All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

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Alex79
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All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by Alex79 »

I had a quick search and found nothing, so let's talk about Kingdom Hearts.

Here are some facts:

- I have never played a Kingdom Hearts game.

- I like the look of Kingdom Hearts 3, because, well, I want to meet Woody and Buzz dammit!

- I have quite literally no idea where to start.

Now, I'm someone who really hates coming in late to an established series. That's why I made myself play all of the MGS series before taking on V. That's why I am playing though all the Yakuza games before number 6.

But I have no idea whatsoever what's going on with Kingdom Hearts. Basically, it's a JRPG set in a mash up of the Disney and Square universes, right? This does appeal to me. Where do I start!? What do I play? Do I need to play 1 and 1.5? 2 and 2.5? And what the hell is 2.8? And all the other stupidly named titles?

From what I can make out, the 1.5 & 2.5 Remix pack on PS4 may possibly be HD remasters of the first two games with a bit of extra content? Is that right? But what of all the other games? And would playing the 1.5 & 2.5 Remix pack be enough to prep me for number 3?

The whole series seems incredibly unwelcoming to newcomers. I mean who sat in a meeting and decided this numbering system was a good idea? Find them, and shoot them.

So yeah, any Kingdom Hearts fans on the forum?
kintaris

Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by kintaris »

I have no idea either and would love an answer from this community. However Destructoid are on hand to explain where to start:

https://www.destructoid.com/a-quick-gui ... 2291.phtml

It would appear that the 1.5 & 2.5 collection on PS4 actually contain the three essential games.

Yes, three games in that collection that sounds like two games. Just to make it more confusing.
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by Alex79 »

It's like they're actively trying to put people off playing their games.

They're the Stewart Lee of PlayStation.
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by Flabyo »

It’s always astounded me how you can take Final Fantasy and Disney, two of the most approachable franchises in history, with their setups that allow you to (for the most part) jump in anywhere and not feel lost.

And somehow turn it into the most impenetrable and tortured knot of continuity ever committed to dvd.
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by Alex79 »

That is a very good point!
Nice, thanks for the link. And the collection is only about 20 quid on Amazon right now, I think I might get it. Which is fucking absurd given I'm midway through Fallout 4, MGS V, Yakuza Kiwami and God Of War right now, but what you gonna do, its a bargain :lol:

Even better, how long to beat suggests KH1 and KH2 can be done in around 55 hours for the pair which seems not tooooooo bad...

EDIT: Yeah. I got it. :oops: :( :|
kintaris

Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by kintaris »

Alex79uk wrote: May 19th, 2018, 2:29 pm That is a very good point!
Nice, thanks for the link. And the collection is only about 20 quid on Amazon right now, I think I might get it. Which is fucking absurd given I'm midway through Fallout 4, MGS V, Yakuza Kiwami and God Of War right now, but what you gonna do, its a bargain :lol:

Even better, how long to beat suggests KH1 and KH2 can be done in around 55 hours for the pair which seems not tooooooo bad...

EDIT: Yeah. I got it. :oops: :( :|
Damn Alex, that's tempting - it's still £32 second hand in CeX, though I suspect that this is one of those titles like Nintendo games where the price is inflated by owners that don't want to let go of it.

But no, I must be strong. Detroit is arriving next week and I'm supposed to be playing it for work... and I may have signed up to write a full walkthrough of God of War... Kingdom Hearts can wait a month, maybe it'll be even cheaper :lol:

I'm looking forward to seeing if my wife can get into this one though. It's not a huge leap from Pokemon to a Disney-themed JRPG...
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by Craig »

Flabyo wrote: May 19th, 2018, 1:47 pm It’s always astounded me how you can take Final Fantasy and Disney, two of the most approachable franchises in history, with their setups that allow you to (for the most part) jump in anywhere and not feel lost.

And somehow turn it into the most impenetrable and tortured knot of continuity ever committed to dvd.
Related, I'm always confused that a company with such a tight grip on its IPs as Disney is cool with Kingdom Hearts. I'm sure they have a long list of things Mickey and Co can and cannot do, but I can just imagine some poor sod being sent the games and asked to check through to make sure it complies, getting baffled and saying "yeah sure, whatever."
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by JadePhoenix »

1.5 and 2.5 are actually 3 games each, sort of. Both collections have a main game, a side game, and then a ~3 hour long movie that covers the story of another side game. The PS4 version rolls them into one 6ish game collection. 2.8 is an HD remake of the final side game, a new short game that's not much more than a tech demo for KH3 and a bit of new story info, and a movie based on the story of the mobile game. While I'll never not make fun of them for the ridiculous names, it IS super nice to have the entire series on two discs. If your goal is to understand the story, as much as that's even possible, it's probably best to play them all, in the order they're on the discs, 1.5, 2.5, then 2.8.
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by Alex79 »

Yeah I got a bit of the way in to the first game on PS4 and was loving it. I don't really consider myself a Disney fan in particular, but there was just something about running round with Donald Duck and Goofy that had me grinning like a kid. I let it slide whilst I played a few other things but really want to get back to it soon as I polish off Resi7.
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by NuKaholic »

I'm a massive fan of the first one. I remember becoming interested seeing a trailer on television that showed Jack Skellington and Halloweentown. Had to have it. I got a PS2 and Kingdom Hearts for Christmas. I loved the concept, story and gameplay. I was quite young at the time so beating it was a huge accomplishment for me at the time. I even 100% completed it to get the secret ending.

I played the sequel and the Gameboy Advanced game Chain of Memories were okay but kind of disappointing. After that there were so many handheld released and remixes I lost track. The story has become so insanely convoluted at this point that I really have no interest anymore. I tried watching a 30 minute lore video in preparation for the new game but it's as I feared. Out of that 30 minute video about 1 minute of the content was the events of the first game and so much retconning to the original story. I also thought the E3 trailers were pure cringe. It's visually appealing but the dialogue is so hammy. Maybe it's because it's a kids game and I'm 27 now haha but I never remember the first one being so cheesy. I'll probably pass on KH3 unless I hear really positive stuff.
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by Nupraptor »

KH was amazing. I was in my early twenties when I played it and I was a bit sceptical about the kiddie elements, but I found it to be a superb JRPG and I was completely sold on all the Disney elements.
I had never thought of myself as much of a Disney fan, but I became surprisingly nostalgic playing it. Thought it was really sweet.
I was already a big Final Fantasy fan so those elements really worked for me.
Things reached an apex for me when I got to the final arena boss and freaking Sephiroth beamed in! It's difficult to overstate how amazing that was at the time before FFVII had become so overexposed.
KH2 refined the formula and made the combat even more satisfying.
The problem now is that we've been waiting a long, long time for a real sequel. Will it all still hold up?
I think KH3 would have to get pretty terrible reviews for me not to play it and even then, I would probably still buy just to see for myself.
Just today, I saw a screenshot of what seems to be a Ratatouille themed level! How can anyone resist?
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by raisinbman »

On Kingdom Hearts and Disney - how did this happen? Disney was much less powerful in the Video Game space back then, like how Marvel was on the verge of bankruptcy and treating its licenses for movies like workers in a brothel.

As for how this series still is going, I'd say sales. As much as the gaming public and pundits seems to have turned a sour nose to KH with KHIII, it sold enormously, it has 2 mobile games, concerts, etc. But considering how Disney(specifically, Pixar) had to be goaded into being a part of this, and apparently didn't allow much room for creative freedom in terms of Frozen(the golden goose I guess, I'm getting old). The question is always asked 'Is Disney/Marvel pulling the strings behind the scenes', and on one hand we see Spiderman & Spiderman: Miles, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and various mobile games. On the other we see the less fortunate Avengers, MVCI, and KHIII. I'd love to know for certain what the answer to that question is, but its hard to parse without someone speaking up.

As for the story, I think it was fine until time travel started happening. BBS/II really were awesome all around. But I always think(especially in finishing KHIII and listening to spoilercasts on FF7R) Nomura can't resist jumping the shark.

I don't really understand why people seem to be so caught up on understanding the story, etc., when PLENTY of people live on nostalgia for Disney. They rewatch Frozen infinitely. They go see remakes, stage plays, go to amusement parks on the material. Buy endless merch. There's no qualifier there. I'm sure the people who do this don't make sure they've seen every short and straight-to-tv sequel series. That's how I look at kingdom hearts(and some other video games) - I'm engaging in nostalgia for Disney. Going up against Davy Jones, Oogie Boogie; seeing disney villains with hearts so corrupt they produce giant evil heartless, Yoko Shimomura's flawless soundtrack. It's just Pacha.gif.

Something else I'd like to praise them for is the Ubisoft-like drive to make a series entry for....well, any platform. We always hear how games suffer because they're on a new platform or its a new generation, but not kingdom hearts. Sure, less powerful systems can't do as much as the big 3, but they pulled it off more times than not.

If there's any series I'd play along for Cane and Rinse, it'd be this one. That on top of being a poor kid meaning I couldn't grab the revised editions with whatever new content they had means I wouldn't just be retreading old ground.

So, let's go through the series from memory:

KHI

This started it all. The combat, and overall game was a bit rough, but as with most first entries, they really took a shine to everything in 2.

Chain of Memories

While people insult this game, I dunno. I've always been a fan of card games, and there's only going to be so much you can do in the GB format. And although there weren't really any new worlds, there is a bit of story(lack of story starts to plague later entries), and this is the first time you can control Riku.

KHII

A KH numbered sequel that didn't take 2289274987 decades to come out? You're lying! This is probably what many consider to be the best(specifically final mix) due to its battle director. One of the coolest things was that Sora actually grew(and changed his combat style). We're so used to video game characters staying the same due to some perceived notion of nostalgia or offending the fans, but nope! I mean, he's mostly the same kid, but you can't tell me you've seen series where characters actually go through puberty often. With that also came a darker slant - quite literally with PiratesOTC, but also Nobodies, Roxas, etc. Roxas - another huge thing. I won't spoil it here, but if you know, you know. Again, how many games do we get where you're NOT the protagonist at the beginning. Also, considering future stories, how much they got us to care about Roxas is astounding. I can't remember if this was after QTEs started gaining traction in the video game world, but I'd say this is one of the best - there's 1 context sensitive button which frees up the rest of your controls to control your dude.

RE: COM

Can't comment on, never played

Coded

Remember how I said 'no new story becomes a problem'? Well, here we are. 'Some story will be at the end, I promise' really should die off, but we're even dealing with this in modern day kingdom hearts(melody of memory) so it probably won't. Like Marvel movies after credits scenes, if you don't have anything for us, just let it go.I actually played Re: Coded, but if you had to ask me to kill off a KH game, this would be on the short list. Also, the music isn't that great - I think its still Shimomura which is shocking. This is seriously a KH game I wouldn't recommend unless you were REALLY REALLY desperate for more KH you haven't already played.

358/2 Days

While this title is often made fun of, this is a pretty good game with some nice musical varations that ultimately suffers from the platform its on making it awkward to play.

Birth by Sleep

If KH games were titled normally, this would deserve the title of KH0. We really see Squeenix shine here, I imagine the horsepower of the PSP really helped after being on such low power systems since II. 3 protagonists, new worlds, actual story content. I don't have much bad to say about this one. The music is great, again, because of the system's power, but it also takes an odd but not bad, western(think Cowboys, not american) turn but I believe that's due to a new music person. Each character plays differently, and combat feels satisfying. Again, it really feels like they were able to pick up the reins from 2 and start driving full steam ahead here. I think after this entry the story really goes off the rails.

Oh and lastly, you have Spock vs Luke Skywalker - it saddens me when people say they avoid side games, or KH in general because of THIS.

Re: coded

see my coded comments.

Dream Drop Distance

While this is a great entry, the story does start to bring in time travel and become a bit of a mess. The tone is much lighter than the two previous major dark entries(Birth By Sleep, KHII) which shows in its companions, music, and attitude. Riku is playable, so that's a thing. The movement abilities are super OP here(forget what they're called). The music here takes another turn, with super truimphant themes and swells.

1.5 Remix

Didn't play I was poor T-T

X(that's a cross)

Mobile game. We didn't get this until Unchained. There's a reference to this stuff in KHIII but I imagine it's not all that important in the grand scheme of things.

2.5 Remix

Didn't play I was poor T-T

Unchained/Union x(that's a cross)

I didn't play much of this, but I did play a little. Nothing that blew my skirt up, but see what I said about X.

2.8 final chapter prologue

I would've played through this, but someone said I'd be fine just watching a playthough since its so short. Though I do love my girl Aqua






KHIII



If no one takes anything else from this, I would just like to say the battle director from II was taken from this project and put on FF7R. At least for me, that’s evidence enough of exactly what happened here.



The long awaited game – it sold well, but seems to have left a sour taste in people’s mouths(me included). It felt…strange to finish. Playing it, I had no qualms in that it was easier, I don’t come to these games for difficulty. There’s a RIDICULOUS amount of Iframes on everything. I don’t take too much issue with this, as its not a coincidence they’ve implemented Disney’s signature rides and attractions in this game – that’s what this is for me. While the scope for this, I suspect, got bigger and bigger as time went on(can’t remember if it was actually delayed or not), it eventually released as Squennix seemed to overrall have a sea change: We got FF7R, KHIII, and FFXV which all had long gestation times. While they all might not have been the best products, I would say Squeenix getting them out the door as opposed to them being in development limbo forever more marks a positive change.



The graphics for this are beautiful. The music is great. The consoles are powerful enough so that we don’t have to swap out party members and always have everyone out. The story…is really where it becomes problematic. We’ve been awaiting this moment, not just the players, but the forces that be in the game as well – and I can only imagine Yen Sid is as disappointed as the fans were in seeing as the game continue on.
Spoiler: show
You’re telling me their entire plan was predicated on Sora time travelling? You’re telling me everyone gets a happy ending BUT Sora? Even freakin’ Xehanort!?!?
This combined with Nomura’s inability to do anything with his female characters, ESPECIALLY in knowing how liked Aqua is, just plain sucks. Even in the non-mainline story, its kind of odd. In previous non-mainline games, we’ve seen stories that weren’t great, but obviously those were side stories and the MO of the crew is not to interfere with things. But here, take the Frozen world for instance – you would think the characters would be interacting with the most popular Disney thing(I’d guess) in the last 10 years, but nope! They’re relegated to not doing anything at all, and being teamed up with an evil snowman. Pixar apparently had to be prodded into cooperating w/ the franchise, and I’d imagine behind the scenes with that fact and them dealing with Darth Disney, they didn’t have much wiggle room in dealing with the property. Similar things happen in Pirates. This is a problem. While it isn’t anything groundbreaking, seeing the KH crew interact with the worlds they travel to brings a dumb smile to your face(at least it does for me). Having them just be background dressing while the main characters are on the stage is definitely something that’s been done in media before, but it’s not right for Kingdom Hearts – something I think that’s overall lacking in KHIII.



Also, we don’t find out Xehanort’s actual plot until 3/4ths in the game. When we’ve been building up to this point for YEARS and games.
Spoiler: show
If they simply would’ve revealed he wanted to restart the universe a la Thanos, that would’ve made him more sympathetic, understandable, and put less Bullsh*t mystery and importance on this game and reveal.
But part of me feels like even Nomura didn’t realize what Xehanort’s ultimate aim was gonna be.



Like with many franchises, there’s certain themes that we look for that were simply missing in this entry. Each KH numbered game has a couple things I look forward to beyond the basic: Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden, Olympus Colosseum, secret ending/boss shenanigans(meaning, Sephiroth). We do go to radiant garden in cutscenes, but that’s it. This of course leads into less Final Fantasy characters as they were mainly there if not traverse town. With them completely excising the ‘Square’ part of kingdom hearts from this entry(BESIDES PAID DLC EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY), there’s immediately less to look forward to here. Interestingly, when Nomura wasn’t asked about the square characters, he felt they were less important to involve speaking towards their absence. I can’t agree with that at all – in KH, much like Sora, the Square peeps tended to be world travelers which really gave Sora someone to aspire to be, and gave us some of the best moments of the previous games(Auron’s introduction? Aqua meeting Zack? If those mean anything to you, I’m sure it pulled at your heart strings in one manner or another.). It really feels like that’s a cop out – if we’re doing a purely Disney game, fine, sure. But this is KH III, not Disney Worlds Grand Adventure I. I am a lot less familiar with the square side of things, but revisiting these characters was really cool, and I was looking forward to see more recent Square characters and how they would fit into the fold only to be disappointed. While we do get a Hercules based world, there’s no arena. We do get a combat based DLC and a post-game….series of portals based on combat. As the kids say, ‘it just doesn’t hit the same’ as going to the colosseum, going through 100 floors and testing your skills. You do get a secret boss in the DLC, but we’ve always gotten Sephiroth in numbered KH games. Even if it wasn’t the white haired mother-lover, I would’ve settled for another Superbad from the FF staple.



The creativity in terms of combat and enemy design blows me away. I did find the ‘flowmotion’(I think its still flowmotion?) was a bit clunky mostly out of combat. If there’s one thing I really like its seeing what new nobodies, heartless, unversed and other enemies I have to face. I haven’t looked at the bestiary but I was let down by I think it was just some sort of cannon? And the mobile games really stretch what I’d call a heartless, but I digress.



The game does get a bit harder in the final act, as most Japanese games tend to do nowadays. Still some super exploitable moves.



To try a bit harder to put it into words, this journey didn’t feel consequential – the first game was fairly straightforward, dealing with the princess of hearts and the cadre of Disney villains. In 2, we dive a bit deeper and want clarity on Roxas, want to stop the “real” bad guy of the series. Even in BBS, we get a pretty nice chunk of story that fills in some holes of the KH story and have us looking forward to 3. In the third, we’re…ending it. And its disappointing.



Talking specifically about the ending, we were told this would wrap up the xehanort saga.
Spoiler: show
But its just so unsatisfying – the DLC brings in some interesting tidbits, and it doesn’t take a psychic to know they’re trying to continue the story as they’re known to do. Trying to parse it out – we do get some super cool stuff for the various characters we’ve met over the series, and it seems like in smash bros ultimate style, everyone’s here. But it becomes a problem in that this final encounter apparently hinges on Sora learning the power of waking, and because he doesn’t, they’re all wiped out. THEN TIME TRAVEL. MULTIPLE TIMES. AND DLC WITH MORE TIME TRAVEL. This feels bad. Not to spoil something else, but I’ve said it earlier, and it seems like Nomura can’t help himself here or in FF7R. Additionally we see Maleficent and Pete who do a total of NOTHING in this game. This doesn’t feel like a conclusion. I will say after the DLC’s final fight, we are left in a very interesting place, but how they follow that up will be key.


Also, the DLC isn’t worth it, especially at that price. IMO watch an influencer’s playthrough unless you’re looking for really hard fights, you probably won’t get your money’s worth.



Ultimately, they took a key piece from KHIII in its battle director, and with Disney and Squeenix being very different companies in 2019, I think its best it finally came out, but I look at FF7R and wish they’d have taken the same care and path they did with that game, and think it would’ve been a triumphant finish vs a confusing, polarizing mess.

Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road



So surprisingly to everyone, we got our next Kingdom hearts game after III in both a speedy fashion and without drama, I can’t say it’s a cause to celebrate. I didn’t actually realize this came out, the ad campaign was nowhere near KHIII’s, and probably for good reason. Someone in a discord I’m in made me aware it actually came out, and that it was pretty low commitment, so I decided to check it out. I assumed it was just a game where you would check in weekly, and move along the story since you get experience passively when offline. But I guess I misinterpreted what that person said because you’re not earning much exp passively – you actually want to have the game open and have it autobattling for you. For how long you ask? Forever. I was kind of reminded in how there was a big commotion previously about mining cryptocurrencies and getting tricked into doing so by certain apps or viruses. And so I wonder, having your setup used for cryptocurrency is some sort of unforgiable sin, but a game that wants you to have it open….forever, isn’t? Of course, this isn’t the only mobile game with a ridiculous setup, but it’s all just so odd. I imagine you’re just supposed to have a device with it open on the game constantly. But even then, when I was trying it out, I encountered constant crashes asking me to check my connection. I tried multiple networks including my home network and had the same issue. So it’s an idle game, but I’m supposed to make sure I’m constantly watching it? I can’t even with this stuff. While it is interesting to get more background on Xehanort, it is a bit weird considering KH1-3 was supposed to be the Xenanort saga which was ended with 3, and what little story I’ve got thus far is….sort of interesting? They haven’t really said anything new or interesting, but we’ve been introduced to a new stage and cast, so there’s at least that. The menus take time to navigate and the signposting is bad – for the main quest you don’t know what it is until you’re into it. A plus is that everything you do matters, whether that’s just gaining HP or filling out your achievements, which end up giving you stats. That being said, it matters so little because it’s so incremental and aimless. Jeff Cork of game informer once said about free to play games that you’re getting on a treadmill, and it’s true – but with this one, you’re doing it with no direction or aim. It sort of put me into this existential crisis, where I COULD use my phone or tablet when I’m not using it to have it open, but WHY? Yoko Shimomura’s music is great, but 24/7 and not a variety of it isn’t THAT motivating. Give this one a pass, folks – some hacker/whale/superfan will tell us the story, and their sacrifice will serve society well.

Melody of Memory



I haven’t played this, but it isn’t that great of a rhythm game #1, and #2 it’s a retread of the entire series. It’s a bit baffling from the same team that gave us theaterhythm, you’d think they’d know how to do a rhythm game, but this is also the same company that gives us VERY shoddy ports. When they WANT to impress us, they do. Otherwise caveat emptor. They’ve teased something exciting happens at the end of the series, but at this point, I’m happy to read the Wikipedia entry and/or wait for Kingdom Hearts IV.
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Mr Ixolite
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by Mr Ixolite »

I don't really understand why people seem to be so caught up on understanding the story, etc., when PLENTY of people live on nostalgia for Disney. They rewatch Frozen infinitely. They go see remakes, stage plays, go to amusement parks on the material. Buy endless merch. There's no qualifier there. I'm sure the people who do this don't make sure they've seen every short and straight-to-tv sequel series. That's how I look at kingdom hearts(and some other video games) - I'm engaging in nostalgia for Disney. Going up against Davy Jones, Oogie Boogie; seeing disney villains with hearts so corrupt they produce giant evil heartless, Yoko Shimomura's flawless soundtrack. It's just Pacha.gif.
I'm also very much engaging with KH for the chance at beating up Jafar, Ursula or Maleficent- in the same game! - with fun action-RPG mechanics, but I thought the first game had a pretty strong, straightforward original plot to tie everything together. Disney movies endure partly because of smartly written and easily understood stories with straightforward plots and messages where -as you say -you don't NEED encyclopedic knowledge of the LORE to fully enjoy Frozen or whatnot. KH1 is I think the only time the "Square" plot came close to matching these sensibilities, in part because the Disney side of things has the most agency it would ever get in the overarching KH story, courtesy of the Villain League, which is only swapped for Ansem at the very end.

But after KH1 the importance of Disney to the overall narrative is pushed into the margins, even if you spend most of your time in the worlds. The Original Characters gain way more prominence, and an increasingly convoluted lore is built around them. You can of course actively ignore this and focus on just the disney vignettes, but when the games push these characters and this narrative so hard, and take it so seriously, then the disconnect becomes all the more jarring. Kingdom Hearts goes for Metal Gear levels of convolution in its po-faced and highly interconnected narrative, but also has you team up with Donald and Goofy to reenact stories literally told for children. Its all absurd, but going in wildly different directions

KH is a cartoonishly bright story about friendship and good vs evil, which should by all rights be Simple and Clean...but its told through time travel, several different kinds of doppelgangers for the same small pool of characters, data-worlds, body possession and more; If KH games were purely their own thing the storytelling would still be bizarre, but I think it'd get a longer leash. But juxtapose it with some of the most accessible kid-friendly stories ever told and I can't blame people for dragging it.
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by raisinbman »

Fair - I definitely agree the story jumps the shark(there's a reason 'getting norted' became a meme). And although I kinda mentioned it, you've made me miss the villain league even more. Supposedly, melody of memory 'redeems' khiii and gives us a reason to be excited again, but I'm skeptical.

EDIT: So we finally got the KHIII(plus some other odds and ends) soundtrack roughly a month ago. Just wanted to point out that its a rerecording, so you may hear some audible differences between the tracks in game and the soundtrack.

EDIT 2:

KHIII Music



So the album finally got released for this game last month, and apparently youtube auto-generates albums? Hopefully that’ll mean squeenix is less motivated to DMCA takedown channels because I know at least 1 major channel that had serious issues with them. The first thing to point out is that this album is actually a rerecording, so if you’re expecting the same music that’s in the game, you might be in for a rude awakening. It is odd, and I need to listen to the in-game soundtrack(this is such a weird distinction…) to compare, but the difference is noticeable in parts. A lot of what I’m saying and am about to say comes from Youtube comments, of all places – I guess people already had their fill of making fun of KH and that just leaves the devoted(I even saw someone apologize on youtube, maybe 2021 really is gonna be for the better!). Youtube attributes a majority of the work to Yoko Shimomura as you’d expect, but it also erroneously auto-attributes stuff to her that isn’t. There’s 3 principle collaborators on this project, and I think it shows when they pivot away from her. I was a bit scared going into the soundtrack in that maybe I didn’t like it, because I can listen to the rest of the KH OSTs with no issues at all – something I attribute to Shimomura’s mastery. The soundtrack does start a bit iffy, with youtube comments giving explanations for much of it, but I think the core of it is Shimomura wasn’t at the helm as she normally is. That and it also feels overproduced. This woman is a vet of the industry, and we know even from back in the SFII days, she can produce a tune from very little. I’ve spent a lot of my time hearing her portable tunes on the GBA and DS, etc. The saying, "necessity breeds innovation" I think applies, especially with the overproduction. Some very odd choices are made, while I appreciate the callbacks, we’ve heard great versions of these songs before with less fluff. I was a little surprised we didn’t get more original music although I suppose people would want to hear things like Aqua’s theme when coming back to the series. When we get to the Disney worlds I do hear that Shimomura knack for catchy tunes, and keeping in mind this game was delayed a number of times, I imagine Shimomura was able to finish her work, and it was either redone or iterated on as the game neared release. And surprisingly, I really enjoyed the DLC’s music with the data battles. I have no idea of course, but I imagine now that the crushing weight off release was behind them, work could be done in this area without needless overproduction or pressure – some really catchy Org. 13 stuff there.


Even starting from the KHIII rendition of Dearly Beloved – the title track/theme of KH, I found myself a bit taken back in that I didn’t like it as much. The rest of them were golden, but little did I know there was another version that I ended up liking better, I think because this one was sort of just….overproduced. The others, much like the World of Warcraft login music, had their little marks of flair, but this was just ‘hey, here’s some-I’m-guessing-expensive-orchestra’. There IS however a dearly beloved I actually did end up liking in Dearly Beloved(Forest Memory).



Composers: Yoko Shimomura, Hikaru Utada, Takeharu Ishimoto, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Shotaro Shima, Yoshitaka Suzuki, plus some others for, let’s call them ‘bonus’ tracks.

Okay, and they decided to turn off comments on youtube so my entire plan to go back and collect little knowledge of nuggets left by people like (Green Requiem?) and other superfans is ruined. Insert expletives here. I’m a bit frustrated, I saw those comments 1-2 days ago! Is squeenix stalking me!!?!??! Am I ruining various VGM youtube channels?!?!?
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raisinbman
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by raisinbman »

So IIRC on the podcast, they said they're not gonna do every game, so I went ahead and did COM in preparation for KHII.

Re:COM

I'm actually fairly down on this game - at least the Re;COM version. I have played the original GBA version(and still have it, even) and don't remember hating it, but the reviews at the time were pretty harsh. I've always been happy there's been a dose of KH inbetween the proper sequels, and it shouldn't be understated how Squeenix manages to switch formats and more-or-less make a competent kingdom hearts game at the same time. I'm going to have to start checking what the difficulty does prior to booting up these games, as this is the second time I've ended up really questioning why I was on a higher difficulty.

After discovering there's no 'story' reason to be on proud, and beating my head against a severely unfair boss(Riku Replica II I think), I went down to easy. Even then, easy only modified damage taken and HP totals. So, the main conceit of this game, higher cards beat lower cards with '0' functioning as a wildcard could be elevated to battle systems like Persona, but it doesn't get there. As what you get is random, you may just have to grind ad naseum to get specific cards for both battle and to advance. As someone who plays ALOT of virtual card games, going up against a blatantly unfair opponent when my deck is sub par isn't exactly my idea of fun, and we do see Squenix revisit cards in their mobile offerings, so the idea wasn't something that just died on the vine.

This is uncomfortably coupled with the fact that bosses "wont" interrupt sleights that you interrupt them with(Sonic blade being the preferred one for many of the fights), but will interrupt your friends or sleights they don't deem to be the "right ones" which can feel not just bad, but plain frustrating. Play correct and cheesily, or don't play at all.

This is definitely a game that was grafted from assets in KH1/2, and some stuff will make you facepalm in how frustrating it is.

I'd say this is a skip, even story-wise, it ends in the very 'gaiden' "no one will remember this" schtick. This does actually cover some plot holes and bits that weren't originally mentioned:
They actually explain sora turning into a heartless but not game overing in re:chain of memories.

I'd give this a 6/10. I REALLY think your time is spent better elsewhere, even if that means pulling up an influencer and watching their playthrough, or just the cutscenes on youtube.

Three Word Review: Spam Sonic Blade
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DeadpoolNegative
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by DeadpoolNegative »

Agreed on Chain of Memories (I played it on PS3). At first aI was charmed by the combat but the sheer randomness of everything because exhausting. The story could have been compelling but genuinely wasn't, otherwise I might have forced myself to finish.

--Dan
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Seph
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Re: All things Kingdom Hearts (and its ridiculous numbering system)

Post by Seph »

I had access to the entire series and tried to replay, and in some cases first-time play, all of the games in the lead up to III; but I have to admit that once I got halfway through Birth by Sleep I tapped out. I can't say exactly what broke me, but I definitely felt myself caring less about the story and characters, and finding the gameplay incredibly repetitive at this point.

Honestly I could have given up with re:Chain of Memories, which goes down as one of the most frustrating and boring games I have ever played. Not only is it a retread of the first with some nonsense lore and crap boss fights added, but the gameplay is so tedious and broken I have no idea how it got released. I never played the GBA original, but surely once they came to remaking it you'd think they might have fixed the system.

On reflection, I'm glad I didn't waste my time sifting through the entire series as once I played the third main game I was so let down and bored by the experience. The novelty of Disney/Pixar characters talking about the weird lore of this series had worn off and the gameplay really hadn't moved on much at all. It felt like a game that should have been released 10 years earlier. The bad guys are just pathetic as well. The first game had the Disney rouges gallery all interacting and hamming it up; here we just had different versions of the same person. Boring!

The first game is a landmark in crossover games and as a fan of Final Fantasy and '90s Disney I remember being super excited for its release. It's amazing to think there was a time when Disney were so down that they even agreed to this project in the first place; and, for its time, the original game was excellent and certainly influenced the direction SE has taken with its RPG properties even to this day.

The second game is easily the best of the bunch, and while this was the point where the story started to go off the rails it's still coherent enough and has enough mystery to keep you intrigued. I had a lot of fun playing this again while going through the series and it showed just how flawed Chain of Memories is, as this is fun, fast and frantic; without being stupidly hard in places. And it has one best openings to any game ever.
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