Where did it all go wrong?

So, full disclosure: The Discord crew (myself included) has been having some pretty spirited discussions of the KH series as a whole. Every now and then somebody jokes about how many posts we could be racking up if we were doing this on the forum. So let's put that to the test. Let's start with three big questions:

Has the story of Kingdom Hearts been ruined?

If so, how and in which game was it ruined?

How would you fix it?

Feel free to repost from said Discord discussion. If you weren't involved in that and are totally confused right now, don't worry about it: Just take the questions at face value and tell us what you think.

And if it wasn't obvious by now, be warned that there will be negativity and righteous fury in this thread, so if you don't jive w/ that then this may not be your kinda thread.

 

To be fair there really wasn't much to ruin.
It went from simple "anime character runs around the universe with Donald and Goofy and interacts with Disney and Squaresoft(RIP) characters" to "I'M ALREADY HALF XEHANORT!"
So it's less that it got ruined and more that it tried to do more than the first game and ended up turning into a convoluted mess because Nomura needs to be kept on a damn leash.

There's no single point, it just sorta escalated and escalated with each game. Chain of Memories is sorta where it started with its memory shenanigans and I'd say Dream Drop Drizzle is where it gets to its worse with him being Xehanort and him being Xehanort and him being Xehanort and ****ing time travel as if we needed that of all things.

Aint no fixing **** at this point but I'd say just keep it simple. I felt the spirit of Kingdom Hearts was that it was a Disney and Square crossover and yet outside of the first game the characters never actually interact with eachother. Kingdom Hearts had stuff like Hades and Cloud or Maleficent and her own squad goals. But other then that in CoM and beyond all of the characters seem to be literally closed off in their own worlds seperate from the overall story while the OC Donut steel characters take care of the actual important matters.

 

Unpopular opinions ahoy! Let's start:

Has the story of Kingdom Hearts been ruined?

In my opinion, when you ask a question like this it almost implies that the story itself was of a significant enough quality to validate the term "ruined". That is something I have a fairly hard time agreeing with. That is not to say that I do not like Kingdom Hearts as a concept, or even a game. That being said it get convoluted to say the least, and on top of that it ends up on every platform available which seems to be a less than ideal way to tell a story. It doesn't seem like a continuation half the time because when I think about what characters did what in this game vs that game, they go from fully 3d models, to kinda bad sprites. Don't get me wrong, some of the portable games are good but the idea of KH being spread onto all of these different platforms and styles does not and has never appealed to me. KH1, Re:Com (minus the doors) and KH2 are fantastic games imo. BBS and (from what I've heard 3D) are also great. The rest don't really matter to me and I wish they presented them in a more consistent way. I'm sure the story is great, but the way they told it is terrible.

If so in which games was it ruined?

Like I said to me when they started putting a KH title on anything they can get their hands on doesn't appeal to me. I know people love unchained, but honestly when a mobile game becomes an important part of the story telling of a series, that rubs me the wrong way. Same thing with going form DS to PSP to 3DS. It's just awful in my opinion. I know other people like it, I do not however.

How would I fix it?

With or without a time machine? With is pretty straightforward, I would stop the process of the games being put on every portable imaginable. If people want portable KH, make a spinoff title or a different series to go alongside it. Imagine if Persona 3 was followed up with Persona 4, the card game for the 3DS. No no no no, nonononono. Pls no. Never again.

As for without a time machine. I don't think it can be "fixed". They did what they thought would be best and that is that. You aren't going to be able to touch the heart (lel puns) of every customer/person who plays the games. I am hoping that KH3 is as good as KH1 & 2. If it's not, there are much better story & gameplay driven games out there for me. IE persona.

 

Has the story of Kingdom Hearts been ruined?

I wouldn't say "ruined" per say. The story has gotten quite crazy though. It's all over the place. It started off as a Square meets Disney collab which seemed simple, new, and fun. There was definitely more interaction between the 2 in the first game. Now it could be intimidating to new players of the series. There are so many games that are all connected within the series (a lot of spin off's, nothing like FF) and the story line has only grown more complicated with each game. But, it's still KH. Grew up with the series and it will always have a special place in my heart.


If so, how and in which game was it ruined?

If I had to pick a game where the confusion started it would arguably be between COM and DDD. But I think I'd have to lean more with COM. The story seemed simple with the 3 on a new journey to save Riku and Mickey and ended up with a mysterious castle with strange abilities, a card based system and confusing characters like Namine and Replica Riku. (not sure who else was confused with their roles, I know I was at the beginning when they were first introduced.) It doesn't help either that the mystery of the castle wasn't solved till 6 years later.

As for DDD my brain definitely hit the fan there with the introduction of time travel into the series and all the Xehanorts.

How would you fix it?

At this point there's really nothing that can be done to fix it. I can't imagine it could get any more confusing but then again it is Tetsuya Nomura. Only thing I can think of is perhaps not heavily focusing on the time travel aspect in KH3 and scaling the story down a smidge after the Xehanort saga.

 

Ha! Like what you did there

True, it would have to be more than a smidge. For a second I had a thought that lets say they did keep the time travel element and a new game takes place many years later, the character you play as could go back and play along side Sora. But then I remembered that's not how time travel works in KH universe and a story like that is best left for fanfictions. >_>

 

Honestly the retcons are the only big thing that annoys me. Like, with all the plot twists my instinct is to dissect things to figure out what the next one will be. But you just can't here. KH doesn't do twists in this "Here are a bunch of threads that all converge to make this" nearly as much as it goes "Here's a new concept and let's show how this changes everything." And having done the latter so many times it gets hard to remember what state things currently are in.

 

Has the story of Kingdom Hearts been ruined?

Not ruined but it's disappointing how sloppily Nomura has handled the story and storytelling of the series.

If so, how and in which game was it ruined?

The decline of the series' storytelling to me started with Kingdom Hearts II.

We're introduced to Roxas and constantly see him interacting with Axel which includes flashbacks to when Roxas was in Organization XIII, yet we don't at all get a good feeling of what their relationship is or why Roxas defected from the Organization (which was admittedly semi-remedied with Final Mix.)

The Disney worlds have such weak connections to the main plot of the game compared to both Kingdom Hearts and Chain of Memories. It was very disappointing how the villains didn't conspire together again and haven't since the first game basically; something that really helped tie the whole Disney + Square original story together really well for me.

We're introduced to Xehanort and the most we get about him is that he's an apprentice of Ansem turned rogue, but not the Ansem we think of at this point; rather, an old white dude whose name was taken by Xehanort for...some reason? It was a weak and confusing revelation, and it's also confusing how this random character had such a powerful Nobody as Xemnas.

Then Kairi suddenly is just...able to use a Keyblade near the end of the game and we don't get any explanation for how.

358/2 Days didn't need to be its own game: all of the good storytelling and essentials for fleshing out Roxas, Axel, Saix and Riku should have just been implemented with Kingdom Hearts II. Xion in general is a pretty divisive character, but I think she's alright.

Birth By Sleep was mainly an isolated story in comparison to the first three games and was used to explain a lot of stuff that should have been explained beforehand: namely, how Kairi could wield something as "important" as the Keyblade, what various members of the Organization were like before they became Nobodies, and just who the hell is Xehanort, how is he so powerful and why is he doing what he's doing? Unfortunately it also introduced the incredibly clunky plot point of the X-Blade, further de-mystifying the once legendary Keyblade. The individual plots for Terra, Aqua, and Ventus are each very contrived at points too.

I'm not touching Coded because honestly who cares.

Dream Drop Distance is probably the most divisive game in the series, and for good reason for introducing concepts of characters coming back to life after their Nobody has been destroyed (meaning the "death of Axel" back in Kingdom Hearts II no longer feels significant at all), creating another concept with Dream Eaters that I'm almost certain will just be ignored in the next installments, skipping showing us how Lea can use a Keyblade when we had Birth By Sleep show us how all three of the Destiny Island trio can (and meaning that Lea might no longer use his own unique weapons which is really annoying and disappointing), and the biggest issue for me personally: showing us that Xehanort both has been planning to use Organization XIII to split his heart into them and suddenly has time-travel powers and not explaining how and no other game has shown him having these abilities, further continuing the power-creep and character changing to Xehanort based solely on what's been introduced only now instead of feeling like a natural progression of what's been established.

And I dislike the existence of Unchained X in general...

How would you fix it?

Nomura needs to reign in his ideas and actually focus on writing a complete story NOW instead of waiting for sequels/prequels/spin-offs to explain away things he introduces in each game. He's far too ambitious for the sake of the series' own good, and this same ambition in my opinion is one of the big reasons that Final Fantasy XV is in the state it is after 10 years of troubled development (which is still seemingly not done.)

This means NOT MAKING ANOTHER GAME FOR EVERY SINGLE LITTLE THING YOU WANT TO DO WITH THE STORY. A game shouldn't need a remake or an expansion just so that its story feels complete from beginning to end.

 

This basically hit the nail on the head for me. I love the series and will continue to follow it but I also feel like the main issue for me is growing up and having my childish perfect view of it shattered as I notice the writing isn't great or certain things are confusing. I am still very excited for KH3 and having just finished 0.2 I am even more excited so I would not say the series is ruined at all.

I would say it is confusing and not very accessible to new players who want to get involved with the story which to me is really sad. The storyline is confusing from the outside and seems quite difficult to get involved in because you do really need to understand what has happened in previous games.

What I would have loved was instead of them turning Days into a film to watch (half of which was text anyway) is to actually fully remade it. That is the one game I did enjoy but really wished they had made it look better and improved the cutscenes and multiplayer aspect. I got so excited to be able to play as the Organisation characters but it was ruined because all the enemies were ridiculously hard as they were meant to be battled with 4 people but I had no one else to play them with. This is a major gripe I have had because I loved the concept of that game but the execution was not the best. I am not going to even mention the AHHHHHHHH that is the card battling system or whatever Coded was trying to do but I adore the other games.

 

It's been said already but it wasn't some grand epic to begin with. However when asked if it was ruined I take it to me if it was ruined from it's best point or it's own standards. In this way I'd say yes, if not only because the series is now a big bag of wasted potential in my eyes.

Something I saw back when I bothered to follow game Journals or Nomura quotes. That in of itself is a major problem I think. So much story isn't in the narrative itself it's buried in game files or in interview quotes. That's just not a good practice to have with a game series.

Due to this I honestly can't help but roll my eyes when I see someone defend the series like it's some flawless epic of a story. I especially dont like seeing people jump a person for not knowing something or choosing not to bother with such things.

I've also quit bothering since things are beginning to contradict. Like Nomura said once there was no death but the KH2 game journals state bluntly that death exists and how it even occurs. Sure you can work around this or establish a headcanon but in the end that is just making a headcanon to patch a contradiction.

Plus I remember several times in older quotes Nomura mentioned wanting fans to use their imaginations or create their own interruptions. That seems to be when the story is at it's funnest or when fans are the kindest so I just ignore it all now. Someone who replied to my tumblr said it best I think;

I dont think any one game ruined it. If anything I'd say it's been a steady fall personally. Starting with KH2 and onward. Not that these games were horrible themselves but I do think each one after was of a lesser quality than it's predecessor. The writing just seemed to go all crazy with each go forward, each "new" character was somehow a shoehorned tie to Sora, etc.

KH1 wasn't flawless or perfect but if I had to compare it to it's sequels then I'd give it the best rank.

I personally don't think there is a way to fix it now and I dont think any fans will let it be fixed due to their attachment to characters. To me the characters so far are repetitious, either Sora or Xehanort, and hollow. It's like the only somewhat original people we got in a decade was Aqua and Axel.

However I know that is personal and that most of the fanbase, which lets face it is a good portion of hardcore fans than anything else, is very attached to them. We've all seen how quick a criticism can be deemed a "hate rant" I'm sure.

So in my view there is no way to fix it. Fans wont let it change because they wont let criticisms or issues to fix be known. Fans buy it as he sells it so Nomura has no reason to fix anything and the cycle repeats.

I've made lots of tumblr lists or rants over my years of small tweaks and so on that could be done to fix the story. In fact it's kinda surprising how many ideas I've seen from a select few that could keep the story the same, yet improve it, by tweaking small things.

I'm rambling. If I had to fix it I'd do so by throwing out the entire narrative. I know this will never happen, I'm no fool, but if asked that's the answer I'd give. In it's place I'd make a new series, which uses KH1 as it's starting point, or I'd just remake KH1, in the KH3 graphical engine, and add an alternate secret ending that wraps it up as a standalone story....which I know KH1 was made to be standalone at the time but it left some in case sequels were greenlit.