actual texture? At the same time, BBS does have some good platforming sections (I'm quite fond of Ven's trip to the Castle of Dreams). So while I do get the gut impression the game is flatter, I guess I can't defend it as readily as I'd like. I'll do what I can with the statement and maybe put the worlds through a more detailed analysis if I can find the time.

 

[Hirokey123]

I think the main difference is KH2 kinda feels like every world is built into a series hills. There are constant up and downs sometimes subtle and sometimes extreme but you're very rarely on the same surface elevation for very long. That constant up and down helps KH2's flat design feel a lot better than BBS where it sort of feels like for the most part everything is on a single flat ground. Also honestly it's not that KH2's levels lack platforming it's that they lack things to platform for, there are actually lots of nice nooks and crannies, ups and downs, roofs, etc...you can traverse to in the game but in the original game there is nothing there so...why bother? Adding the crowns helped a lot in this respect and gave something to actually do with all those nice movement abilities. It's really just world interactivity that KH2 was missing more than anything. There is also just I don't know how to put but a level of complexity and thought to KH2's levels that isn't quite there in BBS. Hrm let me try to explain it a different way...

Spoiler Show

KH1's worlds are very closed in, very boxy, and each world is for the most part built like a maze you need to navigate through with constant platforming and interactivity. Open areas are far and few and when they are it's pretty much just a single room designed for boss or mini-boss battles. While I can respect what they were trying to do with the worlds the physics of the game itself combined with the constant claustrophobic feel left something to be desired, not to mention there is good mazey and bad mazey and I felt KH1 leaned towards bad mazey more often than not. Oogie's manor is sort of like epitome of all it's frustrating design decisions I think. Anyway I know I wasn't alone with this it was a big complaint giving us the drastic shift to KH2. Also Re:Coded basically does the same thing as KH1 except with a more zoomed out camera, some gameplay gimmicks like side scroller stuff, and better physics at a sacrifice of less interactivity.

KH2 had fairly more open worlds but instead of maze's we moved to hallways. Everything has a clear point A to point B level design and frankly I don't think that was a bad move. But with the introduction of the point A to B design they strip away a lot of the platforming, they design the levels with enough platforming and other bits to hide the hallway feel (something FFXIII could have taken a page from) but it's clear there was something lost. Namely a lack to actually do anything but run straight from point A to B, it also greatly stripped down world interactivity till there was basically none left. They added crowns to semi fix it but it's bandaid fix at best, also since now there wasn't really anything to explore and no reason to not just go A to B they had to introduce another element. Which was putting a much heavier emphasis on battles with just about every world having a number of challenges where you're locked in a room and have some sort of gimmick to deal with while you kill a set amount of enemies or like a mini-boss or something. Mulan is a good example with its moral gauge missions or the escape the Hades mission in Olympus; or heck even all those "save the past" missions in timeless river. Frankly I think for what it wanted to be KH2 did fairly well, it just is a VERY stark contrast from what KH1's fans had come to like.

Then we go to Days where I want to say it kinda took a bit of both and mixed them together. In KH1's worlds like Agrabah and Halloween town it made rooms a bit more spacious and used X-gates in conjunction with the mission to put an A to B structure in worlds that could otherwise have felt fairly mazy. In KH2's worlds like Beast's castle they added more cases of having platform or more random bits of interactivity and puzzles. X-gates and missions along with things like bonus objects were used to keep you from going in a straight line, it was still A to B but in way where you had to basically make wide circles or gordian knots to get to your locations...which from a story perspective kinda just makes the organization look like they are dicks to Roxas but eh whatever.

DDD's design is quite clear as well it's A to B with a clear path through every room, but makes the rooms huge full of hidden nooks and crannies, lots of elevation changes, and all kinds of devices or whatnot that play with your movement from simply hacking a ship to carry you to an upper part of the room or something more complex like a room being in a perpetual wind storm that pushes you up and up. The easiest term to describe DDD's level design is a sandbox full of toys. It's big and long so you can bounce all over the place like a pinball but it gives you plenty of toys to play with too incase human pinball isn't your thing. There is for this reason a lot of world interactivity but it's done very differently and most all of it contributes to platforming instead of extra flair, most but not all.

Then there is BBS and frankly I think I can't quite put my finger on its design. It's rooms are often much smaller than most KH games typically have and when it does large rooms it just feels flat. While KH2 had it's rooms designed with constant challenges in mind BBS seems to have this weird issue where it designed rooms for challenges for only one character, and didn't consider what it be like/how bland it be for the other characters. Enchanted domain is one such thing it has this great neat warp maze in Maleficent's castle for Ventus but for Aqua it's just one very giant empty room with a handful of enemies in it. It's like they recognized it had some of the design flaws as KH2's design did and tried to use the same solution of focusing on unique combat challenges. But BBS's combat doesn't really allow the same level of finesse or variety to these challenges. Or maybe it could and they just didn't try hard enough dunno. Things are either small and maybe interesting but generally not. Or things are too large and very flat like someone took a bulldozer. There are fun platforming segments in the game but it's like one or two rooms per world, as if they had this quota where they were like "okay there we added some platforming in this world back to making flat landscapes". The interactivity feels very much the same...in KH1 it felt natural, in Days it felt natural enough if a bit gamey, in DDD it feels very I guess the word is dreamy, but in BBS it feels very artificial like they put it in there to say they had it not because it added anything. Like it's so far and few between in every world heck neverland has like a single spot of interactivity where you bounce on a drum to hit some totem poles to make them spin.

Perhaps a movie set is the best way to describe BBS, it doesn't feel like I'm exploring worlds in BBS it feels like I'm exploring a movie set based on the world

Anyway good read as always, I find Ven's beating up of the dwarves so very unnecessary. There is no reason they couldn't of talked to him from the distance they were at, in fact they were already doing so. Thus Ventus's insistence that they talk to him up close is kind of random and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a hero like us to...quite literally bully the information out of people with our keyblade unless they were villains. In fact I'd call this the most villainous act in the game done intentionally by our heroes and sorta makes Ven's judgement of Terra's actions in this world hypocritical.

Also Ventus's first report talks about the Unversed, I've also sort of just figured that we are suppose to assume that Ventus read that report since he does already know the Unversed's names and says "these are the unversed" or something along those lines like he had heard of them. He could of picked it up at pretty much any time since MX and Vanitas were all over the place, and also it was a letter to Eraqus so even Eraqus could of dropped it by mistake.

 

[KHHacker6595]

Can we all agree tho, the worlds need more interactivity in future games. That's something that's been lacking. I miss feeling an urge to revisit a world to access parts of it I never could have before. Even if you think KH2 is better, I can't see how anyone could argue against world interactivity being a good thing.