KINGDOM HEARTS Missing Link Coming 2024!

[Squood!]

I hate to be negative, and it brings me no joy to say it, but with the extremely long wait (2+ years from reveal to release for a MOBILE GAME) and the lack of any enthusiasm online, I feel like we're all standing around watching Kingdom Hearts' biggest failure happen in slow motion.

What's a little scary about all this is that I hope no pig-headed CEO sees this inevitable failure as "well, people just don't like Kingdom Hearts anymore" and place any sort of budget limitations on KH4, or shelve any other side projects.

Very, very few people will want to give this game space on their phone, and even fewer will want to play a controllerless 3D action game WHILE using GPS on the go... and spend money on gacha mechanics.. and all their favorite KH characters aren't even present. how did this stupid fucking idea make it past the pitching phase?

I dunno I'm pretty sure it'll do fine in "Mobile games are king" Japan where there is indeed quite a bit of walking

 

[Disney Adventurer]

Also I'm pretty sure there there are some fans who have enjoyed the lore of the X saga, so that and the game having some hints on what to expect from KH IV's story will give some fans an incentive to play it.

 

[LucemFerto]

God, this game is fighting such an uphill battle.

Like, I can see what Square wants to go for, they probably want their Pokémon Go/Genshin Impact-type of game and they will probably burn through any of their big franchises to get that done. But why like this?

Let's say this game comes out and plays great, there's a big, chunky bit of story, there are regular, substantial updates, the monetization is not too in your face, etc. That is the BEST CASE SCENARIO, very unlikely to happen ... and even then, it would be extremely surprising if this game hit Jackpot and connected with general audiences. It's far more likely that this game will connect with a contingent of KH-fans who are willing to play a mobile game for lore.

And it's exactly those fans that you have probably already turned kinda bitter by announcing this game way too early and delaying it a couple times (because average players will absolutely not care and will find out about this game when it has released and Square maybe promotes it)

It would have been such a safer bet to just make Missing-Link a low-budget PC/PS4/PS5 game, but then you would at least get a larger number of KH-fans, because most of them will have bought a PS4 for KHIII and the barrier to entry is - from anecdotal evidence at least - far lower when it's a complete experience and not a gamble on the lifecycle of a gacha GPS game.

 

[Luminary]

What's a little scary about all this is that I hope no pig-headed CEO sees this inevitable failure as "well, people just don't like Kingdom Hearts anymore" and place any sort of budget limitations on KH4, or shelve any other side projects.

This is why I hope KH4 is well along and will release in similar proximity to ML as Rebirth did to Ever Crisis. If they’re banking on ML carrying the franchise for the next couple years without another console game, we’re in trouble.

 

[Launchpad]

Also I'm pretty sure there there are some fans who have enjoyed the lore of the X saga, so that and the game having some hints on what to expect from KH IV's story will give some fans an incentive to play it.

I don't intend to sound snarky, but you're describing an extremely insulated portion of the fandom. The broader market doesn't even know what the X saga is.

I dunno I'm pretty sure it'll do fine in "Mobile games are king" Japan where there is indeed quite a bit of walking

GPS games can succeed, as can 3D action games, even on a phone. I think the two ideas are diametrically opposed, however, especially when it comes to battery and comfort of play.

 

[HakaishinChampa]

Urgh.

I'm starting to think they should've just ditched the GPS stuff.

If the game didn't have the GPS stuff, they could've had the game release on consoles too. The game would be super successful.

I've looked at comments and most people don't realize you can turn the gps off. People think it's necessary to play the game. They need to advertise that when they re-re-reveal the game.

 

[Launchpad]

If the game didn't have the GPS stuff, they could've had the game release on consoles too. The game would be super successful.

I've looked at comments and most people don't realize you can turn the gps off. People think it's necessary to play the game. They need to advertise that when they re-re-reveal the game.

You can turn it off, but... I believe there are significant drawbacks. You can play a little bit from home, but to progress and continue playing on a daily basis, you have to engage with GPS mechanics.

 

[Luminary]

You can turn it off, but... I believe there are significant drawbacks. You can play a little bit from home, but to progress and continue playing on a daily basis, you have to engage with GPS mechanics.

It’s either that or pay into it to be able to play more from home. Like Pokemon Go, the game will likely make money when players visit certain locations while playing the game. So if you aren’t doing that, they’re gonna want you to pay up.

 

[Launchpad]

It’s either that or pay into it to be able to play more from home. Like Pokemon Go, the game will likely make money when players visit certain locations while playing the game. So if you aren’t doing that, they’re gonna want you to pay up.

wherein lies my skepticism at this games entire concept. No Sora, Donald, and Goofy? de-emphasized Disney fun in favor of, uh, X-saga lore? paying extra money just to consistently be able to engage with a combat system that'll only have a tenuous grasp of action mechanics?

They're making this game for like 100 people.

 

[Chie]

You mean y'all aren't gonna be excited when you see this on your gps?

 

[MATGSY]

They're making this game for like 100 people.

The thing is, that's the case for most F2P games. They're called "whales" by game companies, the 1 percent of 1 percent who spend large amounts of money on games. They're the audience that the companies are really targeting.

 

[Liodin]

I see a lot of people assuming a lot of things about a game that hasn't even been released yet, but that's to be expected being a mobile game.

You have to understand that ML is not replacing anything. There is not a side-game that isn't being made because of ML. There is no team that could be helping with KH4 if it wasn't for ML.

The existence of ML does not harm KH in any way, if anything it benefits it. You know about the impact of the mobile market, specifically in Asia. And by now you should know that if it wasn't for these games coming out on mobile, the whole X saga wouldn't exist.

So please, let's support the game, maybe not monetarily but by playing it and showing SE that we want more KH, but not like this. We just need the game to succeed so we can see the full story that Nomura wants to tell.

People from outside the fandom will already do to sabotage the game, let's not do it ourselves.

Nomura is making sure that the experience is as enjoyable, accesible and as close to a console title as possible. Already with the beta we have been able to see that there is a lot of good and a lot of love put into it.

 

[Chie]

The existence of ML does not harm KH in any way, if anything it benefits it. You know about the impact of the mobile market, specifically in Asia. And by now you should know that if it wasn't for these games coming out on mobile, the whole X saga wouldn't exist.

I think part of the full Kingdom Hearts experience being "ok now go watch all these gacha scenes on youtube" does harm KH, a lot. I love the X stories but they really messed up the idea of "playing through the series", which would otherwise be a pretty linear affair. The same issue is inherent in any other live service game being part of the story, unless they do a remake, which will take even more time.

 

[Launchpad]

So please, let's support the game, maybe not monetarily but by playing it and showing SE that we want more KH, but not like this. We just need the game to succeed so we can see the full story that Nomura wants to tell.

People from outside the fandom will already do to sabotage the game, let's not do it ourselves.

Nomura is making sure that the experience is as enjoyable, accesible and as close to a console title as possible. Already with the beta we have been able to see that there is a lot of good and a lot of love put into it.

with peace and love, I won't be playing it. it doesn't look fun and has very little in common with what I like about KH. If you love it, that's awesome! I'm simply observing the fact that I have seen very few people excited for this game, and that SE's previous KH mobile game efforts have inspired little confidence that they're capable of pacing a game like this out properly, especially now that they're using 3D assets.

If KH has something meaningful to say about its world, characters, and lore, they really ought to put it in a retail game that people can buy. It's not the average consumer's fault at this point if they just want to play and understand KH4 without consulting Youtube or a cumbersome phone game

 

[Chaser]

What's a little scary about all this is that I hope no pig-headed CEO sees this inevitable failure as "well, people just don't like Kingdom Hearts anymore" and place any sort of budget limitations on KH4, or shelve any other side projects.

Thankfully it sounds like Disney is excited by what they've got cooking up for KH4 so hopefully any failures or lack of reach Missing-Link provides doesn't translate over to KH4. As for the Square Enix side, any budget limitations or cancelled projects would be because the CEO is chasing AI and blockchain and draining money in those ventures

Also I'm pretty sure there there are some fans who have enjoyed the lore of the X saga, so that and the game having some hints on what to expect from KH IV's story will give some fans an incentive to play it.

I'm reading a thread on another website where a lot of the general consensus is having elements from a mobile game shoved in - not know the deal with Ephemer or Luxu for example - helped accelerate their decision to step back from the games or quit the series entirely.

I do know there are people who enjoyed X, I see their posts on Twitter all the time, but the wider audience didn't care. And they won't care for what Missing-Link has to say about KH4. As Matgsy says, this game is for the whales. If they don't show up, it'll have a very short life.

 

[Chie]

I will say that Luxu is introduced in X Back Cover which tells you all you need to know for almost everything in KH3, which is mostly info that is not even in the mobile games in the first place. That's a different story to me because it's an actual real work in the series like any of the games.

There's a lot of misinformation about this whole part of the series and I think it confuses people.

 

[Chaser]

Oh 100%, just watching Back Cover would give you the bits of Ephemer and Luxu that you needed, but it's their lived experience with the series and they felt exhausted at the end of III, feeling like they didn't want to keep up with a story in a mobile game in order to move forward with the console series which is fair, since UX and Dark Road did continue after III released and introduced the Darknesses and all that. Plus there's Strelitzia who was mobile game only so far.

The same discussion will be done with Missing-Link and IV.

"I don't want to play three mobile games in order to understand what's happening in IV"

"You don't need to play any mobile game, everything is introduced in a way to the audience through Sora who also doesn't know."

"What's the deal with this?"

"Well in the mobile game...."

And repeat ad nauseam.

But this is the life we chose, fellow Kingdom Hearts fans

 

[MATGSY]

Oh 100%, just watching Back Cover would give you the bits of Ephemer and Luxu that you needed, but it's their lived experience with the series and they felt exhausted at the end of III, feeling like they didn't want to keep up with a story in a mobile game in order to move forward with the console series which is fair, since UX and Dark Road did continue after III released and introduced the Darknesses and all that. Plus there's Strelitzia who was mobile game only so far.

The same discussion will be done with Missing-Link and IV.

"I don't want to play three mobile games in order to understand what's happening in IV"

"You don't need to play any mobile game, everything is introduced in a way to the audience through Sora who also doesn't know."

"What's the deal with this?"

"Well in the mobile game...."

And repeat ad nauseam.

But this is the life we chose, fellow Kingdom Hearts fans

& yet the fans shit on RE:Coded for not having a relevant story when the series could truthfully stand to have more like it.

 

[Phoenix]

I

I see a lot of people assuming a lot of things about a game that hasn't even been released yet, but that's to be expected being a mobile game.

You have to understand that ML is not replacing anything. There is not a side-game that isn't being made because of ML. There is no team that could be helping with KH4 if it wasn't for ML.

The existence of ML does not harm KH in any way, if anything it benefits it. You know about the impact of the mobile market, specifically in Asia. And by now you should know that if it wasn't for these games coming out on mobile, the whole X saga wouldn't exist.

So please, let's support the game, maybe not monetarily but by playing it and showing SE that we want more KH, but not like this. We just need the game to succeed so we can see the full story that Nomura wants to tell.

People from outside the fandom will already do to sabotage the game, let's not do it ourselves.

Nomura is making sure that the experience is as enjoyable, accesible and as close to a console title as possible. Already with the beta we have been able to see that there is a lot of good and a lot of love put into it.

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that there no cost to the wider series with this. The game could cost 100 dollars to make, and we're still suffering huge opportunity costs.

There's lore in this game that is not going to be told in KH4. The days of side games like Days and BBS, proper entries, are over because of UX, DR and ML.

Yes, in theory, SE could release something else at the same time. In practice, they're not going to want to cannibalise their market audience.

Nobody here would be remotely interested in this game if it didn't have the KH title on it. It's just that we're starved for KH content. I yearn for the timeline where this a small Switch title.

 

[2 quid is good]

So please, let's support the game

why? I don't want Square to keep doing this rubbish of putting iMpOrTaNt lOrE in a phone game, so why should we support it? because it's KH? not really a good enough reason to me