Melody of Memory should have been a Namine game

[KeybladeLordSora]

I do get that, but I think most people can at least agree somewhat that not every mobile game, concert, and portable device needs a KH game with vital lore bits. Not ALL of them need it, ya know?

In terms of concerts, KH at least did it better than Nier.

Like for KH it was a scene that was in KH3 anyway and a scene that 0.2 kinda ignored while for Nier it was THE FRIGGIN EPILOGUE FOR AUTOMATA.

 

[kirabook]

Oh yeah, Yoko Taro also loves putting important relevant stuff in whatever side piece of content he can. I think he does it because he actually enjoys it or likes adding stuff on after the fact. Like he genuinely likes doing it and does it on purpose.

It doesn't feel the same with Nomura. Don't know how to explain it. Maybe it's because Nomura is less vocal and openly goofy compared to Yoko Taro in public or something.

Yoko Taro is like "Hee hee hee, I'm going to make everyone cry during the concert and its' gonna so fun! Little do they know, everyone will di- oh this 2B cosplayer wants me to sign her thigh??? O-ok"

Nomura SEEMS like "I will add a little here and a little there to keep everyone's interest since it will be a while till the next installment. This should pacify them for a little while."

 

[Zackarix]

It is frustrating, but it's also something that Kingdom Hearts has been doing since Chain of Memories. The series would be much simpler and cleaner if they hadn't decided to put important parts of the plot in spin-offs. But that also might have meant that the FNC mess might have killed the franchise instead of it being banished to handheld consoles.

It's understandable that some people would have preferred that Melody of Memory not have any plot at all. But the precedent had already been established and it ended up with a plot anyway despite not being the original intention. Given this, I would have preferred a story with effort put into it over the tacked-on afterthought we got.

 

[kirabook]

I love BbS. Days is super popular in the fandom. Nomura should put all his effort into making those kinds of side games connect into the big plot rather than trying to make alllll the smaller ones important. The entire KH team should consider stories that are truly one note and insular. Even if they get referenced in the future, maybe those events are said and done and written down in a history book.

That's what I thought KHChi was going to be. A history of events that already happened. A tale that Xehanort found in an old dusty library and tried to replicate in the present. But now it's literally part of the present story itself so... eh.

 

[KeybladeLordSora]

Oh yeah, Yoko Taro also loves putting important relevant stuff in whatever side piece of content he can. I think he does it because he actually enjoys it or likes adding stuff on after the fact. Like he genuinely likes doing it and does it on purpose.

It doesn't feel the same with Nomura. Don't know how to explain it. Maybe it's because Nomura is less vocal and openly goofy compared to Yoko Taro in public or something.

Yoko Taro is like "Hee hee hee, I'm going to make everyone cry during the concert and its' gonna so fun! Little do they know, everyone will di- oh this 2B cosplayer wants me to sign her thigh??? O-ok"

Nomura SEEMS like "I will add a little here and a little there to keep everyone's interest since it will be a while till the next installment. This should pacify them for a little while."

And that goes back to something I said in another thread.

People will like something if someone else does it, but hate it if Nomura does the same thing.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

And that goes back to something I said in another thread.

People will like something if someone else does it, but hate it if Nomura does the same thing.

I hate it when they both do it so hope one day others learn the same haha

I think it is bs Yoko Taro gets away with it even though I like his body of work and find it more consistently good.

 

[kirabook]

I definitely don't hate Nomura for this kind of thing. I think Yoko Taro also gets a little leeway because even though the Drakengard/Nier universe is somewhat connected, each game is its own self contained adventure. I doubt knowing what happened in that concert will matter when the next Nier game comes out. It'll just be an easter egg some people will get and others won't. There is no hard defined one continuous story. It's a universe where many things happen thousands of years apart.

But with KH, it's one BIG story in a hard defined sequence of events. One cutscene in a side game can change the entire course of the story moving forward and if you miss it, you'll be confused. We as fans have to tell new fans "Listen, technically nothing is a side game. Not even the mobile game. You should probably play it in this order or it won't make sense and you'll get spoiled."

With Nier, it doesn't matter if you play Automata or Replicant first. Most people hadn't even heard of Replicant when Automata came out. To play Nier, you don't have to play Drakengard. All these 3 pieces (Drakengard is its own series though) are connected, but independent. It doesn't matter if you saw the Automata concert. It doesn't matter if you read the originally Japanese exclusive light stories for Replicant which contained the true epilogue of Nier Replicant back in the day. It had no effect on its "sequel". It's truly just "extra".

 

[Zackarix]

I think part of the problem is that at this point fans not only expect all games to be important, but value the games based on it. For years many fans have placed Coded at the bottom of the ranking because of its perceived unimportance. I find it being a skippable side story to be forgivable considering that it started as a phone game exclusive to a model that never made it out of Japan, but lots of people never forgave the game for its story despite the good gameplay.

There are probably a lot of fans that would have that would have outright skipped Melody of Memory if not for the story tease.

 

[Sign]

I think part of the problem is that at this point fans not only expect all games to be important, but value the games based on it. For years many fans have placed Coded at the bottom of the ranking because of its perceived unimportance. I find it being a skippable side story to be forgivable considering that it started as a phone game exclusive to a model that never made it out of Japan, but lots of people never forgave the game for its story despite the good gameplay.

A large majority of the active online fanbase right now were also introduced to the series (or just the subtitled games) through the remasters, so their only exposure to Re:coded was through the cinematic. They love to pretend like they actually played the game though.

 

[kirabook]

I personally skipped and found Coded irrelevant because of its retread status (also I didn't have a DS. I was a poor high schooler back then). Of course looking back now, all the segments between the retread are probably going to be important but I'm still pretty apathetic toward this title.

I rate CoM higher than Coded personally purely because I found interest in the story segments in between the retread worlds.

I think a lot of fans skip or completely write off games like these two because of how much focus they put on retelling worlds we've been to sooooo many times before. Even when it's a new way to tell the story, most of the time I feel nothing. I've already been here, y'know?

So in that way, if Nomura and team were worried about sales, I can understand why they'd decide to slide in something important at the end to make sure it doesn't flop or something. I don't think he needed to worry about that with MoM though. People LOVE KH music with or without context. This could've been an arcade style self contained game with no plot relevance and people would've still bought it.

In future side titles, like CoM, Coded and even Days I think, I'd like to see them introduced new worlds if they're going to be plot relevant anyways. Pull a BbS or DDD and put us in a new location even if there's some familiar characters along the way. I think KHUX is the first retread-like game that used a whole new world.

Use the lesser known Disney properties and go wild. Stuff that's been buried for decades that isn't racist and/or homophobic and give it some spitshine.

 

[AdrianXXII]

So in that way, if Nomura and team were worried about sales, I can understand why they'd decide to slide in something important at the end to make sure it doesn't flop or something. I don't think he needed to worry about that with MoM though. People LOVE KH music with or without context. This could've been an arcade style self contained game with no plot relevance and people would've still bought it.

Honestly I wouldn't be so sure about that. MoM only really went form a I'll probably get that to a must get upon learning it'll be a part of the main story after I learned about them delving into Kairi's past.
I mean I think it still would sell pretty well, but there's many in this fandom that do fixate on the story a bit too much.

 

[Xionwolf]

I think that namine must have some chapter saved in the future or in her case they waste a power that she has very good even though the truth knowing Nomura everything is left ultra secret.

 

[the red monster]

Honestly, i don't think we gonna see namine again. at least for couple of games.

 

[pastel.goblin]

Honestly, i don't think we gonna see namine again. at least for couple of games.

Ehhhh the fact that Sora hasn't thanked her yet and even brought attention to it in KH3 makes me think (hope) Nomura has something planned for her in future. If she wasn't coming back they either would've done the thank you already or not brought it up at all.

 

[Meilin]

I honestly was disappointed that there wasn't even a little interaction between Kairi and Namine. Your post explained it perfectly, retreading memories connected to Sora is her whole thing. The connections explained how Xion, Roxas, and Kairi all shared dreams and messed up memories of him in the COM/Days/KH2 year. It would've made 1000000x more sense for Namine to have been at the very least assisting Ienzo and the others with plucking through Kairi's memories.

 

[sephydark]

When the game was announced, I also was hoping that Namine would be helping Kairi retrieve her memories of Sora. I think it would have been a natural fit for her to be helping the science crew, given her ties to memories (plus I would have loved to see her interact with Kairi a little more, given that I do ship them).

I don't think that they're retiring Namine completely as a character, though. They only just brought her back, and Sora still hasn't had the chance to thank her.