Hello everybody! We have tons of new awards for the new year that can be requested through our Awards System thanks to Antifa Lockhart! Some are limited-time awards so go claim them before they are gone forever...
Although Nomura specifically mentioned he won't make a final mix out of KH3, he was more ambiguous about a potential physical release (latest interview about reMind). Besides, now that we know there are two new teams dedicated to Kingdom Hearts, anything can happen.
I will try to detail my theory about a definitive editionof KH3. Note that I won't talk about the price of the dlc, wether it was worth or wether I would like to buy the game again. All I care about is the final product that KH3 could be.
Let's start by the beginning: I enjoyed reMind story a lot. It delivers about what was missing in the main game and provided great moments and characters development.
However one thing bothered me at first: the pacing of the action.
Replaying keyblade graveyards a second time feels weird. Remember that the Sora that went back in time is not having much impact on the action. The only reason to do that is so that we can see the aditional cutscenes and play as the additional characters. The additional scenes were brillant (especially Xion). But it still feels like they should have been part of the main game. Watching Axel looking at Xion with confusion has zero emotional impact since we know how it will end. The fight of the seven gardians is epic as hell, but would have been much more powerful if we didn't already know that xehanort will be defeated by Sora.
What I am trying to say is that the scenes are not in the good order for a good emotional impact. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like something was not right.
Let's analyse the scene where Sora uses the power of waking on Roxas station of awakening. There is no real reason why this should be the Sora that is traveliing through time who should be doing this. It could simply be Sora using the power of waking the same way as he did on Ventus heart. The emotional impact would be much better.
So my theory is:
"What if the additional scenes of the dlc in keyblade graveyard were initially planned to be added as part of the main scenario (without the time travel) and were then bundled with the remind scenario to make it easy for those who didn't want to replay the whole game?"
When we buy a dlc, we want to see what's new withoug having to replay everything (unlike the final mix did). So what if they did the dlc this way as a temporary addition, until they could come up with a definitive edition where the remind scenario would be injected into the main quest in a smooth and easy way?
This could be achieved by simply rearranging the scenes the following way:
- Play Keyblade graveyard with all additional scenes and sora using the power of waking
- Sora vs Xehanort and gardians of light vs clones happens at the same time (with Mickey glorious moment). Imagine the epicness of that.
- First ending.
- Sora travels back to time to save Kairi
- Remind scenario where sora simply jumps from one heart to another with a glimpse of the events currently happening outside. Stronger bosses on the station of awakening of everyone in pain (anti-aqua, dark inferno, terranort, etc) with some interesting challenge (easier than the data fights so ^^).
- Sora arrives at scala (look for kairi pieces)
- Sora travels to the other gardians (do not replay the gardians fight which happened as part of the main story, simple show that Sora saved Mickey and was there all along).
- Sora resurects Kairi (fight with xehanort armor)
- Real ending
As you can see, I didn't change much. Only put fights and scenes at other places. I feel that doing so could benefit the story and move KH3 from a great game to a legendary one.
So what do you think? Do you also hope to get a definitive edition someday that would fix the redundancy?
I like the concept, but I'm not sure if that would really help the pacing much once you got to the ReMind scenario. One of the complaints people had about the whole KG segment in the first place was that it felt like fight after fight after fight, and throwing ReMind in after the climax of defeating MX to have more fights might feel… off. I think it would work better if it was still seperated from the main game, like this maybe:
All the bonus scenes from ReMind that don't rely on time travel are reinserted into the main story, but game still ends like normal.
Game ends. Credits roll, original ending cutscene plays, everything is basically the same except for those extra scenes in the KG.
ReMind is available as a secret episode like how Aqua got her own secret episode in BBS. Remove all the bosses from KG that we've already done, but yeah, throw in a couple bonus hard ones like Anti-Aqua and Dark Inferno again, show briefly what's happening on the outside like you said, leave in the Guardians fight and Mickey's final stand, plus the Kairi/Sora vs. Xehanort fight. True ending plays.
I think this might work a bit better. If you went straight into ReMind at the end of the base game, it would make all the stuff that just came before it a little anticlimactic. By making a secret episode, maybe one you get for finding all the lucky emblems like with the "Yozora" secret movie, you retain the climactic elements of both of them but fix a few plot holes by adding in those extra KG cutscenes to the base game. Then the Kairi/Sora vs Xehanort fight could still feel like a big deal without minimizing the impact of the previous final boss, like how Aqua vs Terra-Nort didn't undermine the actual ending of BBS.
Just my thoughts. I do like the idea of somewhat merging them in a physical release later though…
Edit: if we did get a final mix (I know Nomura said he wouldn't but he's lied before…), I think it would be awesome to get Kairi and Lea's training and some of Riku and and Mickey's adventures added as bonus scenes too. That's just a pipe dream tho
I like your idea as well. Remind should remain a separate episode like bbs, mainly for its ending that has a greater impact this way. But it should focus only on Sora quest to find Kairi without rehash content.
The only disagreement I have with you is with the fight of the gardians vs the clones. I found this one anticlimatic as well as we know that xehanort will lose and the gardians will rejoin Sora. There is no suspens there. If it was moved to the main game as well, the ending would be brillant. It concludes the story of all those characters which has nothing to do in a DLC centered on Sora and Kairi. Only the last armored xehanort fight should be there (and the fact that Sora helped Mickey).
I agree that remind feels like a boss rush. But it felt like this considering its price. If it was bundled in a final mix package without the KG segment, no one would complain because we wouldn't judge it based on its price. We would simply see it as a very nice side quest. Removing the 1 hour of rehashed cutscenes would make it shorter yes, but also more focused. Now it feels like they want to show all they have been working on during the past year in a messy pack. All those elements are amazing taking independently. They just need to be placed in the correct order.
I also like your idea of the training of Lea and Kairi. As we saw with Terra and Riku moment in the boss dlc. You don't need a lot. Only 2 seconds of character bonding is enough.
Since Nomura mentioned that they might think of something when a new console will arrive. I think one theory could be that one of the team is in charge of maintaining the old titles (since xbox remix will arrive soon) and we can hope that one day there will be a gigantic pack: Kingdom Hearts - The Seeker of Darkness Saga- with all this ideas put together.
Square Enix's Fiscal Year ends on March 31, so the new one starts on April 1st. It's possible we might see a re-release or two for their new FY. Maybe a Definitive Edition of KINGDOM HEARTS III with the DLC integrated and/or a Re:COMPLETE Collection with every single KH entry, KHIII and Re:MIND.
Spoiler Show
