yes. i am already annoyed at people throwing back and forth the final fantasy characters status without even spoiler tags
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Kingdom Hearts III Review Thread
- Thread starter Cincaid
- Start date
yes. i am already annoyed at people throwing back and forth the final fantasy characters status without even spoiler tags
Entitled? Come the fuck on. No I guess I'm not entitled to good writing but I'm entitled to be able to say when something isn't. As is everyone else. Seems like the hardcore defenders feel entitled to game made only for them I guess.
I mean...Kingdom Hearts has never been well written. There hasn't been a well-written JRPG outside of the Yakuza series in almost 20 years. Why would ANYONE expect good writing out of a game whose initial concept is literal nonsense?
So I'm here watching the official recap that comes with every copy of KH3, and I'm wondering...why are people saying SE hasn't made an effort to make KH 3 available for newcomers?
The recap literally explains the backstories out of most, if not all, the important players in the game? I mean, sure, you won't end the recap knowing everything about everyone, but you'll have a basic understanding of what is happening.
The recap literally explains the backstories out of most, if not all, the important players in the game? I mean, sure, you won't end the recap knowing everything about everyone, but you'll have a basic understanding of what is happening.
Mostly true enough, but I've definitely enjoyed some JRPGs stories. He'll for the most part I enjoy Kingdom Hearts story. I still think KH's writing is probably one of the biggest gaming blunders in the last 2 decades.
JRPGs kind of hit the wall when voice acting started becoming the standard. The ways Japanese dialogue is written simply don't connect well with the ways naturally English dialogue is written, and while KH does more work than some games in terms of redoing cutscenes to fit the English language, there's still a lot of dumb anime logic and character shorthand at work in the games that holds them down and keeps the writing from excelling.
I've just been used to it for so long that it doesn't bother me. It helps that unlike most JRPGs, there's no gross waifu pandering or sempai nonsense. It's just...earnest and dumb, like a golden retriever. Which is exactly what Sora is - a human golden retriever.
Because people are idiots and will say so no matter how many collections, warnings, recap video or whatever SE makes.
Besides the writing, I think it's the staging, how everything's framed, character expressions and movement and awkward pauses/transitions between sentences which makes cut scenes poor. Most games suffered from this during the PS2 era (even last gen really) but most games these days do a good job which is why KH3 kind of sticks out. Looks undeniably pretty though. Loving the colours.
It kinda depends on the cutscene, honestly. Some of them look amazing, using shot compositions and the like from the original films. And then you get the smaller expository cutscenes where everyone's standing around like dolls and you can REALLY see the difference in quality.
KH has always done this - "high quality" cutscenes where the models are way higher detail and move and emote more naturally, and then "normal" in-engine cutscenes that use the regular in-game models with very low amounts of articulation. It's just become that much more noticeable in HD, and it was ALREADY noticeable on the PS2.
My biggest issue is that if you sit down to write a story with tons of Disney movie crossovers as the main draw then your job should be to write something that's just the glue to hold it all together. It should be engaging but for the most part fade to the background so the real stars can come forward. You want to highlight the Disney worlds. Since you're popping into tons of other stories every game you also don't want to overcomplicate things. So, make a simple story with some good characters and then romp around the Disney stuff meeting those characters. Should be pretty easy. But Nomura basically vomited his weird fantasy anime all over everything to the point where it takes over everything. It feels like the Disney stuff is a trojan horse to get sales to his real baby. It's honestly kind of fucking weird and blows my mind Disney even allows it to continue.
But, again, I even enjoy the nutcasery of Kingdom Hearts enough. I still think it's a massive, massive blunder. The series could have been something much more amazing and culturally relevant and instead it just kept funneling inward on itself and outward into chaos.
I think we just disagree elementally on that, honestly. The Disney worlds shouldn't BE the story, they should SERVE the story. Each experience Sora has in a Disney world should impact his character growth and help push him along his journey, but the story should not be about just retelling Disney movies we all already saw.
Nomura going up his own ass with cosmology is something else altogether, and I largely agree with you there. KH was better when it was dopey anime Star Wars. All the time travel and cloning and "13 Xehanorts" nonsense just gets exhausting and it isn't nearly as clever as Nomura seems to think it is.
I think what you described would have been hopelessly generic. Not meant in an offensive way, it sounds fine in theory, but why would replaying Disney Worlds with a basic background story be that interesting?
It's to be expected no? This kind of stuff happens in every game...
I'm not cherry picking this scene because of the voiceover haha the game is filled with cutscenes like this where the details in the animation and such are not as good, but that's expected.
It happens in every game, yeah. It was just way more obvious in KH because the PS2 and PSP games literally used different character models for "major" cutscenes vs. in-engine cutscenes and you could tell the difference even between different camera angles.
Did I say replaying them? I didn't.
Use the Disney worlds interestingly. I think right now he's going reverse and using generic replay Disney stories all the time because his focus is on his own craziness.
And on top of that, it's partially what people want. They want the Disney shit. They wanna roam around the world of Frozen or Toy Story. That's part of why so many are angry they have to play a ton of random games worth of nonsense to get to what they want. Disney is the draw and a good writer should know his draw and emphasize that in a way that accentuates it.
And what I described was mostly KH1.
People want both. That's what fans are used to and that's what fans want. Without the insane anime craziness it would just be another Disney Infinity.
If what you were saying was true; we'd have a similar situation to Assassins Creed where people don't want the modern day stuff. But hardly anyone is clamouring for less of the KH centric stuff.
Every single person on the KH community, fandom and devs, keep doing their best for newcommers, we understand it is a 17 years incredible dense story, but there is so much one can do it the other party doesn't feel like doing a little bit on their part.
Now people want both. Some people. A small contingent of really hardcore fans want both. I'm saying it didn't have to be that way in the beginning.
This is just false, if you want to mess around in the disney worlds nothing is stopping you from doing that like in KH 1. In kh3 the worlds are as good as they have ever been arguably! Original stories created with the help from the creators of the movies and such. (And arguably it does those things better than every other crossover in the market)
KH is popular exactly because it is different from every other crossover in existence that limits itself to doing what you suggested.
Can't really understand why it is so bad that KH has value in itself outside from the crossover stuff.
Ha! Kingdom Hearts is a massive multi million selling game series, and you think the people who like the Kingdom Hearts aspects are a small minority? More like Niche Hearts amirite?
I think you are COMPLETELY misinterpreting WHY the series gained traction at all. The entire reason it happened is because of the Final Fantasy/Disney crossover. People would not have given a shit if it was just "Disney worlds: the game". The combination of the two sides is why KH works and why it persists.
He's already said why: he doesn't think the series needs to rely on them anymore, and adding them in would just take focus away from the main storyline.
It sucks, but at the same time I do understand the logic. I would like to see them in the epilogues or somewhere, though. Even if it's just arena battles in DLC.
Thats what nomura said when asked about it.
That's what I'm saying it should be though? I literally said KH1 was mostly this. I'm not saying it should be Disney Worlds: The Game. I'm saying good writing is able to put focus on pieces rather than the chaos we got. You can't complicate the writing literally everywhere. If you're going to world hop into other storylines that's already complex so you need to dial it back.
And yeah, for a Final Fantasy/Disney crossover... uh.. where's the Final Fantasy?
That's what I'm talking about. The series became a Trojan horse for Nomura to instead swap in his own fever dream chaos instead of what we were originally sold.
I always thought about KH more as a Western Media + Eastern Gaming cross over or Disney x Square instead of Disney x FF, but I'm honestly surprised nothing at all, they are currently re releasing most FF titles outside of PS, it doesn't make any sense even on a bit cynical ad point of view.
At this point, the KH characters ARE the Final Fantasy half. The cast and world grew enough that they didn't need Cloud moping around or Squall straight-up shooting people with a gunblade that actually fires projectiles.
Lord help me....
Just because it sold that much doesn't mean everyone wants literally everything about it. And it sold that much on KH1. Then KH2 sold a lot based on love for KH2, but a lot of people were blindsided there with the clusterfuck story from CoM. Now people will be ooohed and aaaah-ed by Disney worlds on the PS4.
The criticism and questioning of "Why can't I play this without knowing all this other shit" isn't coming in a vacuum either. There's a reason and it's because a lot of people don't like it. The small minority are the ones buying DDD and BBS and creating timeline videos from what should be spinoff mobile dacha games. That shit's niche.
That's the thing about the Trojan horse. You can't say "Well they took the horse so they must fucking love it!"
I mean, Nomura fucking up the characters and then dropping them for his own shit kinda furthers my point really.
If you're saying you'd like a story which is more like KH1 then I'd agree, but that's not what it sounded like you were describing.
The melodramatic anime craziness (but not turned up to 12) are essential to making the game anything other than a total snooze fest.
Plus calling KH writing bad is lazy. What's bad about it? People love it. It's unique, it's got tons of depth. Is it just too cheesy for you? At least it's not just another boring videogame story
Edit: and to your other point, the reason KH has grown so big is because of both the Disney aspects and the Nomura aspects. If you think only a niche group of people like that, and the rest just put up with it...well you're deluding yourself.
And we still have people in the OT claiming KH has always been about Cloud talking to Mickey
Kingdom Hearts has always been Disney/Final Fantasy + Original story and that's why people loved/love this series. The problem is that while KH1 was perfectly balanced, the others were not. Starting from KH2, Disney started being filler, while FF started slowly fading. With KH3, Disney seems to have gained plot importance again, although with pace problems, but FF is nowhere to be seen, so it's still unbalanced (but imo still better than KH2). They need to find that balance again, it's all they have to do. Kingdom Hearts never was and should never be another generic JRPG or another Disney game. It needs to be a game where you defeat Sephiroth alongside Donald and Goofy before going to save the universe from an anime villain. And you don't blink an eye while playing because, one way or another, it all makes sense.
Writing isn't bad. On paper the plot isn't bad. But the storytelling is awful and some things are explained poorly or not simplified for the masses to understand.
it's the same 5 videos that were on the official Japanese youtube.
Yeah, and most of this cast sucks.
Like, do they THINK that the thatFF characters can just be replaced by more hooded guys and people will be satisfied?
Like, I'm sorry, but the people who liked Auron aren't necessarily be hyped for Vanitas returning.
It's not the same thing, and they used to coexist. Now one has been removed and it feels like somethingg missing.
Vanitas actually plays a role in the plot, though. All Auron did is punch Cerberus in the face once and then mumble about this not being his story.
I get it, the FF characters are cool and it's fun to fight alongside them. The War for Hollow Bastion was awesome. But the cast is massive now, and aside from Leon, none of the FF characters actually figure into the plot in a meaningful way.
If Kh4 has full FF cast like Squall team, Seifer, Sephiroth, maybe new character like Lightning & Noctis but less origin character like Aqua, Riku, Kairi. I believe people will upset more
I'm used to this in KH and it's supposed to feel like an anime and after playing Dragon Quest XI, I don't believe that will be a problem to me at all.
And to be honest the original characters aren't really "original" when half of them are alternate versions of the main trio
Pretty much. They can't ERASE the KH original characters, that's who the story is about. Replacing them with an extremely heavy focus on FF characters just turns it into Dissidia.
But they can do a better job in the next game of working FF characters into the narrative in a way that fits and doesn't detract from the core narrative.