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Should nomura play it safe for the next saga?



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I think it's better to play it safe, and give fans something they are used too before.

A straightforward and simple story (As boring as that maybe in any medium, it's a safe bet)

Cloned KH2 gameplay

Write characters as simple instead of complex(No complex stuff anymore)

Easy and very simple storylines

Easy and common villian motivations

Basically use overused but safe tropes for kingdom hearts. Kairi can get Mary sue trope to address the story compliants.

Should kingdom hearts play it safe or should nomura continue to take risks in story & alienate the fanbase?
 

Zettaflare

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Before KH3 came out I remember Nomura saying he would probably just make his next saga as complicated as the first one. Instead of playing it safe I suspect he will just go the convoluted route once again
 

AR829038

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There are some things I agree with, but others I don't.
I think Nomura could certainly tone it down with the complexity of his narrative. I don't expect him to ever be as simple as he was with KH1 again (after all, he was just dipping his directorial toe in the water then, and now he's like one of the biggest names in the gaming industry, so he probably feels like he has the freedom to just go all-out with his wacky ideas), but I do hope he doesn't try to spread this next saga over as many stories and as many games as the first one had, especially not if a significant amount of them will be crap mobile games like Union X.
On the issue of cloned KH2 gameplay, however, I couldn't disagree more. KH2 had fantastic gameplay, don't get me wrong, but it's time for the series to move beyond its tethers to KH2, and frankly, it's time for the fans to move on from it, too. The developers need to be allowed to experiment. If we just keep getting KH2-style gameplay mechanics forever, then it will make the games feel staid and boring.
I don't agree that characters shouldn't be complex—complex characters are always more compelling in fiction versus one-dimensional cutout characters. Nomura just needs to write characters better, or otherwise hire a writer who can do them justice.
Simple villain motivations work alright too, I guess. Though, I'm not opposed to them being complicated motivations if they're explained clearly. Even though I personally enjoyed the way they killed Master Xehanort in base KH3, I do acknowledge that Nomura did not do a good job of clarifying his motivations, his methodology, or his outlook across the series. For these new villains, he needs to be more clear about what they're thinking, what they want, and how they aim to get it.
Finally, I don't recommend the inclusion of tropes. That would make all the problems even worse.
I think you may be confusing the idea of "simplifying" the story with making it more one-dimensional, and I don't really want that. I'd like the next saga to be more streamlined and less convoluted to be sure, but that doesn't mean I want it to become contrived or unoriginal.
 

ZeVaine

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What's frustrating is that I really want the new projects to be their own stories - but I feel like there's so much Nomura has left purposefully unanswered thats so inherently tethered to the original story and characters, that these new projects have to be pretty closely intertwined the main-line KH games.

Hopefully the Yozora connections are more thematic and game-play dependent , and aren't to be take so literally as having "happened" exactly the way they per-se... hence the multiple endings.
 

Henryp

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Nah. As pointed out previously, this is Nomura's work. As a creator, he should make the games as he wants to, not as fans want to. There is always a risk of people not liking your creation, but that's a risk that should be taken when creating something new. Restricting yourself to please an audience usually generates the opposite reaction. A creator can take critism from fans to incorporate or polish certain aspects of their future work he is planning, but it shouldn't be what drives the creation of new content.

Personally, I would like for him to keep things a little bit simplier and not rely on too many too much complex tropes to move forward. But that's just my opinion. I want the series moving forward to explore different aspects and grow in different directions, in all aspects of the game. I don't want a copycat storyline, characters to repeat the same storyline for the rest of the series or the same gameplay mechanics as, well, any other of the titles.
 
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Absent

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As much as I dislike the direction he has taken the series, creators should create what they want to do. Also in general, Nomura or anyone else, playing it safe never works out in the end.
 
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As much as I dislike the direction he has taken the series, creators should create what they want to do. Also in general, Nomura or anyone else, playing it safe never works out in the end.
Wait it never works out? 😯😯😯That's interesting. Care to explain?
 

Face My Fears

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I don't want him to play it safe, but he definitely has to learn from past "mistakes". The biggest one I think he can learn from is writing himself into a corner (like what happened in KH3) - which was a result of doing multiple side stories that ended up being main stories. Nothing's wrong with side stories, but don't have them directly influence the main story, rather they should flesh out whichever highlighted character is shown and additional lore/backstory.
 

the red monster

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Nah. i love all the crazy stuff he comes up with even if it doesn't make much sense. it would be boring otherwise.

it's way more fun and entertaining, IMO.
 

Katsagu

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Nomura can simplify KH's story and not have it be a braindead kids game like you seem to suggest on OP.

KH's story is already a very simple one. I like to compare Xehanort Saga with Harry Potter. When you look at it both have a similar structure and story beats.

The problem is, Nomura surrounds a simple narrative with tons and tons of difficult terms and ideas. And the explanations of those ideas are hard to understand, like let's compare something from both series, so I can get my point across easier, let's compare Xehanort and Voldermort coming back to life:

Voldemort: In harry potter's universe, a Horcrux exists. A horcrux lets you split your soul and put it inside objects. So when he "died", thanks to these Horcruxes he didn't really die, and stayed on earth possessing others untill someone could help him return to his body. That's what happens on HP 4. Now this is far from simple. But apart from this being a magical world, you only need to understand that horcruxes exist and that's what kept him alive.

Xehanort: So, in KH's universe, heartless and nobodies exist. When you die, your heart and soul get separated and form one of each respectively. Both of these are independent, so they think and act differently. So for all intents and purposes, Xehanort is dead. Now we find that when you kill both the hearless and nobody, they both join together to remake the original person. We also need to remember that these specific entities were created from the "death" of a possessed Terra by Xehanort, Terranort.

Now we can see how much harder Xehanort coming back is, when compared to voldemort. You need to understand how heartless and nobodies work. You also need to understand Terranort and how he works, since both's apearance do not resemble Old Xehanort. And on top of that you need to understand the fact that if you kill both Old Xehanort comes back, for some reason and not Terranort.

This is my main problem with KH's narrative, the convoluted way things work. Because apart from that it is simple. But then you add all that baggage of explanations and it gets hard.

So I hope that Nomura or whoever writes KH going forward is a bit more attentive to this. And tries to tell it's story without adding all of these things. Make it more like Harry Potter and less like big brain time.
 
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As much as I dislike the direction he has taken the series, creators should create what they want to do. Also in general, Nomura or anyone else, playing it safe never works out in the end.

Playing it safe is how Pokemon is still around.

Back to KH. Verum Rex is a thing, so we all know the next saga won't play a damn thing safe..... except the rating simply because Disney would want to preserve their brand identity.
 

Oracle Spockanort

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Playing it safe is how Pokemon is still around.

Yeah, and it's thriving but it's kinda always been a safe series targeted at a very young audience. It doesn't necessarily NEED to go wild when it's found what works best for it. It still gets plenty of criticism and complaints from fans who are frustrated about how stale the formula has gotten.

Also, Pokemon goes wild in their spin-off games. There are always some sort of new, unique Pokemon games coming out. Sometimes they are well received like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and sometimes they are weird and bland like Detective Pikachu the 3DS game that was clearly a favor to somebody. Then they experiment with their media ala films like Detective Pikachu which are really cool and fun, or the animated shorts they do. Then there is Pokemon Go.

Pokemon plays it safe within the confines of its mainline game series. It still takes risks and does crazy, weird stuff.
 

Guernsey

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I don't think Nomura is going to play it safe as he has these crazy ideas for the series that wishes to see to fruition. I do hope that someone reign Nomura in as in make sure he still remains on focus and try to make sure that not every portable game needs to into the mainline games.
 
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