Your Opinion on the (U)X-story?

[Alpha Baymax]

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear on that point. Like Hirokey said, I meant some form of time travel, not necessarily time travel itself like Xehanort does. Maybe it's connected to the dream worlds / sleeping worlds, but it is a form of time travel for me if a character is present in the age of fairy tales and 100 years later also because he / she is traversing through time in a way. I'd love the three original Ux characters take the main focus of attention, that would be nice.

By the way, I am not sure if the realm of sleep would be a logical explanation. The chamber of waking is already bothering me since Ventus doesn't age - Sora fell into a similar coma and DID age so CO doesn't prevent aging. Just because the chamber of waking cannot be accessed by someone else than Aqua, that doesn't mean it is unaffected by time. A heart can sustain for a while without a body, but a body without a heart should still age (best example are the Organisation members).
I always suspected that the sleeping realm is some kind of time loop (I didn't find DDD very clear on this point), but how do you end up there and - better question - how do you get out? Why do you get amnesia from that (as we see in BBS)? (No really, I can't explain that in a way that makes sense, fill me in.)

I'd stress that you consider this theory that I created. It's plausible enough to explain how pre-existing characters exist in this era.

https://forums.khinsider.com/kingdo...sule-theory-5th-union-leader-explanation.html

A lot of people who are baffled by Ventus and Lauriam's inclusion in this game are under the assumption that they went from the present to the past. However, if you believe that both these characters originated from The Age of Fairy Tales, then the puzzle isn't why they were able to time travel to the past, but rather, how they survived beyond The Age of Fairy Tales.

 

[Veevee]

I think there's a difference in the behavior of a Nobody versus an empty body. Nobodies are imprinted with a "life" leftover by the heart, but in the case of Ventus (and Kairi in KH1), the body is completely dormant.

The only Nobodies we know to age are Xemnas and Zexion. Xemnas could very well still have Terra's heart, leaving Zexion as the lone mystery. We don't know when Lea or Isa were turned, and Naminé is just a cheater.

I personally think age is tied to hearts, so a body without a heart can't age. Age is a function of life, and technically such a body is not "living."


The Realm of Sleep is a place where real time does not flow. In effect, the worlds and people in that Realm are in a stasis. The worlds dream of the events leading up to the time they fall to darkness, and this set of events loops until they are woken up.
Because of this stasis, the sleeping world and people will return without missing a beat--like having a movie paused, then pressing play.

I always suspected Xaldin to be older by the time of Kingdom Hearts 2, but I can't tell for sure. He looks older to me, but I cannot fortify that opinion by official canon material.

I'm fine with the leftover definition even though I believe to recall that it was more like the strong will that was left behind possessed the body and moved it by sheer force of will, thus no heart is needed. The difference is little, so it doesn't matter much.
I disagree on the body being completely dormant, as we can see that Ventus smiles in DDD while Sora is fooling around with the Dream Eaters. This shows that there is some kind of life in him and the body is not completely comatose, but this might also be some kind of reflex / resonance to his heart over a long distance. In general, I find your "age is related to the heart"-theory quite plausible since it kinda explains how a heart without a body can live and form a replacement body (like Ansem's degenerating hooded figure).

Thanks for the explanation. that helps. This leads me to the assumption that it's probably going downhill a second time and Ventus as well as Lauriam are going to get stuck in that mess that time ...

@Alpha Baymax: Your theory sounds good, but I have a few discussion points to that. I'll go see you in the respective thread.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

They aren't saying they are there because of time travel they are saying that because they exist in present day that means there WILL have to be some form of time travel as well as some form of memory erasure to make the characters as they are in present day make sense. Older versions of them exist in present day but Chi takes place in the ancient past time travel is now unavoidable even if it's some kind of weird "unchained realm exists outside of time and so it can exit into any time" type deal. Also didn't you just say they shouldn't assume things to fit their own narrative while then ending off your paragraph with assuming due to placement on artwork Ephemer, Skuld, and Blaine will get the most focus?

Did Ventus discard his body? did Lauriam discard his body? they're both pre-existing characters but neither currently fit the qualifications required to travel back in time through Kingdom Hearts logic. Time travel in the most fundamental sense is unavoidable with these two characters, however, Ventus and Lauriam would have traveled forward in time. That's not going to defy the logic of time because they're progressing in a linear direction, from point A to point B. So I fail to see how this would screw up the Kingdom Hearts timeline. It's not as if Ventus or Lauriam is travelling back in time from Point B to Point A and then travelling forward in time back to Point B.

And with my assumption, I believe that I have validity with my statement. Character placement in Kingdom Hearts artwork is symbolic of a character's importance. Character's who are more centered to the artwork more often than not have more focus placed on them whilst characters on the top and bottom have less focus placed upon them.

 

[palizinhas]

For me it's not really about the fact that it screws up the timeline. It's about the fact that this just feels like unnecessary ties to the future in order to go "hey, look, KHUX is relevant!!! You need to play it to know the backstory of these characters!!"

And I had thought the entire point of doing Back Cover and putting 1.5+2.5 on ps4 was to have all the games in the same place. But BC being as dull and inconclusive as it was and these things being added to KHUX just proves how much this is not the case.

So the fact that Ven and Lauriam are part of the story doesn't feel natural, so much as it's just another way to complicate the timeline of these games by needlessy shoving two characters we thought were from the present day into generations in the past. The fact they ARE from the past - when at the same time we have Maleficent, who is from the present, running around in KHUX - is bad by itself.

 

[VoidGear.]

For me it's not really about the fact that it screws up the timeline. It's about the fact that this just feels like unnecessary ties to the future in order to go "hey, look, KHUX is relevant!!! You need to play it to know the backstory of these characters!!"

And I had thought the entire point of doing Back Cover and putting 1.5+2.5 on ps4 was to have all the games in the same place. But BC being as dull and inconclusive as it was and these things being added to KHUX just proves how much this is not the case.

So the fact that Ven and Lauriam are part of the story doesn't feel natural, so much as it's just another way to complicate the timeline of these games by needlessy shoving two characters we thought were from the present day into generations in the past. The fact they ARE from the past - when at the same time we have Maleficent, who is from the present, running around in KHUX - is bad by itself.

Thiiis is basically the main problem.
It was easy to just "ignore" the UX story or at least see it as a standalone, but seeing characters we already know (and maybe even like) appear in it almost forces the player to care for the story.

 

[The_Echo]

Thiiis is basically the main problem.
It was easy to just "ignore" the UX story or at least see it as a standalone, but seeing characters we already know (and maybe even like) appear in it almost forces the player to care for the story.

I don't really see the problem with that.
I mean, how long have we known χ[chi] would be relevant to KHIII, and possibly beyond? Years, right?
Is it really any big shock that established characters are involved with the proceedings? I mean jeez, half this forum was all over Rebirth...

No matter what happened in the story, it was going to tie itself up in the rest of the plot. That's the whole point. Even without Ventus and Lauriam, we have No Name, the Book of Prophecies and the box established as elements known to characters in the present time. And Ephemera and Skuld were teased for III in the 3rd Anniversary art.

Why do I get the feeling this wouldn't be a concern if χ had been a handheld/console game?

 

[Alja]

Why do I get the feeling this wouldn't be a concern if χ had been a handheld/console game?

You're right, it would be less of a concern because for one it would be more accessible (in the way that it would be released on the same console as the other remakes, thus no need to make sure you have enough storage on your phone and it's strong enough to handle the game - not everybody splurges on an iPhone or other expensive phones). Also, if it had released on a console initially, of course the entire gameplay would be different, providing us with more lore in a shorter time. A lot of KHUX is Disney filler, a lot more than before and especially repetitive.

I think if another back cover released, one that actually explains the story, people would have less of an issue, me included. I have fun playing KHUX, don't get me wrong, and I also don't hate it per se because I'm waiting for the rest of the story to tie up before I judge it, but I had great concerns before I started playing. Little storage on my phone and it gets hot when I play for a while. It's a great game for in between tasks and during a free minute, but it is kinda unsatisfactory to have huge lore points in a game that is mostly concepted to last for short whiles at a time.

 

[Veevee]

I don't really see the problem with that.
I mean, how long have we known χ[chi] would be relevant to KHIII, and possibly beyond? Years, right?
Is it really any big shock that established characters are involved with the proceedings? I mean jeez, half this forum was all over Rebirth...

No matter what happened in the story, it was going to tie itself up in the rest of the plot. That's the whole point. Even without Ventus and Lauriam, we have No Name, the Book of Prophecies and the box established as elements known to characters in the present time. And Ephemera and Skuld were teased for III in the 3rd Anniversary art.

Why do I get the feeling this wouldn't be a concern if χ had been a handheld/console game?

It's the presentation that keeps many players from playing it. It's a mobile game, not everyone has a good enough smartphone to play it and it fills a lot of storage space. I even had to remove a lot of apps to keep it on the phone and it's still running quite ... eh, playable. Plus, at least in global people are constantly charged to keep up with the story, there's ton of filler content and it takes months to reach a point where it gets interesting. Plus plus, there's a lot of negativity around due to the mentioned points, so many people drop off after the first hundreds of filler quests. A handheld / console game wouldn't have those issues and I've already heard people complain about the price for 2.8 and that it gives too less for too much money, they obviously haven't played the NA version of union cross yet. It doesn't help that the JP version that has a language barrier is so much superior and more generous than ours.

I totally agree with Alja, a mobile phone is viewed as something for the 20 minutes you are on the bus and the like. A considerable amount of people have this opinion, all people I know that play mobile phone games only play them when they have a little time to kill, not constantly and even the less putting money in. I don't say it's necessarily a bad thing that a mobile game has this much story, but it also backfires and that was kinda predictable. Plus, Nomura said not too long ago that it would be sufficient for KH3 to have played 1.5 + 2.5 + 2.8. It's all getting so messy now with past and present and future and I'm not saying the story is not interesting, but I would've preferred it to have it as its own story, maybe for Kingdom Hearts 4. In that case people would've been able to decide whether they want to follow it or drop the series after it gave a conclusion and wouldn't be "forced" to watch cutscenes of the game on Youtube since they partially cannot play it themselves. There are people who enjoy to watch let's plays, but there are also a lot of people like me who don't and prefer to play it by themselves as a finished product.

As palizinhas said, the point of the remixes was to have all the important facts on one console which got screwed over by Ux. People already complained about the story being scattered when they were still only accessible on several systems, to solve that problem just to add another system is just ... eh?

I'm not trying to bash Ux, but I certainly understand why people are getting upset about this. It's not a real matter of choice playing Ux or not (if you're really trying to keep up with the story) and that lack of choice bothers people.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

Why do I get the feeling this wouldn't be a concern if χ had been a handheld/console game?

That's exactly the problem, Home console bias. Fair enough, people have every right to have that opinion, but don't substitute that opinion for an unrelated opinion. You have to understand that the X saga was intended to be for Japanese audiences to begin with. The only reason why it's international was because of fan demand and petitions. This game was designed primarily for the Japanese market, the Japanese market prefers portable gaming over console gaming for convenience purposes. It's evident that the west is opposite.

So yeah, we westerners may not like the links between X and the other games, but I can guarantee you that the Japanese market are loving it. So keep that into consideration when it comes to talking about this game.

 

[Veevee]

That's exactly the problem, Home console bias. Fair enough, people have every right to have that opinion, but don't substitute that opinion for an unrelated opinion. You have to understand that the X saga was intended to be for Japanese audiences to begin with. The only reason why it's international was because of fan demand and petitions. This game was designed primarily for the Japanese market, the Japanese market prefers portable gaming over console gaming for convenience purposes. It's evident that the west is opposite.

So yeah, we westerners may not like the links between X and the other games, but I can guarantee you that the Japanese market are loving it. So keep that into consideration when it comes to talking about this game.

Oh, I didn't know that, thus not taking it into consideration. I got enlightened (that is no sarcasm, even if it may sound so )

 

[Hakan Xatos]

I like the story pretty well. It keeps me engaged and looking forward to new quest updates. Especially now with more involvement from characters from the main series like Ven and Marluxia's somebody. The new characters are very intriguing as well. It just makes me curious about how all this is going to tie back in with the other games. Also what's going to happen to the Player? So much development is put into him/her that I really can't wait to see how his/her story turns out.

 

[palizinhas]

That's exactly the problem, Home console bias. Fair enough, people have every right to have that opinion, but don't substitute that opinion for an unrelated opinion. You have to understand that the X saga was intended to be for Japanese audiences to begin with. The only reason why it's international was because of fan demand and petitions. This game was designed primarily for the Japanese market, the Japanese market prefers portable gaming over console gaming for convenience purposes. It's evident that the west is opposite.

So yeah, we westerners may not like the links between X and the other games, but I can guarantee you that the Japanese market are loving it. So keep that into consideration when it comes to talking about this game.

Dude. This game isn't even actually available in my country.

I'd take a 3DS/Vita game over pay to play and grindy mobile phone game any day of the week though, a lot of the my issues with KHUX come from the presentation. It doesn't have to be a home console. But putting everything else on a ps4 in order to make everything in one console for convenience's sake, and at the same time continuining the story somewhere else is just annoying.

 

[kirabook]

I would have preferred this game stick to what happened during the browser game to be honest. It was all quite interesting and had the expected ending.

As I stated before, somehow, I really really expected Ven to show up for some reason, but everything else is really meh.

Putting this stuff on the mobile game is most certainly a huge mistake. Especially since you have to play through hundreds and hundreds of missions just to get to any plot relevant stuff. It's a terrible system and I wish Nomura would just.stick.to.one.console. If they later make all this stuff into a series of movies and actually explain things (whereas Backcover created more questions than answers), then ok. That's better. As it stands right now, it's not in the best interest of the community.

 

[The_Echo]

I totally get negative vibes on the mobile game format. I'm not a big fan of them myself (though I do enjoy playing Uχ and did enjoy χ[chi]).

I guess my issue is with letting your feelings about mobile games impact your feelings on the story.
Reminiscent of the fans who would disregard the handheld "spin-offs" because of title/platform.
"I shouldn't have to care about a PSP game."

Regarding the HD collections intended to consolidate the series...
Well, χ[chi] was underway when 1.5 and 2.5 were made on PS3, then Unchained χ when 2.8 came to be. And, it's kind of hard to adapt a story that isn't finished. Hence the new scene in Re:coded and χ Back Cover, to let you know there's still a bit more.
"Putting the whole series in one place" was always messy, ever since they had to make Days a cinematics collection instead of a game.
And yeah, not everyone will be able to play it. At the same time, smartphones are easily the most popular platform, even beyond consoles. So this is the most accessible KH game so far.